Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds.
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump says JD. Vans can be weird because
Speaker 2: he's so straight. Yep, that's it. We have such a
Speaker 2: great show for you today. Status Snews. Oliver Darcy steps
Speaker 2: by to talk the media is quite poor coverage of
Speaker 2: the election. That we'll talk to The New York Times
Speaker 2: Enna Prita Das about their new book, Billionaire Nerd Savior,
Speaker 2: King Bill Gates and his quest to shape our world thought. First,
Speaker 2: we have the host of the Enemy's List, the Lincoln
Speaker 2: Project's own Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Rick Wilson, Mollie Jong Fast.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about this weird weekend we're in now?
Speaker 1: It is officially the start of the political season for
Speaker 1: anyone paying attention.
Speaker 4: Oh I'm sorry. The political season started for me in
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen and it hasn't ended. Sadly.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because it's like you saw that, and
Speaker 1: it's like, well, what is traditionally the start of the
Speaker 1: political season.
Speaker 4: Have you met social media?
Speaker 1: So first, let's do two seconds on the mainstream media
Speaker 1: of which.
Speaker 3: We are a part.
Speaker 4: We are we are.
Speaker 3: Print media failing to meet the moment.
Speaker 4: This is not the first time anyone said this, not
Speaker 4: the first time you've said it or I've said it.
Speaker 4: But every time a story is written where they righte
Speaker 4: aheadline that says Harrison Trump plans for housing both face
Speaker 4: challenges and Harris has like a plan, and Donald Trump
Speaker 4: says things like I like houses, fancy the Betner, And
Speaker 4: they treat them like the same thing. They treat them
Speaker 4: like they're the same identical moment, and it's just not.
Speaker 4: And unfortunately, I don't know if you're seeing this. I
Speaker 4: feel like there's like a rising tide in a lot
Speaker 4: of the mainstream media of like, fuck you stop criticizing us. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I kind of sense that's out there right now. You're
Speaker 4: not professional journalists. We'll tell you how we cover Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: even though it's been working out so well since.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I was struck by was
Speaker 1: how much mainstream media, for whatever reason, can't get out
Speaker 1: of it, like this guy is an autocrat. He says
Speaker 1: he's an autocrat. Everyone who covers him for a million
Speaker 1: years agrees he's an autocrat. He has said he's going
Speaker 1: to be a dictator. On day one when he says
Speaker 1: he's kidding, he's not kidding. They're raising signs that say
Speaker 1: mass deportation. Now at the fucking convention. Why are we
Speaker 1: behaving like any of this is normal.
Speaker 4: You got a guy in Florida running for office, Republican
Speaker 4: running for office, who is saying, the minute we're in Congress,
Speaker 4: I'm going to get a bill to suspend habeas Corpus
Speaker 4: to arrest not only the deep state, but the critics
Speaker 4: of Donald Trump. These people are not kidding. These people
Speaker 4: do not have any humor in them. This isn't some
Speaker 4: sort of like wacky rhetorical flex. This is what they believe.
Speaker 4: And if we treat Trump, I know, I've burned some
Speaker 4: relationships with some of my reporter friends, but if you
Speaker 4: keep treating Trump like he is a normal Republican candidate, yeah,
Speaker 4: you are going to get more Trump. And you all
Speaker 4: know this, And so I'm starting to have to presume
Speaker 4: that a lot of them want more Trump. It bothers
Speaker 4: the fuck out of me, Molly. It's like, what part
Speaker 4: of this idea that you normalize Trump has worked out
Speaker 4: for us? The part where we had a million people
Speaker 4: die from COVID because we thought, oh, we'd be a
Speaker 4: normal president and do all the responsible things that a
Speaker 4: royal president would do. The part where oh no, the
Speaker 4: guardrails will certainly keep Donald Trump from trying to steal
Speaker 4: the election. He would never do such a thing. That's outrageous.
Speaker 1: Oh really, But I also wonder, like, this is the
Speaker 1: thing I was thinking about this morning. First of all,
Speaker 1: why don't people ask questions that are like, Okay, Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: you're going to lower inflation. How are you going to
Speaker 1: do it with tariffs? Okay, tariffs? How did tariffs lower inflation?
Speaker 1: Because they make things more expensive? So however lower inflation? Right,
Speaker 1: Oh well, you know then people will buy things made.
Speaker 4: Noble l blah blah blah. And you know, look, just
Speaker 4: Donald Trump making mouth noises is not a sufficient reporting
Speaker 4: to right.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, And I think one of the biggest
Speaker 1: problems here, just to get nuts and boltsy for a minute,
Speaker 1: is that people don't ask follow up questions. So like,
Speaker 1: for example, here's a question, like if you're going to ask,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to get back to this
Speaker 1: thing because like I like Dana, she's a lovely human being,
Speaker 1: but like you are going to ask Harris what she
Speaker 1: thinks about Donald Trump saying she's not black?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: What I would have said was much meaner than what
Speaker 1: she said, But she said, you know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to answer that question because this is not a question, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not really a question. What do you
Speaker 1: think of someone's racist slur? I think it's a racist.
Speaker 4: Slur, right, Look, And a lot of what happened on
Speaker 4: that interview. And again, I like Dana Bash. I like
Speaker 4: Dana Bash a lot. Dana Bash is a very professional journalist,
Speaker 4: but these are things that are produced. It's not just
Speaker 4: her writing these questions. It's a produced thing, right. My concern,
Speaker 4: my issue is that you don't just take insane talking
Speaker 4: points from Donald Trump's campaign, rephrase them as a question
Speaker 4: and to present them to the other candidate, right, Because
Speaker 4: I do not hair reporters saying the Harris campaign says,
Speaker 4: you're a weird, creepy rape guy, You're a strange, racist
Speaker 4: fuck wit. They never say that, because it's always like
Speaker 4: this framing that they have priced in the insanity of
Speaker 4: Trump into their reporting is a disservice to the country,
Speaker 4: and in my humble opinion, a disservice to journalism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I just also don't understand what the
Speaker 1: goal is, right, what's the goal?
Speaker 4: You've asked the correct question, Molly. What is the goal?
Speaker 4: Is the goal to treat this as a horse race,
Speaker 4: a ping pong match, back and forth? You know, if
Speaker 4: that's the case, then they're doing a great job for themselves.
Speaker 4: If they think that the horse race coverage that worked
Speaker 4: up until twenty sixteen to serve as a second order
Speaker 4: effect to educate voters about the differences in the candidates,
Speaker 4: if they think that world still exists, I have to
Speaker 4: remind them it has not existed for a very long time.
Speaker 4: And my concern is that they continue to frame this
Speaker 4: he's a normal Republican and she's a normal Democrat. Well,
Speaker 4: she is an normal Democrat. Actually she's kind of a
Speaker 4: better Democrat than we've had in a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the other.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they treat Donald Trump in this way. It's
Speaker 4: like participation trophy Central for this guy. Every time they
Speaker 4: get him out there, they price in, Okay, well Donald
Speaker 4: Trump's going to say something really crazy and stupid, but
Speaker 4: then we're going to take what he says and go
Speaker 4: to Harris and say, what's your response, madam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just don't get it. I don't understand
Speaker 1: what the goal here is. And I also just don't know,
Speaker 1: like what's the let's just stop her second. If you're
Speaker 1: doing an interview like this and you want to get
Speaker 1: to do so, you want to get to know the candidate,
Speaker 1: even though she's had many positions in all.
Speaker 3: Three branches of government. But okay, you want to.
Speaker 1: Get to know her, and then you want to like,
Speaker 1: you know, know her policy. I don't want to know
Speaker 1: what she thinks of Donald Trump. I know what she
Speaker 1: thinks of Donald Trump. I know what I think of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. It's enough about fucking Donald Trump. And I
Speaker 1: do think like when you ask these trumpy questions, A,
Speaker 1: you elevate him, but B you end up.
Speaker 3: With answers about Donald Trump. Who the fuck cares?
Speaker 4: Yeah. Look, the conception that Donald Trump is like a singularity,
Speaker 4: like a black hole in the middle of everything we
Speaker 4: do is part of the reason. And I don't know
Speaker 4: if journalists understand this yet. They got a sugar high
Speaker 4: off of Trump for a long time. But one of
Speaker 4: the reasons now that people are basically saying, yeah, that's okay,
Speaker 4: I'm making up my mind using other information is because
Speaker 4: they continue to insist that he is the only thing
Speaker 4: in our politics, and he is not right.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is it's also not factual because we're.
Speaker 3: Seeing that there is a Harris bounce.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the Democratic Invention got better numbers than the
Speaker 1: Republican Convention, so there is actually a Harris bounce. She
Speaker 1: has these kind of Obama numbers, So it is not
Speaker 1: She is not Joe Biden. Which is not to say
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden isn't great, because I truly believe that
Speaker 1: some of the things he's done are singular policy achievements
Speaker 1: that maybe no one else could have gotten done because
Speaker 1: of his knowledge of the Senate. But this is to
Speaker 1: say that the mainstream media actually people want to see
Speaker 1: her on television, and I think that that is important.
Speaker 4: But let's wait, wait, wait, hold on want saying myley.
Speaker 4: Actually there are a lot of them that they want
Speaker 4: her on television so they can zapper. You and I
Speaker 4: both know this is the case. I have my theories
Speaker 4: of why it is, but it's not about ideology. The
Speaker 4: acella chord media fucking hates Joe Biden. They fucking they
Speaker 4: hate him. With the fire of a billion.
Speaker 1: Suns because he's boring, and he's bad for business because.
Speaker 4: He's procedural and boring, and they hate him. Their hatred
Speaker 4: of him was not a good look for them. But
Speaker 4: we'll skip that for now, and this idea now that
Speaker 4: she's going to play by her rules. The things that
Speaker 4: are working for her and her campaign and not their
Speaker 4: rules are the same things they praise Donald Trump for doing. Oh,
Speaker 4: Trump's transgressive. He sets the agenda, he tells the media
Speaker 4: what he's going to do, and not the other. And
Speaker 4: they're angry at her for doing the same thing. They're
Speaker 4: angry at her. And I don't mean that. I don't
Speaker 4: mean the like the soaked and evil shit that Trump does.
Speaker 4: I mean the way she's dealing with the media. They
Speaker 4: praised Donald Trump, they say, and it's remarkable, groundbreaking, never
Speaker 4: before candidate like Donald Trump. And with her, it's like,
Speaker 4: what's this bitch doing to us? Why is she not
Speaker 4: sitting down for a four hour interrogation? Get the fuck
Speaker 4: out of here.
Speaker 1: The takeaway here is Vice President Harris doesn't owe you shit.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean correct, she doesn't. She doesn't know the CNN.
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way, CNN, we know that CNN
Speaker 1: has been pushed to be Fox News Light. We know
Speaker 1: that because we've seen a million pieces about it. So like,
Speaker 1: why she gave her first interview to a company that
Speaker 1: is really trying to be Fox News Light is sort
Speaker 1: of interesting to me.
Speaker 3: But we don't even have to talk about that because fogus.
Speaker 4: I will tell my friends at CNN this since I've
Speaker 4: been banned there since Jeff Zucker, but I will tell
Speaker 4: them this once again, just the tip trump Ism does
Speaker 4: not exist, right. You are not going to get Trump's
Speaker 4: audience when they can get the unadult traded pure crazy
Speaker 4: on Fox or Newsmax or Oan or on you won't
Speaker 4: get them. They hate you. They will never not hate you.
Speaker 4: They will never not treat you as an enemy. And
Speaker 4: you are first against the wall if Trump gets back
Speaker 4: in office.
Speaker 1: No, and we know Trump started with CNN socks as
Speaker 1: a chant and now CNN is like, maybe Donald.
Speaker 3: Trump has some good ideas.
Speaker 1: But Jesse Kennon wants us to move on to a
Speaker 1: new subject because he thinks that there's something that you
Speaker 1: and I should both talk about, which I don't disagree.
Speaker 1: Who do you think, Asad's favorite former congresswoman is, would.
Speaker 4: That be also Putin's favorite former Congressman Tulca Gabbert.
Speaker 1: She gives streaks a bad name, discuss all two colored hair.
Speaker 1: Political pundits are good.
Speaker 4: You know, there is a streak of inevitability about the
Speaker 4: Tulsi Gabbert transformation where she was raised in the politics
Speaker 4: of Hawaii. This climate that, you know is quite progressive,
Speaker 4: not like a little progressive, like extremely progressive. Hawaii is
Speaker 4: like San Francisco, those those right wingers in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: But but she was raising that. And but the inevitability
Speaker 4: of her becoming a media creature, becoming a Fox News
Speaker 4: person is you could have drawn the arc, you know,
Speaker 4: a couple of years ago. It started out Molly, I
Speaker 4: think as kind of like she wanted to be like
Speaker 4: a novelty, like somebody who was transgressive, and like, oh, yes,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm willing to listen to all sides. I'm going
Speaker 4: to go to to give a sod a fair shake. Yes,
Speaker 4: you know it's sod. It's notoriously been notorious, set upon,
Speaker 4: notoriously been set upon at home, that poor fellow. But
Speaker 4: her enough endorsement of Trump should surprise no one. She
Speaker 4: is one blowout and a makeover away from a Fox
Speaker 4: News gig, and that's what she's after.
Speaker 3: That's the goal here.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what she's after. I think we shouldn't interpret
Speaker 4: her as a broader political evolution that goes beyond Tulsi herself.
Speaker 4: I think this is all about her, all about stardom,
Speaker 4: all about trying to get a Fox gig or maybe
Speaker 4: a gig in the Trump administration.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: And obviously every single conservative, I mean, because we know
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration looks like because he was president
Speaker 1: for four years. It will meet right, everybody and their
Speaker 1: fucking brother will work in that ad man because you know,
Speaker 1: it'll be a Vanka stylist, Avanka's secretary, Avanka's publicist.
Speaker 4: It'll be Baron's racquetball buddy whatever, right exactly.
Speaker 3: He'll be the head of HUT. I mean they have to.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have to fill all these government jobs, and
Speaker 1: they're going to find some of the most incompetent people
Speaker 1: we know to do it.
Speaker 4: RFK is going to be a Secretary of Polio. I
Speaker 4: want to make sure all Americans increase their roadkill in
Speaker 4: their diet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the roadkill stuff is bad. I have to say, Like,
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't understand who is eating roadkill?
Speaker 3: I didn't know this was a thing.
Speaker 1: Is this a thing?
Speaker 3: What the hell are we doing?
Speaker 4: Well? Let me let me say this as you are aware.
Speaker 4: I am a Southerner, fifth generation Florida man.
Speaker 1: Right, that's right. So you have killed many a squirrel
Speaker 1: in your life.
Speaker 4: I've killed many a creature, many a four legged creature,
Speaker 4: mostly four legged creatures. I've never killed the long pig,
Speaker 4: but that's another start of the day.
Speaker 3: Waits the long pig a squirrel?
Speaker 4: No, the long pig is slang for killing a human
Speaker 4: and eating them. Oh, yeah, I've never done that. So
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not to say I haven't hunted a human.
Speaker 4: But okay, does Tulsi move the net?
Speaker 1: All?
Speaker 4: Tulsa doesn't move shit?
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: It's sort of the first week of full on politics season.
Speaker 1: What should Vice President Harris be doing?
Speaker 4: She should be doing what she's doing with these rallies
Speaker 4: and these campaigning in places like Look, she filled an
Speaker 4: arena to the rafters in Savannah, Georgia.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, look, Savannah is a purple area in the city proper,
Speaker 4: but surrounded by a big red area. She filled that
Speaker 4: place to the rafters. She should continue to treat Trump
Speaker 4: like the irritating racist gadfly that he is. She should
Speaker 4: continue to be out there doing these swing state visits
Speaker 4: because they're going great. She's, like I said, stacking them
Speaker 4: to the rafters and Trump every time. You've all known
Speaker 4: this from twenty fifteen, the biggest Trump lie. We have
Speaker 4: forty seven, three hundred and ninety people waiting to get in.
Speaker 4: We have screens for miles so people can watch this.
Speaker 4: There have a million people wanted to come, but the
Speaker 4: deep state stopped. You know all that. She's actually having
Speaker 4: that problem. They're maxing these arenas, They're not closing off
Speaker 4: the upper decks in these in these auditoriums and these stadiums,
Speaker 4: They're filling them. Keep doing that every day, Okay. Also
Speaker 4: take a lot of that gigantic pyramid of money and
Speaker 4: get up in the swing states and swing districts and
Speaker 4: pound the ever living shit out of Trump and his
Speaker 4: flip flop on abortion and his flip flops on everything.
Speaker 4: Because look, if I had to spare twenty five million
Speaker 4: dollars laying around, I would be up doing direct targeted
Speaker 4: work to evangelicals, telling them. Donald Trump has abandoned you.
Speaker 4: He lied to you. It was all about him, and
Speaker 4: he thought life was precious. It was only about him.
Speaker 4: But now he's a baby killer. Now he's one of them.
Speaker 4: Now he says abortion should be allowed even past six weeks.
Speaker 4: The fuckery that could be conducted there is epic.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but it's true.
Speaker 1: But also because he doesn't believe anything, He just wants
Speaker 1: to get elected. I mean, also talk about him wanting
Speaker 1: to fund He's going to pay for IVF for every
Speaker 1: man woman in the century.
Speaker 3: Good for him, man, I love that.
Speaker 4: Listen. I don't know if anybody noticed that line, though
Speaker 4: it was the complete line was we would either mandate
Speaker 4: insurance companies pay for it, or we would pay for it.
Speaker 4: Mandating insurance companies pay for things. I believe that's called Obamacare.
Speaker 1: By the way, like insurance companies are like in the
Speaker 1: great State of Florida.
Speaker 3: Perhaps you know something about this.
Speaker 1: Climate change has really had its way with property insurance companies.
Speaker 1: So insurance companies are not in a great This is
Speaker 1: not a great moment to be an insurance company. But
Speaker 1: I'm sure having to pay twenty thirty forty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for every man, woman, and child in this country should
Speaker 1: help them out.
Speaker 4: They'll never raise those prices across the board to make
Speaker 4: other people cover that, will they? That could never happen
Speaker 4: with insurance companies, those struggling mom and pop insurance companies
Speaker 4: just scraping by.
Speaker 5: By the way, can.
Speaker 1: I just say it's so fucking stupid? Like one follow
Speaker 1: up question like won't that be expensive? IVF costs twenty
Speaker 1: thirty forty fifty thousand dollars multiple rounds, doesn't guarantee your pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever asked that, right, Like how are you gonna
Speaker 1: pay for that? How are you gonna make insurance companies
Speaker 1: pay for that? Won't that raise everyone's insurance? Like two
Speaker 1: extra follow up questions.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing, none of it matters to Trump. He's
Speaker 4: looking to get out of a hole. That hole is
Speaker 4: one that he created for himself. He doesn't understand how
Speaker 4: to escape it. He doesn't understand how to move from
Speaker 4: the insanity that he's engaged in and the failure that
Speaker 4: he's engaged in to a place of political stability. But
Speaker 4: I'm happy that he's there. I'm happy that he's flailing
Speaker 4: like this because it really has sent a shockwave into
Speaker 4: the evangelical world on the abortion question in particular. This
Speaker 4: is not like a few people at the edges of
Speaker 4: it now there's like a oh boy, maybe if the
Speaker 4: tide changes, he won't be for getting rid of gay marriage.
Speaker 4: Maybe the tide changes, he won't be for a national
Speaker 4: abortion ban. I mean he said that now. But it
Speaker 4: tells people something about Trump that there are two bad
Speaker 4: answers when they look at Trump in this problem. Either
Speaker 4: a they finally have to admit Trump is a lying
Speaker 4: liar who lies and that's one, or they have to
Speaker 4: admit he's being led around by the nose by his
Speaker 4: polsters and his consultants.
Speaker 3: Which is also probably true.
Speaker 4: Which they also do not like.
Speaker 5: Thank you rip well any time.
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Speaker 2: dot bio. That's Politics as Unusual dot bio. Oliver Darcy
Speaker 2: is the publisher of Status News.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: You've been on Fast Politics before, Oliver Darcy, but now
Speaker 1: you are no longer Oliver Darcy of CNN.
Speaker 3: You are Oliver Darcy of Status.
Speaker 1: Status which is your brand new tell us exactly what
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 5: It's my brand new publication that comes out ninety five
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Speaker 5: to hold all these key figures accountable for the decisions
Speaker 5: that make that affect all our lives exactly.
Speaker 1: First, we're going to talk about the CNN interview, and
Speaker 1: then I have many, many, many, many many things I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about. But first I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the CNN interview.
Speaker 3: I love Dana. She's a very lovely human.
Speaker 1: She's very nice, she is very every time I see her,
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to see her. I want you to explain
Speaker 1: to me what the virtue of that interview was.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think it was meant to get
Speaker 5: Harris and Walls on the record on a number of
Speaker 5: different things. And I think that's what Dana had really
Speaker 5: set out to do on policy ships here in there
Speaker 5: and get her response to maybe Donald Trump bonk has
Speaker 5: really heinous attacks. I think that's what they had set
Speaker 5: out to do. Let introduce Harris to the country. What
Speaker 5: did you think it? Wally?
Speaker 1: This is like a fundamental problem with interviewing more generally,
Speaker 1: and I think this is why we're in this situation.
Speaker 1: So what I think is helpful for voters is to
Speaker 1: know policy right policy differences, to know what these people
Speaker 1: want to do when they get in office. A lot
Speaker 1: of the questions that she asked where things like Donald
Speaker 1: Trump says you're not really black?
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean Donald Trump says a lot of shit.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump retruths horrible misogynistic lies about her and Willie
Speaker 1: Brown yesterday, Why should she answer for Trump's racist at
Speaker 1: tax on her?
Speaker 5: It's offensive? But b it's like what And I spend a.
Speaker 1: Lot of time interviewing people, so I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time thinking about how to get people to answer
Speaker 1: questions in ways that will be the most fulsome And
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that when you're interviewing someone,
Speaker 1: it is never useful to go at them to get
Speaker 1: them in a defensive posture.
Speaker 5: It won't get you anything.
Speaker 1: You want to get stuff from your interviewe. You don't
Speaker 1: want to make them so defensive that they just are
Speaker 1: like whatever. Now, the blackness question, I don't even know
Speaker 1: how we could learn more information from a question like that, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that question centers around the reality that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is a racist and he's using a racist attack.
Speaker 3: What should Harris possible say to that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and a clue she did not want to talk
Speaker 5: about it and wanted to move on quickly to other things.
Speaker 1: What would she say? You know, yes, my father is black,
Speaker 1: my mother is Indian. I went to an HBCU. But
Speaker 1: because Donald Trump, I mean, like it just it's an
Speaker 1: unanswerable question. So if I had had that interview, which
Speaker 1: of course every journalist in America wanted that interview and
Speaker 1: then felt they should have had that interview, But I
Speaker 1: would have asked her, Okay, So Republicans are using inflation
Speaker 1: as a cudgel. Is inflation like, talk to us about inflation.
Speaker 1: Is inflation worse in America than it is in other
Speaker 1: economically absoluent countries. It's not right there, it's not and
Speaker 1: explain us why it's not right like and then also
Speaker 1: explain to us what you would do to lower inflation,
Speaker 1: and explain does what you think Trump would do to
Speaker 1: lower inflation, like give people information about the voting choice
Speaker 1: they're about to have versus about Trump's racist.
Speaker 3: Lies, like what does that do? How would you possibly
Speaker 3: even answer that question?
Speaker 1: And like there were a bunch of questions that were
Speaker 1: like that, I don't understand the merit of asking a candidate,
Speaker 1: especially when it's a Trump lie. It's not a real lie.
Speaker 1: So it's like this is all Trump does. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just don't get the merit of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's a little bit.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I can see to some extent both sides. It's to
Speaker 5: both sides something.
Speaker 3: Oh good, all right, well let's do it.
Speaker 5: You know, I think that Trump's appalling behavior is actually
Speaker 5: a fundamental thing that people are going to be voting
Speaker 5: on because they just do not like the way he
Speaker 5: behaves in public. They think he's disgusting. They see his
Speaker 5: racist and sextus attacks on Harris and others, I mean,
Speaker 5: so many others, and that's just that is just something
Speaker 5: that is dominating people's minds. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 5: trying maybe to get her on record responding to some
Speaker 5: of that, or like offering her thoughts on that, I
Speaker 5: think that made some sense to me. I could see,
Speaker 5: I could see why you would ask that question. Clearly
Speaker 5: though that Harris did not want to go there, and
Speaker 5: and Dan I moved on. I think within like, I
Speaker 5: think that lasted. The whole moment lasted maybe like under
Speaker 5: ten seconds or something.
Speaker 3: I see where you're going with this.
Speaker 1: I mean, Dana is a lovely person and she is
Speaker 1: a very talented journalist. But it is the same as
Speaker 1: a journalists asking me, well, your mother is Erica Jong
Speaker 1: and Dan Bongino says you've never done anything your.
Speaker 3: Whole life and you're only where you are because of
Speaker 3: your mother.
Speaker 5: What do you say to that? Okay?
Speaker 3: I mean it's like, what should I say? You don't know.
Speaker 5: I would accept a very witty response from you, Molly right,
Speaker 5: But you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I mean the question is like if the fundamental job
Speaker 1: of an interviewer is to ask questions, to get answers
Speaker 1: to give information. Yeah, I mean there were some questions
Speaker 1: that were different, but like, for example, Tim Walls, Tim Walls,
Speaker 1: so Trump has said this about your military service, okay,
Speaker 1: and he was like, well, they've lied about this, this, this,
Speaker 1: and that, and they're attacking my special need son. Right,
Speaker 1: is true, and it's a good answer for the campaign.
Speaker 1: And I guess it's a good answer for Bash but
Speaker 1: he doesn't tell us anything, right, It's just like the
Speaker 1: reality is like if you wanted to.
Speaker 3: Get into it.
Speaker 1: Walls decided to leave the National Guard to run for
Speaker 1: Congress because he was upset about the Gulf War.
Speaker 3: This is an important data point.
Speaker 1: Then no one has taught right like he did that,
Speaker 1: and then his students went and worked for him, and
Speaker 1: he campaigned in this very purple district and he actually won.
Speaker 5: Nobody thought he would win.
Speaker 3: He didn't get a money.
Speaker 1: Ram Emmanuel is famous for saying, this guy doesn't have
Speaker 1: any money, why would we even get involved in this,
Speaker 1: or something to that effect. That's an interesting data point. Instead,
Speaker 1: she sort of tries to get him to engage on
Speaker 1: this right wing smear and he says no, which is
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 3: To handle it.
Speaker 5: But information is a given.
Speaker 1: So so my question is like, what are we even
Speaker 1: fucking doing?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think one of the problems with just broadly speaking,
Speaker 5: like political journalism today is often like Trump said what
Speaker 5: is your response, and then voting to Trump and Harris
Speaker 5: said this, and what is your response? And it just
Speaker 5: this constant by back and forth, and it doesn't, like
Speaker 5: you said, really illustrate anything for anyone that doesn't offer
Speaker 5: really new information, and it means that every time you
Speaker 5: spend time talking about this back and forth, which is
Speaker 5: much more politics base than policy base, you're not talking
Speaker 5: about solutions and how these peopark want to govern when
Speaker 5: they're in office. And I think I do agree that
Speaker 5: that is something that just constantly problematic, and unfortunately a
Speaker 5: lot of the national political press does prefer to focus
Speaker 5: on the politics of these races, often more than the
Speaker 5: policy when they're doing interviews and just in general.
Speaker 4: And if you watch the coverage.
Speaker 1: But I don't even care about policy versus politics. I
Speaker 1: mean I do, and I'd rather have policy. I did
Speaker 1: a little TikTok Instagram, video, YouTube, whatever where we taught
Speaker 1: where I asked Democrats policy proposals. It was like, by
Speaker 1: the way, nobody ever asked anyone about policies. They were like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, and they came up with cool stuff, but
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, no one's ever having me that.
Speaker 1: More of the question is this Donald Trump is not
Speaker 1: a normal Republican candidate. He has been running for president
Speaker 1: for almost a decade, so he's normalized in our eyes.
Speaker 1: For example, yesterday he said he's going to give everyone
Speaker 1: free IVF.
Speaker 5: Okay, now, IVF.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but I have
Speaker 1: two of my three kids out of IVF. It costs
Speaker 1: so much money. I live in New York, and I
Speaker 1: was like, holy shit, this is a lot of money.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: Famously, insurance really doesn't. Some insurance does, but it's pretty
Speaker 1: unusual to get all of it covered.
Speaker 3: It's tens of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in twenty seventeen said he was going to
Speaker 1: give everyone insurance.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, then he tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act
Speaker 1: and wasn't able to because of Arizona Senator John McCain,
Speaker 1: who then shortly afterwards died. First of all, there's no
Speaker 1: math in which you're going to be able to give
Speaker 1: twenty thousand and thirty thousand, fourty thousand dollars for IVF
Speaker 1: to each American couple, right, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: And he's not going to mandate insurance companies to do
Speaker 1: that because insurance companies would go to business. So this
Speaker 1: is undoable. It's like I'm going to buy every American
Speaker 1: child a pony. And yet you have mainstream media outlets
Speaker 1: being like Trump promises to make IVF free, and also
Speaker 1: the Republican platform is now that life begins at fetus
Speaker 1: or at fertilized egg. And you know, on the Heritage
Speaker 1: Foundation right now there's a there's a essay about how
Speaker 1: there are about many essays about how Americans must regulate
Speaker 1: IVF to prevent the deaths of these embryos.
Speaker 5: So make it make sense to me, Well, the thing
Speaker 5: that people need to stop doing, obviously, is taking Trump
Speaker 5: out his word or treating him like a normal candidate.
Speaker 5: I think that's man's that's really I mean, every time
Speaker 5: you hear someone tried justifying a Trump interview, they're like, well,
Speaker 5: he made so much news, and it's like, well did
Speaker 5: he really and like, well he said this about that,
Speaker 5: and it's like, okay, yeah, Like I guess if he
Speaker 5: were in normal Candida and he made a poppy he
Speaker 5: took a policy stance that would matter a lot more.
Speaker 5: But he's not a normal candidate. And I think that
Speaker 5: that that really comes down to. He's an anti Democratic candidate.
Speaker 5: And that's really the biggest you know that the elephants
Speaker 5: of the room in this election when people go to
Speaker 5: the ballot box is it's this guy who wants to
Speaker 5: be an authoritarian versus a pretty run of the mill
Speaker 5: democrat running right. And so it just feels like the
Speaker 5: news media at times they just have blinders on and
Speaker 5: they refuse to see this reality, and they want to
Speaker 5: pretend that we're like in nineteen ninety five, when you know,
Speaker 5: you would have a Republic Canada the table what beat
Speaker 5: the press, and you'd have a Democrat at the table,
Speaker 5: and they would give up and the one would say
Speaker 5: I want text cuts, another it's say, man, maybe we
Speaker 5: shouldn't do that, and then afterward they'd all go to
Speaker 5: brunch and everyone was happy.
Speaker 6: And I think it seems like it's so much of
Speaker 6: a media.
Speaker 5: Really just longs for those days, and they refuse to
Speaker 5: acknowledge the reality that one of these parties had been
Speaker 5: hijacked by really dangerous people who you know, honestly have
Speaker 5: anti American values. Here are people who are at time
Speaker 5: it's promoting guys like Vladimer Putin right, And it just
Speaker 5: feels like this reality is something that's inconvenient for a
Speaker 5: lot of journalists who live in the Beltway, and they
Speaker 5: just don't want to acknowledge that. They don't want to
Speaker 5: talk about it. In plain terms and use a plain
Speaker 5: language to describe it, and so you end up with
Speaker 5: a lot of both side jurism and just cover it.
Speaker 5: That makes people our own want to tear their hair
Speaker 5: out when they want it because it's like, why aren't
Speaker 5: you guys able to see the thing that everyone else
Speaker 5: is able to see? And the last thing I'd say
Speaker 5: is these journalists, we are covering a lot of these
Speaker 5: these these topics in this way privately, like I think
Speaker 5: they would all acknowledge this. Right, you can't go to
Speaker 5: a bar in DC and talk to a class of
Speaker 5: bookwo reporters who are not going to say that Jim
Speaker 5: Jordan is just a liar whose pedals conspiracy theories. But
Speaker 5: then you read their copy and it's like, like Jim Jordan,
Speaker 5: the chairman of the House Traditionary Community said Thursday that like,
Speaker 5: you know, Harris committed this crime, and it's like, well,
Speaker 5: wait a second, shouldn't it be like Jim Jordan, who
Speaker 5: has a lengthy history promoting unfounded information and unhinged conspiracy theories,
Speaker 5: leveled yet another one of those Like it's just like
Speaker 5: that contact, it's just so necessary is missing from these stories.
Speaker 5: And I think like The way I would think about
Speaker 5: it is if I'm fast forwarding one hundred years and
Speaker 5: I picked up like one of these newspapers or watched
Speaker 5: one of these cable news segments, It's like, I wouldn't
Speaker 5: really understand who Jim Jordan is.
Speaker 4: And I think that's a problem.
Speaker 5: Right, Like, you should be very clear about who these
Speaker 5: people are. Everyone understands it behind the scenes. Yet when
Speaker 5: it comes to making air often or making the prints paper,
Speaker 5: it just doesn't seem to be there in clear eye fashion.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the problem.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of this is because they're
Speaker 1: worried about being called partisan.
Speaker 5: Okay, or opinion Like someone someone the other day I
Speaker 5: think was reading something, you know, back to me and
Speaker 5: I had written that the RNC speech that Trump gave
Speaker 5: or something like that with Live Field, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: but that's not an opinion, that's just like objectively true, right,
Speaker 5: like that right fact? And I think honestly can did
Speaker 5: sentences like that, and when you when you talk what
Speaker 5: it can to some people seem like it's opinion, But
Speaker 5: I think you need it to. I think people need
Speaker 5: to be reminded that that's not that's not an opinion,
Speaker 5: like look at the fact checks online. They're being talked
Speaker 5: to Daniel Dale like demand lies like at a very
Speaker 5: irte and that might make you feel uncomfortable or it
Speaker 5: might be like awkward for you to say and use
Speaker 5: this language. But if you're not doing it, if you're
Speaker 5: not direct with the audience, is they're not getting a
Speaker 5: full understanding of what's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so talk to me about the industry what it
Speaker 1: looks like right now. You cover everything CBS and Sky,
Speaker 1: Will you talk to us about like the sort of
Speaker 1: the big mergers you see going, what you're what you
Speaker 1: see happening.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think well, I mean I cover the news
Speaker 5: media obviously, and we just talked about that. But also
Speaker 5: there are so many bigger things happening in the space
Speaker 5: that end up impacting.
Speaker 6: The news media.
Speaker 5: So one of those things, for instance, would be like CNN. Right,
Speaker 5: CNN is owned by Warner brother Discovery, which is a
Speaker 5: company that is in tremendous trouble right now, and they're
Speaker 5: in a lot of decks there. They just wrote down
Speaker 5: billions of dollars so admitted that their business is not
Speaker 5: worth I think nine billion dollars. As it was like
Speaker 5: a few years ago, and so that company's a problem
Speaker 5: in trouble. And when a company like that's in trouble,
Speaker 5: it always trickles down to the company's owns, like CNN.
Speaker 5: So if you want to know why CNN as to
Speaker 5: make budget cuts, for instance, or why certain things are
Speaker 5: happening there, you have to look at what's happening at
Speaker 5: the corporate company level of Warner brother Discovery and what
Speaker 5: someone like David'saslom is doing. Same thing over at CDs.
Speaker 5: You know, CBS News is known by paramounts Global, and
Speaker 5: Paramount Global is a massive trouble. They just also wrote
Speaker 5: down six billion dollars saying that their company is not
Speaker 5: worth as much money as it once was a few
Speaker 5: years ago. And so that company's going to now be
Speaker 5: merging with David Ellison's Skuydance Media. There's a deal that
Speaker 5: said to go into effect early next year, and that
Speaker 5: will mean that for instance, Jeff Schell, who used to
Speaker 5: head NBC Universal, will be president and run effectively run
Speaker 5: all of CBS and all those Timemount assets. And so
Speaker 5: I'm covering that all this this bigger I guess picture
Speaker 5: stuff in our Night newsletter status and it might be.
Speaker 5: I think at first glance, for some people who are
Speaker 5: mostly caring about the news media and how that relates
Speaker 5: to democracy and our current politics, it might seem like
Speaker 5: that's a little bit foreign. But when you actually start
Speaker 5: paying attention, you realize that everything you know or a
Speaker 5: one of the things that these news companies are doing,
Speaker 5: our impact it by the mergers and acquisitions happening at
Speaker 5: the much higher level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really, really, really important. And it
Speaker 1: seems like streaming is the future of cable news right
Speaker 1: because a lot of people under the age of forty
Speaker 1: five don't have cable boxes or don't want to pay
Speaker 1: for a cable, or it seems like counterintuitive for them
Speaker 1: to pay for a cable. NBC has News Now, which
Speaker 1: is a streamer, but I'm not seeing a ton of
Speaker 1: entries into streamer.
Speaker 3: World, and I'm curious why that's not happening.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the economics aren't so good, Molly, I
Speaker 5: think that's that's one of the reasons.
Speaker 1: Right, don't you think there's a place for like you
Speaker 1: can just put ads on there like YouTube? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm someone who comes from magazines in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: so like it was clear to me in the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties that you would take the stuff in the magazine
Speaker 1: and put it online.
Speaker 5: And people would read it.
Speaker 1: And for some reason, some people did that and a
Speaker 1: lot of people didn't, and eventually everyone got there, but
Speaker 1: the people got there slower died. So like, isn't this
Speaker 1: sort of the same thing, or am I just an idiot?
Speaker 5: Well, I think that you're seeing people try. I mean
Speaker 5: CBS as their thing, NBC has their thing, CNN has
Speaker 5: its own thing on the max streamer. I just think
Speaker 5: the economics are really challenging when you talk about the
Speaker 5: talent which is used to being paid, for instance, like
Speaker 5: a cable news setus let's say gets paid a few
Speaker 5: million dollars.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: If the streaming business is going to support those really
Speaker 5: high salaries, and so I think it's challenging to just
Speaker 5: copy and paste it over into one other area. There's
Speaker 5: going to be there's going to have to be a
Speaker 5: lot of slashes in terms of salaries, and then can
Speaker 5: you hold on to the talents that they're paid a
Speaker 5: lot less.
Speaker 3: And then the other.
Speaker 5: Problem too, Mollie, is that a company like Comcasts or
Speaker 5: direct CV is going to be very unhappy the moment,
Speaker 5: you take the current programming and put it on streaming.
Speaker 5: So what ends up happening is you have to create
Speaker 5: new shows on the student platform. So for instance, on
Speaker 5: MB News, now that's a different that's a different thing
Speaker 5: than what NBC News is offering. And then sometimes I
Speaker 5: think audiences are like, do I want to watch the
Speaker 5: b string? You know, not to be mean, but like
Speaker 5: the stuff that's and it's viewed in those lenses. And
Speaker 5: then the last thing, too, Molly, is that the audience
Speaker 5: watching cable is about seventy years old, and I just
Speaker 5: don't know how many other people are going to download
Speaker 5: an app and then like type in their credit card
Speaker 5: information or whatever, or just even download the app and
Speaker 5: watch a separate thing. I think they're very used to
Speaker 5: turning on their television and using the guide and going
Speaker 5: over to seeing other MSNBC when they want it. The
Speaker 5: younger audiences are really not watching cable news, and do
Speaker 5: they even want cable news or do they just consume
Speaker 5: contents on YouTube and TikTok and online in different ways.
Speaker 1: I just wonder if they don't have the option, how
Speaker 1: do they know they could want it?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I mean that's it's very tricky. I don't know the
Speaker 5: answer is.
Speaker 1: It's the five hundred million dollar question. I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer either, but it's something I think about a lot.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, thank you all, Darcy and the
Speaker 3: tell it.
Speaker 5: It's called status and you can go to Status ones
Speaker 5: to sign up. There's a free component let me. It
Speaker 5: takes two seconds to sign up and I'd really love
Speaker 5: for more readers to check it out.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Oliver.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be?
Speaker 3: Well, so are we, which is why.
Speaker 1: We teamed up with iHeart to make a limited series
Speaker 1: with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five would be for America's future. Right now, we have
Speaker 1: just released the final episode of this five episode series.
Speaker 1: They're all available by looking up Molly Jong Fast Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you are more
Speaker 1: of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber, you
Speaker 1: can hit play and put your phone in the lock
Speaker 1: screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 1: to this country.
Speaker 3: Please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: Pretadas is the South Asia correspondent for the New York
Speaker 2: Times and the author of Billionaire Nerd Savior King Bill
Speaker 2: Gates and his Quest to Shape Our World.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Fast Politics printa Das.
Speaker 6: Hello, Thank you, Mari.
Speaker 1: So you wrote an unauthorized book about Bill Gates. Number
Speaker 1: one I always ask people is why did they write
Speaker 1: this book?
Speaker 6: V My book isn't a strict biography, which is what
Speaker 6: to me made it very interesting. I didn't want to
Speaker 6: write a traditional biography of Bill Gates. He was it's
Speaker 6: interesting to me in that manner. I mean, obviously is
Speaker 6: a very fascinating character. But what struck me as interesting
Speaker 6: is the fact that he's been on the public stage
Speaker 6: for so many decades, and unlike a lot of billionaires
Speaker 6: and other relation illness people, he has been known for
Speaker 6: all these different things. You know, in the eighties, being
Speaker 6: the Microsoft co founder and kind of being this nerding
Speaker 6: boy genius billionaire, and then fortun time in the late
Speaker 6: nineteen nineties, all people could compare him to was Rocketfeller.
Speaker 6: I mean, if you look in the news coverage from
Speaker 6: that time and then in the past two decades. I
Speaker 6: think until the Epstein stuff happened, people really just looked
Speaker 6: at him as a good moral billionaire using his money
Speaker 6: to you know, shelt thousands of people to provide vaccines,
Speaker 6: that kind of thing. And then I think when the
Speaker 6: divorce happened in twenty twenty one and two years earlier,
Speaker 6: there were all these news reports about his connections with
Speaker 6: Jeffrey Epstein. And then right after the divorce he started
Speaker 6: seeing news about his extra manter affairs and it has continued,
Speaker 6: and so at that moment, I was like, who is
Speaker 6: this guy? I mean, Wow, there's a whole different side
Speaker 6: to Bill Gates. That's what got me really interested and
Speaker 6: like using him as a way to just kind of
Speaker 6: like look at bigger picture ideas like insluence and power
Speaker 6: of billionaires on society.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting because it is I mean even
Speaker 1: to the you know, the COVID pandemic where the two
Speaker 1: of them works, how important vaccines were.
Speaker 3: Do you think that he was.
Speaker 1: Able to hide his true self or do you think
Speaker 1: people just weren't looking that carefully, or do you think
Speaker 1: he changed from having all that money.
Speaker 6: During the pandemic. I mean, this is a guy who
Speaker 6: has a very science and technology obviously driven mind, He's
Speaker 6: very rational, he's very data driven. He has studied vaccines
Speaker 6: and science in public health for decades. And the Gates
Speaker 6: Foundation was so influential outside in the US. Basically it's
Speaker 6: pretty important, but its focus has been on US charter schools,
Speaker 6: and globally it has like much more importance. I think
Speaker 6: people were surprised to see Gates kind of stand up
Speaker 6: and be this private actor standing alongside doctor Anthony Fauci
Speaker 6: and really advocating for vaccines. And it was an unexpected
Speaker 6: a role to see him as an advocate for something.
Speaker 6: You know, kind of thought guy, okay, philanthropist, Microsoft co founder,
Speaker 6: you know, someone who weighs a nontech change, But why
Speaker 6: is he a spokesman now for the pandemic? So I
Speaker 6: think that also introduced a new element of who Gates
Speaker 6: was to the world at large.
Speaker 1: So do you think, though, that being a billionaire changed
Speaker 1: him or do you think that he was better at
Speaker 1: hiding his true nature?
Speaker 3: Or is it both?
Speaker 5: I mean it's both.
Speaker 6: I think he's been a billionaire for so long, you know,
Speaker 6: I don't think he really thinks about those things, you know,
Speaker 6: whether he needs to, like, for instance, do you think
Speaker 6: about Epstein. I don't think he went into it worrying
Speaker 6: about optics. I think he went into it because some
Speaker 6: people told him that this was a guy worth meeting,
Speaker 6: and he made the trade off and said, Okay, I mean,
Speaker 6: maybe he's meaning and will get me a lot of
Speaker 6: money into the things I want. I mean, that's the
Speaker 6: extent of the story that's out there, and I couldn't
Speaker 6: tell you, and I think no one has been able
Speaker 6: to tell the world what exactly happened between Dates and Epstein.
Speaker 6: And of course Jel always said was collapse in judgment
Speaker 6: and she shouldn't have gone back. So I don't think
Speaker 6: this is a guy who like either oneself for another.
Speaker 6: He just is who he is, and a lot of
Speaker 6: people you know interacting with him don't really like him,
Speaker 6: even if they acknowledge that he's done an amazing job
Speaker 6: at Tech and then to anthropate. But his media handlers
Speaker 6: obviously do because they've been working really hard to burnish
Speaker 6: certain aspects of this image so that he comes across
Speaker 6: in a certain way. It was like very benevolent person.
Speaker 1: It is so so strange though that if you're so
Speaker 1: careful about your persona and you're so careful about, you know,
Speaker 1: how you look to the world, and then you hang
Speaker 1: out with Jeffery Epstein after he already there's already whispers.
Speaker 3: Didn't they hang out after it was a.
Speaker 6: Convicted sexual centive? Yeah, I mean very much. So I
Speaker 6: think you know he had served there's a loose sentence
Speaker 6: in Florida jail. But yeah, I think you know, even
Speaker 6: a Google search would have told you that this was
Speaker 6: their character, that was the basic Google person. I did that,
Speaker 6: you know, I was like, okay, let's see maybe people
Speaker 6: hadn't written about it, but you know, vickim Ward back
Speaker 6: in the nineties Rope two bandies there kind of compare
Speaker 6: him to this, like, you know, slightly like almost sindy person,
Speaker 6: but who hung out with Donald Trump? Who hung up
Speaker 6: with all these different people, And you know, there are
Speaker 6: all these reports of how he always liked to hang
Speaker 6: out with beautiful women, and that was one piece of it.
Speaker 6: And that's you know, that was before and then you
Speaker 6: still had a lot of coverage, you know, in the
Speaker 6: years before Gates met him. So I don't know were
Speaker 6: his people asleep at the splints or did they think
Speaker 6: it would never get discovered, or did they not think
Speaker 6: about it at all, or could they not stop Gates
Speaker 6: because Gates just wanted to do things his own way
Speaker 6: and didn't bear Again, as I was saying, you like
Speaker 6: about Image and Optics, is it a leaky.
Speaker 3: Crew around Gates? It seems like it's very much not.
Speaker 6: It's a very combative crew around Gates. I mean, I
Speaker 6: think especially after the divorce and they pad like it's
Speaker 6: not the easiest time for anyone in that job, right,
Speaker 6: like trying to swat things down because there are all
Speaker 6: these negative stories that you know, if you're a PR person,
Speaker 6: you're going to vulture drive. But some of it I
Speaker 6: think comes from the way Dates himself is, and that
Speaker 6: was told to me many times that he's again a
Speaker 6: very data driven kind of guy, and he's like the
Speaker 6: reporter comes to him and says, hey, this is what
Speaker 6: I'm hearing, he'd be like, where's the evidence. If you
Speaker 6: don't have the evidence, he tends to dismiss, and I
Speaker 6: think that can set the tone through what like a
Speaker 6: lot of PR people end up doing around him. So
Speaker 6: you end up dismissing, but then you know, in reporting,
Speaker 6: you come back with more information and then at some
Speaker 6: point you're forced to backpack or forced to tone down
Speaker 6: your message and forced to kind of like engage, but
Speaker 6: by then you just already like created this very combative atmosphere.
Speaker 6: So it's a strange way of handling, but it's not surprising,
Speaker 6: and a lot of people can be like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think that having a ton of money
Speaker 1: changes a person totally?
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, it disconnects you right from the world,
Speaker 6: like from the experience of others, and you can only
Speaker 6: have a filtered experience, like even I mean, I would say,
Speaker 6: obviously Gates and the lend of French Gates have a
Speaker 6: lot of contact with what's going on, you know, in
Speaker 6: very poor countries and all the problems, but it's still
Speaker 6: a very filtered world because if they're going to something,
Speaker 6: it's like a trip that's prepared, you know, nine months
Speaker 6: in advance for the foundation, right and you're going there
Speaker 6: and like everything's been set out for you and you're
Speaker 6: meeting this person who you know has been chosen for
Speaker 6: certain reasons, So it's kind of a very sheltered experience.
Speaker 6: Although I would say they still you know, obviously meet
Speaker 6: and know much more about the world now than they did.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean, I see you can get out
Speaker 6: of charge because, for instance, Gates is responsible, his money
Speaker 6: is responsible, or you know, money is directing film is
Speaker 6: responsible for the livelihoods of like two thousand people. Right,
Speaker 6: you have one hundred people at the foundation and earned
Speaker 6: people on his personal staff. And I don't think anyone's
Speaker 6: kind of it's in no one's interests to really stand
Speaker 6: up to him, so people end up referring to him.
Speaker 6: So I think that gives you a sense of yourself
Speaker 6: that might not be one hundred percent rooted in reality.
Speaker 6: And I think that's function of massive wealth and influence.
Speaker 3: I think that's right.
Speaker 1: So can you explain to us why they got divorced
Speaker 1: or what happened there?
Speaker 3: Because they've been married for such a long time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, twenty seven years and their relationship started in the office, right,
Speaker 6: she's nine years younger. From everything that my reporting indicated,
Speaker 6: it was a troubled marriage. And I think people who
Speaker 6: had seen Gates and Nwlanda up close for many years
Speaker 6: felt that they had a good working relationship, but he
Speaker 6: could still be a certain way, but that maybe on
Speaker 6: the personal front that it was not as good as
Speaker 6: you might saying. I don't want to like overstate the case,
Speaker 6: even though that ended divorced. But you know my reporting
Speaker 6: and I think it's come out since then that he
Speaker 6: didn't conduct extra medal affairs and he had a reputation
Speaker 6: for being something of a ladies man in going back
Speaker 6: to the eighties and nineties and so, which again didn't
Speaker 6: fit into the persona. But I think that fed into
Speaker 6: what was a troubled marriage that they couldn't do anything about.
Speaker 6: To me, the Gates Foundation, the Origin Story Foundation, so
Speaker 6: tied to their couple them, right, this is like a
Speaker 6: foundation that was formed from them going on a trip
Speaker 6: and seeing kind of the poverty of like so Saharan
Speaker 6: Africa and coming against coming back and saying, oh my god,
Speaker 6: we need to do something, and that's how they started
Speaker 6: the foundation. So you couldn't suddenly up to people just.
Speaker 5: You know, go their own ways.
Speaker 6: But I think Lorenda has since said that boast the
Speaker 6: Epstein rep relations and all of that scrutiny, that came
Speaker 6: a moment that where she felt that she couldn't go
Speaker 6: on anymore. And so she clearly indicated as well that
Speaker 6: it was pretty troubled marriage for many years.
Speaker 3: So interesting, what's too much, right, because like the idea
Speaker 3: that it was abstute really that did it is sort
Speaker 3: of interesting one of Meddy.
Speaker 6: I can't imagine that it was the only thing. But
Speaker 6: I think also the fact that, I mean, it could
Speaker 6: be true for anyone. Right, you might live with the
Speaker 6: knowledge about something, even if you don't like it, hated,
Speaker 6: whatever it is. But once it becomes public, right, once
Speaker 6: it reflects.
Speaker 5: On you too.
Speaker 6: And for Melinda it was at a time when she
Speaker 6: was really trying to build her own hyper public brand
Speaker 6: that was focused very much on women's empowerment and gender
Speaker 6: equality and things like that. So you can imagine that
Speaker 6: news of rx husband's connections with a convicted sex offender
Speaker 6: at that time was probably not just not the best
Speaker 6: look for her, even though she had obviously known that
Speaker 6: he had met with Epstein many times in that twenty
Speaker 6: eleven to twenty fourteen time.
Speaker 3: Harry, there's a real dis divide.
Speaker 1: It seems like you have these male divorced billionaires like
Speaker 1: Elon Musk who tend to become very trumpy.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1: Also Bill Ackman, or even like I mean, Harold Ham
Speaker 1: is an oil and gas executive, so that makes a
Speaker 1: little more sense. But all of these billionaire wives and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about McKenzie. Bezos have actually come out as Democrats.
Speaker 1: How do you explain this?
Speaker 6: I think again, like once you're a cheaper level of
Speaker 6: through and down and you begin to it's not just
Speaker 6: money and it's not just you know, you've created the
Speaker 6: companies to become wildly successful.
Speaker 5: Everyone knows your name.
Speaker 6: But I think at that point she become very confident
Speaker 6: in stating your thews and maybe we're all stuff that way.
Speaker 6: And now it's just that, Okay, I have a bullhorn
Speaker 6: and I can say this, and I have been learning
Speaker 6: you to actually make things happen if I like it
Speaker 6: a certain way, if I don't like it a certain way,
Speaker 6: must is obviously a very obvious example of that, right
Speaker 6: that he didn't like the way Twitter worked, and so
Speaker 6: he decided he could buy the company and like make
Speaker 6: it more in line with what he thought it should be.
Speaker 6: I mean, and this is a guy who you know
Speaker 6: has the money to do it, and so I think
Speaker 6: it would embolden you a lot. And Gates has been
Speaker 6: interesting because he is publicly like he is very apolitical,
Speaker 6: and I think he has needed to do that so
Speaker 6: that the Foundation doesn't get into these politicized battles. I
Speaker 6: mean it already has. But you know, he was actually
Speaker 6: pissed off and the Trump illustration during the pandemic because
Speaker 6: they were making all these pronouncements on vaccines and he
Speaker 6: just said, you know, craft but the areas of top
Speaker 6: administration nutritional saying wasn't exasperated at that time. But for
Speaker 6: the others, I mean, I think there is there's an
Speaker 6: element of supreme confidence that money and extreme success brains
Speaker 6: that makes you kind of feel that you can weigh
Speaker 6: in on whatever it is and you're protected, you know,
Speaker 6: so you can double down. You're based in India right well,
Speaker 6: right now in New York. But yeah, what happened was
Speaker 6: that I change jobs. The process of writing books is
Speaker 6: a long run and so I used to be financed
Speaker 6: at there until a couple of months ago. And now
Speaker 6: on the South Asian cors comment based in Delhi.
Speaker 3: So what's happening right now in Deli. It's such an
Speaker 3: interesting moment.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, India has been at the center of
Speaker 6: a lot of geopolitical shifts, and it does have a
Speaker 6: Prime Minister who is adored by much of the country,
Speaker 6: despite you know, given his record in terms of the
Speaker 6: treatment of some minorities, mostly minorities, and also.
Speaker 5: His washing dissent.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of media organizations and research organizations
Speaker 6: on foreign organizations like being Peace and Amnesty that have
Speaker 6: long worked in India kind of being curtailed or like
Speaker 6: self essentially as a result of the money government's crackedout.
Speaker 6: So despite that, I mean, here's a guy who is
Speaker 6: very determined to put India on the world stage, turn
Speaker 6: it into a middle income country, and invite foreign companies
Speaker 6: to invest in India, and trying to take advantage of
Speaker 6: the fact that the US channel relationship is important used
Speaker 6: to be and has a really become tense and soured.
Speaker 6: And I think that puts India kind of at an
Speaker 6: advantage according to Moti, according to the world. So it's
Speaker 6: a good time to kind of put yourself out there.
Speaker 6: So we are powerful where the dish of the largest
Speaker 6: population in the world, and a lot of Indians take
Speaker 6: pride that. There's a lot of cheerleading going on as
Speaker 6: a result domestically orn mooding.
Speaker 3: So interesting, it's scary but also interesting.
Speaker 6: No, well, it's interesting. Also there's this whole sort of
Speaker 6: Gates and Lodi connection, and I take that up in
Speaker 6: my book briefly because the Gates Foundation's biggest office outside
Speaker 6: the US is in India, and he and Mody kind
Speaker 6: of had these highly publicized sit downs. And I think
Speaker 6: for Mody having that connection to Gates is extremely important
Speaker 6: because it's a legitimizing force globally, and I think for Gates,
Speaker 6: the Foundation does a lot of work in India is
Speaker 6: like a crucible right. You have to have India succeed
Speaker 6: on development goals if you're going to meet global goals
Speaker 6: for development, like assisting ale development goals. So there's sort
Speaker 6: of like an interesting dynamic between the two of them.
Speaker 6: I think it's mutually beneficial. So that's really interesting to
Speaker 6: see as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you, Mollly, thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Now moments Ritt Wilson, Molli, Jong.
Speaker 3: Fat What is your moment of fuckery?
Speaker 4: My moment of fuckery is and remains Arlington National Cemetery. Yeah,
Speaker 4: which we're pretty flip on this show a lot of
Speaker 4: the time. But I was so revolted and saddened on
Speaker 4: behalf of you know, watching this grotesque display on behalf
Speaker 4: of anyone in America, who ever had a family member
Speaker 4: who served or who served themselves. That this guy demands
Speaker 4: access to one of the most sacred places in American life,
Speaker 4: to one of the most sacred spaces in a memorial
Speaker 4: that holds the remains of four hundred thousand Americans who've
Speaker 4: died in combat and who've died after serving this country.
Speaker 4: That Donald Trump tried to set up a political prank
Speaker 4: in coordination with Fox News to claim an memorial was
Speaker 4: going on, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to
Speaker 4: visit and only Trump would show up. And the fact
Speaker 4: that Corey Lewandowski and Chris Losovita and whatever thugs were
Speaker 4: with them shoved and verbally abused an Army staffer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we still don't know this story about that right.
Speaker 4: Who was trying to maintain the dignity of Arlington and
Speaker 4: who later said she wouldn't foul charges because she was
Speaker 4: afraid for her life, because she was afraid of being
Speaker 4: doxed and attacked by these people. That to me is
Speaker 4: a moment of fuckery. That is I mean, look, a
Speaker 4: lot of times the moment of fuckery has some humor
Speaker 4: to it. This one has no humor in my mind.
Speaker 4: To it. This just makes me more determined to beat
Speaker 4: that motherfucker's political brains in and be done with him.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, in.
Speaker 1: A completely political and not violent way at all.
Speaker 4: I said political.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, no, I know, I'm just specifying. I thought
Speaker 3: that was a very good way.
Speaker 1: You know, it was good of you to be careful
Speaker 1: with saying that this is about politics and not anything
Speaker 1: that is anything else.
Speaker 3: My moment of.
Speaker 1: Fuckery is this continued discourse about Donald Trump's age. So
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was told he had to drop out. He
Speaker 1: was too old, he was way too old. He was
Speaker 1: too old.
Speaker 5: It was not good.
Speaker 4: Did you hear that Joe Biden was old? Did you
Speaker 4: hear that? I heard that. I heard a couple of
Speaker 4: people mentioned that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never heard it, but I got the sense that
Speaker 1: people thought he was too old. Okay, Now, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: not too old, And in fact, there was a piece.
Speaker 3: In the Washington Most about how he doesn't read as old.
Speaker 3: He's a spry seventy eight year old.
Speaker 1: He's the oldest person to ever run for president.
Speaker 4: And did whoever, I don't know who wrote that, but
Speaker 4: Matt boy.
Speaker 7: Oh okay, okay, all right, yeah, okay, had they not
Speaker 7: watched a single Trump rally, briefing, press availability speech, or
Speaker 7: various two camera mumblefest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because Trump is not well. This guy is not well,
Speaker 4: not young. He doesn't scan as young, not young. A
Speaker 4: friend of ours sent us a photograph from somebody in
Speaker 4: a restaurant and Palm Beach other night, just ann anonymous couple.
Speaker 4: But there was this sort of like full haired but
Speaker 4: seventy five ish, slightly portly fellow sitting across the table
Speaker 4: from a hot young girl and a little dress, clearly
Speaker 4: not his daughter, and it was like, oh, my god,
Speaker 4: that's Donald Trump. If he hadn't run for office, he'd
Speaker 4: be sitting in some fucking steakhouse in Palm Beach with
Speaker 4: some little chippy Like do you know how rich I am?
Speaker 4: But he is just so gross. He's so gross, and
Speaker 4: he's so senile, and I'm sorry. You know what. The
Speaker 4: downside of this world right now in the media is
Speaker 4: what we were told was a screaming central must consider
Speaker 4: issue every single day for almost nine fucking months with
Speaker 4: Joe Biden is now like we didn't say that, what
Speaker 4: are you talking about? I feel like we're being gas
Speaker 4: lit on this particular issue more than almost any other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Rick Wilson anytime.
Speaker 4: I'll talk to you again next week. And by the way, folks,
Speaker 4: don't forget to check out Politics as Unusual Bio because
Speaker 4: Molly and I are on our speaking tour and it
Speaker 4: is a blast. People are loving it, we're selling it
Speaker 4: out and we'll be adding some more dates, so come
Speaker 4: and get it.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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