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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 1: Joining me now is someone who I've known forever, which

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Speaker 1: means all of the twenty first century. I first got

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Speaker 1: to know him when he was an blogger, and I

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Speaker 1: believe correct me if I'm wrong. What did we call those?

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Speaker 1: What was the DC version of that thing that predated

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Speaker 1: TV newser fishfol DC, fishfowl D see you? Is it

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Speaker 1: fair to say that that's how you feel like you

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Speaker 1: cut your teeth in the Washington ecosphere with Fishbowl DC.

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Speaker 2: That is exactly where I got myself started in journalism

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Speaker 2: in Washington. As you remember, this was two thousand and five,

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Speaker 2: Brian Stelter was writing TV newser out of at a

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Speaker 2: Towson student at Towson University, also for Media Bistro, and

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Speaker 2: I was writing Fishbowl d C covering Washington politics, all

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Speaker 2: under the pseudonym.

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Speaker 1: Right, was it in a pseudonym for a while? Were

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Speaker 1: you a pseudonym? You didn't release?

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, you might you might be thinking of

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Speaker 2: want at at the time, the pseudonym.

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Speaker 1: Right, she did the pseudonym for a while. Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: look you have taken that, and in some ways you've

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Speaker 1: always been an entrepreneurial journalist, meaning that you're very comfort

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Speaker 1: trouble going off on your own. You've dabbled in establishment journalists,

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Speaker 1: and you ran the Washingtonian for a bit. You certainly

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Speaker 1: contribute to plenty. But uh, look it's in you know

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Speaker 1: now you're I think one of our better historian writers

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Speaker 1: of of I guess recent history is probably how you

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Speaker 1: would describe it, right, You specialize sort of in looking

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Speaker 1: back at recent history. I think you've carved a carved

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Speaker 1: a great franchise there, because, as we now know, with

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Speaker 1: with so much information being thrown at us all the time,

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Speaker 1: we forget look at it, look at look at the

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Speaker 1: killing Netflix is making, just doing nineties bs history, right,

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Speaker 1: pop culture history like missing kids and balloons and planes

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Speaker 1: and stuff to do actual interesting political and government stories. Uh,

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Speaker 1: is going to be pretty uh, a pretty interesting way

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Speaker 1: to go what uh what made you stumble into that franchise?

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Speaker 2: So I've always been on the magazine writing side of journalism,

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Speaker 2: as you know, was at Washingtonian, as you mentioned, an

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Speaker 2: editor of political magazine, and then after I left there,

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Speaker 2: spent the better part of a decade as a contributor

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Speaker 2: it Wired. And I've always been fascinated at returning to

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Speaker 2: stories a couple of years after the sort of daily

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Speaker 2: media has moved on to try to understand what actually

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Speaker 2: takes place, because you know, you know this as a

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Speaker 2: student of history, so much of what we think about

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Speaker 2: an event as it flows by us in the on

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Speaker 2: rushing tide of daily news turns out to either be

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Speaker 2: sort of slightly mistaken or not the full picture, or

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Speaker 2: sort of otherwise not fully understood. And so I've spent

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Speaker 2: a lot of my career as a writer, as an author, historian,

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Speaker 2: and now as the host of this podcast series Long Shadow,

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Speaker 2: returning to events you know, five, ten, fifteen, twenty five

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Speaker 2: years later to try to put them in better context

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Speaker 2: and help use that history to tell the story of today.

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Speaker 2: That I think sort of all of the work that

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Speaker 2: I do is really aimed at trying to make sure

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Speaker 2: that we understand why the world is the way that

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Speaker 2: it is today, because I think so much of so

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Speaker 2: much of sort of what Russia's passed us in the

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Speaker 2: news today feels unconnected. And you know, journalists love to

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Speaker 2: throw around this is unprecedented, but it's unprecedented too much.

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Speaker 2: But the truth is like, nothing is really unprecedented, and

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Speaker 2: that what's really fun to me in understanding history and

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Speaker 2: studying history is going back and looking at how the

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Speaker 2: way that the world is today is the often very

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Speaker 2: deliberate choice of a small group of people during identifiable moments.

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Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with butterfly effects, so I do a series

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Speaker 1: every year where I just simply call it what if.

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Speaker 1: Where it takes you take one specific thing that didn't happen,

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Speaker 1: and what if this had happened, how everything else would

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Speaker 1: have changed? And you know, it's as as small as

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Speaker 1: what if Hillary Clinton had run for president in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and four. I think it's the only time she

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Speaker 1: would have won. It's the only time or last name

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Speaker 1: would have been an asset. It's the only time like

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Speaker 1: so it's sort of a way, you know. So that's

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Speaker 1: sort of my way of trying to tackle recent history.

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Speaker 1: What if Bill Clint had resigned in nineteen ninety eight

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Speaker 1: when his own party kind of wanted him to, we're

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Speaker 1: kind of opening, he'd read the room, he chose not to. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know what that would have meant. Al Gore would

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Speaker 1: have been president during nine to eleven yep. And do

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Speaker 1: you know how much different politics would be because of that,

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Speaker 1: Because then you would have had twelve years of democratic,

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Speaker 1: straight democratic running of the government. There would have been

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Speaker 1: a more partisan reaction to nine to eleven, and who

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Speaker 1: knows how everything we have today might have been accelerated forward.

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Speaker 1: But the point is is that it is always it

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Speaker 1: strikes me, you know, this is why I love your work,

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Speaker 1: and that this is how you think you're like looking

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Speaker 1: for these pivotable pivotabal listen to me, pivotal moments that

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Speaker 1: were the fork in the road yep, you know, and I.

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Speaker 2: Think it often takes a long time to put that

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Speaker 2: framework together.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's what's going to be my next question. It's

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Speaker 1: like a piece of fruit, you know, you cut a

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Speaker 1: peach too soon, and it sucks. You cut a peach

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Speaker 1: too late, and it sucks. Right, I'm obsessed with peaches,

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Speaker 1: and it bugs the crap out of me that it's

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Speaker 1: so hard for me to figure out the perfect time

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Speaker 1: to eat a peach.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: That is way when peeling back this, how do you

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Speaker 1: know when an event in history is ready for your

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Speaker 1: deep dive where the eyewitnesses are ready to talk but

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Speaker 1: not performatively and stuff like that, Like is there a

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Speaker 1: specific thing you look for to know? I think that

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Speaker 1: that's a right piece of fruit, historical fruit. I can

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Speaker 1: it's time to eat it.

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Speaker 2: So there are a couple of different answers to that,

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Speaker 2: because I sort of think about this in different epochs

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Speaker 2: of sort of returning to a story. You know. Probably

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Speaker 2: the most famous piece I ever did, as you know,

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Speaker 2: was in twenty sixteen, for the fifteenth anniversary of nine

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Speaker 2: to eleven, I went back and did an oral history

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Speaker 2: of being a board Air Force one with President Bush.

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Speaker 2: Ten years later, or not ten years later, for the

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Speaker 2: tenth anniversary of the killing of Bin Laden, I went

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Speaker 2: back and did a similar oral history of the killing

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Speaker 2: of Bin Laden and sort of what it was like

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Speaker 2: to be part of the Obama White House at that time,

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Speaker 2: and that ten to fifteen year window I think often

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Speaker 2: ends up being really fruitful because you'll find that the

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Speaker 2: major players are out of the.

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Speaker 1: Job at that point but still alive.

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Speaker 2: But still alive, and their memories are still pretty good

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Speaker 2: that they you know that they'll be able to sort

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Speaker 2: of talk more freely in off. Usually at the sort

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Speaker 2: of ten or fifteen year mark, they have sort of

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Speaker 2: achieved in their career something meaningfully different, so that they

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Speaker 2: are more comfortable talking about a moment in the past

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Speaker 2: when they you know, their legacy might sort of still

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Speaker 2: be in shape. But it can also take a lot longer.

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Speaker 2: I wrote a book about Watergate actually that came out

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: I thought that was a brave decision you made to

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Speaker 1: do that one. Well, thank you, because you know, especially

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Speaker 1: with Woodward still alive, right, are any of us allowed

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Speaker 1: to write about Watergate while Bob's still alive?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: So this was you know, that's why I found you brave.

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Speaker 2: Right the fiftieth anniversary of the burglary in nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 2: and yet it had taken most of those fifty years

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Speaker 2: to answer two of the central questions of Watergate, who

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Speaker 2: is deep throat? And sort of why did Nixon launch

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Speaker 2: the Watergate cover up? And so when I I.

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Speaker 1: Think there's a third question that we've never pursued well enough,

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Speaker 1: by the way, not to go down a rabbit hole,

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Speaker 1: all right, what actionable intelligence did they learn from the

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Speaker 1: phone tapping?

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Speaker 2: We have the phone tapping of the DNC.

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Speaker 1: Now I've talked to sources who have given I've gone

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Speaker 1: down this rabbit hole, and I've talked to people that

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Speaker 1: were you know, that were convinced that John Connolly sold

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Speaker 1: them out for a variety of reasons. And but that

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Speaker 1: part of Watergate doesn't get told very well. Right, it's

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Speaker 1: always through the prism of Nixon. But the manipulation of

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Speaker 1: the nomination was real, you know, the the what Nixon

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Speaker 1: did with the Texas delegation to make sure McGovern was

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Speaker 1: going to get was gonna was to make sure nobody

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Speaker 1: could have basically so that McGovern could win it at

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Speaker 1: the convention. I think was the intelligence they got over

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Speaker 1: the over the over what they learned from the DNC.

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Speaker 2: But you know, when I sat down in to write

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Speaker 2: that book to come out in twenty twenty two, no

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Speaker 2: one had ever been able to tell the story of Watergate,

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Speaker 2: knowing the identity of deep Throat as we now know

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Speaker 2: FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, and no one had ever

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Speaker 2: been able to write it knowing the sort of original sin.

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Speaker 1: That kicked off the Nixon Well, Woodward and Bernstein and

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Speaker 1: Theory knew, No, they they.

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Speaker 2: Definitely didn't the documents. So the original sin of Watergate,

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Speaker 2: the reason that Nixon doesn't sort of launches the cover

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Speaker 2: up and doesn't hang the burglars out to dry, is

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Speaker 2: the way that it traces all the way back through

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Speaker 2: the Pentagon papers and to the Nalta Fair in nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty eight.

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Speaker 1: Well, that this was a whole but he's been doing

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Speaker 1: this in multiple ways, and this was part of a

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Speaker 1: larger operation where the Democratic nomination fight was just the

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Speaker 1: latest operation that he was running.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but what no one understood until the documents were

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Speaker 2: declassified from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library in twenty eleven

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Speaker 2: was the extent of Nixon's treachery in the sixty eight

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Speaker 2: campaign and how he had been exposed by Johnson, confronted

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Speaker 2: by Johnson, and that this sart is over the South

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Speaker 2: Vietnamese right the South Vietnamese treachery where Nixon is interfering

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Speaker 2: in the Paris peace talks, and that this becomes sort

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Speaker 2: of the Edgar Allen Poe telltale heart beating away at

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Speaker 2: the center of the Nixon presidency that he is then

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Speaker 2: desperate to cover up in when the Pentagon papers start

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Speaker 2: to come out in seventy one, which brings him to

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Speaker 2: hire the plumbers in the first place to sort of

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Speaker 2: set and sets g Gordon Liddy sort of at loose

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Speaker 2: inside the Nixon white House. But you know, until you

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Speaker 2: understand sort of those two central parts of the narrative

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Speaker 2: of Watergate, you know, identity of deep throat and the

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Speaker 2: sort of original sin of the Nixon administration, you know,

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Speaker 2: we've never really understood Watergate, and it took us forty

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Speaker 2: forty five years to actually begin to piece together the

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Speaker 2: totality of what that story actually was.

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Speaker 1: You know, the one of the unintended consequences of Watergate

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Speaker 1: was was the destruction of the White House taping system.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you watch, if you've seen the

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Speaker 1: Apple television show for All Mankind.

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Speaker 2: I'm aware of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So they it's an alternative history, and they do

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Speaker 1: have this sort of American politics in real life. Back

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Speaker 1: they don't, it's not part of the show. It's sort

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Speaker 1: of in the backdrop. They do a fun little like

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Speaker 1: little vignettes to sort of And in this scenario, because

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Speaker 1: Nixon loses the race, Nixon's president when we lose the

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Speaker 1: race to the moon, he's of course a one termer,

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Speaker 1: not a two termer. Well, what does that mean? The

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Speaker 1: White House taping system never gets discovered by the public,

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Speaker 1: nor by Congress or anything like this, and it doesn't happen.

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Speaker 1: And in the way this TV show worked, it makes

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Speaker 1: it all the way to the nineties before people find

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Speaker 1: out there's a White House taping system, and each president

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Speaker 1: subsequently anyway, but it's made me like I remember when

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Speaker 1: I saw it. I remember thinking, can you imagine how

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Speaker 1: much richer are knowledge of presidents would be if we

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Speaker 1: always had this information like this eventually available to us?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I actually I really worry about that as

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Speaker 2: a modern historian, in the extent to which you know,

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Speaker 2: the future historians of the White House and you know,

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Speaker 2: US government, and really.

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Speaker 1: Look at this White House. You know we already we

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Speaker 1: already have caught Donald Trump meaning to direct message his

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Speaker 1: attorney general on truth social he ends up making a

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Speaker 1: public the infamous you know, what are you doing? Go

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Speaker 1: get Camy, Go get you know, James, go get Shift.

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Speaker 1: And we learned it's intended to be a direct message.

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Speaker 1: And now you're thinking, think about Presidential Records Act? How

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Speaker 1: many direct messages? What are we not seeing? What don't

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Speaker 1: we know? And we know this president has had no

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Speaker 1: interest in seeing records percent served for history's sake.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you and so so much of that conversation

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Speaker 2: is now taking place, you know, over text message, over

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Speaker 2: direct messages, over encrypted signal chats which may or may

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Speaker 2: not be being properly maintained for Presidential Records Acts. And

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Speaker 2: I really do worry about how hard it's going to

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Speaker 2: be to recreate some of what we are used to seeing.

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Speaker 2: And you know, everyone one of their first questions about

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Speaker 2: Watergate ends up being you know, well, if it took

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Speaker 2: us forty years to figure out the truth about Watergate,

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Speaker 2: you know, what are we going to learn about Trump's

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Speaker 2: presidency in forty years, fifty years? You know, what do

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Speaker 2: we not know now about what is going on? And

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Speaker 2: I don't know, there's clearly a lot that we don't

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Speaker 2: know about what's going on behind the scenes that we'll

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Speaker 2: have to wait for memoirs or future declassified documents. But

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Speaker 2: I would like to think that this administration is we

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Speaker 2: sort of know more, at least of what's transpiring in

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Speaker 2: real time.

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Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like

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Speaker 1: there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury

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Speaker 1: law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered

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Speaker 1: twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.

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Speaker 1: It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing,

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Speaker 1: just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,

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Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the

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Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred fifty thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: So with more than one thousand lawyers across the country,

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Speaker 1: they know how to deliver for everyday people. If you're injured,

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Speaker 1: you need a lawyer, you need somebody to get your back,

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Speaker 1: check out for the People dot Com, Slash podcast or

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Speaker 1: now Pound Law, Pound five two nine law on your

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Speaker 1: So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free

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Speaker 1: unless they win. Well, that's funny you say that. I

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Speaker 1: don't disagree like I think i've I find it fascinating

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Speaker 1: how often what you think is the case is the case.

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 1: Have you noticed that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And now part of it is I joke that, you know,

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Speaker 1: if I'm not a great poker player, but I'm a

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Speaker 1: better poker player than Donald Trump. I'd love to play

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Speaker 1: poker with him because he shows his cards constantly, right,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to work very hard to figure out

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Speaker 1: what he's holding. I actually think that's what what is

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Speaker 1: some of his appeal as I I think people think, well,

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Speaker 1: I know exactly what he's doing and thinking I don't

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Speaker 1: love it either, But he's pretty you know, it's the

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Speaker 1: what's it's the It's one of my favorite things that

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Speaker 1: Mike Johnson likes to try to use as a rationale.

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Speaker 1: You know, well, Donald Trump's very transparent about what he's doing.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't say whether it should be should be happening?

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Speaker 1: You know, you always know what he's doing, you know,

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Speaker 1: when you ask him about crypto or the or a

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Speaker 1: you know, an insider trading deal or a pardon. You know,

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Speaker 1: he's a very transparent president. Well that's kind of true.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Mike Johnson to me is always fascinating as

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Speaker 2: the world's least informed human being. Like you can sort

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Speaker 2: of walk up to him with any Trump story and

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Speaker 2: he's like, ah, never heard of it.

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Speaker 1: That's first I've heard.

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Speaker 2: First I first time. I'm really gonna have to look

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Speaker 2: at I just heard about that as I was walking

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Speaker 2: into this room.

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Speaker 1: Well doesn't it though, Like weirdly, you know it is.

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Speaker 1: But then it's it's funny to be that Mike Johnson

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Speaker 1: saying well I don't think he can serve a third

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Speaker 1: term was a headline, right because you're like, Mike Johnson

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Speaker 1: never says anything definitive, so what he does take it

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Speaker 1: to the bank.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But just sort of the idea that like,

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Speaker 2: you're Speaker of the House and you appear to have

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Speaker 2: no access to news information on a daily basis.

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Speaker 1: So let's take your theory of ten to fifteen years

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Speaker 1: maybe as far back as we're right at the we're

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Speaker 1: just past fifty with Watergate. Now Watergate, as you noted,

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Speaker 1: there was a specific thing to get released, yep, that helped.

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Speaker 1: So the Iran hostage crisis, have you thought about that?

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Speaker 1: You know, there's allegations. You know, there's a couple of

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Speaker 1: books that were written at the time right about you know,

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Speaker 1: the EA that's where October Surprise sort of got mainstream

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Speaker 1: back in the day. And there certainly were plenty of

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Speaker 1: sort of you know, conspiracy theorists about what did the

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Speaker 1: Reagan campaign know about the hostages and when did they

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Speaker 1: know it, et cetera, which has always had a little

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Speaker 1: bit of echo to the South Vietnamese allegation with Nixon.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually would love to do a book on

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Speaker 2: Iran contra. I have noodled that. I've got a big

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Speaker 2: stack of research materials here in my office to that

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Speaker 2: I've been saving over the years, assembling it. I think

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Speaker 2: it is something that we don't understand how fundamentally it

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Speaker 2: reshaped American politics thereafter. Of course, you've got Bill Barr

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Speaker 2: right there in the midst of it, you know, Oliver

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Speaker 2: North infamously a huge part of that.

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Speaker 1: But like Watergate, you know, you described how the burglary

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Speaker 1: was actually you know, there was a whole other you know,

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Speaker 1: this all began in sixty eight. Like Iron Contra as

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Speaker 1: the way some people may remember it, they may think

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Speaker 1: of it as a late Ay scandal, Arguably it started

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Speaker 1: before Reagan became president, right.

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Speaker 2: Yes, And I actually just read Jonathan Blitzer's amazing book

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Speaker 2: on immigration that I think came out last year. Everyone

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Speaker 2: here is Gone, Everyone who is gone is here. Couldn't

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Speaker 2: couldn't recommend it more sort of history of US policy

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Speaker 2: in Latin America. And it's fascinating to sort of realize

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Speaker 2: how much of Iran Contra and the sort of Reagan era,

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Speaker 2: Bush era efforts to you know, destabilize Central American politics

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Speaker 2: are what kicks off downstream the immigration crisis that we

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Speaker 2: are now living with today. And like you know, I'm

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Speaker 2: scribbling in the margins of this book as I'm reading,

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Speaker 2: like Iran Contra in some ways is what gives us

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting through line. Look, I constantly so

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Speaker 1: let me run a theory by you. I have thought

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Speaker 1: that one of the reasons why the CIA just won't

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Speaker 1: come clean about what it knew about Oswald is not

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Speaker 1: because they were involved. It's just the opposite, right, it

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Speaker 1: was the fear that everybody would think they were involved,

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Speaker 1: but more importantly that he was simply a thread into

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Speaker 1: a larger what they were doing in the Western hemisphere,

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Speaker 1: and that copping to Oswald could be a string that

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Speaker 1: you start to pull that unravels a whole lot of

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Speaker 1: bad shit that we did in Latin America in the

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Speaker 1: fifties that could actually be problematic today. Because here's why

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Speaker 1: I think about it this way, Garrett, how is it

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Speaker 1: that we've had back to back presidents Biden and Trump

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Speaker 1: who have had CIA directors, one of whom Trump appointed,

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Speaker 1: one of whom Biden appointed, who when the laws said

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Speaker 1: you got to release it, all the CIA directors is no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: you can't let this happen, and somehow both Trump and

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Speaker 1: Biden agreed to it. I've always wondered, what do these

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Speaker 1: CIA directors say to these presidents to make them say,

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Speaker 1: got it, Okay, I won't do it, I'll figure it,

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Speaker 1: I'll shut this down. My thesis has been that, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that because it would only extend like our playing

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Speaker 1: around with Latin America has sort of like bid us

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Speaker 1: in the ass on multiple times in our sort of

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Speaker 1: recent history. And if you told me that was the

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Speaker 1: reason why Oswald gets this special, weird, special treatment. It's

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Speaker 1: less about Oswald's person and Kennedy the assassination, and more

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Speaker 1: about what bad shit we were doing in Latin America.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but Chuck, don't worry what we're doing in Venezuela

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Speaker 2: right now, it's going to go great. This is the

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Speaker 2: time when the US meddling in the foreign politics of

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Speaker 2: Latin America will go great.

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Speaker 1: Garrett, I speak as a Miamian. I want to see

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Speaker 1: Chavez and Maduro, that entire regime out of there. I

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Speaker 1: have plenty of friends, I get it, right. I be

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Speaker 1: more honest with us, mister president, right, like, tell us

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Speaker 1: the truth about what you're up to, and you might

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Speaker 1: actually get some support for supporting democracy in Venezuela. But

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Speaker 1: to do it this backhanded way, the unintended consequence could

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Speaker 1: be what if Maduro is popular?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, to answer your real question about the Oswald stuff,

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Speaker 2: you know, I don't know whether your thesis is right,

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Speaker 2: but you get at what to me is sort of

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Speaker 2: my central organizing principle of understanding conspiracies, which is my

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Speaker 2: challenge as someone who has covered government for twenty years.

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Speaker 1: And usually debunk conspiracies. Yes, is you're pretty good at

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Speaker 1: debunking them. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Is that government conspiracies presuppose a level of competence, foresight,

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Speaker 2: and strategy that is not on display in the rest

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Speaker 2: of the work that the government does. And it's only

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Speaker 2: cya right, right, And that the government is sort of

435
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 2: able to keep two kinds of secrets. They're able to

436
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: keep big secrets for a short period of time.

437
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: This is the Lodden's you know, beIN Laden's whereabouts.

438
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 2: No, I'm talking about something different actually, like the Manhattan

439
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 2: Project or the D Day invasion. Okay, something that is

440
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 2: thousands of people, but we only need to keep this

441
00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 2: for a period of months or weeks. Or they can

442
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 2: keep sort of small secrets for a long period of time.

443
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 2: And this is where you get in into sort of

444
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 2: secrets that the you know, the Argo plot, you know,

445
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 2: sort of things that the intelligence agencies are able to

446
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 2: keep for a very extended period of time. The challenge

447
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 2: for me with something like the Kennedy assassination, UFOs and Roswell,

448
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 2: which as you know I wrote a book about, or

449
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 2: or you know, nine to eleven Truthers is sort of

450
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: you're asking us to believe that the government is able

451
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 2: to keep big secrets for a long period of time,

452
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 2: that sort of secrets that encompass sort of hundreds or

453
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 2: thousands of people for de aids with no meaningful.

454
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: Compromise, and that the idea that area fifty one could

455
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: be what people what the conspiracy theorists think it is,

456
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: and somehow it would be the secret that we could

457
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: keep for fifty years, that there wouldn't be some cleaning service,

458
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: some spouse, some kid, right, some disgruntled fired employee who

459
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: who didn't have the goods right.

460
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 2: Exactly so, And that's where I think that you know,

461
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 2: sort of whatever is sort of left at the core

462
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 2: of the Kennedy records, I think to your point has

463
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 2: nothing to do with Kennedy anymore.

464
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: That it has to be about CIA workflow of some sort, right,

465
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: And I you know, I it's it's my version of

466
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: Okham's razor. I cannot imagine they weren't, Like, I don't

467
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: buy the idea that that they didn't have them under surveillance.

468
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: You're telling me a marine who defected to the Soviet

469
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: Union wasn't a known person to the CIA.

470
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 2: Is that a believable fact? Absolutely not at least in

471
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 2: that era.

472
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, but the idea that the CIA would somehow

473
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: create this Patsy through this entires program, like our our

474
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:28,479
Speaker 1: version of a reverse Americans, right, Like that also seems

475
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: kind of out there. Absolutely, So there's iron contra. Is

476
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: there more to be done on Monica Lewinsky in the

477
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: first and the first modern impeachment?

478
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 2: I think I think so in part because again that's

479
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 2: and this is a little bit of what you were

480
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 2: talking about with you know, Bill Clinton resigning hypothetical, right,

481
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 2: I don't know that that history has been meaningfully revisited

482
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 2: sort of post me Too, which I think would be.

483
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: It's an interesting way put it. We were kind of, look,

484
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: it's funny Bill Clinton's reputation went into the shitter the

485
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: height of Me Too, Right, it was sort of like, hey,

486
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: what about all that? And everybody's like, yeah, you're right,

487
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have been toleranted that, and then everybody just

488
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: moved on.

489
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 2: Well, and I think that the reputation has changed on

490
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 2: both sides, Bill Clinton's, but then Monica Lewinsky that I

491
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 2: think we as a country have really revisited the you know, stereotypes,

492
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 2: if that's what you want to call it about how

493
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 2: we viewed Monica Lewinsky in the nineteen nineties as this

494
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 2: scandal was unfolding, and that she has done such an

495
00:31:56,520 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 2: impressive job of not just rebuilding, but I think changing

496
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 2: the way that America thinks about her.

497
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: There is no greater victim and a scandal that we've had.

498
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 1: And I remember, I've always felt that boy that Clinton's

499
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: never never fully could ever apologize enough. Yep.

500
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, one of the things

501
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 2: that I sort of came to think about Watergate is

502
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 2: Watergate is best understood not as an event, but as

503
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 2: a mindset, and that really Watergate is this umbrella for

504
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 2: like thirteen to fifteen distinct but overlapping scandals that sort

505
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 2: of all merge from the paranoid, conspiratorial mindset of Richard

506
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 2: Dixon that sort of he brings in and.

507
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: That really date back to.

508
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 2: Me.

509
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: Shoot, one of my favorite Nixon books is one about

510
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: his California Senate race.

511
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 2: I mean, exactly like his parent is exactly who he's

512
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 2: he is straight through his career.

513
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifty Richard Dixon running for the US Senate against

514
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: Helen Kahagen Douglas nineteen fifty two, Checkers speech Nixon nineteen sixty. Right,

515
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 1: it's the same guy, except every loss or grievance fuels him.

516
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 2: Yes, and that he I don't know that we have

517
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 2: ever sort of reappraised Bill Clinton's presidency through that lens.

518
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: That It's funny you say that, because you're right, because

519
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: Monica Lewinsky was the Coleman Nation in exactly of what

520
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton called a vast right wing conspiracy. My only

521
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:11,839
Speaker 1: criticism of her, of her comment was the word conspiracy.

522
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: It wasn't being done underground, right, it was we were

523
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: all watching it and playing. It started with Trooper game.

524
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: It started with Whitewater and Vince Foster and and Travel

525
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 1: Office and you know, the stocks and you know all

526
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: of this, you know, attempt until they finally got him

527
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 1: on something.

528
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 2: Yep. And that I think we would look very differently

529
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 2: at all of that. I mean, remember, like this is

530
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 2: where a lot of the modern Supreme Court ends up

531
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 2: sort of getting their start in the right. Yeah, you know,

532
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 2: this is where Rod Rosenstein gets his start, and that

533
00:34:55,840 --> 00:35:00,040
Speaker 2: sort of there's a long shadow to a lot of

534
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 2: of what transpires during impeachment there and the ken Starr

535
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 2: investigation that I.

536
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 1: See what you did there, by the way, mister longshadow.

537
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 2: That I think we would look very differently at now.

538
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 2: You know, I think one one of the things, and

539
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 2: this is just not an impeachment thing. There's going to

540
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 2: be a big biography written at some point about Bill

541
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 2: Clinton that has not been done yet, and I don't

542
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 2: know whether it will be done during his lifetime, that

543
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:45,359
Speaker 2: I think will dramatically rewrite his his presidency as viewed

544
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 2: by history, you know, I think, and you understand this, Presidents,

545
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: the view of presidents changes dramatically across decades.

546
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: Harry Truman is a great example, right. It's one of

547
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: the the easiest ones for people to grasp because he

548
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: was an unpopular president when he left. In fact, he

549
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: was a punching He was a punchline for Republicans for

550
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 1: a long time. In fact, it was Ronald Reagan that

551
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: arguably revitalized Truman's brand before any Democrat did, and before

552
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 1: David McCullough did. And then David McCullough comes out, and

553
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: everything changes, right, and Harry Truman is now a top

554
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,760
Speaker 1: fifteen president in many historians' minds because.

555
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 2: It and Dwight Eisenhower sort of I think undergoing that

556
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 2: same change, right, now we're living in you know, this

557
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 2: is sort of someone who there was sort of you know,

558
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 2: he's a doddering old golfer for you know, much of

559
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 2: his and then you've seen sort of work by Evan

560
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:47,839
Speaker 2: Thomas and others that have really made us sort of

561
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 2: rethink that this was a much smarter and more strategic

562
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 2: and more consequential president than we've given him credit for.

563
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from

564
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565
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566
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567
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568
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569
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571
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Speaker 1: I was able to go to college. Little did he

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592
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593
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Speaker 1: you've got a growing family. Okay, while I count myself

594
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: among those, I think there's only been two, and I

595
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: think we've had two presidents who of who have been independent,

596
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: truly less, the least partisan presidents we ever had, and

597
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: both of them were commanders, and both of them were

598
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: supreme Allied commanders in the army right. One was General

599
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 1: George Washington and the other one was General Dwite Eyesedewer.

600
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: So I I want to associate myself with that historical

601
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: line of thinking about Ike. However, how much is Eisenhower's

602
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: this renewal of this sort of renewed positive look at

603
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: Eisenhower a reflection of how crappy our leaders are today,

604
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 1: and that we're actually judging Eisenhower not through the prism

605
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:29,399
Speaker 1: of what he did in the fifties, but through the

606
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: prism of looking back and going, wow, he wasn't what

607
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: we have today.

608
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 2: I think that the revisionism around him is something that

609
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 2: started before we fell into our current age of poor

610
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 2: leadership in America. I think the example you're looking for

611
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 2: is George H. W. Bush, where I think you see

612
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 2: a lot of celebration of George H. W. Bush as

613
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 2: sort of the upstanding, you know, president, dedicated in a

614
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:15,720
Speaker 2: life of public service, you know, sort of not of this,

615
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 2: you know, not of this time anymore like that. That

616
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 2: to me is a big part of the gloss that

617
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 2: we put over George H. W. Bush these days.

618
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 1: Oh interesting Okay, I just it's always you know, I

619
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: have found myself and I'm curious if you do this.

620
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:32,879
Speaker 1: There are more and more history books I read where

621
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: I realize when the book was written is very important

622
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 1: to understand before you dive into the interpretation of the

623
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: of the history that the book is attempting to interpret.

624
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely absolutely, And I think, by the way, as

625
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 2: a historian, that's one of the things that is always

626
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 2: incredibly humbling is you never understand a topic more than

627
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 2: when you've only read one book about it, and it's

628
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 2: sort of every book thereafter only makes life more complicated.

629
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of where I think this

630
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 1: is the most, where I have run into it the most,

631
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: because I spent a lot, I read a bunch about it.

632
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with the essentially the post Grant politics of

633
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: America yep. Eighteen seventy six. I've probably read four or

634
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: five different books on the eighteen seventy six election, and

635
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:32,799
Speaker 1: I would argue that the politics of the author are

636
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 1: what distinguishes each of the books, not the information. The

637
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: information is mostly the same. The interpretation of the information

638
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: is what's different. And that is one that I find

639
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: myself pulling my hair out sometimes reading these various accounts

640
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: because they're this similar, but they're not the same, and

641
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: they really are more about how the author perceives Republicans

642
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:03,280
Speaker 1: versus Democrats in the twenty first century or late twentieth

643
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: century when one of them was written versus versus in

644
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: that moment in time.

645
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, no, I think that's very true, and I

646
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 2: think that that's a challenge across a lot of the

647
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 2: way that narrative history ends up getting written, you know,

648
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 2: as you know, I spend a lot of time doing

649
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 2: oral history. And to me, part of the power of

650
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 2: oral history and why I think it's sort of so

651
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 2: important as a tradition and a writing form is the

652
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 2: way that it puts you back in moments when the

653
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 2: participants are living them, are experiencing them before they know

654
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 2: the outcome. That I think sort of one of the

655
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:56,720
Speaker 2: drawbacks of a lot of narrative history is it makes

656
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 2: events seem neater, cleaner, simpler, and more preordained than they

657
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 2: felt to anyone who was living through them at the time.

658
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 2: That you know, you and I, you know, think about

659
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 2: where we are right now, like none of us know

660
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 2: where we are in the arc of the American story

661
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 2: right now. And if you if we sit down someday

662
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 2: ten years, fifteen years, fifty years later to write the

663
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 2: story of today, like, we'll know exactly how it goes,

664
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 2: and we'll be able to, you know, sort of plot

665
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 2: our story. But if you're interviewing you and me about

666
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,720
Speaker 2: you know, well, what did you feel in September twenty five,

667
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 2: you know, October twenty five, November twenty five, you know,

668
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 2: we're going to give you very different answers.

669
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: On the oral history front, it seems that a great

670
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: January sixth is going to be a terrific oral history

671
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: at some point. But I'm gonna I don't feel like

672
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: it's ripe yet. I assume you don't think it's ripe yet.

673
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,320
Speaker 1: My gut is that's not ripe until Trump dies.

674
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're actually you know, January, this January twenty

675
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:18,399
Speaker 2: six will be five years. There are actually two good

676
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 2: oral histories that are coming out, one by Nora Noose

677
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 2: who wrote an oral history of of Charlottesville, and then

678
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 2: the other by Mary Claire Jolanic, who you probably know

679
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 2: from the AP And I think that they are you know,

680
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:46,280
Speaker 2: very solid, good sort of first drafts of oral histories,

681
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 2: you know. Part of the challenge with the January sixth

682
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 2: oral histories, I think forever is going to be untangling

683
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 2: the truth because there are so many villains in that

684
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 2: story whose voices need to be in there that and

685
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 2: they're tough. You know.

686
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: It's funny. I've interviewed Roger Stone a lot for various projects.

687
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: I think I know when he's bullshitting, and I think

688
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: I know when he's telling me the truth. But I Garrett,

689
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: you have to take my word for it. Yep, he's not.

690
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: I also know he's not a reliable narrator.

691
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 2: And my trustee, Roger Stone mug here where I said

692
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:37,720
Speaker 2: I wrote a history of Watergate that was a finalist

693
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 2: for the Pulitzer Prize last year. And let me tell

694
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 2: you when Nixon said, if the president does it, it's

695
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 2: not illegal, no one believes that was true, to which

696
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:50,440
Speaker 2: Roger Stone replies, your book is laughable fiction, Pullet serprize,

697
00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 2: My ass, get the truth now, my coffee mug.

698
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 1: That's fun. Roger has this. Roger and I have a

699
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 1: love hate relationship. I think he loves to hate me,

700
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,759
Speaker 1: and yet he can't quit. He's obsessed with because he

701
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: was obsessed with the hotline back in the day, and

702
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,360
Speaker 1: that was you know, we covered back when he was

703
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 1: a relevant political consultant and things like that. But you

704
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: kind of I'm curious how you we all develop our

705
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: bullshit detectors with people that are serial liars, right, you know,

706
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: And and I do feel like there are ways to

707
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:38,280
Speaker 1: figure that out. I mean, you know, do you feel

708
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 1: I mean, you've had to I don't know, did you

709
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:43,280
Speaker 1: ever interview g. Gordon Letty for anything?

710
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 2: No here on his radio show, but never actually interviewed him.

711
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've interviewed a serial liar and

712
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: you knew it going in, and how did you deal

713
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:53,520
Speaker 1: with it?

714
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 2: Yeah? I absolutely have. You know, a lot of my

715
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 2: has been with in covering federal law enforcement, and so

716
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 2: you know, I've interviewed a fair number of criminals over

717
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 2: the years in one form or another. You know, when

718
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 2: I was doing the Watergate book, you know, I actually joked.

719
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 2: You know.

720
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 1: The core.

721
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 2: Primary sources for that are about three dozen memoirs, all

722
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 2: of which were written by people who were later convicted

723
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 2: of perjury or obstruction of justice, and so they are

724
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 2: sort of the most unreliable sets of memoirs you could

725
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 2: ever possibly imagine. And I dealt with it in my

726
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 2: book with a whole lot of footnotes that are like,

727
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 2: you know, it's also possible this meeting never happened because

728
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 2: all three of the participants in this meeting you know

729
00:47:56,640 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 2: who wrote about it, denied that they said anything in it.

730
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: That's funny. I'm enjoying that sort of going through. But

731
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 1: answer the other question, do you think it'll be easier

732
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: to get more truthful answers of the people that were

733
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: in and around Trump after Trump is gone? And that

734
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,239
Speaker 1: that would be my concern about an oral history of

735
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: January six?

736
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I don't think we're I actually I talked

737
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 2: a very prominent Washington journalist, or helped to talk a

738
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 2: very prominent Washington journalist out of doing an oral history

739
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 2: of Trump's first term for sort of exactly that first

740
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 2: That reason was, I was like, the only reason there

741
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,920
Speaker 2: has been any good journalism about Trump is anonymous sources,

742
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 2: and you can't do an anonymously sourced oral history.

743
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:55,239
Speaker 1: So I've done a few Q and a's with Bryan

744
00:48:55,280 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: to previous recently work over at US. He's got a

745
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: kid at USC, so are doing a little something for USC.

746
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: And he is this great line because he told me

747
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: the story, so I've used it as a way to

748
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:11,399
Speaker 1: He said, so, why haven't you written a book about

749
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 1: your time in the Trump White House? And he says

750
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 1: that Trump will ask him that how come you have

751
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: written a book? Right, And he says, mister President, I

752
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: can't tell the truth and I won't lie. Yeah, so

753
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,759
Speaker 1: I say that in that you know, there are plenty

754
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: of people in this town that have a living to

755
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: make in their minds, and they're just not going to

756
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: do it. It's not worth it, right Yeah.

757
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,919
Speaker 2: Well, well, and by the way, what you're talking about

758
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:44,879
Speaker 2: right now is not unrelated to the unraveling and backsliding

759
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:48,879
Speaker 2: of American democracy, which is a whole lot of very

760
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 2: powerful people in Washington and elsewhere in the country, and

761
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 2: a whole lot of powerful institutions making a very cynical

762
00:49:56,520 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 2: choice that it is not worth their own person cost

763
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 2: to stand up and you know, speak the truth or

764
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 2: object or you know, to be the person who the

765
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 2: Trump administration ends up zeroing in their fire.

766
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 1: I don't want to assume where your head is at

767
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 1: when it comes to how could what you know on

768
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: the defcon scale? Where are you when it comes to

769
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: the future of our democracy. I use a phrase that

770
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:32,879
Speaker 1: says I'm long term, I'm short term pessimistic, the long

771
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:37,399
Speaker 1: term optimistic. And I often joke that in nineteen thirty

772
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 1: nine I would have said I was short term pessimistic

773
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: and long term optimistic, and by nineteen forty six I'd

774
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,439
Speaker 1: have been correct. A lot of bad shit happened between

775
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty six. I get the

776
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:56,719
Speaker 1: impression you're more alarmed at times than maybe you think

777
00:50:56,800 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 1: the rest of us are. And yet at the same time,

778
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:02,239
Speaker 1: I also notice every once in a while you take

779
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 1: a step back the other way, where Yeah, I think

780
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 1: that's accurate.

781
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 2: I think we are underestimating how bad things are right

782
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 2: now and the trajectory of where we are, you know,

783
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 2: nine ish months into this administration, and sort of how

784
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 2: much worse it can get, because I think we are

785
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:33,760
Speaker 2: still as Americans trapped in a it can't happen here.

786
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 2: We're America. You know this is you know, I think, Chuck,

787
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:45,000
Speaker 2: too many of our colleagues and friends are not speaking

788
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 2: clear eyed in the media about sort of what what

789
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 2: is actually happening that we sort of continue to you.

790
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 2: The more you speak clear eyed. The more you don't

791
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 2: have a job in that well, yes, which is you know,

792
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:02,840
Speaker 2: which which is not not an accident, right, but the

793
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 2: you know, the the way that we sort of still

794
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:09,839
Speaker 2: use a lot of euphemisms of you know, Trump is

795
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:13,320
Speaker 2: pushing the bounds of presidential power.

796
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:19,319
Speaker 1: Uh, but that's editing. That's editing, that's editing, that's not

797
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: coming from the journalists. Yes, yeah, just so you know,

798
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 1: I mean, unfortunately, but.

799
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:27,959
Speaker 2: I do agree with you, and I actually I sat

800
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 2: down at a little bit ago this fault and tried

801
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 2: to organize my sense of hope into sort of three buckets,

802
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 2: because I do I think have long term hope for America.

803
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 2: We will never be the country that we were before,

804
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 2: because we can now never say this didn't happen here.

805
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:04,280
Speaker 2: But I do think we are in a moment where, uh,

806
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 2: there is more reason for long term hope or long

807
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:12,759
Speaker 2: term optimism, as you say. And and the sort of

808
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 2: three reasons that I ended up sort of organizing my

809
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 2: thoughts around were one, uh and and this is all

810
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 2: me speaking for myself and not necessarily associating you, uh

811
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 2: with with with any of this is you know, there

812
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:35,359
Speaker 2: are more of us than there are of them that

813
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 2: Trump is actually a historically unpopular figure. You know that

814
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 2: there two thirds of America did not vote for Donald Trump.

815
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 2: He is institutionally and politically much weaker than I think

816
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 2: many journalists and institutions sort of think that he is

817
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:02,879
Speaker 2: day to day and that.

818
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: You know, we's got a strong grip on a weekend.

819
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:12,759
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. The second is and this is exactly I

820
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 2: think the what what you were talking about and what

821
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 2: we've talked about a little bit over the course of

822
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 2: this episode is for me, history is a source of hope,

823
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 2: which is America has had dark chapters before. Sometimes those

824
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 2: chapters are long, but that there are many stories of America,

825
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 2: and the one that I choose to believe is that

826
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 2: we are a country that strives to get better. That

827
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:52,440
Speaker 2: sort of decade by decade, generation to generation, we are

828
00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:58,799
Speaker 2: a country that tries to get closer to living up

829
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 2: to the very imperfect creed that we were founded upon,

830
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:06,919
Speaker 2: of all men are created equal. That at that point

831
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 2: was a creed that you know, not only excluded women

832
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 2: and minorities and Native Americans, but also you know, white

833
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:20,760
Speaker 2: men who didn't own property. And that sort of decade

834
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 2: by decade, generation by generation, we are a country that

835
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 2: has sort of been generally moving towards progress. And then

836
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:37,480
Speaker 2: the third for me is actuarial, which is, I don't

837
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:39,759
Speaker 2: know where we are in the Donald Trump story. I

838
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 2: don't know whether we are in the beginning, the middle,

839
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:47,239
Speaker 2: or the end. I don't know whether Donald Trump will

840
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:51,360
Speaker 2: figure out a way to hold on for a third term,

841
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:57,440
Speaker 2: maybe a fourth term. But I do know that, you know, actuarily,

842
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's reign over ar in politics is going to

843
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 2: be measured in years and not decades. That this is

844
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 2: not a.

845
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 1: Situation closer to the end than the beginning.

846
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:13,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, that this is not him as America's Franco who

847
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 2: reigned in Spain from nineteen thirty nine right through the

848
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. And that I think whenever Donald Trump exits

849
00:56:23,680 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 2: the stage, however that happens, and I'm not I have

850
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:31,840
Speaker 2: no medical conspiracies to offer you. I have no predictions

851
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 2: about how or when that happens, whether it's noon on

852
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 2: January twentieth of twenty twenty nine, or before or after.

853
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:50,440
Speaker 2: But he has failed to build an actual movement in Mada.

854
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 2: He has hearted.

855
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 1: I talk about this. He's too lazy to be Hitler right.

856
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:56,920
Speaker 2: That he I mean, I'm sorry, I don't dials to

857
00:56:56,920 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 2: put it. He has sort of a setumbled, a weird

858
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:10,759
Speaker 2: coalition of a personality cult of white nationalists and conspiracists

859
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:16,360
Speaker 2: and anti government extremists and crypto bros and couple of grifters,

860
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 2: and then a whole bunch of grifters and a group

861
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 2: of people who are genuinely correct in their belief that

862
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 2: they have been you know that the era of sort

863
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 2: of neoliberal Larry Summer's globalization has not worked out very

864
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 2: well for them as workers and citizens and a whole

865
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 2: bunch of people whose brains have been rotted by Fox

866
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 2: News and Facebook. And that the moment Trump exits, that

867
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 2: coalition fractures, and that you know, this is not a

868
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 2: coalition that sort of immediately transfers its loyalty to jd Vance.

869
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 2: It doesn't immediately go to Don Junior, it doesn't immediately

870
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 2: go to Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. And that there

871
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 2: will be a moment at that fracturing where sort of

872
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 2: people in history can begin to try to reassert itself.

873
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:24,520
Speaker 1: You have, You've given voice to why. I just think

874
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 1: that we're gonna turn a corner. Now. It's gonna be

875
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:34,200
Speaker 1: uneven and I don't know, you know, the Democratic Party

876
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: still had you know that there. They still think they're

877
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: just going to benefit from a seesaw effect, and until

878
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: they sort of come up with a better theory of

879
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:46,920
Speaker 1: the case, we could be living in this sort of

880
00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:49,320
Speaker 1: uneven period for for some time.

881
00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 2: And by the way, there's there's an there's a point

882
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 2: there that I think is important, Chuck, which is I

883
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 2: think Democrats have still not appropriately admitted that Trump voters

884
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:07,000
Speaker 2: aren't wrong.

885
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:11,040
Speaker 1: That's well, until they get there. I wrote this couple

886
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:19,240
Speaker 1: substecs ago. The Democrats don't don't recover until they admit

887
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: Trump voters were right about some things. Yes, And because

888
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: they have to go win those voters, and you're not

889
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:28,440
Speaker 1: going to win them by telling them how wrong they

890
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:32,160
Speaker 1: were about Trump, that the best shot you have at

891
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 1: them is to say you were right, and Trump lets

892
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 1: you down.

893
00:59:36,320 --> 00:59:38,920
Speaker 2: Yes, And then I think Democrats have done this weird

894
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 2: thing where the two times Donald Trump has beat them,

895
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 2: they have just put an asterisk next to that election

896
00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:55,760
Speaker 2: and been like, oh, you know, twenty sixteen Russia, Hillary's emails,

897
00:59:56,440 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 2: that'll never happen again. Oh, twenty twenty four Biden was

898
01:00:04,080 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 2: too old. We shouldn't have nominated Kamala. There were only

899
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 2: one hundred and seven days. You know, that'll never happen again,

900
01:00:13,200 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 2: and that sort of We're only.

901
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 1: One white male.

902
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:27,720
Speaker 2: Away from running a totally normal election that we can win.

903
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 2: And I think it's a lot deeper than that.

904
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:38,919
Speaker 1: No, I don't think Democrats have lost enough yet. It's

905
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:41,080
Speaker 1: not lost in me that they needed a second kick

906
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 1: to the head after eighty four. You know, eighty four

907
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 1: was supposed to be the all time low for them,

908
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:52,800
Speaker 1: and then they went and nominated a technocrat, not a

909
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:55,960
Speaker 1: total liberal, but a technocrat, and that didn't work either, right,

910
01:00:56,040 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 1: because he was a cultural This is sort of culturally

911
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 1: out of touch, and it just was a you know,

912
01:01:03,800 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 1: that's when they realized they had to have a cultural makeover.

913
01:01:06,520 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a policy makeover they need to because

914
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:13,960
Speaker 1: do Coccus's policies were fine for the electorate. What it

915
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: really was was cultural issues. And that's what Bill Clinton understood.

916
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:22,360
Speaker 2: I would like to have to live in the country

917
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:28,560
Speaker 2: where Mike Docaucus's rail policies kicked in. Starting in nineteen

918
01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:33,720
Speaker 2: eighty nine.

919
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 1: I had somebody say something made myself I had somebody

920
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 1: who made me feel better about our rail policy when

921
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 1: he noted, because you know, I did, you know, over

922
01:01:39,720 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 1: a couple holidays ago, did a family did the family

923
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: did a family trip to Germany and did the whole thing,

924
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:47,600
Speaker 1: the whole German history thing, which is just amazing. And

925
01:01:47,640 --> 01:01:52,600
Speaker 1: we took the train from Berlinda Munich and it's unbelievable, right,

926
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:56,760
Speaker 1: unbelievable ride, beautiful train. And as somebody said to me,

927
01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:01,120
Speaker 1: he says, because you're a prioritized their trains for people

928
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:05,160
Speaker 1: and their roads for freight, and America prioritize their trains

929
01:02:05,160 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 1: for freight and their roads for people. And then this

930
01:02:09,240 --> 01:02:13,360
Speaker 1: person argues, and you may not love it, but whose

931
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 1: GDP is bigger? And I just thought it was somebody

932
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:20,400
Speaker 1: that when this person framed it that way, and they

933
01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:23,840
Speaker 1: weren't a lobbyist for CSX for what it's worth, Okay,

934
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:26,640
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna that wasn't like it was more of

935
01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:30,160
Speaker 1: an economic economist. And I thought, huh, I hadn't thought

936
01:02:30,200 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 1: of it that way. That. Look, it's true, and had

937
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:36,840
Speaker 1: we prioritized trains for people instead of freight, we would

938
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: have better.

939
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:40,919
Speaker 2: Rout I believe that certainly, has some truth to it.

940
01:02:41,640 --> 01:02:43,480
Speaker 2: I would like to think in a country with as

941
01:02:43,560 --> 01:02:45,880
Speaker 2: much space as the United States has, we could have

942
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:46,480
Speaker 2: gotten both.

943
01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:49,280
Speaker 1: We could have done both that too, right and had

944
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 1: a nice, nice, comfortable rail system. Yeah, and with that,

945
01:02:56,000 --> 01:03:01,240
Speaker 1: you ever thought about dabbling outside of politics and government. No,

946
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:05,720
Speaker 1: you're not going to get suckered in like Woodward did

947
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:06,560
Speaker 1: with John Belushi.

948
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 2: Uh, very very boring. Uh answer I because OJ.

949
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:14,560
Speaker 1: Here's what Here's the only thing I would love to

950
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 1: see us do when I say us somebody of your

951
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:23,720
Speaker 1: historical because I do think OJ is a story we

952
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 1: haven't revisited correctly.

953
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

954
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:31,040
Speaker 1: I think we got close with the We got close

955
01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 1: with at least explaining why LA responded the way they

956
01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:39,479
Speaker 1: did to OJ, and that's what the ESPN, But we've

957
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:43,440
Speaker 1: never fully explained how. You know. I'm I'm one of

958
01:03:43,440 --> 01:03:47,000
Speaker 1: those who says, without OJ, you don't get Trump. M hmm.

959
01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:53,920
Speaker 1: Because OJ fundamentally changed the TV news business. Before OJ,

960
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: it was not you know, there there's always been this

961
01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 1: obsession that it's a ratings driven business, but it actually

962
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:06,479
Speaker 1: wasn't until OJ. Because that was the moment when news

963
01:04:06,520 --> 01:04:09,760
Speaker 1: divisions decided, Hey, why don't we give people what they

964
01:04:09,800 --> 01:04:13,120
Speaker 1: want to watch as a newscast rather than what they

965
01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:16,280
Speaker 1: need to watch. Mh. We didn't do that pre OJ,

966
01:04:17,680 --> 01:04:20,120
Speaker 1: but OJ was the first time, Hey, this was this

967
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 1: was an event we wanted treated like a news story,

968
01:04:22,920 --> 01:04:26,440
Speaker 1: and the audience asked for that, and CNN said okay.

969
01:04:27,280 --> 01:04:29,880
Speaker 1: And CNN made a boatload of money and they made

970
01:04:29,960 --> 01:04:32,439
Speaker 1: so much money doing it. Then NBC and Fox said,

971
01:04:32,560 --> 01:04:35,480
Speaker 1: wait a minute, we want a piece of this cable business.

972
01:04:36,120 --> 01:04:40,640
Speaker 1: You guys can't have it alone. So if I were

973
01:04:40,640 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 1: to throw an eye, if I were throwing pitches at

974
01:04:44,440 --> 01:04:52,480
Speaker 1: you for what you should tackle, how OJ changed you

975
01:04:52,520 --> 01:04:56,920
Speaker 1: know how? I do think the OJ aification of the

976
01:04:56,920 --> 01:05:00,920
Speaker 1: news business set us on this course. Yeah, that we

977
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:04,360
Speaker 1: are that we of the algorithmic. You know, before we

978
01:05:04,360 --> 01:05:08,640
Speaker 1: had algorithms deciding what we wanted to see. We told,

979
01:05:08,800 --> 01:05:11,280
Speaker 1: you know, we told CNN no, no, no, no no, we're

980
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 1: going to watch court TV if you don't cover OJA.

981
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:17,920
Speaker 1: And they said, okay, we'll cover OJ. We'll stop covering news,

982
01:05:18,240 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 1: We'll just do OJ twenty four seven. It's a great

983
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:26,040
Speaker 1: business decision. It changed journalism forever.

984
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:28,320
Speaker 2: And it gave us the Kardashians.

985
01:05:28,640 --> 01:05:32,200
Speaker 1: I love to remind people of this. You will love this. Garrett.

986
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:36,440
Speaker 1: I teach a class at USC. OJ died on the

987
01:05:36,560 --> 01:05:39,680
Speaker 1: day that I was teaching, So I thought, oh, at

988
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:43,880
Speaker 1: USC students, I've got to do OJ. So I said,

989
01:05:43,880 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 1: all right, we're scrapping what the lecture is going to be.

990
01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:47,600
Speaker 1: We're going to do OJ. You know, this is USC

991
01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:50,440
Speaker 1: you guys, you know, and before I got there, this

992
01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 1: is whatever he died last year, I think it was.

993
01:05:53,440 --> 01:05:55,600
Speaker 1: So I do a quick ask, you know, what do

994
01:05:55,600 --> 01:05:58,240
Speaker 1: you guys know about OJ? The first thing someone says

995
01:05:58,280 --> 01:05:59,960
Speaker 1: is isn't he Chloe Kardashian's file?

996
01:06:02,920 --> 01:06:03,439
Speaker 2: And I knew.

997
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:06,160
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, this is going to be

998
01:06:06,200 --> 01:06:12,439
Speaker 1: a long couple of hours. I just throw that out there.

999
01:06:12,480 --> 01:06:14,480
Speaker 1: I think it's the one pop culture event that had

1000
01:06:14,520 --> 01:06:17,480
Speaker 1: true political ramification. Yeah, but I think you're right because

1001
01:06:17,520 --> 01:06:19,280
Speaker 1: of what it did to the news media, and I

1002
01:06:19,720 --> 01:06:21,640
Speaker 1: don't think we've fully reckoned with it. I've had this

1003
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 1: conversation with my friend Andy Lack, who was head of

1004
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:26,520
Speaker 1: the NBC at the time, and he pushes back on

1005
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:28,480
Speaker 1: me a little bit, and you know, he says, oh,

1006
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:30,280
Speaker 1: the news business has always covered a little bit of

1007
01:06:30,280 --> 01:06:32,400
Speaker 1: what people want and a little bit of what people need,

1008
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, but we used to have a balance.

1009
01:06:35,480 --> 01:06:38,520
Speaker 1: Yeah the minute we had a metric every fifteen minutes

1010
01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 1: of what people were thinking. Then all of a sudden

1011
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:45,800
Speaker 1: we changed. We let the audience be the managing editor. Yeah,

1012
01:06:46,520 --> 01:06:48,040
Speaker 1: that's an interesting theory.

1013
01:06:48,240 --> 01:06:48,720
Speaker 2: I like it.

1014
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:51,920
Speaker 1: What do you got going on with Long Shadow? Before

1015
01:06:51,920 --> 01:06:54,240
Speaker 1: I let you go? People come in and subscribe, what

1016
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 1: do they get.

1017
01:06:55,160 --> 01:07:01,200
Speaker 2: So Long Shadow? We are just out with our fourth season.

1018
01:07:02,200 --> 01:07:07,680
Speaker 2: This is the story of every season. We try to

1019
01:07:07,760 --> 01:07:11,959
Speaker 2: do a as I was saying at the top, sort

1020
01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:15,040
Speaker 2: of pick us story in the news today and tell

1021
01:07:15,120 --> 01:07:18,920
Speaker 2: us how we got to today. And this year's season

1022
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:24,760
Speaker 2: available wherever you get your podcasts, is the breaking of

1023
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:28,200
Speaker 2: the Internet, sort of how a tool that was supposed

1024
01:07:28,240 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 2: to bring us together ended up driving us all apart.

1025
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:36,640
Speaker 2: And it was, as I was talking about earlier, I think,

1026
01:07:36,680 --> 01:07:38,840
Speaker 2: a fascinating example. I lived a lot of the story.

1027
01:07:38,880 --> 01:07:40,280
Speaker 2: You lived a lot of the story, you know. I

1028
01:07:40,280 --> 01:07:44,200
Speaker 2: think one of the hardest things that we struggled with

1029
01:07:44,240 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 2: in this season was to take people back to the

1030
01:07:49,960 --> 01:07:53,200
Speaker 2: early two thousands and sort of how promising and exciting

1031
01:07:53,240 --> 01:07:55,800
Speaker 2: the Internet seemed before we sort of all realized it

1032
01:07:55,840 --> 01:08:01,360
Speaker 2: was going to ruin our politics and our world was

1033
01:08:01,400 --> 01:08:08,640
Speaker 2: sort of just how exciting the Internet was, and that

1034
01:08:08,880 --> 01:08:14,560
Speaker 2: trajectory from there to you know, the manosphere and the

1035
01:08:14,600 --> 01:08:19,840
Speaker 2: red Pill today, you know, turns out to be a

1036
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:26,000
Speaker 2: much more linear story of individuals making important decisions along

1037
01:08:26,040 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 2: the way that seemed relatively inconsequential at the time, but

1038
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:36,240
Speaker 2: really altered the trajectory of the way that we consume information.

1039
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:40,080
Speaker 1: What is the fork in the road moment on algorithms.

1040
01:08:40,680 --> 01:08:46,760
Speaker 2: The fork in the road algorithms is Facebook choosing to

1041
01:08:46,840 --> 01:08:52,200
Speaker 2: be advertiser driven. That's what changes the whole Internet, because

1042
01:08:53,080 --> 01:08:55,880
Speaker 2: the moment that they decide that they are going to

1043
01:08:55,960 --> 01:08:58,000
Speaker 2: be advertiser driven.

1044
01:08:59,680 --> 01:09:02,639
Speaker 1: Max basically driven by shareholders or investors.

1045
01:09:02,720 --> 01:09:06,920
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that was you know, Facebook going public and

1046
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:09,280
Speaker 2: you know, needing to make a lot of money really quickly,

1047
01:09:10,240 --> 01:09:16,960
Speaker 2: and Facebook deciding that begins to optimize the whole site

1048
01:09:17,120 --> 01:09:20,720
Speaker 2: for how long they can keep users engaged. And what

1049
01:09:21,240 --> 01:09:27,439
Speaker 2: Facebook figures out pretty quickly with its newsfeed algorithm, followed

1050
01:09:28,200 --> 01:09:31,200
Speaker 2: later by Twitter and you know almost every other social

1051
01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:37,120
Speaker 2: media site since is that things that make people angry

1052
01:09:38,080 --> 01:09:42,519
Speaker 2: make them engage, And so if you want engagement, you

1053
01:09:42,640 --> 01:09:49,920
Speaker 2: want enragement and that sort of they begin to very

1054
01:09:50,000 --> 01:09:54,400
Speaker 2: carefully tweak that algorithm so that what you see in

1055
01:09:54,439 --> 01:09:58,880
Speaker 2: your news feed is the story of things that make

1056
01:09:58,960 --> 01:10:03,840
Speaker 2: you mad prize us, and that we now sort of

1057
01:10:03,920 --> 01:10:12,920
Speaker 2: understand from internal Facebook documents that Facebook weights prioritizes the

1058
01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:19,240
Speaker 2: equivalent of its dislike button five times more strongly than

1059
01:10:19,840 --> 01:10:23,600
Speaker 2: the like button. And so you know, whatever you're scrolling

1060
01:10:23,640 --> 01:10:28,599
Speaker 2: through chuck that makes you personally angry, you get five

1061
01:10:28,680 --> 01:10:31,439
Speaker 2: times more that content than that which you actually like,

1062
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:35,120
Speaker 2: and that that it becomes the backdrop of so much

1063
01:10:35,360 --> 01:10:39,759
Speaker 2: of the backlash to the Arab Spring, you know, literal

1064
01:10:40,400 --> 01:10:45,680
Speaker 2: genocide in Me and mar the Russian interference in the

1065
01:10:45,720 --> 01:10:51,400
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen campaign, and then of course you know COVID

1066
01:10:51,640 --> 01:10:59,320
Speaker 2: and anti vaccine conspiracies and sort of the the big

1067
01:10:59,360 --> 01:11:01,080
Speaker 2: lie leading up to January sixth.

1068
01:11:02,520 --> 01:11:06,240
Speaker 1: I love what you're doing. There's a similar there's a

1069
01:11:06,280 --> 01:11:09,439
Speaker 1: business podcast. Do you you ever done the Acquired series?

1070
01:11:09,720 --> 01:11:09,920
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1071
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:14,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, there they do very it's sort of episodic, big long,

1072
01:11:14,800 --> 01:11:18,320
Speaker 1: deep dive, slightly different, but like on a company, How

1073
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:22,519
Speaker 1: did Google become Google? That sort of thing. It's a

1074
01:11:23,800 --> 01:11:27,000
Speaker 1: I think it's the best of podcasting yeah, you know,

1075
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:31,519
Speaker 1: so I am. I'm glad it's there. Do you do

1076
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:35,640
Speaker 1: you think it's that I don't think books are getting replaced,

1077
01:11:35,640 --> 01:11:40,800
Speaker 1: but do you Is this a because these are all

1078
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:43,080
Speaker 1: things you could have done as a book, but you're

1079
01:11:43,120 --> 01:11:47,679
Speaker 1: doing it as a podcast. Is that simply a choice

1080
01:11:47,880 --> 01:11:50,479
Speaker 1: or it could be in either or and right now

1081
01:11:50,560 --> 01:11:53,559
Speaker 1: the podcast makes more sense to be.

1082
01:11:53,560 --> 01:11:56,800
Speaker 2: There a little bit of either or. You know, podcasts

1083
01:11:56,840 --> 01:12:01,800
Speaker 2: reach a different audience, which you know is U has

1084
01:12:01,840 --> 01:12:09,320
Speaker 2: its strengths and from a production standpoint, they're also sort

1085
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:12,040
Speaker 2: of slightly different stories that you can sort of tell

1086
01:12:12,120 --> 01:12:16,799
Speaker 2: and in a podcast where you have good archival sound,

1087
01:12:16,920 --> 01:12:22,200
Speaker 2: where you have you know, good interviews that you can

1088
01:12:22,240 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 2: do that sort of make these stories more come alive

1089
01:12:25,560 --> 01:12:27,160
Speaker 2: than I think they can on the page.

1090
01:12:28,439 --> 01:12:31,599
Speaker 1: Well, look, it's what you're what you were built to do.

1091
01:12:32,680 --> 01:12:36,360
Speaker 1: So it's now it's like you don't you know, usually

1092
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:38,760
Speaker 1: big historical book authors they do a big book, they

1093
01:12:38,840 --> 01:12:41,080
Speaker 1: take a break and they do you're just now you've

1094
01:12:41,479 --> 01:12:44,799
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you always have how many projects, live projects

1095
01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:45,920
Speaker 1: do you have going at one time?

1096
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:49,920
Speaker 2: Oh? I love the mix of sort of the short

1097
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:55,639
Speaker 2: term magazine newsletter writing, the you know, sort of mid

1098
01:12:55,760 --> 01:12:59,920
Speaker 2: term mid length podcast writing and the long term book writing.

1099
01:13:00,479 --> 01:13:04,240
Speaker 2: You know, I try to do a book every year

1100
01:13:04,840 --> 01:13:08,160
Speaker 2: or eighteen months, depending on what the topic is, and

1101
01:13:08,200 --> 01:13:11,599
Speaker 2: then one podcast season a year, and then try to write,

1102
01:13:11,960 --> 01:13:14,080
Speaker 2: you know, more or less weekly for my newsletter.

1103
01:13:14,120 --> 01:13:18,720
Speaker 1: It's wonderful, seems very simple, but I'm well aware of

1104
01:13:20,160 --> 01:13:23,720
Speaker 1: that that you fall behind very quickly, exactly matter what,

1105
01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:27,120
Speaker 1: no matter what, no matter how well you think your scheduleding. Garrett,

1106
01:13:27,120 --> 01:13:28,800
Speaker 1: thanks for humoring me. I went a little longer than

1107
01:13:28,800 --> 01:13:30,720
Speaker 1: I planned to, but you know, you're too good of

1108
01:13:30,720 --> 01:13:33,320
Speaker 1: a conversationalist. I'm just too into this stuff.

1109
01:13:33,720 --> 01:13:35,400
Speaker 2: Well, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, and

1110
01:13:35,479 --> 01:13:38,880
Speaker 2: I've appreciated our friendship across a lot of different chapters

1111
01:13:38,920 --> 01:13:40,200
Speaker 2: of our respective lives.

1112
01:13:40,680 --> 01:13:45,240
Speaker 1: No, and at a minimum, I enjoyed the history brainstorming here. Yes,

1113
01:13:45,600 --> 01:13:47,920
Speaker 1: you know of different ways to tackle different things, and

1114
01:13:48,920 --> 01:13:54,520
Speaker 1: I have a feeling you would be an interesting candidate.

1115
01:13:54,200 --> 01:13:58,000
Speaker 2: On Bill clin I have considered it.

1116
01:13:58,400 --> 01:14:01,600
Speaker 1: Yes, well, I I hope you pursue it, and I

1117
01:14:01,640 --> 01:14:08,120
Speaker 1: totally agree. I think it's it. Probably it probably needs

1118
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:12,400
Speaker 1: to wait until there's there's a un till all the

1119
01:14:12,439 --> 01:14:16,680
Speaker 1: actuary tables have kicked in yep. So well, I know

1120
01:14:16,760 --> 01:14:19,720
Speaker 1: we all are interested. We're all interested in what Hillary Clinton.

1121
01:14:19,360 --> 01:14:24,599
Speaker 2: Has to say, and I will look forward to crediting

1122
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:27,080
Speaker 2: you on the first line of the acknowledgments of the

1123
01:14:27,080 --> 01:14:29,080
Speaker 2: OJ book. There you go.

1124
01:14:29,560 --> 01:14:32,040
Speaker 1: Well, there's more to be done here. I keep trying

1125
01:14:32,080 --> 01:14:33,479
Speaker 1: to look for a better way to do it.

1126
01:14:33,600 --> 01:14:34,000
Speaker 2: I know.

1127
01:14:37,000 --> 01:14:40,640
Speaker 1: When I spend time. Let's just say, I wrote an

1128
01:14:40,760 --> 01:14:44,439
Speaker 1: entire essay and my former company begged me not to

1129
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:51,080
Speaker 1: have it air, and they had that right, but I

1130
01:14:51,120 --> 01:14:54,559
Speaker 1: do think it's it's our it's case, it's television news

1131
01:14:54,680 --> 01:14:59,000
Speaker 1: is original sin? Anyway, all right, my friend, thanks for

1132
01:14:59,040 --> 01:14:59,280
Speaker 1: the time.

1133
01:14:59,920 --> 01:15:02,720
Speaker 2: I Hey,