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Speaker 1: I have a little bit of a theme with a

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Speaker 1: couple of my interviews this week. Happy Monday, Welcome to

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Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So today I'm interviewing

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Speaker 1: McKay Coppins. It's a fascinating interview. He's a writer and

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Speaker 1: reporter for The Atlantic, and he did the deepest of

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Speaker 1: deep dives with incredible access on the fight for control

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Speaker 1: of the Murdoch Empire James Murdoch in particular, the second son,

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Speaker 1: eldest son of Rupert Murdoch, and who's the Murdoch children

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Speaker 1: are in this big fight over whether to split up

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Speaker 1: the empire equally or to in Rupert's case, he's afraid

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Speaker 1: of his more liberal children taking a piece of the

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Speaker 1: Murdoch Empire. So there's an ideological aspect to all of

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Speaker 1: these things. Yes, if you're wondering this is the story

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Speaker 1: of succession in real life, well certainly we'll feel familiar

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Speaker 1: to you. But it's an incredible piece that McKay did,

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Speaker 1: and we spend a good chunk of time not just

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Speaker 1: talking about his piece, but sort of understanding sort of

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Speaker 1: the ecosystem that Rupert Murdoch created and what it is

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Speaker 1: done in at least the three places he's had the

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Speaker 1: most success in acquiring media organizations Australia, the UK, and

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Speaker 1: of course here in the United States. But let's be honest,

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons why there's so much distrust of

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Speaker 1: media in general is arguably due to the tactics that

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Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch has employed for some thirty years, the weaponizing

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Speaker 1: of journalism for partisans. While he's not the first person

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Speaker 1: to try and do it, I mean, I've told you this.

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Speaker 1: The nineteenth century was filled with this type of mindset

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Speaker 1: when it comes to journalism and media, but this modern

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Speaker 1: era version of it, and this attempt to sort of

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Speaker 1: essentially weaponize the information ecosystem that we're all living in today.

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Speaker 1: Arguably the modern version of this began with the decision

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Speaker 1: of what's happened with Fox News? But you'll hear an

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Speaker 1: interesting conversation about how And I'm going to leave you

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Speaker 1: with this question before I go into the weekend politics

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Speaker 1: and what to expect this week, And that's simply this,

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Speaker 1: would we be better off if Roger Ayles We're still

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Speaker 1: running Fox News? So I'm gonna let you steal on

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Speaker 1: that a minute before we get to my interview with

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Speaker 1: McKay coppins. And by the way, later this week we

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Speaker 1: talk about trust and media. Well, you want to know

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Speaker 1: why there's such little trust in government, I'd argue it

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Speaker 1: has to do with a certain cover up or supposed

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Speaker 1: cover up of probably the most famous assassination of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century. So with that, I want to put a

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Speaker 1: pin in that and instead talk about what we learned

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Speaker 1: this weekend and what to expect in the topsy turvy

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Speaker 1: world that is politics these days, and frankly, the tariff

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Speaker 1: trade wars that Donald Trump has started around the world.

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Speaker 1: The big news over the weekend, of course, is his

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Speaker 1: decision to exempt, essentially exempt Silicon Valley as best he

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Speaker 1: can from the tariffs. The question is is this a

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Speaker 1: permanent exemption or a temporary one. Like with everything in

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Speaker 1: how Donald Trump has handled the tariff situation, in the

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Speaker 1: trade situation, his administration is giving mixed signals. On one hand,

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Speaker 1: this looks like, hey, we can't step in front of

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Speaker 1: something that has been that has allowed America to take

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Speaker 1: the lead, whether it's on the development of smartphones or

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Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, and the big chips and all these companies

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Speaker 1: that desperately need this tech imported without big tariffs. They

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Speaker 1: got their exemptions on that front, but the Commerce Secretary

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Speaker 1: went out there on the Sunday shows and said, hey,

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Speaker 1: these are only going to be temporary. So is this

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Speaker 1: a permanent exemption? Is this a temporary exemption? And what

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Speaker 1: does it mean to start handing out exemptions. If you recall,

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Speaker 1: in the previous iteration of the Chuck podcast, I had

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Speaker 1: a couple of experts on trade and tariffs and we

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Speaker 1: were talking about what could be And this was back

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Speaker 1: before the November election, but sort of like, what is

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Speaker 1: it about tariffs that Donald Trump just loves so much?

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Speaker 1: And what tariffs do when you start to implement him

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Speaker 1: the way he implemented him very scattershot, is that it

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Speaker 1: puts him at the center of every single negotiation. If

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Speaker 1: you're a country with tariff slapped on you, you've got

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Speaker 1: to go to Donald Trump. You're not going to some

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Speaker 1: other entity, some other multinational trade agreement that you try

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Speaker 1: to renegotiate. You have to go to Donald Trump. And

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Speaker 1: if you're an industry impacted by tariffs and you're looking

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Speaker 1: for an exemption so that you continue to do business

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Speaker 1: in a reasonable way, you got to go to Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: And it really, this is why he loves it. He

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Speaker 1: loves to be able to be in the middle of

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Speaker 1: a one on one deal. And if you're wondering if

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Speaker 1: the goal of the tariff policy is to achieve what

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Speaker 1: he wants to achieve, which is to bring manufacturing back

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Speaker 1: to America, then he's undermining his own policy with all

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Speaker 1: of these exemptions. If you continue to give the tech

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Speaker 1: industry all of these exemptions, they have no incentive to

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Speaker 1: break ground in the United States of America. But you

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Speaker 1: got to ask yourself, what's the motivation of Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: to do this. Well, he's just trying to deal with

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Speaker 1: short term political pain. Because you will see the markets

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Speaker 1: briefly go up early in the week, perhaps early on Monday.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's a great day all day Monday with the

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Speaker 1: tech Scott stocks, your apples, your Palenteers, your Navidia's. The

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Speaker 1: people that have right now have the president's ear. And

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Speaker 1: of course it's not lost on some people that hear

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Speaker 1: apples getting a big benefit here. And we all know

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Speaker 1: all of the amount of money that has been given

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Speaker 1: to the Inaugural Committee by many of these tech companies

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Speaker 1: or the library that may or may not ever exist

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Speaker 1: in a future world of Donald Trump. But there is

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Speaker 1: this essentially piggy bank of money and chits that he's

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Speaker 1: been acquiring from these tech companies, and perhaps this is

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Speaker 1: one way they've just cashed him to make sure they

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Speaker 1: get these exemptions. But again, it undermines the stated goal

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Speaker 1: of what they're trying to do. And if you're opening

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Speaker 1: the door on this front with tech tariffs, you're going

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Speaker 1: to start opening the door to other industries. And the

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Speaker 1: next big industry that's going to be looking for an

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Speaker 1: exemption there's going to be a politically powerful one, and

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Speaker 1: that is folks that are involved with anything having to

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Speaker 1: do with babies, whether it's taking care of if it's

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Speaker 1: bringing in the right equipment that you want to import

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Speaker 1: to take care of your kid, car seats, things like that.

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Speaker 1: We already know if you recall remember the baby formula

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Speaker 1: crisis and they had to temporarily wave tariffs in order

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Speaker 1: to try to save money. There. When people start complaining

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Speaker 1: about the cost of their coffee, are the coffee importers

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Speaker 1: going to get an exemption? And is Donald Trump going

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Speaker 1: to sit here and essentially play whack a mole with

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Speaker 1: ways to try to soften the economic blow to the public.

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Speaker 1: That's what this looks like so far. And if you

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Speaker 1: do that, this is no way to run an economy.

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Speaker 1: It is going to end up blowing up up both

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Speaker 1: goals that he might have if he's trying to stabilize

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Speaker 1: the economy by trying to do some of these exemptions. Okay,

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Speaker 1: there's some sort of uneasy stabilization here right in the

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Speaker 1: tech stocks. Maybe you'll have unevil even stabilization. They'll be

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Speaker 1: relief that the cost of an iPhone isn't going to

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Speaker 1: be so much that it impacts the earnings of Apple.

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Speaker 1: And then maybe you know those that lobby the administration

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Speaker 1: when it comes to the various things that impact having

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Speaker 1: a baby and taking care of kids in this country,

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Speaker 1: and you get rid of the tariffs on anything having

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Speaker 1: to do with baby formula or car seats or strollers

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Speaker 1: or things like that. Okay, so then there's that, and

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Speaker 1: then every industry starts coming to the White House for something,

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Speaker 1: and it means everything is a transaction. Now, look, the

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Speaker 1: darker part of my brain is going to the world

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Speaker 1: of a kleptocracy. This is how a kleptocracy is. Okay,

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Speaker 1: before you go to a full fledge authoritarian regime, you

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Speaker 1: go through this sort of midpoint between democracy and authoritarianism,

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Speaker 1: which is kleptocracy. Arguably that's what Turkey is right now.

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Speaker 1: That is what Venezuela is times one hundred, where there's

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Speaker 1: still some remnants of a democracy. Maybe in Turkey, for instance,

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Speaker 1: the actual vote itself isn't rigged, but all of the

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Speaker 1: industries are. Essentially you got to pay some sort of

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Speaker 1: fee or honorarium or whatever you want to call it

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Speaker 1: to the government in order to be able to do

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Speaker 1: business in certain ways. And suddenly, when you're at the

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Speaker 1: center of a terriff regime that Donald Trump is put on,

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Speaker 1: every industry is coming, and they're going to be coming

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Speaker 1: a little bit with hat in hand and perhaps an

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Speaker 1: offering or two. And what is that offering? Sometimes we

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Speaker 1: may know sometimes it's a quid pro quo that he

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Speaker 1: may claim will help the country, and sometimes it may

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Speaker 1: be a quid pro quo that helps one of his

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Speaker 1: friends or himself. Some of this stuff will be transparent

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Speaker 1: and some of this stuff will be opaque. But even

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Speaker 1: the very idea that this econ, we no longer under

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Speaker 1: a system like this can say we have a free

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Speaker 1: market economy. Our economy is being dictated by government intervention.

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Speaker 1: And there's some irony to this because right now it

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Speaker 1: is the folks on the right that like to talk

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Speaker 1: about folks on the left wanting a socialized government, wanting

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Speaker 1: socialism in this country. Well, when you're attempting to control

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Speaker 1: and manipulate business, that is the very definition of getting

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Speaker 1: into the world of nationalism and socialism. And there really

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Speaker 1: isn't a lot of difference. Right he may proclaim himself

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Speaker 1: a nationalist, but the ability to manipulate an economy is

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Speaker 1: something that socialist governments want to do as well. So

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Speaker 1: in many ways, he is now practicing his own form

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Speaker 1: call it national socialism. I'll let you go down that

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Speaker 1: rabbit hole when you make that phrase, and have some

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Speaker 1: fun with that phrase. But this is where we're headed.

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Speaker 1: And now that he's been willing to cut a deal

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Speaker 1: with Tech, others are coming. What does this do to

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Speaker 1: the overall terrorf regime. I think it only is going

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Speaker 1: to create continue to create long term concern about the

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Speaker 1: stability of the economy and everything that his stated goal is,

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Speaker 1: which is to essentially redo the manufacturing sector in this

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Speaker 1: American economy, doing all of these sort of half in,

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Speaker 1: half out all of this, it is not incentivizing business

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Speaker 1: to break ground in this country. It is incentivizing business

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Speaker 1: to wait him out or buy him out. Right. They

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Speaker 1: might buy him out by getting an exemption. Hope they

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Speaker 1: can survive maybe two years till the midterms, four years

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Speaker 1: until the next presidential and then we go back to

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Speaker 1: the global economy that frankly is already there and probably

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Speaker 1: impossible to end. You might be able to slow it,

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Speaker 1: slow it down. You might be able to take an

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Speaker 1: industry here and industry there and try to manipulate it

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Speaker 1: for a couple of years, but ultimately it is going

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Speaker 1: to be really hard to stop the movement of progress.

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Speaker 1: You can slow it down, you could possibly cause equity

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Speaker 1: markets uh to freeze, you can, you can certainly disrupt things,

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Speaker 1: but the long term it's going to be impossible to stop.

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Speaker 1: And the short term at this point, you know, again,

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Speaker 1: I think he's hoping that by doing these whack a moles,

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Speaker 1: he can minimize the inflationary impact on people's pocketbooks. The

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Speaker 1: next month or two, probably folks aren't going to see

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Speaker 1: too much inflation. But starting around June first, when all

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Speaker 1: of the inventories that people have already accumulated in this

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Speaker 1: country without the big tariffs are completely sold down and

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Speaker 1: sold down, and you know, sold sold out and and

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Speaker 1: and are sort of brought back down. That's when you're

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Speaker 1: going to start to see the increases. And then the

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Speaker 1: question is is he going to continue to do these

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Speaker 1: whack a moles when the ninety day pause expires, does

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Speaker 1: he extend it another ninety days? Do we have extensions

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Speaker 1: of thirty days at a time. A lot of it's

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Speaker 1: going to depend on the perception of the economy. A

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Speaker 1: lot of it's going to be about of the actual

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Speaker 1: bond market itself. Is it collapsing still? Is the price

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Speaker 1: of the dollar continuing to go down threatening our status

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Speaker 1: as the reserve currency? So look, this has been a

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Speaker 1: can of worms that he's opened up. He is trying

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Speaker 1: to play whack a mole here. I don't think this

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Speaker 1: is going to go well, but we're going to see.

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Speaker 1: My guess is the markets react okay on the early

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Speaker 1: part of the week, and then reality is going to

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Speaker 1: set and you realize this instability. Who speaks for the administration?

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Speaker 1: Is it the Commerce Secretary? Is it Peter Navarro, is

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Speaker 1: it Scott Bessen? Is it Donald Trump? Right? We know

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Speaker 1: it's Donald Trump ultimately, but who's got his ear at

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Speaker 1: any given moment, That to me seems to be an

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Speaker 1: open question. So prepare for another tumultuous week. As you

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Speaker 1: see by the way his poll numbers continue to erode,

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Speaker 1: they're going to continue to go down. This is this

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Speaker 1: is not you know, there has been no positive coverage.

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Speaker 1: He has no ribbon cuttings of new factories. He is

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Speaker 1: you know, I've gone through this before. But he couldn't

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Speaker 1: have politically mishandled the rollout of this tariff regime any worse.

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Speaker 1: There are better ways this could have been done. I

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Speaker 1: told you about how Owen Cass, who's somebody who's ideologically

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Speaker 1: essentially tried to defend what Trump is doing. But he

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Speaker 1: actually had a better, more coherent, methodical plan to do

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Speaker 1: this than what this administration has done. And they've likely

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Speaker 1: set themselves up for just what's going to continue to

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Speaker 1: be political pain in the polls, financial instability in the markets,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of uncertainty with our international relationships. Let

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Speaker 1: me sneak in a break here and when we come back.

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Speaker 1: My conversation with McKay coppins on the future of Rupert

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Speaker 1: Murdock's Empire and joining me now is the author of this. Frankly,

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Speaker 1: it feels like a mini book, a novella, if you will,

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Speaker 1: except it's real life. It is not. It is nonfiction,

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Speaker 1: even if it reads like incredible fiction. Is Mickay Coppins

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Speaker 1: of The Atlantic McKay, it's good to talk with you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me on seck.

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Speaker 1: So first I want to get more of your sort

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Speaker 1: of credentials and accolades out of the way. You are

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Speaker 1: the author of a book that I've been using as

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Speaker 1: a teaching tool for students in my I teach a

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Speaker 1: class of USC students that are interning in DC, and

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Speaker 1: in the class is called How Washington Works. And I

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Speaker 1: give them sort of four or five books to choose

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Speaker 1: from as a midterm assignment, and one of them is

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Speaker 1: the Romney book. Wow, that's you, Because I think I

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Speaker 1: look at it this way, there's sort of a few

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Speaker 1: books right now that I feel like are perfect almost

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Speaker 1: textbooks for understanding politics these days, which is, you know,

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Speaker 1: how did the Republican Party move from the Eisenhower Romney

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Speaker 1: era to this Trump era? And Mitt Romney your Romney Book,

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Speaker 1: where Mitt Romney essentially give you incredible access to his

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Speaker 1: innermost thoughts. I think does better job of any book

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Speaker 1: out there of showing that evolution. You know, there's and

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Speaker 1: when you're trying to put together you know you want

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Speaker 1: to understand Washington these days, you've got to understand the

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Speaker 1: evolution of the Republican Party. Your book does that. There's

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Speaker 1: a great book by Roy ta Chera about Where Have

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Speaker 1: All the Democrats Gone? That explains the Democrat It's so

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Speaker 1: I use this piece Bill There's Brody.

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Speaker 2: That's awesome.

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Speaker 1: The Mullins brothers did that great book about the lobbying community.

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Speaker 1: That's my textbook for lobbying. So it's been It is

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Speaker 1: a reminder that I think the best journalism these days

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Speaker 1: is in this long form element that we're in. But look,

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Speaker 1: I booked you because of this incredible access you got

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Speaker 1: with the Murdoch family, where whether the succession was real

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Speaker 1: life Murdocks or not the great HBO show. It is

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Speaker 1: a reminder no matter how you fictionalize something, the reality

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Speaker 1: is so much weirder, so much more important. Let me

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Speaker 1: just start with before we get it. By the way,

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Speaker 1: I love that the Atlantic magazine tells you how many

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Speaker 1: minutes it will take to read said article. We are

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Speaker 1: going to be talking for less time than it will

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Speaker 1: take to through the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: Hopefully it doesn't. It doesn't feel like too much of

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Speaker 2: a slog. It is long, but it's but I know

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Speaker 2: when you when you write something that long, the thought

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Speaker 2: is like when you have to take extra care to

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Speaker 2: make sure it's not boring because you'll lose perilla, you know, I.

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Speaker 1: Mean, you know, other than the time element here, how

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Speaker 1: tempting is it to do a full book? Or in

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Speaker 1: some ways would James not have cooperated James Murdoch, who

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Speaker 1: clearly is the most important narrator here.

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Speaker 2: For you, You know.

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Speaker 1: It was that part of the bargain that it wasn't

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Speaker 1: going to be a book.

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Speaker 2: We didn't even talk about it being a book. And

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Speaker 2: I have to say, like about a few months into

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Speaker 2: the process, it kind of occurred to me that this

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Speaker 2: maybe should have been a book, or at least first

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Speaker 2: of all, might have been more lucrative. Although the Atlantic

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Speaker 2: pays me very well, etcetera. But you know, I think

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Speaker 2: that there's an urgency element to it, you know, as

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Speaker 2: much as this is kind of a timeless story and

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Speaker 2: we talk about how the Murdochs kind of resemble these

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Speaker 2: dynastic families throughout history. It also the murder. I was

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Speaker 2: catching the Murdocks at this moment where the family was

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Speaker 2: melting down over the control of the empire. And the

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Speaker 2: problem with a book is that, like that's a multi

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Speaker 2: year process to get it out, and who knows how

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Speaker 2: things would have changed by then. So I really appreciated

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Speaker 2: that the Atlanta could get it into the bloodstream at

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Speaker 2: this kind of moment.

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Speaker 1: I actually as if I were playing book editor or

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Speaker 1: book publisher, I probably would have said, you know what

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Speaker 1: we got, you got to get it out, now do

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Speaker 1: it as and you know, who knows, maybe you go

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Speaker 1: back to the old days. It turns in you write serials. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: a sudden somebody goes ahead and turns it into a

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Speaker 1: book totally a few years from now. But look the urgency,

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Speaker 1: and I agree that there's urgency here. What happens to

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Speaker 1: the Murdoch Empire will have a profound impact on how

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Speaker 1: the Trump right wing, and I do think it's sort

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Speaker 1: of that version of the right wing, the populace right wing,

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Speaker 1: and around the western world, not just in America, how

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Speaker 1: they communicate with voters. Right how they communicate their message.

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Speaker 1: Who controls the Murdoch Empire. You know there are there's

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Speaker 1: others nipping at their heels. Right in America it's news Max,

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Speaker 1: there's ones in the UK, and there's ones in Australia.

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Speaker 1: So this will have a profound impact on our politics, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That That's what made the story, what gave

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Speaker 2: it stakes, right because on one level, this is like

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Speaker 2: a human drama about this traveling and if you watch

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Speaker 2: Succession it will feel very familiar. Or if frankly you

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Speaker 2: read Greek tragedies, it might feel familiar as well, King

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Speaker 2: Lear or Shakespeare or whatever. But the stakes are that

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Speaker 2: this is I think arguably the most powerful, certainly conservative

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Speaker 2: media empire in the Western world, one of the most

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Speaker 2: powerful media empires in the world. And they have become

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Speaker 2: very deliberately the organ of this right wing populism that

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Speaker 2: you're talking about. And it's we see it in Fox

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Speaker 2: News here in the US. But this, this empire, these

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Speaker 2: media outlets have played a key role in Brexit, They

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Speaker 2: played a key role in in toppling governments around Europe.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they know if they if this, if these

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Speaker 2: outlets change hands and the direction changes it dramatically changes

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Speaker 2: how politicians throughout the English speaking world U on the

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Speaker 2: right connect with their their audiences.

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Speaker 1: I mean, let's let's narrow it down here. We're talking Australia,

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Speaker 1: the UK, and the United States. Yeah, that's the most

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Speaker 1: that's most where truly his media empire has either served

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Speaker 1: as an organ of political power or as a sorter

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Speaker 1: of political power, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and there's and the thing that connects all

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Speaker 2: of them is that there's always been and this of

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Speaker 2: course back to the very beginning in Australia, this kind

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Speaker 2: of like puckish anti establishment streak, right that defines all

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Speaker 2: the from the first Australian newspapers that Rupert bought, to

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Speaker 2: the tabloids on Fleet Street to certainly Fox News. The

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Speaker 2: Murdoch Press is really good at identifying kind of the

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Speaker 2: sacred cows of of you know, the liberal or centrist

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Speaker 2: and liberal establishment and like slaying them right needly. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but what but that has I think that and you

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Speaker 2: can we'll see some of that. But in the last

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Speaker 2: twenty years, and certainly in the last decade, you've seen

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Speaker 2: that kind of kurdle into this full throated support for

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Speaker 2: something that you could critics would argue is more illiberal

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Speaker 2: and more toxic than just kind of like mischief making.

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Speaker 1: I was just going to say, you know, look, the

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Speaker 1: New York Post of my of the nineties was fun, right,

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Speaker 1: the New York Post of the New York Post of

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Speaker 1: today is is predictable and brutish. I guess, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: would describe it as you know, yeah, and and and

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Speaker 1: Fox feels that way. There was a time. I mean

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Speaker 1: there's actually an individual I think about a guy like

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Speaker 1: Great Guttfeld, who I knew when he was the editor

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Speaker 1: at maxim UK. And he was he was just a

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Speaker 1: you know, a provocateur, but intellectually honest about it, right,

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Speaker 1: and and and and even as a commute you know.

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Speaker 2: But in Dennis Miller on Fox right, similar.

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Speaker 1: Right, and now it's almost like, nope, they have to

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Speaker 1: be on a message. Right, He's lost, They've lost what

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Speaker 1: there was a rebelliousness to them that made it interesting.

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Speaker 1: And now instead of being a rebel still, right, it's

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Speaker 1: stead they're weirdly their own establishment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's a it's an organ of the

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Speaker 2: kind of populist right establishment makes makes them less interesting,

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Speaker 2: for sure, I.

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Speaker 1: Think it does. Right, It made it less uh, less sticky.

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Speaker 2: It also makes the Murdoch family and Rupert in particular,

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Speaker 2: I think, less powerful in a way because for so

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Speaker 2: long he was the one kind of making the weather

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Speaker 2: on the right, you know, and now it really does

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Speaker 2: feel like ever since Donald Trump arrived on the scene,

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Speaker 2: at least in America, he is the one making the weather,

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Speaker 2: and Rupert had to kind of make a decision about like,

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Speaker 2: are we getting on board with this or not, and

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Speaker 2: basically decided he.

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Speaker 1: Was both breaks it and Trump were that way, which

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Speaker 1: is and this was a case. Look, I think the

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Speaker 1: problem with media in general is that is that a

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Speaker 1: lot of traditional media followed the Murdoch model. Here, Murdoch

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Speaker 1: chose to follow the viewers, to follow the readers. Oh

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Speaker 1: oh wait a minute, our readers are anti immigrant, we

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Speaker 1: better do this now. Even though he was, you know,

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Speaker 1: he wanted to be pro immigration, right. He wanted to

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Speaker 1: do this until Rush Limbaugh told him otherwise. And it

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Speaker 1: wasn't that he told him that it's this they realized, oh,

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Speaker 1: our entire listening audience. So that was the first moment

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Speaker 1: where Rupert realized I think that he couldn't make the weather.

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Speaker 1: Somebody else was actually in charge of it. And then

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Speaker 1: what's ironic is that everybody else followed suit.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: I think the biggest problem with media right now is

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Speaker 1: too many people catering to their audience.

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Speaker 2: It's an audience capture, right.

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Speaker 1: They're one hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: And I think about this all the time, you know,

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Speaker 2: I in my early years of my career worked for

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Speaker 2: Ben Smith at BuzzFeed and at the time, BuzzFeed News.

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Speaker 2: The whole idea was, We're going to be the news

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Speaker 2: outlet that speaks to the social web, and we write

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Speaker 2: these stories that go viral on Twitter or Facebook or whatever.

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Speaker 2: And Ben ended up, you know, a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 2: writing this book declaring the end of the social media

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Speaker 2: era and that you know, the new media era is about,

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Speaker 2: you know, cultivating these audiences and subscription models and all

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Speaker 2: that stuff, right, And I think he's right. But it's

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Speaker 2: funny because I'm now kind of for all the problems

433
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 2: the social media era had in media. I'm a little

434
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 2: nostalgic for it because we really were trying to write

435
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 2: for as broad an audience as possible. And what's happened

436
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 2: is now, with the fragmentation of the media landscape, everybody

437
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 2: has just been able to figure out. You know, this

438
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 2: is my audience of in Fox News' case, four million people.

439
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 2: In like a substack writer's case, my audience is fifteen

440
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 2: hundred people. But they're willing to pay me, and I

441
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 2: just write. I tell them exactly what they want to hear,

442
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:58,360
Speaker 2: three times a week. And I think that's a real

443
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 2: problem for news media.

444
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: Look, I'm I'm going about this thinking that there's still

445
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,359
Speaker 1: an audience out there that just sort of wants a

446
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: sort of a rational, analytical view of what's happening, you know,

447
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to attack it like a political anthropologist.

448
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:20,439
Speaker 1: And that's how I sort of have always viewed my

449
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: role is that I'm more of an anthropologist about our

450
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: politics and our media than anything elsewhere. I certainly have

451
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 1: my own opinions, but I'm I am more of like, Okay,

452
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 1: but how is this all interacting and creating the politics

453
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: that we have versus the politics that we want?

454
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,640
Speaker 2: And so can I ask you, Chuck, because the.

455
00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:41,640
Speaker 1: Difficulty is there isn't a constituency there per se other

456
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:42,400
Speaker 1: than but.

457
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 2: It's not a political constituency.

458
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 1: And a lot of this is gathering as political Yes, well.

459
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:50,879
Speaker 2: And that was my question do you I know this

460
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 2: is your your show, but the one question I'll ask you,

461
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 2: do you feel that poll, like the poll of the

462
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:00,159
Speaker 2: audience like wants a certain thing from you?

463
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: You know, it's the other way around. It's why I

464
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 1: left to because I actually felt as if the business

465
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: of NBC was more worried about the audience that it had,

466
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 1: not the audience that it wanted. And it's not just them, right,

467
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 1: this is where all traditional media and it's understandable, right,

468
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:19,200
Speaker 1: it's being it's it's a business decision. It's not necessarily

469
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 1: what's in the best interest of the ecosystem. And I

470
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: you know it's it is. I will tell you this.

471
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: The easy way to do this is to pick aside.

472
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,239
Speaker 1: Right what Megan Megan Kelly made this decision. Right, we

473
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: know she's we've seen her own discomfort with what the

474
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: politics of this era is, but she chose to make

475
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: a living God bless her. Right. I think she's you know,

476
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: I think there's a very talented broadcaster who made the

477
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: choice that if we take a side, then we can

478
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: maybe be the most trusted media person for the Trump right.

479
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 1: You know it, By the way, it's it's there's nothing

480
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 1: wrong you know, just like there's people the most trusted

481
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 1: on the left right for that it is that is,

482
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: And I don't I don't see it as a I

483
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: don't lament this. I think that's a healthy I think

484
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: that's healthy as long as there's something. There's a lot

485
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: of this out here, and it's almost an acceptance that, hey,

486
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: you're actually only speaking to a small slice of the electorate,

487
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: no matter how large your slice looks in comparison to

488
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: the entire ecosystem.

489
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 2: Right yeah. And there's a role for you know, being

490
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 2: the kind of person that grounds the whatever your political

491
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 2: constituency is, grounds it in reality, gives it facts maybe,

492
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 2: you know, helps them understand an intellectually honest way to

493
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 2: make their arguments as opposed to you know, all.

494
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: I look at it, but I you know, and people

495
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: hate this. I do compare it to sports in this way.

496
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:49,400
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't stand listening to, you know, Yankees

497
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: announcers broadcast a Yankees game because I just I want

498
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: an honest portrayal of the game. I don't want the

499
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 1: Yankee perspective, right yeah. And so I am surprised the

500
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: number of people that don't that that you know, think

501
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: that you know that that just live in the in

502
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: the right or the left wing ecosystem and don't want

503
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:09,480
Speaker 1: a reality check.

504
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 2: Now.

505
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: I happen to think this is where everything is cyclical, right,

506
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: which is you know, the late nineteenth century, in the

507
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,199
Speaker 1: early twentieth century was all partisan media, yes, until we

508
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:21,120
Speaker 1: all got tired of it, right, And so I do

509
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 1: think there's a moment here and that's what that's what

510
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: I mean. We're in a fragmented world again, just like

511
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 1: we were in the early days of magazines, the early

512
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: days of the muckrakers, early days of radio. And then

513
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: we will you know, there'll be winners and losers. They'll

514
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 1: be the big curators, the big networks, and you know,

515
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: you'll have a new It may be and we're going

516
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: to get to the Murdos here. It may be that

517
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly's the next Rupert Murdoch and we just don't

518
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: realize that yet. Yeah, right, yeah, and she creates her

519
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 1: own new conservative ecosystem because the Murdochs fracture completely, which

520
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: brings me back to back to your story and James.

521
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: Before we get into some of the details, when James

522
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: started talking with you, you know, at what point did

523
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 1: you realize that Succession. Did Succession have an insider a

524
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: count you delve into this yeah? Or was it simply

525
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: there just were a predictable, dynastic family and it was

526
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: actually easy to write it.

527
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: Was the weirdest thing about doing these interviews was that,

528
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 2: like I remember the first few interviews I did with

529
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 2: James and his wife Catherine was also a big part

530
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 2: of it. I would have these experiences where they'd be

531
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 2: telling me a story and I'd have like this weird

532
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 2: deja vu where I'd be like, I feel like I've

533
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 2: heard this story before and they're like, no, We've never

534
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 2: told this to anybody, and I was like, well, has

535
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 2: it been reported? And then I'd realize it was a

536
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 2: storyline on Succession, and that's why it was familiar. There

537
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 2: is this you alluded to, this, this whole parlor game

538
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 2: among the Murdochs about who was leaking to the writers.

539
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 2: Like all, everyone in the family is obsessed with the show,

540
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 2: even James, who claims that he never watched it beyond

541
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 2: the first episode, still has theory is about who was

542
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 2: leaking to the writers. You know, James and Catherine thought because.

543
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: You don't watch the show doesn't mean you don't read

544
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: every review of it.

545
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 2: Well, and and everybody in his life watches it and

546
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 2: wants to talk to him about it, and you know,

547
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 2: it's all out there, right, and you know, they thought

548
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 2: that his sister Liz was was leaking to the writers.

549
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 2: Liz said no, but he thinks that her ex husband

550
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 2: was Like there was this whole, this whole thing. And

551
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day, I should

552
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 2: say Jesse Armstrong. I ended up finally talking to him,

553
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 2: the creator of the show, and he just kind of

554
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 2: laughed about it. It was like, there's this whole psychodrama

555
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 2: with the Murdocks where they all think that somebody is

556
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 2: leaking to us, and the reality is we could figure

557
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 2: out the dynamics pretty easily. They're not the most complicated

558
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 2: you know family.

559
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: Well, I always say that about Donald Trump. There is

560
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: no you know, when people ask me about, you know,

561
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: understanding Donald Trump, I said, it's you know, it's not hard. Yeah,

562
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: you know, he's you know, he's a he's arrested development,

563
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: he's thirteen. He's constantly thirteen and what thirteen? Like every

564
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: thirteen year old there are moments of adulthood and moments

565
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: of stupidity and he is transactional, and you know, it's

566
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: very simple. He wants power and attention and affection and

567
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: all these things. And it's like, I think that that's

568
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: what I took away here, is that the Murdochs are

569
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: actually a very normal, dysfunctional, wealthy family.

570
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that was actually something James talked about early

571
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 2: on because he had that famous quote from Anna Karenina

572
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 2: about all happy families are alike, all unhappy families are different, right,

573
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 2: unhappy in their own way, and he was saying he

574
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 2: doesn't actually believe that because if he looks at the

575
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: history of families like his, for example, wealthy families that

576
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 2: fracture over power and money, he feels like they're all

577
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 2: pretty similar and he sees the same patterns repeating over

578
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 2: and over again, including in his own family. And he

579
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 2: actually told me, what I think the real tragedy here

580
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 2: is that nobody else in my family seems to have

581
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 2: read the history right, Like, what is happening to my

582
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 2: family has happened to a thousand families before ours, and

583
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 2: we should have all seen the warning signs and figured

584
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 2: out how to avoid this. Faith.

585
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: Well, let's where are we in this suit? What what

586
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: is the is it going to be, you know, is

587
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 1: Rupert going to be able to rewrite his trust or not?

588
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 2: It's we don't know for sure yet, but it seems

589
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 2: like probably not. So Rupert tried to rewrite the trust.

590
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 2: There was a year of litigation, there was a trial

591
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 2: last fall. The judge in December or the actually the

592
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 2: probate commissioner, I should be careful here. The Reno, Nevada

593
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 2: Probate commissioner, overseeing the fate of this multi billion dollar empire,

594
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 2: decided that ruled against Rupert on basically every count, said

595
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 2: he could not rewrite the trust was not operating in

596
00:32:55,360 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 2: good faith. Rupert and Lachlin have appealed that decision, and

597
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 2: so we are now waiting and it could be months

598
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 2: before a judge makes the final to call. But all

599
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 2: indications point to Rupert not being able to do this,

600
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 2: which means that when he dies, unless something else changes,

601
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 2: control of the empire will be split equally among Lachlan, James,

602
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 2: Elizabeth and Prudence.

603
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: Well, I want to get to that. So those are

604
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: the four children that get a piece of this. What

605
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: about the other children.

606
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 2: The two younger ones gracing.

607
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: This is the one with Wendy right yes, that's right.

608
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 2: They get significant share of the money, but no controlling

609
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 2: vote in the direction of the empire. And this was

610
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 2: actually by design. So Rupert's second wife, Anna, who is

611
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 2: the mother to James, Lachlan and Liz, actually when they

612
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 2: got divorced twenty five years ago and in nineteen ninety nine,

613
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 2: she basically said, I am willing to give up a

614
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 2: significant portion of the money that I'm entitled to here

615
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 2: if we establish this trust that secures control of the

616
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 2: empire with these four oldest children, including one from Rupert's

617
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:15,359
Speaker 2: previous marriage, and so if he has more kids later,

618
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:17,760
Speaker 2: they can get money, but you know, not not control

619
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 2: of the empire. And specifically she wanted it to be

620
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 2: split equally because she thought, and this is kind of

621
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 2: ironic in retrospect, that it would incentivize them all to

622
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 2: work togethers right, that it would basically prevent the them

623
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 2: their lives being consumed by this succession battle.

624
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, what you just described, I mean

625
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: that was the storyline in succession of how the ex

626
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: wife you know, sort of had played the the the

627
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: mediator here. I'm curious, you know, there's been a lot

628
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: of speculation about Wendy and whether you know that relationship,

629
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: and was it an operation or not? I mean to

630
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,800
Speaker 1: be frank right, was it? Was it an intel leigence operation?

631
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 1: Was he honeypotted? Where does James fall on that?

632
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 2: James and Lachlan both, at least according to James, strongly

633
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 2: opposed the marriage in nineteen ninety nine.

634
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: Were they very skeptical of her?

635
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 2: They were very distrustful of her. They were suspicious. They

636
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 2: felt like she couldn't be trusted. They felt like she

637
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 2: came out of nowhere. She was this executive at the

638
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 2: Asian satellite company that they owned all of a sudden.

639
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if you were to design a

640
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: you know, John Leacree or whatever, you know, sort of

641
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: cheap plot line here of an intelligence operation by the

642
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 1: Chinese government, it might look something like this.

643
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 2: James and Catherine still will talk about how they don't

644
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 2: trust her. Catherine actually joked to me that Wendy had

645
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 2: evaded a subpoena in this current litigation with by using

646
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 2: a CCP issued burner phone, which she says is a joke.

647
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 2: But honestly, I really think there remains a lot of

648
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 2: serious suspicion about her and her ties to the Chinese

649
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 2: government and everything else. I should say, Wendy didn't respond

650
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 2: to my request for comments. She's obviously denied being like

651
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 2: a Chinese passet just just to cover our bases.

652
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 1: Here, no doubt she has. But her behavior since then

653
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 1: has not helped her cause. And the relationship she is in,

654
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 1: you know, people she has chosen to be associated with,

655
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 1: has not helped put those rumors to rest.

656
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 2: She is constantly, it seems like, rumored at least to

657
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 2: be in relationships with various very powerful men throughout the

658
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 2: West Western worlds. Yes, yes, yes, it raises questions.

659
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: Why do I think James and Lachlan will reconcile when

660
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 1: their dad dies?

661
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:45,800
Speaker 2: Hmm?

662
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,319
Speaker 1: Do you That's what happens in a lot of these families, right,

663
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: if you just go about that. And that's why I'm

664
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 1: curious if you could see any of that, because there's

665
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: a few things sort of reality has is a very

666
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:02,439
Speaker 1: powerful organizing force, okay, and the reality of his death

667
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: and the reality of do I want to have some

668
00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: access to power? Do I want to have some empire

669
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: to jointly run, or do I want to take my

670
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: ball and go home and just sit in litigation for

671
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: five years and ten years or whatever it is, or

672
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: we sell it and break it up and one gets

673
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: a quarter, one gets a quarter, and it fractures. I

674
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 1: have no doubt that's one possibility. Right, everybody takes a

675
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: piece and run and goes their separate ways. And Lachlan,

676
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: you know, finds right winger billionaires to fund him, and

677
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 1: James and Catherine find whatever, either independence or left wing.

678
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: But you know who knows right. But it could also

679
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: be reconciled, and they could somehow figure out how to

680
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:43,919
Speaker 1: manage this thing together, because in some ways it could

681
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 1: be the father that's the divisive figure between the two

682
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: of them, right in most of these Shakespearean things that

683
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: once you you know, look, I've got family members who

684
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,880
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear to me the living parent is the device.

685
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 2: You know.

686
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: They all seem to not get along, but they do

687
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: agree about one thing. Is how the parent created this distrust?

688
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 1: I guess is they probably right. Weirdly, even though Lachlan

689
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 1: has Rupert on his side, he probably resents the fact

690
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: that Rupert blew this.

691
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is I think that is a key insight

692
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 2: to the dynamic. It is no, it is absolutely true

693
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 2: that Rupert, the role Rupert has played throughout his kid's

694
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 2: life is by pitting them against each other for his

695
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 2: attention and affection and approval. And so yeah, you could

696
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 2: make a case that removing him from that dynamic actually

697
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 2: leaves these adult children now some space to kind of

698
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 2: work out their own relationships with each other. I think

699
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,399
Speaker 2: that in the case of James, and by the way,

700
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,839
Speaker 2: I would say James's sisters I could easily see reconciling

701
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 2: with Lachlan right now. I think they're not really talking

702
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 2: that the sisters are lined up with James in this litigation,

703
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 2: but I could see them them kind of reconciling. The

704
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 2: question is if there's just been too much damaged on

705
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 2: to the specific relationship between James and Lochlan. They tried

706
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 2: to run the companies together in twenty sixteen, seventeen, eighteen nineteen.

707
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 2: Like that, there was a moment where Rupert said, Okay,

708
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 2: we've we've resolved the succession battle. They're both going to

709
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 2: do this together, Lachlan as chairman, James is CEO, and

710
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:24,360
Speaker 2: it was a disaster.

711
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: Well, but here I'm going to introduce a butterfly effect

712
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: theory here, which is, if Hillary Clinton is president in

713
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:37,759
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen and not Donald Trump. Does Lachlan and James

714
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: have more? Are there more? Is it easier to come

715
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 1: up with a strategy that makes sense for the empire

716
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: versus the disruptive force that is Trump, right, that had

717
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:51,800
Speaker 1: you know, and the disruptive force that was breaks it

718
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 1: right without breaks it in Trump, do Lachlan and James,

719
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 1: while they may ideologically not be on the same side

720
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: of the aisle, there would be more comfort working with

721
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:06,399
Speaker 1: each other because the opposing force wasn't a threat, an

722
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: existential threat that I.

723
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 2: Could I could see that, and I would add that

724
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 2: a lot of the kind of key moments of division

725
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 2: between the two brothers when they were co running the

726
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,240
Speaker 2: company had to do with Trump. Right. It was Charlottesville,

727
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:22,240
Speaker 2: it was the Muslim ban, like the these key early

728
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 2: moments of that first Trump term that were frankly devisive everywhere. Right,

729
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 2: they caused countless Thanksgiving you know, debates in living rooms

730
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 2: around the world, like it was very you know, it

731
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 2: drove a huge wedge between the two of them. I

732
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 2: think that there is something to be said for that.

733
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 2: It's also true that like Trump's arrival caused these outlets

734
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,320
Speaker 2: to start to remake themselves in Trump's image in a

735
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 2: way that you know, James could have stomached and still, honestly,

736
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 2: I think would be okay with Fox News being a

737
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: center right outlet. Right he's he still will get sense.

738
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: My guess is he really is that he really is

739
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 1: more of a probably economically and maybe.

740
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 2: He left He calls himself a centrist, and I think

741
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 2: that's he's where a lot of kind of wealthy centrists are,

742
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 2: which is yeah, exactly, and and free markets are good

743
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 2: and etcetera. I think that he he just he could

744
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 2: not stomach Fox News becoming in the trump eraw what

745
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 2: it became. Right. He also, frankly, spent a lot of

746
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 2: his time working when he was working in the family

747
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 2: business overseas. He was in Asia and Europe and so

748
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:36,319
Speaker 2: Fox News.

749
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: So he felt the effect of anti Americanism in some way.

750
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 2: And and then he came back and Fox News was like,

751
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 2: I think it hurt he. He didn't realize quite how

752
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 2: much Fox News defined the entire empire until he came

753
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 2: back to America and realized that. You know, He's like,

754
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 2: We're doing all these great things in India and Hong Kong,

755
00:41:56,600 --> 00:42:01,840
Speaker 2: and we have this huge media, you know, apparatus in Britain,

756
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: and all anyone wants to talk to me is about

757
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 2: Sean Hannity, And like, I think that it really underscored

758
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 2: for him how how much it had kind of polluted

759
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 2: the Murdock name and also made it harder for him

760
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 2: to expand the empire in ways that he wanted to.

761
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:21,439
Speaker 1: One of my thesis about Fox News is how off

762
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: the rails it went after Roger Ales left, mm hmm,

763
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,720
Speaker 1: and that Roger Ales was actually a more stabilizing force.

764
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: Roger Ales actually understood that you actually had to have

765
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: journalists in order to give credibility to the nighttime guys.

766
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:33,839
Speaker 2: Right.

767
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 1: I actually think if Roger Ales were alive today, he

768
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,359
Speaker 1: would not like that they had they basically benched all

769
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 1: their journalists. Yeah, right, they have totally. I've always said

770
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: Fox has journalists, but they don't practice journalism as a network,

771
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 1: right they But they have individuals who do, right, You're

772
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:54,840
Speaker 1: Jennifer Griffins and folks like that. In brit Hume, even

773
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: as an analyst, still is sort of a newsman first, right,

774
00:42:57,239 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: You see it, you feel it in him because that's

775
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: just who he is. And I'm curious because I know

776
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: James it wasn't a big Ales fan, But did that

777
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 1: ever come up that we talked realized that Roger actually

778
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 1: was a was a more stabilizing force than maybe we

779
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: all realized.

780
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:18,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think some of this ended up on the

781
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:20,959
Speaker 2: cutting room floor, but we talked about you know, he

782
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 2: he was appalled by Roger Ale's personal behavior and you know,

783
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 2: he was actually privy to the findings horrendous.

784
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: I'm not defending it, and I'm just.

785
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 2: Bringing that up because what he said is that, you know,

786
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 2: what he realized once his dad, once Rupert stepped in

787
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 2: to be the interim CEO of Fox News, was that

788
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 2: there was a benefit to having Roger Ales, who's basically

789
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 2: like a operated like an authoritarian leader of Fox News,

790
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 2: but ruled with an iron fist over the talent there. Right.

791
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 2: And he had a very clear vision of what Fox

792
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 2: News should be. There's be news during the day, there

793
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 2: should be provocation and opinion at night, and and and

794
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 2: but he always maintained the belief that nobody is bigger

795
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 2: than Fox News, right, and and you had all these

796
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: cases where he would toss somebody like Glenn Beck. Uh,

797
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:20,439
Speaker 2: you know, I if Glenn Beck was getting a little

798
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 2: too big for his britches and wouldn't be a team player.

799
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 2: And Rupert got in there and he just was totally

800
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 2: outmatched by the talent. I think, you know, like the

801
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 2: hosts were running wild, they were doing whatever they wanted

802
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 2: and and Rupert just had either no ability or no

803
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 2: interest in trying to rain them in. And Fox News

804
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 2: really did become much more of a kind of inmates

805
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 2: running the asylum situation after all, Oh.

806
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: They have no leader, They're they're leaders now. It is

807
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: one of those just like the channel feels like they

808
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: follow the audience, the media executives followed. Let the talent, yeah,

809
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 1: you know, decide right. They have totally ceased trying to

810
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 1: be any sort of and this governing force totally.

811
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 2: And this was a key key moment though, because I

812
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 2: will say, uh, I report about this in the piece.

813
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 2: When Roger Ayles left, there was this big debate between

814
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 2: Lachlan and James about who should replace him, and James

815
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 2: wanted what's the CBS guy, David Rhodes. He wanted David

816
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 2: Rhodes to come in and replace roder Ailes and basically

817
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 2: build Fox News into a center right journalistic outfit with

818
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 2: editorial guard rails.

819
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:35,839
Speaker 1: And a Wall Street Journal exactly to.

820
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal on cable right right, and Lachlan was

821
00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 2: adamantly opposed to this. They went back and forth and

822
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 2: bickered and fought for a while, and then Rupert finally

823
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 2: stepped in and resolved it by saying, I'll just be

824
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 2: the CEO. And and but you wonder what would have changed,

825
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 2: Like if James had gotten his way, you actually could

826
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 2: have seen a situation where I don't think David Rhodes

827
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 2: led News would have been airing you know, rigged election

828
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories after twenty twenty, for example. And this is

829
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,359
Speaker 2: I think what's at stake now If James gets his way,

830
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 2: when Rupert's gone, Fox News and other outlets that he

831
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 2: believes are really reckless purveyors of kind of misinformation will

832
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 2: be turned into either dismantled and sold off or turned

833
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 2: into real you know.

834
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: The irony But McKay, the irony to this is by

835
00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 1: the time James and Lachlan get control of this, right

836
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: because Rupert, you know, I mean, look he seems to

837
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: you know, he's in his nineties, and it's like, I mean,

838
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 1: who knows, right, the actuary tables are the actuary tables

839
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: he does.

840
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 2: There are no indications that he's nearing death.

841
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: He is did he get did he end up getting

842
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: married or not?

843
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 2: Good? Yes?

844
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 1: So there is another there is another.

845
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 2: Wife, right, fifth or sixth wife I think six? Ye?

846
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: No kids with this one right right that we know of.

847
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 2: Yes, No, the only kids are with with Wendy and

848
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 2: Anna and then his first wife.

849
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: Right. So by the time James and Lachlan get control

850
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 1: of this. I mean, one of the things I think

851
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: that the Fox News hosts have realized is, you know,

852
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 1: there's always someone else willing to go further than them,

853
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: and there's always an audience that's willing to follow the

854
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 1: first and that goes further than them. Like, I just

855
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: don't know if I think the toothpaste is out of

856
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:23,720
Speaker 1: the tube. And the problem is Fox's is never going

857
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:25,959
Speaker 1: to be They're never going to be able to chase

858
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: Newsmax or o An right there. Those guys are willing

859
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: to literally be arms of our tea if they have to,

860
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 1: and and so I don't know if there's I don't

861
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 1: know if it's possible to. I mean, the smarter thing

862
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,320
Speaker 1: to do would be to zag while everybody else is digging.

863
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 1: But I don't know if they'll know how to do

864
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: that by the time.

865
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean this is this is the big

866
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 2: caveat when we talk about the stakes here, Like we

867
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 2: are now in a media environment where there are so

868
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 2: many competitors and insurgents in that space on the right

869
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 2: that if Fox News disappeared from the planet tomorrow, it

870
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 2: changes I don't I don't know. I mean that certainly

871
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 2: the media landscape would be scrambled, but I'm not sure

872
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 2: that audience ends up in a much more responsible information ecosystem.

873
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 2: You know, you do see Fox trying to position themselves

874
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 2: for this future, right They've recently acquired Red Ventures, which

875
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 2: is the podcast distributor for Making Kelly and a bunch

876
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:25,720
Speaker 2: of other prominent.

877
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: And Fox Nation is kind of their attempt at sort

878
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 1: of making sure that if YouTube is the future, they're

879
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: going to have a significant place in it too.

880
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 2: And again I think that this is the case that

881
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,319
Speaker 2: Lachlin and Rupert are making, which is basically, this is

882
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 2: this is what the empire was built on, right, this

883
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 2: is what this is our our value add proposition. We

884
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 2: can't abandon this audience. We need to just be doing

885
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,319
Speaker 2: everything we can to hold on to this audience and

886
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 2: the next generation of conservatives, and James would tank our

887
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 2: ability to do that.

888
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,399
Speaker 1: So what the so what does James want to do now?

889
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 2: You know? So James when he left the company in

890
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen after the Disney sale, which he was he

891
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 2: played a big role in, uh negotiating the sale of

892
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 2: the films.

893
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: Do they regret that, by the way, selling that off

894
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:15,720
Speaker 1: and murder strapping.

895
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 2: No, I don't think they. I Well Lacklin I think

896
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 2: was always against it because he didn't like that it

897
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 2: made the empire much smaller and less claim it is.

898
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 2: But if you look at the number they got, the

899
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 2: the number that they got is wildly inflated. Analysts now

900
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 2: will tell you that they sold at the very height

901
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 2: of what they know.

902
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,840
Speaker 1: They have to thank for that. Brian Roberts, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

903
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: who drove the sale price that you know he wanted?

904
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: You know, the it was we were you know, there

905
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:49,360
Speaker 1: was this whole you could argue there was sort of

906
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:52,399
Speaker 1: this land grap right of content in that in that

907
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 1: one moment, you.

908
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 2: Know, we need the IP, we need all the I

909
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 2: everybody wanted to our streamers.

910
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: You know, it was it was this you know, constant

911
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 1: and so and uh, you know, it's the It's the

912
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,760
Speaker 1: best thing that happened to Comcast is that they didn't

913
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: get saddled with it. Frankly, I think they regret buying

914
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: Sky right well.

915
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 2: And they also acquired so interesting And you know, James

916
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 2: that was like his white whale forever. He wanted to

917
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 2: buy a Sky and they just couldn't get it done

918
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 2: because you know, the public profile is just too toxic

919
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 2: for news corporate Fox. But the point is James left

920
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 2: that that when he left after that sale, he got

921
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 2: two billion dollars in cash, all the siblings did. So

922
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 2: he set himself up and price and he's kind of

923
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:42,319
Speaker 2: building his own little mini empire, right and it's very

924
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 2: kind of James. And he's bought controlling stake in Art

925
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 2: Basel and uh, you know the Tribeca Film Festival or

926
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 2: the yeah, and you know, like he's he's investing in

927
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 2: India again, which is where he started his career, and

928
00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 2: he's kind of building up his own portfolio. And I

929
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 2: think he's fine with that. And you know, when when

930
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 2: Rupert's gone, there is a possibility that Lachlan just goes

931
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:09,399
Speaker 2: to James and says, let me just buy you out,

932
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 2: like I'll there were there have been buyout attempts before,

933
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 2: but James always felt like they were low balling him.

934
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 2: It's possible that Lachlan says, and maybe even before rupertiz,

935
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:22,879
Speaker 2: maybe Rupert is the catalyst for it. Maybe Rupert says, look,

936
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 2: let's just could we tried this kind of scheme. It

937
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 2: didn't work. Let's just go straight to him, give him

938
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 2: exactly what he wants for his stake, and James walks

939
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 2: away an even wealthier man with the freedom to build

940
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:35,800
Speaker 2: whatever he wants.

941
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 1: And you assume the sisters go along with whatever James

942
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 1: wants to go along with on this.

943
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:42,880
Speaker 2: It would be no I think they would make their

944
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:45,919
Speaker 2: own decision. But I think that Prudence in particular has

945
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 2: never shown any interest in the business at all. She

946
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 2: would probably I'm speculating here, but probably be happy with

947
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 2: just taking her money and going home. Liz is more

948
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:58,479
Speaker 2: of a wildcard. Liz is actually a very successful TV

949
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 2: and film developer and her own way I just set

950
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 2: up her own production company. But Liz, Prue and James

951
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:07,320
Speaker 2: are all embarrassed by Fox News and by kind of

952
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 2: the more right wing elements of the company. So if

953
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 2: they don't see a way to reforming it. I think

954
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 2: they would want to just kind of wash their hands

955
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 2: and walk away.

956
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting. Look, I think there's going to be

957
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: an existential moment for Fox that comes up when because

958
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: the NFL has decided that they want to opt out

959
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:27,400
Speaker 1: of their TV deal, and this is going to be

960
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: a huge decision by Fox and whether they're going to

961
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:32,240
Speaker 1: financially try to keep up with Google and Apple and Amazon,

962
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: who all are suddenly you know what the NFL sees.

963
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 1: Although I do wonder if the tariff environment, if the

964
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 1: economy is as bad as I think it could end

965
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:43,239
Speaker 1: up being in the next year or two, you know,

966
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:46,320
Speaker 1: we may see a situation where where there's no ad

967
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 1: market is collapsing and the NFL backtracks. But I wonder

968
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 1: whether Fox is going to have the resources to keep up,

969
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 1: because that's it. The NFL is such an important part

970
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: of them having a foot hold in legitimacy. I know,

971
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 1: like Fox News is becoming less and less legitimate, it's

972
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: becoming more and more of a pariah. But Fox Sports

973
00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 1: is the narrator of our sports lives in many cases

974
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: with the NFL, and it's such a huge if they

975
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 1: lost it, so but it may become financially impossible to keep.

976
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 2: I mean, it's this is the position that all of

977
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 2: these these broadcast networks are in, Like how do you

978
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 2: compete with with something like Amazon or Apple where they.

979
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: Just doesn't need to make money on this thing streaming,

980
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:35,240
Speaker 1: They don't care neither dose Amazon.

981
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:39,399
Speaker 2: Billions of dollars on fire to outbid them, and uh

982
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,120
Speaker 2: and and you know these big tech companies are coming

983
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 2: for them. And I will say this was something that

984
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:47,400
Speaker 2: Rupert saw coming down the line, and it's part of

985
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 2: why he sold the Disney assets because he kind of

986
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:53,439
Speaker 2: or the assets to Disney. He kind of realized, we're

987
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 2: not going to be big enough to compete with the

988
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 2: netflixes of the world, right, We're just not. We're not.

989
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:03,800
Speaker 2: It's not possible. And so he basically decided, let's whittle

990
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:05,879
Speaker 2: this back down to the thing I actually care about,

991
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 2: which is news. And maybe that ends up being the right,

992
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 2: right call. It's a much smaller business, but it is

993
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 2: more in line with what Rupert cares about.

994
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:18,399
Speaker 1: Is there a third generation of Murdocks that are adults yet?

995
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:20,800
Speaker 1: And I think they're so right? And are they?

996
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 2: Yeah?

997
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 1: They want in on this, are they a part of it.

998
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:29,719
Speaker 2: I did not talk to James and Catherine's kids. I

999
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 2: met one of them, but they they're pretty adamant about

1000
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 2: keeping their kids out of the press, and I understand why,

1001
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 2: given what James has been true. But no one thing

1002
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:40,839
Speaker 2: James and Catherine did tell me is that they are

1003
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 2: gratified by the fact that they have three kids. They're

1004
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 2: all on very different career paths, and they have taken

1005
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,440
Speaker 2: pains to not try to draw them into whatever kind

1006
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 2: of professional world day inhabit, because they James feels like

1007
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 2: he lost a good chunk of his life to just

1008
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,399
Speaker 2: trying to play in his dad's sandbox, and they would

1009
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:02,640
Speaker 2: rather let their kids kind of figure out their own way.

1010
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: Ultimately, Rupert was a news guy. He loves to read

1011
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:11,399
Speaker 1: a newspaper. He loved, you know, the stories of him

1012
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:16,600
Speaker 1: calling up editors constantly. You know, you know, he loved ultimately,

1013
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: he loved being provoked by his newspaper columnists. He loved

1014
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: that stuff. What is James and what is Lachlan? Are

1015
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: they Are they ultimately news guys? Are they ultimately curious guys?

1016
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 1: Or are they media executive mogul types? And they're more

1017
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,320
Speaker 1: mogul thinking rather than yeah, like I said, Rupert, Look,

1018
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,879
Speaker 1: I I sense that Rupert cares about the Wall Street

1019
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:46,360
Speaker 1: Journal's reputation, right, Sure, he does. Right, So there's you know,

1020
00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 1: it's sort of like Darth Vader. There's some good in

1021
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 1: him somewhere, right that that at least sees what what

1022
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 1: a good newspaper like.

1023
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 2: Well, well, another way to put it is that he

1024
00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:57,879
Speaker 2: likes Rupert likes it, realizes that one of the great

1025
00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:01,440
Speaker 2: pleasures of being a media baron is that you get

1026
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 2: to have these outlets that kind of needle the powerful,

1027
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 2: even when the powerful are on your side. And so

1028
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 2: you see the Wall Street Journal taking Trump to task

1029
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:11,240
Speaker 2: over tariffs over and over again, I think.

1030
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:13,919
Speaker 1: And the New York Post. It's interesting that those two

1031
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:17,399
Speaker 1: are doing it. And the assumption is that's Rupert has

1032
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 1: no control over Fox. Right, But if he calls up

1033
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 1: Paul she go to at the Wall Street Journal, or

1034
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: if he calls up his buddies over at the Post,

1035
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:26,720
Speaker 1: they'll listen.

1036
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 2: I think that to answer your question, Lachlan and James

1037
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 2: are very different. Lachlan is, you know, a kind of

1038
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:37,479
Speaker 2: rugged outdoorsman. He's most at home in Australia. He likes

1039
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:39,879
Speaker 2: being a big shot. He was for a long time

1040
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 2: in Australia, this big shot media investor. His wife was

1041
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,879
Speaker 2: the host of Australia's Next Top Model. That they are

1042
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 2: very much in that they're swimming in those waters of

1043
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 2: just kind of corporate elite world. Right, And I don't

1044
00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:56,080
Speaker 2: know how much he cares about news. James is actually

1045
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 2: a pretty voracious consumer of news, but it's not the

1046
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:01,840
Speaker 2: for the most part, the kind of news that the

1047
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 2: Murdoch Press creates. Right. He doesn't read I think the

1048
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:08,880
Speaker 2: New York Post, he said, even when he was running

1049
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:11,360
Speaker 2: all of Europe and Asia, he didn't read the news

1050
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:13,480
Speaker 2: of the world and kind of the down market tabloids

1051
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 2: because it just wasn't his speed. He reads the New

1052
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 2: York Review of Books and you know, the Atlantic, the

1053
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 2: New Yorker. He's just texting me about. I mean, he is,

1054
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 2: He's the kind of person that Great Guttfeld makes fun of, right, right,

1055
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 2: But but but because of that, I would argue that me.

1056
00:57:34,120 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 2: And you know, also, he really liked being involved in

1057
00:57:36,200 --> 00:57:38,520
Speaker 2: the movie stuff, and you know he's like knows Wes

1058
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: Anderson and stuff like that. He I think that he

1059
00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:46,000
Speaker 2: actually has more interest in the media business than Lachlin

1060
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:48,840
Speaker 2: in some ways. But it's part of the reason that

1061
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:50,800
Speaker 2: he has a very different vision than his brother and

1062
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 2: father for what the outlets should be.

1063
00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 1: It's not lost on me that, as you described the

1064
00:57:56,040 --> 00:58:01,200
Speaker 1: Murdoch kids, that you know that we're probably a decade

1065
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:05,520
Speaker 1: away from the Trump family like this. I know we

1066
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 1: don't see it yet, but it's sort of like it

1067
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 1: seems inevitable that these family run companies always turn to

1068
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: this once there's a patriarch that actually does pit kids

1069
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:18,720
Speaker 1: against each other, which Donald Trump in many ways is

1070
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:21,400
Speaker 1: very similar to Murdoch. There is there is a a

1071
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: familiarity to the two of them, and I've watched the

1072
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 1: way he works. Eric versus Junior, versus Sodavanka versus Jared

1073
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:31,760
Speaker 1: and all this stuff there. You know, right now they're

1074
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:36,480
Speaker 1: all swimming in the same pool. But you know, we

1075
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: can all see this coming. You know, it's how big

1076
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 1: is it? You know?

1077
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 2: I actually wrote a cover story for The Atlantic six

1078
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 2: years ago about the Trump family and the kind of

1079
00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 2: battle between Evanka and Don Junior. At that time that

1080
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 2: was kind of the defining beef about who would be

1081
00:58:56,120 --> 00:58:58,640
Speaker 2: kind of the heir to the You know, the Trump Empire.

1082
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing with them is that Trump, for

1083
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:05,760
Speaker 2: a long time and still to some extent, prefers Avanka

1084
00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 2: as the face of his his family because he always

1085
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 2: kind of wanted to be on the inside. He wanted

1086
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:15,040
Speaker 2: the kind of Manhattan elite crowd to accept him. But

1087
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 2: Don Junior was the one who actually went to where

1088
00:59:17,520 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 2: Trump's real base is and understands the better. And and

1089
00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:25,840
Speaker 2: you can sense the kind of way that Trump resents

1090
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 2: Don Junior for that because on some level, I think

1091
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 2: he looks in the mirror and with with with his

1092
00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:34,440
Speaker 2: son and sees himself and doesn't like what he sees. Well,

1093
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 2: that Don Junior is more successful than Evanka in this

1094
00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 2: in this world kind of.

1095
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 1: Well, what's interesting is I actually go deep, I go

1096
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, it's it's you know, it's

1097
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:47,960
Speaker 1: sort of what happened with his dad, right, Fred, the one,

1098
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:53,440
Speaker 1: the son who Fred gave his name to, disappointed him. Yeah, right, yeah, right,

1099
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:57,200
Speaker 1: Fred Junior did, and you know he ends up favoring

1100
00:59:57,400 --> 01:00:00,280
Speaker 1: the son. And you know there's so there's probably blee.

1101
01:00:00,400 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: We don't know this for sure because Fred's never you know,

1102
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:04,480
Speaker 1: by the time Fred might have spoken about it, he'd

1103
01:00:04,520 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 1: already sort of was slipping away. But you do get

1104
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 1: a sense that, at least in my sort of study

1105
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 1: and research of this, that that there was almost a

1106
01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:16,200
Speaker 1: disappointment that that Fred wasn't the guy, right, Fred was

1107
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 1: supposed to be the guy, and he wasn't. It was Junior,

1108
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: and I think when it was Donald, and then when

1109
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:24,320
Speaker 1: you have Donald, you know, you see who does he

1110
01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:27,439
Speaker 1: trust to run the business. Not Junior. He trusted Eric.

1111
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:30,240
Speaker 1: It's not lost on me. Eric does all the deals,

1112
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:34,760
Speaker 1: Eric does that, and Eric. But then there's little superficial things.

1113
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:38,440
Speaker 1: Eric's taller than Junior. Eric has blonde hair, Eric has

1114
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 1: you know I have? You know it is And you

1115
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:46,040
Speaker 1: could always tell there's been this weird relationship between father

1116
01:00:46,120 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 1: and son, Junior and Senior, because you know that what

1117
01:00:49,920 --> 01:00:53,000
Speaker 1: Donald cares about is what his name looks like. Right,

1118
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: His brand is with one son. So there's he probably

1119
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 1: can never live up to Senior. Yeah, and there's no

1120
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 1: doubt to me, Junior's constantly trying to get his dad's approval.

1121
01:01:03,640 --> 01:01:06,240
Speaker 1: So he thought, I'll go down this political road. Okay,

1122
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 1: I'll do this, right, will this do it? And he's

1123
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:12,040
Speaker 1: got him jd Vance. Will this do it. Yeah, I

1124
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: don't know if it does. Right. At the end, he

1125
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: still has Eric running the empire. He still wants Evanka,

1126
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:20,440
Speaker 1: you know, he won't totally push her out, you know,

1127
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:23,240
Speaker 1: but there's no doubt in my mind this is coming.

1128
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:27,840
Speaker 1: The question is I mean, please, can you imagine what's

1129
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:30,280
Speaker 1: going in Junior's head that his ex wife's stating Tiger

1130
01:01:30,320 --> 01:01:33,720
Speaker 1: Woods and his father is going to be obsessed with

1131
01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: hanging out with Tiger Woods. Yeah, yeah, right, like this

1132
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:39,040
Speaker 1: is going to cause all sorts of bizarre Like I'm

1133
01:01:39,080 --> 01:01:42,320
Speaker 1: just it just feels like, if you're looking for the

1134
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 1: next succession, I have a feeling it's probably the Trumps.

1135
01:01:47,600 --> 01:01:50,919
Speaker 2: I think that's probably right. Maybe that's the book. Maybe

1136
01:01:51,040 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 2: maybe I end up writing the succession that it's somehow

1137
01:01:54,800 --> 01:01:57,200
Speaker 2: even more unseemly than the Murdock one.

1138
01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:59,960
Speaker 1: But well, because it will be confused with politics, right,

1139
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 1: you know, especially if Junior runs right, you know, if

1140
01:02:03,120 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 1: he runs himself at some point, whether it's in twenty eight,

1141
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:07,320
Speaker 1: whether it's in thirty, whatever it is. You know, That's

1142
01:02:07,320 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: always been my theory is that it's it's Vance and

1143
01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:13,360
Speaker 1: Trump right is a ticket and that Vans and Junior

1144
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 1: that is not senior, and then how that will play out? Right? What?

1145
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 1: How does how does Dad handle that?

1146
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,320
Speaker 2: I think I think that the last thing I'll say

1147
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 2: about this is that it reminds me of the Murdock dynamic,

1148
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:31,280
Speaker 2: in that the more successful James became, the more Rupert

1149
01:02:31,480 --> 01:02:34,680
Speaker 2: was threatened by him and alienated by him, and it

1150
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:37,439
Speaker 2: actually drove you know, James thought the way to win

1151
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:40,320
Speaker 2: his dad's approval was to succeed at the company his

1152
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:43,880
Speaker 2: dad owned. That seems like thinking, a pretty rational idea.

1153
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:47,320
Speaker 2: But the more successfully he became, the more power he accumulated,

1154
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:51,320
Speaker 2: the more wins he notch, the more Rupert kind of

1155
01:02:51,480 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 2: resented him, And I could very easily see a similar

1156
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:58,600
Speaker 2: dynamic playing out with Junior and and Trump.

1157
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 1: Well, McKay, how many interviews with James and Catherine did

1158
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:02,000
Speaker 1: you end.

1159
01:03:01,960 --> 01:03:05,880
Speaker 2: Up with between the two of them? Fifteen sixteen something

1160
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:10,600
Speaker 2: like that? Any in Lachlan Lachlan when to talk Rupert?

1161
01:03:10,640 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 2: When talk I did talk to Liza. She was also

1162
01:03:14,160 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 2: in some ways real and almost more helpful because she

1163
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:19,960
Speaker 2: could see the thing, the dynamic objectively, a little bit

1164
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:20,200
Speaker 2: from the.

1165
01:03:20,240 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: Middle side, right right, because she wasn't involved in it,

1166
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:26,680
Speaker 1: you know, involved with the fight. Well, look, it's uh,

1167
01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:29,520
Speaker 1: it's fantastic. And like I said at the top, I mean,

1168
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:34,040
Speaker 1: you're you know, there's there's you're, you're you're generational in

1169
01:03:34,080 --> 01:03:38,240
Speaker 1: your ability to do this, and it's, uh, it's it's fantastic,

1170
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:43,400
Speaker 1: it's necessary, and it's illuminating, whether it's understanding the dynamics

1171
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:45,720
Speaker 1: of what happened in the Republican Party. And again I

1172
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 1: tell people there's no other book to read. And you know,

1173
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 1: you read these Trump books or you read these history

1174
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:53,640
Speaker 1: the Republican Party books, and you're like, Okay, they all

1175
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: have sort of the same anecdotes, right, or the anecdotes

1176
01:03:56,520 --> 01:03:59,360
Speaker 1: are different, but they but it's the same the same, Right,

1177
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 1: they all feel the same. I always say every Trump

1178
01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:03,440
Speaker 1: book's the same. You won't believe what he tried to do,

1179
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:06,280
Speaker 1: you won't believe who stopped him, and you won't believe

1180
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 1: where they headed next. Right, Like, it's always like it's

1181
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 1: some version of that, and yet you tackled it in

1182
01:04:12,600 --> 01:04:15,520
Speaker 1: a way through sort of the Last of the Mohicans,

1183
01:04:15,560 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: if you will, with Romney, and it was more illuminating

1184
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:22,080
Speaker 1: than any any supposed Trump insider book you could get

1185
01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:24,200
Speaker 1: on where the party is today, and I think this

1186
01:04:24,360 --> 01:04:28,320
Speaker 1: on media and conservative media in general has a similar

1187
01:04:28,360 --> 01:04:28,840
Speaker 1: feel to me.

1188
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:32,640
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate all your support. You

1189
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:36,600
Speaker 2: were the first person to interview me on stage about

1190
01:04:36,600 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 2: that Romney book back in twenty twenty three, kicked off

1191
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:41,800
Speaker 2: the book tour, and it really made a difference.

1192
01:04:41,800 --> 01:04:43,680
Speaker 1: So I appreciate, well, your your your kind of your

1193
01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 1: kind of say that. I think your work is what

1194
01:04:45,480 --> 01:04:49,120
Speaker 1: made the difference. Let's let's let's not get that, get

1195
01:04:49,120 --> 01:04:53,480
Speaker 1: that distracted there, McKay. I mean this was I'm sure exhausting,

1196
01:04:53,480 --> 01:04:56,320
Speaker 1: a labor of love. And now you've got to, you know,

1197
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:58,600
Speaker 1: go find some some I assume you've got a couple

1198
01:04:58,600 --> 01:04:59,680
Speaker 1: of things you're working on now.

1199
01:04:59,560 --> 01:05:05,680
Speaker 2: Onto the story, but always searching for a confessional, influential

1200
01:05:05,720 --> 01:05:07,440
Speaker 2: person who wants to bear their soul to me. So

1201
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 2: if anyone listening wants to talk, you can find me.

1202
01:05:12,600 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 1: There you go. He can be your therapist and you

1203
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:18,200
Speaker 1: don't have to pay. There you go, McKay, Thank you, Chuck.

1204
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:25,560
Speaker 1: So do you buy our theory that perhaps Fox News

1205
01:05:25,560 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 1: would be better today if Roger Ailes are still running

1206
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:30,880
Speaker 1: it and we're still alive. Anyway, I would love to

1207
01:05:30,920 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 1: hear your comments and results on that and your responses

1208
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:37,880
Speaker 1: to that. By the way, don't forget to ask Chuck

1209
01:05:38,040 --> 01:05:40,840
Speaker 1: at the chucktodcast dot com. That's where you send in

1210
01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:43,720
Speaker 1: your questions. That's where you send in your feedback. That's

1211
01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 1: where you throw ideas out there that you'd like to

1212
01:05:46,800 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 1: see me to tackle that. Perhaps we haven't tackled that,

1213
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:51,400
Speaker 1: And of course later this week I will try to

1214
01:05:51,440 --> 01:05:54,760
Speaker 1: answer as many of your questions. And my theme this

1215
01:05:54,840 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 1: week of sort of institutions who helped facilitate the great

1216
01:06:00,360 --> 01:06:04,040
Speaker 1: distrust environment that we all live in today. We just

1217
01:06:04,080 --> 01:06:07,640
Speaker 1: finished up media today. We're going to tackle government distrust

1218
01:06:07,720 --> 01:06:11,360
Speaker 1: later this week with one of the great experts these

1219
01:06:11,440 --> 01:06:14,320
Speaker 1: days on all things at JFK. So I hope you

1220
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:16,720
Speaker 1: look forward to that later in the week. And with that,

1221
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:19,400
Speaker 1: I'll sign off and I'll see in the next episode

1222
01:06:19,440 --> 01:06:21,479
Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast until we upload again.