Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 2: Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 2: Where do we have Christal Indeed we do.
Speaker 1: We got two guests in the studio today, so that's
Speaker 1: going to be exciting. We've got Maurice Mitchell from the
Speaker 1: Working Families Party talking about the race for the new
Speaker 1: DNC chairs is kind of a big deal in terms
Speaker 1: of the war that is on for the future of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. We've also got Trump has confirmed his
Speaker 1: intention to use a national emergency and military assets to
Speaker 1: fulfill his plans for mass deportation. Shelby Talcott is going
Speaker 1: to join us to talk about that and other Trump transition.
Speaker 3: News got a.
Speaker 1: Little debate cooking between Sager and producer Griffin about some
Speaker 1: Bena Fleck comments with regard to AI. We're also taking
Speaker 1: a look at how liberals are fleeing Twitter and heading
Speaker 1: over to Blue Sky and what to make of that.
Speaker 1: Also something that did not make in the show yesterday
Speaker 1: because we talked too much in debate it too much,
Speaker 1: but very important and significant news about the Biden administration
Speaker 1: green lighting long range missile cues into rush up from
Speaker 1: Ukraine and what that could ultimately mean. I am also
Speaker 1: taking a look at the ad Komalist corporate donors did
Speaker 1: not want you to see, and the big debate that
Speaker 1: is unfolding in the Democratic Party about what went wrong
Speaker 1: and what the future should hold. Maurice Mitchell from the
Speaker 1: Working Families Party is going to join us as well
Speaker 1: to weigh in on that.
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Speaker 1: All right, So, yesterday over on MSNBC, Joe and Mika
Speaker 1: of Morning Joe revealed that they had made a trek
Speaker 1: down to Mara a Lago to restart relations with Trump.
Speaker 1: The like just self aggrandizing way they talk about all
Speaker 1: of this is amazing in any case, take a listen
Speaker 1: to what they had to say.
Speaker 4: Joe and I went to Mara a Lago to me
Speaker 4: personally with President like Trump. It was the first time
Speaker 4: we have seen him in seven years now.
Speaker 5: We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation,
Speaker 5: threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets.
Speaker 2: We talked about that a good bit.
Speaker 6: And that's going to come as no surprise to anybody
Speaker 6: who watches this show, has watched it over the past
Speaker 6: year or over the past decade, that we didn't see
Speaker 6: eye to eye on a lot of issues, and we
Speaker 6: told him so.
Speaker 4: What we did agree on was to rest our communications.
Speaker 4: My father often spoke with world leaders with whom he
Speaker 4: in the United States profoundly disagreed. That's a task shared
Speaker 4: by reporters and commentators alike. We had not spoken to
Speaker 4: President Trump since March of twenty twenty, other than a
Speaker 4: personal call Joe made to Trump on the morning after
Speaker 4: the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. In this meeting,
Speaker 4: President Trump was tearful, he was upbeat. He seemed interested
Speaker 4: in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the
Speaker 4: most divisive issues. And for those asking why we would
Speaker 4: go speak to the president elect during such fraught times,
Speaker 4: especially between US, I guess I would ask back, why
Speaker 4: wouldn't wade there?
Speaker 1: Sager is so much about this that is incredible. I
Speaker 1: mean the first thing that comes off is just like,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's comparing herself to her father.
Speaker 2: Who is the National Security Advisor of the United States.
Speaker 2: Right for everybody, you're.
Speaker 1: Just some jergof morning show host, Like what are we
Speaker 1: talking about? So there they are so narcissistic and so
Speaker 1: self aggrandizing.
Speaker 3: So that's the first thing.
Speaker 1: The second thing is that literally weeks ago, Joe was
Speaker 1: comparing Trump to Hitler. Yes, Mika was in tears, literally
Speaker 1: in tears on the even the election talking about her
Speaker 1: concern about Trump. So they were, you know, happy to
Speaker 1: profit off of fear of Trump before he's elected.
Speaker 3: And now I think it's equal parts.
Speaker 1: You know, fear, they see Matt Gates coming in at DOJA,
Speaker 1: they see Steve Bannon saying, hey, he's going to go
Speaker 1: after MSNBC hosts starting with Ari Melburn and working down
Speaker 1: the list, and also their constant desire to suck up
Speaker 1: to power. I mean, the same thing, Like these were
Speaker 1: the two morning show hosts. Remember these were Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: favorite morning show hosts. They were all on the phone
Speaker 1: with him constantly. And by the way, Democrats in terms
Speaker 1: of media figures, who are responsible for the current state
Speaker 1: of affairs, You would be hard pressed to find two
Speaker 1: individuals who are more culpable for the destruction of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and the ushering of Trump back into the
Speaker 1: White House than these two people. Number One, aggressively smearing
Speaker 1: and destroying Bernie Sanders and his movement both times around,
Speaker 1: blocking that path of actual left economic populism that would
Speaker 1: have been far more successful in defeating trump Ism than
Speaker 1: warmed over neoliberalism. Number Two, these were the people who
Speaker 1: rallied the troops around Joe Biden, blocked any sort of
Speaker 1: primary process from happening. Even after that disastrous debate, they
Speaker 1: were there still saying, oh, I still think he's the guy,
Speaker 1: still backing him up. So they are so complicit in
Speaker 1: this ultimate situation. And not to mention, where else are
Speaker 1: never Trump Republicans more featured and more centered and their
Speaker 1: concerns more catered to than this show. And what was
Speaker 1: the most disastrous part of Kamala Harris and the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party's strategy in this election than their desire to go
Speaker 1: after the mythical Liz Cheney voter that does not exist,
Speaker 1: that could have been hatched and maybe was hatched in
Speaker 1: the morning Joe Green room. So it's just extraordinary all
Speaker 1: the way around and really quite discussing. MSNBC audience is furious,
Speaker 1: and frankly they should be, because these are a bunch
Speaker 1: of liars, grifters and con artists who were happy to
Speaker 1: con the audience and now well that Trump's in power,
Speaker 1: go and suck up to the next powerful individual, because
Speaker 1: that's just what they do.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And that's that's the cognitive dissonance that you
Speaker 2: need to say, because this is what it's all in
Speaker 2: the game, right, And I actually kind of agree with that.
Speaker 2: But the point is is that you can't be telling
Speaker 2: people that this is literally Hitler reincarnate and you're a dictator,
Speaker 2: and then when they get elected then you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: well look it's the game. And comparing yourself and narcissism
Speaker 2: to your father, you're actually successful and intelligent father, as
Speaker 2: a beg New Brazinski national Security, the advisor of the
Speaker 2: United States who sat across from Khrushchev and others, you know,
Speaker 2: in his capacity as a diplomat. You're not a diplomat.
Speaker 2: You're a freaking morning show host. And as you alluded to,
Speaker 2: we have some side by side footage of what it
Speaker 2: was like, not that long ago, let's take a listen,
Speaker 2: this is not a reach.
Speaker 6: I could go back and talk about Nazi Germany and
Speaker 6: I do it. I do it without any concerns whatsoever.
Speaker 6: And if people can't start drawing the parallels, well you're
Speaker 6: just stupid, or you have your head in the sand.
Speaker 6: Are your one of them?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So Nazi Germany nineteen thirty three, it's like, which
Speaker 2: is it? And so actually, you didn't mean it the
Speaker 2: entire time. It was a con or you did meet it.
Speaker 2: And now that you know, quote unquote Nazi Germany and
Speaker 2: or Hitler has been elected, then you've just decided You're like, oh, actually,
Speaker 2: we just need to respect the will of the people.
Speaker 2: So there's inherent narcissism. There is business, obviously, that's a
Speaker 2: huge part of it, because a lot of this is
Speaker 2: Morning Joe wanting to preserve its access, of which, by
Speaker 2: the way, I've had a ton of access in the
Speaker 2: first Trump administration, and you know, a lot of maga
Speaker 2: people don't like to hear it. There's nothing that Donald
Speaker 2: Trump loves more actually than access talking to and gossiping
Speaker 2: with the liberal media. Literally seen in the firsthand. There's a
Speaker 2: reason why he gets to have dinner with them and
Speaker 2: not or sorry. Breakfast apparently was bacon and eggs.
Speaker 4: By the way.
Speaker 2: The diplomatic the diplomatic arections. Yeah, the restarting of communications
Speaker 2: just incredible, and I also love how scripted. Their entire
Speaker 2: answer was, so you see self andngrivesment, aggrandizement, you see business,
Speaker 2: you see hipocrisy. I would say it's the total MSNBC
Speaker 2: cocktail that is going on over there.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And you know, the other way that should be seen
Speaker 1: is as we've been discussing on this show and I'll
Speaker 1: talk more about in my monologue today, there's basically sort
Speaker 1: of there's a war going on in the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: right now about what just happened and what it means
Speaker 1: for the future. And there's effectively two camps, one camp
Speaker 1: on which the side of Joe and Mika is effectively
Speaker 1: the status quo, like nothing is that wrong, or if
Speaker 1: there is something that's wrong, it's just like the wokeism,
Speaker 1: and we need to continue on this like punching left
Speaker 1: as much as we can, which is already the status
Speaker 1: quo and the Democratic Party, and actually what we need
Speaker 1: to do is to capitulate to some aspects of trumpsm
Speaker 1: you see that with I think this is example number one.
Speaker 1: Joe and Mika going down to mar A Lago is
Speaker 1: a case in point of that. Jared Poulis's comments about
Speaker 1: RFK Junior, Cory Booker his comments that also seem to
Speaker 1: be favorable to RFK Junior even in advance of the election,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos not making the endorsement at the Washington Post, Zuckerberg,
Speaker 1: Sundar Puchai, Tim cook All calling Trump to make nice
Speaker 1: with him. That is one direction. I think it's the
Speaker 1: most likely direction that the Democratic Party goes in that
Speaker 1: they say, hey, we want to work with you on
Speaker 1: your mass deportation immigration policy. We actually want to shift
Speaker 1: to the right and be where you are more or
Speaker 1: less and ron is basically like trump Ism light. I
Speaker 1: think that's the most likely direction, and it bears a
Speaker 1: lot of commonalities and has a lot of echoes with
Speaker 1: what Bill Clinton did in the nineties, where it was okay,
Speaker 1: I see that this neoliberal direction of Reganism has won.
Speaker 1: So we're just going to basically do like our version
Speaker 1: of that on the Democratic side. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say that it couldn't be electorally successful. I think
Speaker 1: it could. But that sort of capitulation to trump Ism
Speaker 1: is one path, and that's the path that Mika and
Speaker 1: Joe are signaling and pushing for here. The other path
Speaker 1: is to offer something that is a completely contrasting vision
Speaker 1: that is anti establishment but in a left economic populist direction.
Speaker 1: Rather than immigrants and cultural elites being the scapegoats, it's hey,
Speaker 1: it's the burning Sanders. The problem is the millionaires and
Speaker 1: the billionaires. The problem is the rigged democratic establishment. The
Speaker 1: problem is the corrupt media. That's the other direction they
Speaker 1: could go in. They're less likely to go in that
Speaker 1: direction because it threatens the class interests of their donor
Speaker 1: something else I'm going to talk about in my monologue today.
Speaker 1: But that's basically the condours of the war right now.
Speaker 1: So that's part of what makes this so significant. Outside
Speaker 1: of just like Joe and Mika being ridiculous people and
Speaker 1: grifters and connors and liars who just will sell their
Speaker 1: audience whatever they think is convenient in the moment, what
Speaker 1: is more significant about it is, you know, they're clearly
Speaker 1: taking sides in this battle within the Democratic Party, and
Speaker 1: you know they are quite influential, They are quite influential.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I would say, in terms of
Speaker 1: their motive saga that you were alluding to is we're
Speaker 1: going to talk in a minute. I mean, MSMBC ratings.
Speaker 3: Are in the toilet like bad and.
Speaker 1: I think that it's this always happens after if there's
Speaker 1: some bad news for Liberals, you know, the ratings tank,
Speaker 1: same thing on Fox News, and there's some bad news
Speaker 1: for Republicans, their ratings.
Speaker 3: Tank, whatever.
Speaker 1: Those are usually temporary blips and things kind of return
Speaker 1: to some sort of a steady state. I think I'm
Speaker 1: SMBC is in real trouble here, though, because their whole
Speaker 1: theory of the world has centered around the idea of
Speaker 1: an anti Trump coalition, with these never Trumpers being the
Speaker 1: way and the model to follow in order to defeat
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and their view of the world was just
Speaker 1: completely repudiated. It was, it is thoroughly incorrect, It is
Speaker 1: totally wrong, and a lot of Liberals are now feeling
Speaker 1: very disenchanted with their own mainstream institutions. So, whether it's
Speaker 1: The New York Times, the Washington Posts, certainly, but also MSMBC,
Speaker 1: I think real damage has been done and there's a
Speaker 1: danger that those people just.
Speaker 3: Don't come back.
Speaker 1: You also don't have you know, last time around the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, you had all the Russia Gate thing, which
Speaker 1: is like a spy novel exciting. It was exciting for
Speaker 1: them to tune into Night after Night Rachel Maddow gonna piece.
Speaker 3: Together and how does the story and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: You just don't have that same intrigue for them to
Speaker 1: draw the audience back in with, which was also you know,
Speaker 1: them selling their audience a bill of goods that turned
Speaker 1: out to be much less, dramatically less than what they
Speaker 1: ever portrayed.
Speaker 3: So I think they're in real trouble.
Speaker 1: And I think joh and Mika realized that it's not
Speaker 1: going to be their ratings that allows them to hang on.
Speaker 1: In fact, their ratings have never been all that great.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true, but it's just like very high, very
Speaker 2: wealthy and thing that's right.
Speaker 1: And so the other thing they can bring to the
Speaker 1: table is access. So if you have access to the
Speaker 1: party in power, that gives you some cred that makes
Speaker 1: you valuable within the organization. And so I think it's
Speaker 1: also you know, life insurance policy for them within MSNBC,
Speaker 1: where the audience is going to be furious with them,
Speaker 1: but they are making the calculation that it's worth accepting
Speaker 1: that fury from most of the MSNBC audience in order
Speaker 1: to have that level of access.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you alluded to the ratings. Let's ahead and put
Speaker 2: that on the screen. A twelve, Please up on the
Speaker 2: screen so we can see this, and you can actually
Speaker 2: see here the amount of primetime viewers that are in
Speaker 2: the key demographic for their show. So Ari Melburg for
Speaker 2: example sixty six thousand, Joy Reads seventy six thousand, Chris
Speaker 2: Hay seventy seven thousand, Alex Wagner fifty three thousand, The
Speaker 2: Last Word fifty three thousand, and Stephanie Rule at sixty
Speaker 2: two thousand, prime time time. And this is the key demographic,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 3: What the KA the only thing that matters.
Speaker 2: That's the only thing that matters for the advertisers. If
Speaker 2: you look at the weekend, it's more insane. We're talking
Speaker 2: in the twenties. You know, even in primetime they're lucky
Speaker 2: to crack thirty three thousand there at the five pm
Speaker 2: hour with Al Sharpton on the weekend. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't have to tell everybody here who's watching a YouTube
Speaker 2: show or listening to a podcast that you know, we
Speaker 2: would be bankrupt literally if we're trying to run a
Speaker 2: business of our scale with numbers like that and the
Speaker 2: key demographic. You know, we have literally millions of people
Speaker 2: who watch this show, not just our show, all kinds
Speaker 2: of different shows on YouTube and elsewhere, which are almost
Speaker 2: I think almost one hundred percent of our audiences in
Speaker 2: the key demographic. Just for you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: looking at where the age divide is there. But I
Speaker 2: also want to get to something deeper. Something you said,
Speaker 2: if you've watched MSNBC for eight years, you were sold
Speaker 2: a bit of goods. You were sold a false view
Speaker 2: of the world if you watch the show, if you
Speaker 2: watch really a lot of shows that are non mainstream.
Speaker 2: There was a theory of Trump in twenty sixteen, which
Speaker 2: I think we definitely talked a lot about her on
Speaker 2: the show. We're like, no, this is not an aberration,
Speaker 2: this is not like, you know, there's a theory that
Speaker 2: you could have an anti Trump coalition. But the shifts
Speaker 2: that took place in twenty sixteen were fundamental, and they
Speaker 2: were a lot more than just Hillary Clinton was bad
Speaker 2: or Russia sold the election. We had major demographic change.
Speaker 2: There was immigration, there was trade, it was forty year reckoning,
Speaker 2: the Iraq War. You're not gonna get any of that
Speaker 2: on MSNBC, and you haven't for the last eight years.
Speaker 2: Every once in a while, a guest will pop up
Speaker 2: and tell the truth and it goes viral because it's like, wow,
Speaker 2: it's so shocking to actually see somebody in that format.
Speaker 2: But again, like if you're watching here and you were
Speaker 2: prepared for Donald Trump victory, and not just a victory,
Speaker 2: you were prepared for even the case that has now happened.
Speaker 2: You know, the popular vote, the realignment, all of those,
Speaker 2: you know, the young male shift to the right, the
Speaker 2: gender democratic the gender gap that's happened between men and women,
Speaker 2: the Latino male realignment, young people's disillusionment with Israel policy.
Speaker 2: We've covered that at nauseum for years, in and out.
Speaker 2: I don't really know how you can function as a
Speaker 2: Morning Joe viewer. So in a certain sense, they were fooled.
Speaker 2: I mean, they literally were hunwinked from reality over the
Speaker 2: last eight years. In a certain part, I almost feel
Speaker 2: bad for them, But that's also why it's so disingenuous
Speaker 2: for them to act this way now today and that's
Speaker 2: the key point is that they're shape shifters and their narcissists,
Speaker 2: and this actually shows what the entire game is all
Speaker 2: about at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: The way you know that they're really screwed over there
Speaker 1: is that you had even Jen Saki coming on and
Speaker 1: basically being like, you know, this whole never Trump thing.
Speaker 1: She went on mourning Joe the home the beating heart
Speaker 1: of never trump.
Speaker 3: Ism, and said, you know, maybe this was not.
Speaker 1: The right group to go after because guess what, they
Speaker 1: only exist in your green room, guys.
Speaker 3: So you know you're screwed when that happens.
Speaker 1: When David Brooks is out there writing columns like, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe Bernie Sanders had a point. When Senator Chris Murphy,
Speaker 1: who is no renegade, is out there saying, you know
Speaker 1: why we were so aggressive against Bernie Sanders, it's because
Speaker 1: we didn't want his program of class warfare to impact
Speaker 1: our high net income base or donor class like. When
Speaker 1: you have figures like that admitting that the last eight
Speaker 1: years have been a lie, a mistake, a ruse acon
Speaker 1: of their own base, that's how you know that the
Speaker 1: whole MSNBC edifice is crumbling and it's one of the
Speaker 1: more hopeful things, frankly, to come out of this election,
Speaker 1: because it has been a disaster for anyone who is
Speaker 1: on the left who does want a different direction for
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. I can't tell you how influential MSNBC
Speaker 1: has been. I mean, I genuinely think sacery. You can
Speaker 1: tell me if I'm wrong that MSNBC is by and
Speaker 1: large the reason that Joe Biden was able to win
Speaker 1: the nomination.
Speaker 3: Autely because no question, if you remember.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty, what happened, Okay, Bernie Sanders was winning.
Speaker 1: He did you know, he claims he won Iowa.
Speaker 3: We all know.
Speaker 1: Bernie really one Iowa will say he did well in Iowa.
Speaker 1: He wins New Amstry goes on to Nevada just romps like,
Speaker 1: wins overwhelmingly in Nevada, and the Democratic Party has an
Speaker 1: oh shit moment like Bernie Sanders could actually be the nominee.
Speaker 3: Jim Clyburn makes his move.
Speaker 1: Obama makes a bunch of calls behind the scenes, basically
Speaker 1: gets everyone to drop out. Joe Biden wins South Carolina
Speaker 1: expected then everyone drops out and the media coalesces behind
Speaker 1: him and behind this narrative of those first three states
Speaker 1: really didn't matter, really didn't count. The only thing that
Speaker 1: matters is Carolina. And by the way, Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: the only person who could defeat Donald Trump. So they
Speaker 1: aggressively sold this narrative to the Democratic base, and the
Speaker 1: Democratic base, desperate to defeat Donald Trump, was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess we're going with Joe Biden then, and then
Speaker 1: Joe Biden comes from behind it. I mean, the way
Speaker 1: the polls shifted during that time period was like nothing
Speaker 1: we have ever seen before because of the msnbcs of
Speaker 1: the world leading the charge to coalesce the Democratic base
Speaker 1: behind him. And at that point it was so effective
Speaker 1: because liberals still had so much trust in places like
Speaker 1: the New York Times and MSNBC and CNN. So when
Speaker 1: they said it's got to be Joe Biden, guys, he's
Speaker 1: the only one that can win, they said, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I guess that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 3: You're not going to have that dynamic anymore.
Speaker 1: Those same places do not have the same level of
Speaker 1: trust and influence with the Democratic base that they once did.
Speaker 1: I truly believe that that trust, not that it's like
Speaker 1: totally gone, and no one's gonna blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: I don't want to overstate it, but that level of
Speaker 1: just obedience to whatever the narrative is coming out of
Speaker 1: those mainstream institutions. I truly think that's gone and broken,
Speaker 1: and I think that is a very positive and hopeful thing.
Speaker 1: If there's going to be any prayer of the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party doing anything interesting going forward.
Speaker 2: That's right. We also have John Stewart, who waited on
Speaker 2: this in only the way that he can. Let's take
Speaker 2: a listen.
Speaker 5: Ortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents
Speaker 5: and media outlets.
Speaker 2: Oh, I bet you really lead down the gauntlet, Joe.
Speaker 2: I'll bet you walked in there just let him have it,
Speaker 2: didn't you.
Speaker 7: Joey, I'm gonna do a one act play called Joe
Speaker 7: and Mika go to Marlago, Miss the President. Your rhetoric
Speaker 7: is outrageous.
Speaker 2: I cannot in.
Speaker 8: Good conscience who those.
Speaker 7: Whoa the pink one is Rolbury. We've learned nothing, even
Speaker 7: though it putting up resistance to Trump's agenda, don't seem
Speaker 7: to understand who they're dealing with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's too perfect, too perfect, And John
Speaker 1: goes on this whole thing too, about how Democrats are
Speaker 1: just wholly unable to grapple with the hardball tactics that
Speaker 1: are deployed by Trump and by his people, where you know,
Speaker 1: when it's Democrats in power, it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: the parliamentarian said, we can't do it. So guess what, guys,
Speaker 1: no minimum wage? Tike, sorry are a baud. We tried
Speaker 1: really hard. And then with Trump it's like I want
Speaker 1: mac eates at DJ and they're like, well, there's not
Speaker 1: the votes for it, and he's like, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I have this way of doing a recess appointment. And
Speaker 1: Democrats are left falling back on like the norms. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's appropriate global, I mean that's what they do.
Speaker 2: Yes and no. I mean certainly yes, yeah, they definitely
Speaker 2: yes when they want something, and they also do it like,
Speaker 2: let's not pretend that either. So give me an example,
Speaker 2: DACA legalizing literally a million people with the pen what
Speaker 2: is it? The pen and the phone? Like it's not
Speaker 2: like democrats.
Speaker 3: How many years ago was that, Sager?
Speaker 2: That's the most outrageous example, years ago, giving one where
Speaker 2: they're literally willing to use I mean the student loan
Speaker 2: thing is like didn't pass through Congress, decided to try
Speaker 2: and do it through executive action failure, by the way, and.
Speaker 1: How did that work out? I mean they got like
Speaker 1: a yeah lay amount compared to what he was gonna exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing, is like to your I
Speaker 1: guess one thing I will say is that I think
Speaker 1: you're right that the priorities that they just crumble on
Speaker 1: are things they don't really care.
Speaker 2: That's no. The point is is that they just they.
Speaker 1: Don't serve their base. The Republicans actually serve their base. Yes,
Speaker 1: Democrats do not serve their base whatsoever. In fact, their
Speaker 1: whole mo which is part of how they end up
Speaker 1: in this situation, is to like smear and ride their
Speaker 1: own base, Like how many years have they aggressively gone
Speaker 1: after the young base of their party? And then you
Speaker 1: wonder why young people are drifting away from the parties
Speaker 1: because you didn't. You spent years saying that they were
Speaker 1: bad and wrong and anti semitic, etc.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, there's just a.
Speaker 1: Very different orientation between the way the Democratic Party approachases
Speaker 1: these things.
Speaker 2: I think I could see why you think that, and
Speaker 2: perhaps we may have arrived at this but the Republican
Speaker 2: base has also been anti illegal immigration for like twenty
Speaker 2: years and actually hasn't gotten anything. So well they get
Speaker 2: something this time, like maybe, but you know, don't forget
Speaker 2: even under the Donald Trump administration quote unquote, nothing fundamentally changed,
Speaker 2: no bench or piece of legislation past. Will it happen
Speaker 2: this time? Maybe? I'm actually still very skeptical. I think
Speaker 2: I don't underestimate the power of the business lobby or
Speaker 2: any of these people in stopping you know, what is
Speaker 2: eventually going to happen. Chaos is already the status quo.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about that with Shelby Talcott, and
Speaker 2: I think that chaos is a vacuum of which business
Speaker 2: lobbyists and others prefer. It's possible that Trump is a
Speaker 2: much more organized figure. I don't see ton of evidence
Speaker 2: for that. I think certain things that they ran on
Speaker 2: that have now co lesst ideologically over eight years can
Speaker 2: and will happen, But that does not mean it will
Speaker 2: be like as a coherent ideology. It's not FDR that
Speaker 2: we're dealing with here, at least is the way that
Speaker 2: I'll put it. But overall, the way that I think
Speaker 2: that we can look at this is the MSNBC. The
Speaker 2: problem is is I can't discount them because they also
Speaker 2: have a Scotsman effect of like who is left in
Speaker 2: the actual Democratic Party and the people who are left. Yes,
Speaker 2: they may be dissolutioned, but the truth is is that
Speaker 2: rich white people are now the Democratic base, right Like
Speaker 2: those are the people who overwhelmingly moved and voted and
Speaker 2: showed up for Kamala Harrison. Those people still do have
Speaker 2: a deep amount of institutional trust. And when they don't
Speaker 2: have institutional trust, it's not the way that you and
Speaker 2: I talk about, right, they'll be like the New York
Speaker 2: Times wasn't tough enough on Trump, Like that's literally what
Speaker 2: they think. They think that the media. They think that
Speaker 2: if more Americans had not been if Trump enough been
Speaker 2: quote normalized or whatever, that they would not vote for him.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's a stupid ideology, but that's what they think.
Speaker 2: So I'm not I wouldn't count them out yet. I
Speaker 2: think that even on MSNBC, they'll find their way, you know,
Speaker 2: they they they'll find an agenda and all these other
Speaker 2: things that they can come to together. And I am
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say just yet that these rich whites are
Speaker 2: willing to abandon MSNBC in those institutions, I could see
Speaker 2: a big surge for things like Midas Touch. And you know,
Speaker 2: if people do go online, it'll be like, yeah, literally
Speaker 2: Midas touched Brian Tyler Cohen.
Speaker 1: But you know, even them though, even like Midas Touch
Speaker 1: has been on the like you know what, Bernie was right.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I don't count myself too familiar with Midas Touch.
Speaker 3: I do think that I think you're correct, though.
Speaker 1: I do think there will be more of a migration
Speaker 1: to YouTube and podcasts among some portions. In fact, you
Speaker 1: already see it with you know, actually we see it
Speaker 1: over in Crystal Kyle and Friends. Ryan sees it on
Speaker 1: drop site, David Sarti sees it on lever News that
Speaker 1: over Nathan J.
Speaker 3: Robinson like they're seeing it too.
Speaker 1: There there has been a surge and like, all right,
Speaker 1: this shit has not helped me understand the world, and
Speaker 1: so I do need to search out other alternatives. Michael
Speaker 1: Moore actually put out a big post of like here's
Speaker 1: some other places to go. Yeah, and so I do
Speaker 1: think there will be a shift to and just because
Speaker 1: of the economics of YouTube, even if you have people
Speaker 1: who are you know, basically like you know, Blue Resistance figures,
Speaker 1: like the mightus Touch guys. There's just a different ecosystem
Speaker 1: and a different set of incentives over on YouTube, so
Speaker 1: you end up with different commentary. I mean, that's part
Speaker 1: of why the Pod Saved dudes have been like they're
Speaker 1: a mixed bag, don't get me wrong, but they've been
Speaker 1: better at they wanted Joe Biden out, They've been better
Speaker 1: in analyzing what happened then for example Joe and Mika
Speaker 1: certainly just simply because they're in a different medium and
Speaker 1: so that helps to create like a different perception of
Speaker 1: the world. So, you know, I do think you'll see
Speaker 1: a kind of splintering from Like I said, I don't
Speaker 1: want to oversell it, like the New York Times and
Speaker 1: the Washing and Post are still going to exist, is
Speaker 1: going to still have some viewing audience, but when you
Speaker 1: consider how old and how scarce their audience is already, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just don't think they're going to have the same
Speaker 1: level of dominance that they did in terms of setting
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the discourse. One thing that has
Speaker 1: been amusing to me though, is like the number of
Speaker 1: people like Chris Murphy or whoever, who will like go
Speaker 1: on MSNBC to talk about how they should do more
Speaker 1: independent media, and it's like, you know, we do exist. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: we haven't had Rocana is still.
Speaker 2: Like the only person westending with Chris for two years.
Speaker 1: Just so and everybody very good point, yes, very good one.
Speaker 1: And it's not like, I mean, here we are with
Speaker 1: this audience that is cross ideological and people who are
Speaker 1: open to you know, different ideas and having their minds
Speaker 1: changed and whatever, and we haven't had one Democrat reach
Speaker 1: out to us and be like, you know what, let's
Speaker 1: let's do this thing. Except for Roe. He's the only one.
Speaker 1: He gets a lot of crowd for that. But it
Speaker 1: is funny to me that they're like, oh gosh, we
Speaker 1: should do or independent media, but then they don't actually
Speaker 1: do that. They just go on MSNBC to talk about
Speaker 1: how they should do that.
Speaker 2: That's right, all right. We got Talcott standing by. Let's
Speaker 2: get to her. Very excited now to be joined by
Speaker 2: Shelby Talcott. She's a national political reporter at Semaphore. Great
Speaker 2: friend of the show. It's good to see you, Shelby.
Speaker 9: Nice to see you.
Speaker 2: All right, So let's talk a little bit about what's
Speaker 2: going on with the transition. Let's start with this. Let's
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen. We have a
Speaker 2: four to three am retruth here from Donald Trump. Tom
Speaker 2: Fitton of Judicial Watch. This good news reports our incoming
Speaker 2: real Donald Trump administration is prepared to declare a national
Speaker 2: emergency and we'll use military assets to reverse the Biden
Speaker 2: invasion through a mass deportation program. He retroots and says
Speaker 2: true at four oh three am. So are we to
Speaker 2: take this as the late night or I guess early
Speaker 2: mornings slash late night either or in Trump's case, musings
Speaker 2: on truth Social How does this comport with your own
Speaker 2: reporting down in mar A Lago talking to the transition team.
Speaker 10: Yeah, well, first, I'm really excited that we're back to
Speaker 10: four am.
Speaker 3: That's right tweets for the next year.
Speaker 10: But yeah, Donald Trump has talked a lot about his
Speaker 10: mass deportation plan, and when you talk to people close
Speaker 10: to him, you know, Steven Miller has gone into depth
Speaker 10: about this.
Speaker 9: His borders are Tom.
Speaker 10: Homan has talked a lot about this, and they all
Speaker 10: sort of have the same idea, which has use every
Speaker 10: single resource possible and in some cases use resources that
Speaker 10: are not currently possible to implement the plans. So they've
Speaker 10: talked a lot about starting with criminals and national security threats.
Speaker 10: Stephen Miller has spoken at length about sort of expanding
Speaker 10: some of these holding centers for undocumented migrants. Donald Trump
Speaker 10: has talked about using the National Guard and local local police,
Speaker 10: and so I think everything's on the table. Steven Miller's
Speaker 10: talked about invoking the Insurrection Act and declaring a health emergency.
Speaker 10: So there are they are thinking of essentially every single
Speaker 10: option in order to to implement this. And this is
Speaker 10: clearly Donald Trump's focus, because if you look at who
Speaker 10: he started with when he was first deciding who was
Speaker 10: going to be in his cabinet, it was all sort
Speaker 10: of these national security folks the borders are. Stephen Miller
Speaker 10: is his deputy chief of staff, and so you're seeing
Speaker 10: that that's really the focus for the campaign.
Speaker 1: Any sense of how many people were talking about here,
Speaker 1: because I mean, actually estimate's very of the number of
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants twelve million to twenty million, somewhere in that range.
Speaker 1: So I mean, any exercise of this scale and scope
Speaker 1: would be absolutely massive. So any sense of how many
Speaker 1: people they're actually thinking about here.
Speaker 10: I mean when I talked to people close to Trump.
Speaker 10: They say as many people as possible, and that ultimately
Speaker 10: depends on what they're actually able to do. Right If
Speaker 10: you look at the number of ICE officers right now,
Speaker 10: it's not enough, it's not even nearly enough to do
Speaker 10: what they want to do. But they're hoping that they
Speaker 10: can get the resources, whether it's through executive orders, it's
Speaker 10: to Congress to drastically ramp up.
Speaker 9: The resources that they have, which.
Speaker 10: Would drastically ramp up the amount of people that they
Speaker 10: could theoretically deport.
Speaker 3: So do they need Congress is an important question.
Speaker 9: I think it depends.
Speaker 10: I think that they're hoping that they can use some
Speaker 10: things with executive orders.
Speaker 9: I mean I would be you.
Speaker 10: Know, I've talked to people who say that they would
Speaker 10: be shocked. They're very close held with their executive orders,
Speaker 10: but I would be shocked if they're not executive orders
Speaker 10: floating around in the Trump transition team right now that
Speaker 10: directly try to address.
Speaker 9: Some of this immigration.
Speaker 10: But I do think that some of the things that
Speaker 10: they're probably going to have to go through Congress.
Speaker 2: I mean, they threw it at the wall last time.
Speaker 2: They can try all they want, but we all saw
Speaker 2: the court system. The Congress is ultimately the only way
Speaker 2: it's possible. I mean, it's theoretically possible. That actually gets
Speaker 2: to a bigger question of there is a sense that
Speaker 2: Trump himself promised he said, I've learned a lot of
Speaker 2: my lessons from last time around about personnel. How does that?
Speaker 2: How true is that you and I were there, we
Speaker 2: covered the first term, unlike a lot of people got
Speaker 2: into politics now. So how different is it from the
Speaker 2: last time around? How similar is it from last time around?
Speaker 9: Well, he's clearly trying.
Speaker 10: He's clearly appointing people that he believes are loyalists. What
Speaker 10: I think is interesting, though, is some of these folks,
Speaker 10: you know, you still have all of these different factions
Speaker 10: inside Trump world who are vying for different people. Some
Speaker 10: of those people are are maybe not the best choice
Speaker 10: for Trump, but the best choice for people around Trump,
Speaker 10: you know. I thought it was interesting that Donald Trump
Speaker 10: tapped Will sharf, which is his personal or his lawyer
Speaker 10: over the past two years, for the staff secretary position
Speaker 10: because Will Sharfs is Leonard Leo's prodigy, and Leonard Leo
Speaker 10: obviously had a falling out with Donald Trump years ago
Speaker 10: and is super influential in conservative orbits, and this potentially
Speaker 10: could be sort of Leonard Leo's way into the administration.
Speaker 10: He is sort of a donor, longtime federalist guy.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 9: He was involved in some of the in some of
Speaker 9: Donald Trump's.
Speaker 10: Judges picks back in the day, but they had a
Speaker 10: falling out. They are not close anymore. He's been iced
Speaker 10: out of the Trump campaign, but he's super, super close
Speaker 10: with Will Sharf, and so I think that is notable.
Speaker 10: So you have people like that in Trump's orbit now
Speaker 10: who have already been tapped. I think it's going to
Speaker 10: be really interesting to see, for example, if they get confirmed,
Speaker 10: how Marco Rubio and Tulci Gabbard work together because they
Speaker 10: are very different. And so I think Trump is trying
Speaker 10: to pick loyalists, but it is such a he has
Speaker 10: four thousand positions.
Speaker 9: To a point, are all of them going.
Speaker 10: To truly be loyalists or are we going to see
Speaker 10: something like twenty sixteen where some people have different opinions
Speaker 10: and there's going to be drama.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about the Elon Musk relationship romance, etc.
Speaker 1: We talked some yesterday about this, but there's a sense
Speaker 1: that Elon with some members of the transition team has
Speaker 1: sort of worn out, has welcome. We also see publicly
Speaker 1: him fraezing Javier of Ballet for getting rid of tariffs
Speaker 1: is the whole opposite of the direction.
Speaker 3: Trump obviously once ago.
Speaker 1: And we also see him backing his own pick for
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary, which would also you if I think if
Speaker 1: the cap from anyone else would probably rub Trump the
Speaker 1: wrong way. You know, what can you tell us about
Speaker 1: those dynamics within the transition team.
Speaker 10: I mean, I know Donald Trump has said sort of
Speaker 10: joked multiple times now that you know he's still around,
Speaker 10: He's still here, can't get him out of mar A Lago,
Speaker 10: and I think that's true. Taking pictures with the family
Speaker 10: and literally with the family, and I think that's true.
Speaker 10: I mean, he's hanging around mar A Lago every week.
Speaker 10: But I think they're still in that romance stage from mine.
Speaker 10: You know, I think Donald Trump sort of is fascinated
Speaker 10: by Elon Musk. Elon Musk spent two hundred million dollars
Speaker 10: to help get Donald Trump elected. You know, some people
Speaker 10: in Trump's orbit are a little miffed that Elon Musk
Speaker 10: is so close. He's sitting in on transition meetings. He's
Speaker 10: weighing in privately and publicly on who he thinks Donald
Speaker 10: Trump should pick. But you know, Trump loves to an
Speaker 10: extent people who love him and people who are sort
Speaker 10: of fan boying, and I think right now that's how
Speaker 10: he is viewing Elon Muss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to have the richest man in the world as
Speaker 1: your fanboy, I'm sure that's pretty potent stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's going to he's going to a starship thing today. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's going to the launch of a space They were at.
Speaker 9: The UFC fight together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's put this up there on the screen. One
Speaker 2: of your latest reports here about the Trump transition co
Speaker 2: chairs are both in limbo on cabinet jobs. So this
Speaker 2: includes the counter Fitzgerald CEO, Howard Lutnick, and also Linda McMahon,
Speaker 2: who was what was she small business under Donald Trump
Speaker 2: last time around? So what's going on, you know inside
Speaker 2: this treasury fight. I've been fascinated by it. Originally at
Speaker 2: Scott Bessen and Howard Lutnik there, Elon endorses Howard. Now
Speaker 2: neither of them appear to be in contention, mostly because
Speaker 2: Trump is pissed that what people are leaking against each
Speaker 2: other hilarious with Linda McMahon too. I mean she I mean,
Speaker 2: she didn't give two hundred million, but she gave a
Speaker 2: decent amount of money there to Donald Trump. So what's
Speaker 2: up with those two and what position, like are they
Speaker 2: jocking for and are they likely to get now?
Speaker 10: So, Linda internally for months has made it clear that
Speaker 10: she wants Commerce, and for months it's been pretty clear
Speaker 10: that she is the only clear contender for Commerce, but
Speaker 10: she has not yet been offered the position, and I've
Speaker 10: been told by a few people that she's pissed about it. Interesting,
Speaker 10: and one of the reasons that people are theorizing that
Speaker 10: she has not gone the position is because Donald Trump
Speaker 10: is essentially waiting to see if he needs to use
Speaker 10: that Commerce position as sort of a holdover from a
Speaker 10: more important spot, Say, if Besson doesn't get Treasury, maybe
Speaker 10: they'll drop him down to Commerce. And as for the Treasury,
Speaker 10: it is there's drama there. So we're seeing Howard and
Speaker 10: Scott as the two front runners for a while now, well,
Speaker 10: Scott was really the core front runner, and then Howard
Speaker 10: started sort of buying for the position himself. And it's
Speaker 10: gotten to the point where Donald Trump is really annoyed
Speaker 10: by the public job. You know, with Donald Trump, I
Speaker 10: think it's really interesting because as much as he loves
Speaker 10: a little bit of the drama and he loves sort
Speaker 10: of you know, in the case of Elon Musk, somebody
Speaker 10: who fanboys around him, he also hates when somebody is
Speaker 10: too aggressive and trying to.
Speaker 9: Get into his orbit.
Speaker 10: And you know, I've been told in the case of
Speaker 10: Howard that that has certainly happened.
Speaker 2: And well, he put himself after j d Vance at MSG.
Speaker 2: It's like, who are you your transition Chai, why are
Speaker 2: you speaking before Donald Trump? Yeah, he's introducing Elon Muckle.
Speaker 2: He made himself a central character, I guess throughout this
Speaker 2: entire thing. So throughout this you know, it's only been
Speaker 2: what fifteen days or something like that. Over the transition
Speaker 2: a lot we talked about Elon and the drama, but
Speaker 2: those other factions, like you're talking about is it your
Speaker 2: sense similarly of like different ideological coalitions are coming at
Speaker 2: war and ultimately what sways Trump? This is like the
Speaker 2: eternal question, what does what is the reasoning behind his decision?
Speaker 2: Because for every mac Gates you also get a Marco Rubio, right,
Speaker 2: Like what's going on behind that.
Speaker 10: It's a good question because I think, you know, Donald
Speaker 10: Trump's first and foremost concern, as he said, is loyalty,
Speaker 10: but he also has all of these factions vying for him.
Speaker 10: Treasury is interesting because I feel like it's mostly sort
Speaker 10: of a lot of people support Scott, and then there's
Speaker 10: sort of Howard, who had spent months trying to convince
Speaker 10: Elon Musk to publicly come.
Speaker 3: Out for him, which he ended up doing.
Speaker 10: So it's sort of like Howard and Elon, So that's
Speaker 10: kind of a unique situation. I also think that when
Speaker 10: it comes to some of these, you know, Treasury, Commerce,
Speaker 10: some of these more economy focused jobs, it's less about
Speaker 10: almost loyalty right when you talk compared to okay, we
Speaker 10: need someone who's going to implement Donald Trump's mass deportation plan,
Speaker 10: Like that's like top of the list for Donald Trump.
Speaker 10: Commerce is he doesn't care about it as now. So
Speaker 10: I think that there's all It depends on the position essentially, right,
Speaker 10: So you have Kennedy, you had Omead Malik, who is
Speaker 10: a big donor who has been in his corner for
Speaker 10: a long time. You had Talker, you had all of
Speaker 10: these folks vying for Kennedy for HHS.
Speaker 9: There's less of that sort.
Speaker 10: Of overt camps when it comes to Treasury.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, And how does Jadie Vance fit into all of this.
Speaker 1: I noticed he wasn't at the UFC fight, he wasn't
Speaker 1: at the RFK Junior McDonald's hostage photo taking session. And
Speaker 1: I don't hear him brought up much in terms of, like,
Speaker 1: you know, being part of these factions, are part of
Speaker 1: these internal conversations.
Speaker 10: Yeah, Vance has sort of been pretty quiet over the
Speaker 10: past few weeks, and I think that's by design. I
Speaker 10: think he's more involved in things that involve Congress. You know,
Speaker 10: he is having conversations with lawmakers. I think that's going
Speaker 10: to be one of his key roles as vice president
Speaker 10: because he was just in Congress and he's so close
Speaker 10: to some of those folks, and so I think he's
Speaker 10: working on sort of cultivating and making those relationships behind
Speaker 10: the scenes rather than being sort of a forward facing
Speaker 10: role sitting in on every single decision.
Speaker 9: He also has three young kids, right.
Speaker 10: So he's still back and forth from Ohio. So he's
Speaker 10: certainly involved in these decisions, but it's much less of
Speaker 10: a forward facing role, and I think that's why to sign.
Speaker 2: That's smart? All right, Well, Shelby, we always love talking
Speaker 2: to you. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3: Great thure you, Shelby, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, we have a very special treat for
Speaker 1: everyone out there in the world. Producer Griffin is joining
Speaker 1: us live to have a big fight with Sager about
Speaker 1: Ben Afflex comments on Ai Griffin, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: We actually just tagged you in this morning because I
Speaker 1: felt you were more competent to make this case than
Speaker 1: I was, So thank you.
Speaker 11: Yeah, me and Sager normally fight before the shows, so
Speaker 11: it's good to do it on camera.
Speaker 2: That's right, to see behind the scenes. And if Griffin
Speaker 2: is not just some random dude, he literally is a
Speaker 2: former NYU film student. He lived in Hollywood, he worked
Speaker 2: on multiple movies. He's literally a film prodigy who at
Speaker 2: the age what was it, twenty years old, you had
Speaker 2: a movie that went to Sunband. So he's not just somebody.
Speaker 2: He's actually that's right, he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 11: Most importantly, a member of the Ben Affleck fan clubs
Speaker 11: in the town over ten times, right, and I'm a
Speaker 11: dunkin Donuts rewards member.
Speaker 8: All right, So that's with love for afflic amazing.
Speaker 3: Amazing, all right, let's start.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and get to the comments in question
Speaker 1: from mister Affleck that sparked this whole debate.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen, a.
Speaker 5: Bunch of actors that are completely recreated for this market
Speaker 5: or that market.
Speaker 12: A that's not possible now be Will it be possible
Speaker 12: in the future, highly unlikely see movies. That will be
Speaker 12: one of the last things if everything gets replaced, to
Speaker 12: be replaced by AI. AI can write you excellent imitative
Speaker 12: verse that sounds a little Beethan, It cannot write you Shakespeare.
Speaker 12: The function of having two actors or three or four
Speaker 12: actors in a room and the taste to discern and
Speaker 12: construct that is something that currently entirely eludes AI's capability,
Speaker 12: and I think will for a meaningful period of time.
Speaker 12: What A is going to do is going to disintermediate
Speaker 12: the more laborious, less creative, and you know, more costly
Speaker 12: aspects of filmmaking. That will allow costs to be brought down,
Speaker 12: that will be lower the barrier to entry, that will
Speaker 12: allow more voices to be heard, That will make it
Speaker 12: easier to for the people want to make good will
Speaker 12: huntings to go out and make it look. AI is
Speaker 12: a craftsman.
Speaker 8: At best.
Speaker 12: Craftsmen can learn to, you know, make stickley furniture by
Speaker 12: sitting down next to somebody and seeing what their technique
Speaker 12: is and imitating. That's how large video models are as
Speaker 12: language models basically work a library of vectors of meaning
Speaker 12: and transformers that interpret context. Right, but they're just cross
Speaker 12: pollinating things that exist. Nothing new is created yet not yet, yeah,
Speaker 12: not yet. And really in order to do that, look,
Speaker 12: craftsmen is knowing how to work. Art is knowing when
Speaker 12: to stop, and I think knowing when to stop is
Speaker 12: going to be a very difficult thing for AI to
Speaker 12: learn because it's taste and also lack of consistency, lack
Speaker 12: of controls, lack of quality. AI for this world of
Speaker 12: generative video is going to do key things more in me,
Speaker 12: I wouldn't like to be in the visual effects business.
Speaker 8: They're in trouble.
Speaker 1: Griffin ben Affleck basically arguing there that AI in Hollywood
Speaker 1: will be a benefit. It will lower costs, allow a
Speaker 1: sort of creative flourishing.
Speaker 3: What say you?
Speaker 11: So it's complicated because he's he's right and he's wrong.
Speaker 11: I think that he is certainly overlooking the fact that
Speaker 11: like he's like, oh, if you're in the visual effects business,
Speaker 11: you're in trouble. But if you're in like the majority
Speaker 11: of the below line industry businesses, you're in trouble. Whether
Speaker 11: it's like being an editor, a sound mixer, the background extras.
Speaker 11: Even some of like the foreground actors are getting their
Speaker 11: likenesses stolen right now and repurposed for AI and their
Speaker 11: testing right now, mainly in like.
Speaker 8: Commercials and stuff.
Speaker 11: I do think he right in certain areas where it's like, oh,
Speaker 11: it's gonna give more freedom to individuals to create bigger
Speaker 11: things than they could on their own if someone wanted
Speaker 11: to create a good will hunting. But I think the
Speaker 11: big elephant in the room he's forgetting is none of
Speaker 11: this is happening to improve art or give people more opportunities.
Speaker 11: It's for executives to make a few more million while
Speaker 11: they slash tens and thousands of film industry jobs over
Speaker 11: the next like ten to fifteen years. And they're gonna
Speaker 11: do it before the art is good or if it
Speaker 11: ever gets good. They're gonna do it now in survey slot.
Speaker 2: So I understand what you're saying, Griffin. I think that
Speaker 2: the counter is that this is technology. I mean one
Speaker 2: of the examples that he gives, for example, is that
Speaker 2: TAOSA the Dragon won't take two years. You can have
Speaker 2: a new season that will come out, but the scripts
Speaker 2: and all of that will remain creative. And I get
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, if it work in the visual effects business,
Speaker 2: that sucks. But reducing you know, the economy of scale
Speaker 2: and making it so that the technology is easier could
Speaker 2: actually create more opportunities first and foremost, But second, this
Speaker 2: is a technological inevitability. Like in the nineteen eighties, the
Speaker 2: CGI effects and all that were terrible. They were very costly. Eventually,
Speaker 2: as they go down, then you were actually able to
Speaker 2: create a lot of new content, new roles and all
Speaker 2: that are there. That doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic to
Speaker 2: a lot of the people who were what was it
Speaker 2: like Disney animation, right, A lot of it was hand drawn,
Speaker 2: and then the pixtar revolution comes in and changes all
Speaker 2: of that. We still got great movies. Now, unfortunately, it
Speaker 2: did mean that thousands of people didn't have to sit
Speaker 2: there and hand draw, but that was you know, physically,
Speaker 2: it was very inefficient. So I didn't have a real
Speaker 2: problem with what he said, because what you were telling
Speaker 2: me is that a lot of people in Hollywood are
Speaker 2: very angry at him. But you know, in a certain sense,
Speaker 2: it's like you're angry at technology. You're going to choose ultimately,
Speaker 2: what is going to be the cheapest option. I thought
Speaker 2: it was a very insightful answer because what it does
Speaker 2: show is that while the technology and the craft and
Speaker 2: the inputs themselves will reduce that the actual creative inputs
Speaker 2: and what makes Hollywood and movies and content really so
Speaker 2: fantastic that actually can't be programmed. So in a certain sense,
Speaker 2: I didn't think he was an AI doomer. I thought
Speaker 2: that was a real optimistic way of how AI is
Speaker 2: just physically a tool. Nothing is ever going to come
Speaker 2: and replace us.
Speaker 8: So two points to there.
Speaker 11: So with like the let's focus just on the video
Speaker 11: effects just for a second. So I use this example
Speaker 11: a lot like of like the Marvel slob. Like Marvel
Speaker 11: movies continue to get worse and worse, but like technology
Speaker 11: is like getting better, but we continue to like funnel
Speaker 11: down to like the lowest common denominator because it's more
Speaker 11: money for the film executives. I use the example of
Speaker 11: Pirates of the Caribbean two Dead Man's Chest. Yeah, this
Speaker 11: is a very popular example online, an incredible film. There's
Speaker 11: a scene in the CGI of that so two thousand
Speaker 11: and six film of Davy Jones. He's an octopus man
Speaker 11: and he's playing the piano with his tentacles, and it
Speaker 11: was twenty years ago and it looks better than any
Speaker 11: CGI you see today, which I think is an example
Speaker 11: of well, yeah, technology can improve, but executives aren't using
Speaker 11: it to make better art.
Speaker 8: They're using it to make more money.
Speaker 11: Now to your point about like, oh, individual creators can
Speaker 11: then like go and like make good will hunting, and
Speaker 11: a director is can be untethered from the production costs
Speaker 11: and on all that stuff.
Speaker 8: And I do see that example.
Speaker 11: But for me, it's like a lot of people think,
Speaker 11: like the director can like make the whole movie, but
Speaker 11: like a Martin Scorsese movie is good not just because
Speaker 11: Scorsese is good, but because he is as the director
Speaker 11: is channeling the talents, the experiences and the art from
Speaker 11: real humans. All these people on set. Should I frame
Speaker 11: the camera this way? Should we dolly it? Should we
Speaker 11: like these people? How are we doing their hair and makeup?
Speaker 11: These aren't all decisions just coming from Martin Scorsese's brain.
Speaker 11: He's channeling other people's like art and creativity. And I
Speaker 11: don't think we're gonna see that with AI systems in
Speaker 11: the same way.
Speaker 2: But I see that's actually a good example where Scorsese.
Speaker 2: The reason that Scorsese movies are great is because Scarsese
Speaker 2: does things his way Tarantino same way in terms of
Speaker 2: his rejection, and wants to do a lot of this
Speaker 2: stuff in real time. One is one of the reasons
Speaker 2: that Tom Cruise movies are so fantastic because he insists
Speaker 2: on doing the stunts himself and making it as real
Speaker 2: as possible. That's what makes them outliers and what makes
Speaker 2: them fantastic. So great script, great acting, great visual effects.
Speaker 2: While yes, there's still gonna be a lot of Hollywood slop.
Speaker 2: I mean, I personally swore a blood oath that I
Speaker 2: was done with Marvel after ant Man in the Wasp,
Speaker 2: and I just said I'm done. I'm done, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's like I saw Shang Shi. I came to
Speaker 2: a turn. I stuck with them. I stuck with them
Speaker 2: through Wanda Vision, through all the Finally I just said
Speaker 2: it's over. But it's one of those though, where they
Speaker 2: did pay a cost, right, you know, they had diminishing returns.
Speaker 2: While they certainly did make some money on those movies,
Speaker 2: their cultural cachet and Marvel Universe, et cetera is going downhill,
Speaker 2: whereas we've had major success of a lot of the
Speaker 2: films that you're talking about that bring the individual filmmakers taste.
Speaker 2: So it will just be like a technological standard. But
Speaker 2: you know, what makes great films great films and the
Speaker 2: ability of people like Ridley Scott or any of these
Speaker 2: others to have some visual effects but ultimately rely on
Speaker 2: the genius of their directing the human humanity, and also
Speaker 2: be able to compel studio funding, which is really what
Speaker 2: they were best at. They can get big budget films
Speaker 2: and direct it towards these resources. I still feel like
Speaker 2: that niche will always exist in Hollywood. It's just like
Speaker 2: the example he gave about House of the Dragon. That
Speaker 2: seems like the most apt one. And again I get it,
Speaker 2: if you work in visual effects, that probably sucks. But
Speaker 2: you know, if you worked as a i don't know,
Speaker 2: like a boom guy in the nineteen eighties and your
Speaker 2: job eventually phased out, that's a little bit nature of
Speaker 2: the business too.
Speaker 11: Yeah, but with House of the Dragon, like, it's not
Speaker 11: going to just be the video effects. It's gonna be
Speaker 11: the scripts. It's gonna be like the majority of the
Speaker 11: actors on screen. It's gonna be even like they're gonna
Speaker 11: start face tuning people, so you don't need hair and makeup.
Speaker 11: You're gonna need like all these all these different things
Speaker 11: that aren't just a cost but are a creative input
Speaker 11: that makes something that's unique, that actually is art that
Speaker 11: touches the heart.
Speaker 8: I use the Netflix slop example a lot.
Speaker 11: If you go on Netflix right now, Netflix to cut costs,
Speaker 11: has completely homogeno how they make film. That's why, like
Speaker 11: every film you see on Netflix is called like tall Girl,
Speaker 11: and they're all shot with the same camera and the
Speaker 11: same bland look. Everyone talks about that. Why things like
Speaker 11: gray worm Meal, It's because it's cheaper. It's because it's cheaper.
Speaker 11: It's not because it's better are or because the director's
Speaker 11: got to express themselves more. It's because it's more homogenized.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, another example of that Griffin I think
Speaker 1: is YouTube shorts. I banned my kids from watching them
Speaker 1: at all because.
Speaker 3: You're all they are I'm.
Speaker 1: Not a great parent, but this one thing I did
Speaker 1: take a stand because.
Speaker 3: All they are is AI slop.
Speaker 1: That's it, because that's what the economics makes sense for.
Speaker 1: So even if only one out of one hundred like
Speaker 1: takes off or whatever, because they're all so shitty and
Speaker 1: so low quality, they cost nothing. So that seems to
Speaker 1: me the direction that this is ultimately going to go in.
Speaker 1: And I also question the idea the promise of like, oh,
Speaker 1: now more independent creators, it'll be lower costs, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Using AI will be low costs for major studios because
Speaker 1: they have the technology suite and the licenses. Because AI
Speaker 1: is already like a monopolistic business, so they'll have that
Speaker 1: technology suite, they'll.
Speaker 3: Have the resources to do all the things that you're
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 1: Inependent filmmakers are not going to have access to that
Speaker 1: level of technological case.
Speaker 11: That's a really interesting point. Yeah, that's a really interesting point.
Speaker 11: And let's let's even say they do okay, Like let's
Speaker 11: say there's a program that you can sign up for
Speaker 11: that's thirty bucks a month subscription fee and you can
Speaker 11: make a whole world and like design everything. Why would
Speaker 11: any studio need to buy it from you or distribute it.
Speaker 11: When they can just do it themselves. It's like, great,
Speaker 11: throw it up on YouTube and it gets fifty views.
Speaker 11: We're going to just make the exact same thing and
Speaker 11: not pay you because we don't need you, because everyone
Speaker 11: can do this now.
Speaker 8: So there's that element too.
Speaker 11: I do want to like, I want to give a
Speaker 11: little bit of like a Devil's Advocate to something Ben says,
Speaker 11: where like anyone can make good will hunting As an
Speaker 11: ende filmmaker. One of the things that has triggered me
Speaker 11: most over my career is a lot of articles saying wow,
Speaker 11: with technology, like anyone can make a movie now, you
Speaker 11: can make a movie on an iPhone.
Speaker 8: That's bullshit, that's not true.
Speaker 11: You can shoot it on the iPhone, but then you're
Speaker 11: gonna to spend one hundred grand from somewhere to sound
Speaker 11: mix it, get it ready for a theater, do all
Speaker 11: that post. So like, there are all these costs that
Speaker 11: make it so only rich kids really make independent film.
Speaker 11: When I produced indie film, it was never because someone
Speaker 11: had a good idea. It was because I knew a
Speaker 11: rich kid whose mommy and daddy were willing to give
Speaker 11: them a quarter million dollars to like go shoot a film.
Speaker 11: So I think there is something there to like democratizing
Speaker 11: certain parts of it, But I don't think that that's
Speaker 11: what the executives are doing. I don't think that that's
Speaker 11: how they're going to try to control the system of
Speaker 11: delivery with all of it, and ultimately, I think it's
Speaker 11: gonna continue to just like homogenize art and creativity. I
Speaker 11: think most of the movies that Sager loves were not
Speaker 11: made with any AI, and I would be surprised if,
Speaker 11: like ten years later, Sager's favorite movies are the AI
Speaker 11: ones versus the great films we've seen.
Speaker 2: You're not wrong with right, You're absolutely not wrong. But
Speaker 2: here's the sad part that Netflix slop. It exists for
Speaker 2: a reason. People watch it, they like it. I mean,
Speaker 2: let's put this up on the screen from the Atlantic.
Speaker 2: There's no longer any doubt that Hollywood writing is powering AI.
Speaker 2: They talk specifically here about how what Was It? Eighty
Speaker 2: five thousand TV episodes and fifty three thousand other movies
Speaker 2: were used by AI systems to be trained on writer's work,
Speaker 2: to be able to fill in certain things including you know,
Speaker 2: every film nominated for Best Picture from nineteen fifty to
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, The Simpsons, every episode of The Wire, The Sopranos,
Speaker 2: Breaking Bad. Do I ever think that, you know, AI
Speaker 2: will be able to produce any of those shows or
Speaker 2: even incredible movies that I just listed. No, but you
Speaker 2: know there's a lot of people out there, unfortunately, Griffin
Speaker 2: who like outer I couldn't tell you what Outer Banks
Speaker 2: is about. I honestly I couldn't tell you. If I
Speaker 2: looked at the Netflix top ten TV shows right now,
Speaker 2: it is just straight shit, like every single one of them.
Speaker 2: But they're top ten and they get hundreds of hours.
Speaker 2: If I recall, what was that movie with the Rock
Speaker 2: on Netflix? Was it Red? Notice that? I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: that was a huge movie. People liked it. They actually
Speaker 2: liked it. I hate to say it. Hit Man. There's
Speaker 2: another one. I didn't watch hit Man, but I know
Speaker 2: that was a big one. There was a Gramination Okay,
Speaker 2: gray Man? Is that Ryan Gosling?
Speaker 8: But I don't think any of those films are made
Speaker 8: with a humans. That's why you like that?
Speaker 2: Well, what I'm giving an example is that just generic
Speaker 2: replacement level film and TV on Netflix. People enjoy it.
Speaker 2: You know, even those crappy, fake animated series that they
Speaker 2: do for children, which look horrible, but they're always like
Speaker 2: number six, you know Number eight. You and I are
Speaker 2: always going to be on HBO watching prestige television, but
Speaker 2: there's not a big market for it unfortunately.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I do. I do think you're right.
Speaker 11: I think it's a question of like, how do we
Speaker 11: continue to protect art and if we value art, how
Speaker 11: do we protect it. That should be like the main
Speaker 11: goal of people like Ben Affleck talking about this, not
Speaker 11: like all the fun things that you can do in
Speaker 11: the future with AI, but like how do we like
Speaker 11: protect and keep on making creative pictures that require humans
Speaker 11: in my opinion, as opposed to just kind of letting
Speaker 11: things fly and seeing where things.
Speaker 8: Go next because most of the stuff is slop.
Speaker 11: You're right, A lot of people watch it, and I
Speaker 11: think that the industry right now is kind of in
Speaker 11: a big evolution right now.
Speaker 8: You know, everyone went big into streaming.
Speaker 11: There was so much slop, and even back in the day,
Speaker 11: like if you turn on cable, ninety percent of the
Speaker 11: shows were bad. Yeah remember the ten percent good ones, right,
Speaker 11: But like, ultimately, I think if you're a lover of film,
Speaker 11: if you're a lover of art, all of this AI
Speaker 11: stuff and the things that drive what they're developing it
Speaker 11: for it seems to be anti RT and pro slop.
Speaker 11: And I think that people like Affleck need to kind
Speaker 11: of do everything they can with their cachet of power
Speaker 11: to prevent that as long as possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, to me, there's a vibe from Affleck
Speaker 1: of like, well, I'm going to be fine, Yeah, buddies,
Speaker 1: yeah you Wood, But how about the rest? The other
Speaker 1: thing that to me gets to the core that the
Speaker 1: disagreement that you guys are having is, you know, to me,
Speaker 1: art should have value outside of the ability to commodify it,
Speaker 1: outside of just like the market dynamics and the move
Speaker 1: towards more and more AI and more and more slop
Speaker 1: undercuts art and just makes it about the like you know,
Speaker 1: capitalist market incentives. And I think that that is a loss.
Speaker 1: I think that's a loss for the country, for the culture,
Speaker 1: et cetera. That as you said, Griffin, it's pro slop
Speaker 1: and anti art.
Speaker 2: Well, I like it. Can we all agree we need
Speaker 2: a town to Griffin, Do we need to see?
Speaker 11: Yes, we need a town to a chat GPT township
Speaker 11: right here it's great, the town is misspelled and Ben
Speaker 11: Affleck has three eyes, but.
Speaker 8: It's you're gonna love it people. Yeah, we're gonna make money.
Speaker 8: We're making money, folks.
Speaker 11: And the biggest question, here's the thing, executives, if you're listening,
Speaker 11: who's gonna wait all the tables in l A if
Speaker 11: you fire up?
Speaker 8: That's the big question.
Speaker 3: Robots.
Speaker 2: Also, there's a big underground mark. That's right. You're gonna
Speaker 2: wipe out the entire service industry in Los Angeles.
Speaker 11: Come on, I don't have any fresh towels and my
Speaker 11: Chateau More Hotel right now, they're.
Speaker 3: Gonna live to regret it.
Speaker 2: That's right. Love it.