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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Donald Trump says, as he said

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Speaker 1: many times before, that he will close the Department of Education.

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Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. CNN

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Speaker 1: political analyst Ron Brownstein tells us what he sees when

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Speaker 1: he crunches these numbers from the twenty twenty four election.

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Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to investigative reporter Miranda Green about pink

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Speaker 1: slime newspapers that were mailed to voters in swing districts.

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Speaker 1: These newspapers might have swayed the election. But first the.

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Speaker 2: News Somali, we are hearing the first rounds of Trump appointments.

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Speaker 2: Let us hear the murderer's row of stupid and what

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Speaker 2: you're seeing here.

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Speaker 1: So again what you see from these appointments, and the

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Speaker 1: first two I think are very instructive. Well, the first

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Speaker 1: one was Susie Wiles. She will be the first ever

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Speaker 1: female chief of staff. So that's a girl boss, if

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Speaker 1: you can use the term ironically. But the two biggest

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Speaker 1: appointments so far are Tom Holman, the borderss are and

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Speaker 1: Steven Miller, and both Tom Holman and Steven Miller. Tom

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Speaker 1: Holman used to head ICE, has been involved in deportation stuff,

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Speaker 1: and he is most famous for musing before the election

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Speaker 1: to sixty Minutes that you don't have to do family separation,

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Speaker 1: you can just deport the entire family. And I think

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Speaker 1: it's important to realize that these two nominations show pretty

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Speaker 1: clearly where Trump World is going, and it's the thing

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Speaker 1: that Republicans held signs up about during the Republican National Convention,

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Speaker 1: which is mass deportation. Look, there are other picks that

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Speaker 1: Trump has made that will get past Senate confirmation, people

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Speaker 1: like Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State. Another pick

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Speaker 1: will be Lee Zelden for EPA. He is a climate denier.

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Speaker 1: But I want to talk about Holman and Miller because

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Speaker 1: this is a real clear sign of what they're going

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Speaker 1: to do when they first come into office. And it's

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Speaker 1: going to be deportation, it's going to be workplace right,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be camps. It certainly I hope that

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Speaker 1: it won't be any of those things, but this seems

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Speaker 1: like a pretty clear sign that that's where we're going.

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Speaker 1: And I just want to pause for a second and

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Speaker 1: realize that they were a huge swing of Latino voters

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Speaker 1: who voted for Trump. Tom Holman, you know, he is

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Speaker 1: coming for these Latinos, and you're going to have to

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Speaker 1: just we're going to all have to hope that he's

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Speaker 1: checking people's you know, legal illegal border status, because these

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Speaker 1: people are not known for their specificity or their care

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Speaker 1: in the assignment, and it seems highly likely that a

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Speaker 1: lot of people are going to get swept up in

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Speaker 1: these sweepes. It's quite scary. Also, it's just going to

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Speaker 1: be very logistically difficult to do and of course morally horrifying.

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Speaker 1: So stay tuned for this and we'll definitely see more

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Speaker 1: on this.

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Speaker 2: So Mai Lee Zilden, who we remember as running against

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Speaker 2: Kathy Hokel on Crime, Crime Crime, is also really really

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Speaker 2: psychotically obsessed with climate change not being real. What are

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Speaker 2: you seeing here?

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Speaker 1: So I think an interesting pick. You'll remember Scott Pruitt

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Speaker 1: had it in twenty sixteen. He resigned after being the

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Speaker 1: subject of seventeen federal investigations. It's a non agency for Trump.

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Speaker 1: He oversaw the rollback of more than one hundred environmental

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Speaker 1: rules when he was last president. So again, Zelden is

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Speaker 1: here just because it's approach for him and he doesn't

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Speaker 1: believe the climate change is real. This will be another

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Speaker 1: place where the federal government will either just not do anything, or,

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Speaker 1: more likely in this case, try to make it easier

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Speaker 1: for polluters. We have oil and gas companies asking Trump

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Speaker 1: not to leave the Paris Climate Accord. This is where

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Speaker 1: we are at this moment. We have ex on Mobile

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Speaker 1: warning Donald Trump not to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

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Speaker 1: I have a hard time imagining x on Mobile gives

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Speaker 1: a fuck about anything, but I just want to point

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Speaker 1: out this is how far down the rabbit hole we are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, not good, So byan scratch my head, at least

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Speaker 2: maybe you can make sense this. I can actually Okay,

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Speaker 2: good Mike Hookaby for Arkansas governor who once wrote a

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Speaker 2: book about killing yourself with a fork and knife about

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Speaker 2: our nutrition system and then said fuck that I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: get fat again, and this was a bullshit book. He's

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Speaker 2: going to be a besser to Israel. Make it makes sense.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I could actually make this make sense because this

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Speaker 1: is like the fascinating grift of Trump World. Mike Huckabee

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Speaker 1: has been leading tours to Israel for years.

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Speaker 2: All that I need you to make something makes sense

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Speaker 2: for me, you being the wish What are the two

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Speaker 2: of us? Yes, Huckabee, does it sound Hebrew to be No.

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Speaker 1: He's not a Jew, but you'll remember that religious people,

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Speaker 1: very religious, you know, Zealid love Israel. So in fact,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read a testimonial from Blue Diamond Travel

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Speaker 1: Experiences our prayer as many many more Christians can travel

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Speaker 1: with Mike and Janet Huckabee and feel the presence of

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Speaker 1: our Great King in just the same way we did.

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Speaker 1: I assume that this will be very good for his

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Speaker 1: tour guide business. Being the ambassador, Trump has really leveraged

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Speaker 1: the Christians obsession with Israel into his own weird using

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Speaker 1: Israel to whatever. And now Mike Huckabee will figure into

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Speaker 1: this hole. While this, by the way, his twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: four Israel tour is called Unveil the Spiritual Wonders.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I had that on my to do list for

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Speaker 2: next year. That's good.

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Speaker 1: An unforgettable journey through Israel, blending faith, culture, and history

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Speaker 1: into a unique tapestry. There you go. Ron Brownstein is

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Speaker 1: a senior political analyst for CNN and a senior editor

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Speaker 1: at the Atlantic. Welcome to Fast politics. Ron Brownstein, he

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Speaker 1: molly anything new goal nothing. Absolutely. After this election, I

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Speaker 1: was like, I have to talk to Ron. Ron has

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Speaker 1: to explain to me what happened. I just wrote a

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Speaker 1: piece about all this stuff I got wrong for very

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Speaker 1: fair about this election. I did not get this right.

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Speaker 1: But you are much more harder than I am, So

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Speaker 1: explain to us what happened.

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm not sure.

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Speaker 4: I was much smarter, and I got one big thing wrong,

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Speaker 4: which we will talk about in a minute. But I mean,

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Speaker 4: the most abnormal thing about this election, the most shocking

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Speaker 4: thing about this election was how normal it was. I mean,

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump obviously is not a normal candidate, but to

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Speaker 4: a large extent, the electorate treated him that way. And

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Speaker 4: you had the normal hydraulics in place, which is in

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Speaker 4: a two party system, when the view of one party

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Speaker 4: goes down, the other party rises, and you know, there

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Speaker 4: are always a lot of things going on, and we

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Speaker 4: have to unpack and understand what happened with young men

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Speaker 4: and Latino men in particular. But Harris underperformed across the

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Speaker 4: board demographically and geographically. She did not have the gaens

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Speaker 4: among college white women that you would have expected. She

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Speaker 4: did not have the gains among young women that you

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Speaker 4: would have expected. She did not have the gains in

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Speaker 4: suburbia that seem very much possible after the twenty twenty

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Speaker 4: two election. And what you saw was a very normal

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Speaker 4: pattern when you have an outgoing president who is unpopular,

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Speaker 4: who is either running for reelection or stepping aside. In

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Speaker 4: either case, the vast majority of pepeople who are unhappy

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Speaker 4: with that president's performance vote for the other side. So

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Speaker 4: what did that mean. Well, sixty percent of voters in

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Speaker 4: the exepole said they disapproved of Biden's performance. It was

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Speaker 4: even worse than the number in twenty twenty two, and

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Speaker 4: eighty two percent.

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Speaker 3: Of those disapprovers voted for Trump.

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Speaker 4: Seventy percent of voters said that the economy was in

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Speaker 4: bad shape, it was only in fair or poor condition.

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Speaker 4: Seventy percent of those people voted for Trump. That's his vote,

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Speaker 4: that's his forty nine point something that'll probably end up

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Speaker 4: getting when this is all counted. He's just over fifty.

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Speaker 4: Now he possibly, maybe more likely than not, is going

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Speaker 4: to fall just under fifty. But if you look and

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Speaker 4: compare to twenty twenty two, Molly, the share of people

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Speaker 4: who said the economy was in bad shape but voted

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Speaker 4: for Whitmer or Shapiro or Mark Kelly or Rafael Warnock

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Speaker 4: in twenty two was much higher than the share of

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Speaker 4: people who said the economy was in bad shape and

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Speaker 4: voted for Harris in those same states. And what that

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Speaker 4: says to me was that people associate and attribute the

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Speaker 4: president control over national economic policy, and it simply was

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Speaker 4: less possible for her to run away from the discontent

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Speaker 4: over that. Primarily, other things mattered in you know, the

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Speaker 4: border mattered, Prime mattered, But primarily it was harder for

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Speaker 4: her to escape the undertow of discontent about the economy

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Speaker 4: in Biden's performance than it was for Democratic candidates in

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Speaker 4: twenty two, and for that matter, even to some extent

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four. You know, people like splocking.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I want you to talk us through this, because

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Speaker 1: I looked at those numbers and you had people I

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Speaker 1: feel like, the best example here is the example of

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Speaker 1: Carrie Lake in Arizona. You had people vote for Trump

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Speaker 1: and then not bother to fill in the bubbles for

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Speaker 1: carry Lake, who ran as a mini Trump.

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Speaker 4: So explain that to me my basic feeling about this.

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Speaker 4: You know, there are people who point to Trump having

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Speaker 4: this unique connection with his voters. And I am sure

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Speaker 4: that is true, and that was not able to be replicated.

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Speaker 4: And in many cases the Democrats in the Senate raises

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Speaker 4: did not get appreciably more votes than Harris did, but

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Speaker 4: the Republican got appreciably less than Trump did. Certainly, I

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Speaker 4: think that was the case in Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: And Michigan and Arizona and Nevada.

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Speaker 4: So I actually look at it a little differently. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I go back to the point I made a minute ago,

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Speaker 4: which is that, for example, if you look in twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty two, people who had a negative view of the economy,

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Speaker 4: John Fetterman in twenty twenty two lost them in Pennsylvania, right,

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Speaker 4: he lost them, but he lost them by eighteen points.

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Speaker 4: People who had a negative view of the economy. This

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Speaker 4: time in Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris lost them by.

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Speaker 3: Thirty seven points. Okay, in Nevada.

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Speaker 4: Last time, people who are in a negative view of

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Speaker 4: the economy, Catherine court has Master lost them by twenty

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Speaker 4: six points. This time Harris lost them by forty one points.

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Speaker 4: And then you kind of look at it horizontally. In

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Speaker 4: this election, Rosen didn't lose people who are negative on

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Speaker 4: the economy by quite as much as Harris did. And

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Speaker 4: to me, that's the difference is that as the presidential candidate,

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Speaker 4: you are held accountable greater than anybody else.

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Speaker 1: And this is really we're only here for my own edification.

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Speaker 1: I understand this is a podcast, but this is a

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Speaker 1: question I want answered. Doesn't it seem like Harris is overperforming?

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Speaker 1: For example, so originally you had this Biden map before

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Speaker 1: he dropped out, which showed him losing. This is the

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Speaker 1: famous pod Bros. Where they had a map that showed

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Speaker 1: him losing four hundred electoral votes, right, which I didn't

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Speaker 1: even know was possible, but it is, turns out and

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Speaker 1: then Harris jumps in and she reversed the tide, right,

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Speaker 1: So you see the down ballot candidates actually do better,

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Speaker 1: and they do better in swing states where the campaign

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Speaker 1: has taken over the airwaves. So that makes the case

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Speaker 1: that a Harris did actually help and b that the

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Speaker 1: campaign did actually help, Which gets me to my next thought,

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Speaker 1: which is, does this mean that Donald Trump is just

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Speaker 1: singularly powerful and that it's not so much about the

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Speaker 1: Republican brand or the Democratic brand, but merely about the incredible,

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Speaker 1: unheard of power of Trump.

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Speaker 4: So to your first point, I think it is unequivocal

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Speaker 4: that Harris did better than Biden would have done. I

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Speaker 4: mean I talked to one political scientist who said that

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Speaker 4: based on Biden's approval, the right track, wrong track, and

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Speaker 4: the perceptions of the economy, that his model would have

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Speaker 4: had a six.

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Speaker 3: Point popular vote loss for the incumbent.

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Speaker 4: Harris is going to end up losing by somewhere between

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Speaker 4: one point five and two points. What I think I

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Speaker 4: got wrong the most, and a lot of people got

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Speaker 4: wrong the most, was that the twenty twenty two model

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Speaker 4: turned out to be not quite as replicable.

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Speaker 3: In twenty four as of the period.

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Speaker 4: And what I mean by that if you look at

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty in the states where both sides weren't spending money,

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Speaker 4: whether they were red states like Texas and Florida or

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Speaker 4: blue states like California and New York. In twenty two,

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Speaker 4: Republicans improved in those states, which is what you would

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Speaker 4: expect when sixty five percent of the country thinks we're

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Speaker 4: on the wrong track and the president's approval rating is low.

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Speaker 4: But what Democrats were able to do in twenty two

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Speaker 4: was basically quarantine the swing state and in the states

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Speaker 4: where they ran a full scale campaign Wittmer, Shapiro, Evers,

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Speaker 4: Mark Kelly, Katie Hobbs, John Fetterman, Raphael Warnock. They ran

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Speaker 4: vastly better than Democrats did in the non competitive state. Okay,

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Speaker 4: fast forward to twenty four. Right, fast forward to twenty four,

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Speaker 4: The same thing happens in the non competitive states. New

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Speaker 4: Jersey gets worse, Arizona gets worse, Florida gets worse, Texas

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Speaker 4: gets worse. You know, whether it's a blue state or

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Speaker 4: a red state, when you're dealing with a forty percent

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Speaker 4: approval rating for the outgoing president, they all get worse. Now,

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Speaker 4: what do we look in side the quarantine line in

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Speaker 4: the swing states? It works to some extent. Harris doesn't

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Speaker 4: deteriorate in them as much as she does outside of

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Speaker 4: the swing states, but she doesn't run nearly as well.

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Speaker 4: The differential isn't nearly as big as it was in

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Speaker 4: twenty two for Whitmer and Shapiro and Ebrs and Warnock

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Speaker 4: and Kelly, and the undertow kind of seeps in.

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Speaker 3: You know, the quarantine. The moat doesn't work.

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Speaker 4: The quarantine doesn't work, As I said, even in those states.

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Speaker 4: To me, like, out of all the numbers I've looked at,

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Speaker 4: the one that really jumps out at me is that

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Speaker 4: in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, significantly more of the

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Speaker 4: voters who are negative on the economy voted against Harris

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Speaker 4: than voted against the Democratic candidates in twenty two. We

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Speaker 4: can argue about why that is. You know, a lot

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Speaker 4: of factors probably went into that, including Trump's improving image, which.

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Speaker 3: We should talk about.

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Speaker 4: But a big part of it, I think is that

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Speaker 4: you just can't escape that verdict as the president. And

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Speaker 4: the fact that she declined everywhere, the fact that the

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Speaker 4: urban centers decline, the inner suburbs decline, the outer suburbs decline,

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Speaker 4: the rural places decline. They all declined by about the

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Speaker 4: same amount. I wrote this the Center for Rural Studies,

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Speaker 4: which is a think tank. They have a classification system

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Speaker 4: that categorizes all counties in six groupings, from the most

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Speaker 4: urban to the most rural. They all declined by about

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Speaker 4: the same amount. That is not something that is about

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Speaker 4: messaging or positioning. That is about a common national experience,

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Speaker 4: a shared national verdict, which is inflati, which is inflation

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Speaker 4: above all, and maybe a little bit of the border

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Speaker 4: and crime, but of inflation.

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Speaker 1: I mean it seems like that's an anxiety about implanturing, right, yes.

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Speaker 3: More than anything else. Absolutely, I think what was it?

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Speaker 4: Forty six percent of people in the exitpos said they

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Speaker 4: were worse off than they were four years ago, and

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Speaker 4: over eighty percent of them voted for Trump. I mean,

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Speaker 4: that's kind of the heart of the election right there.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't that mean that Trump has more power as a candidate?

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Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that what that is? His ability to

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Speaker 1: appeal to a broad swath.

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Speaker 4: I would say his ability to turn out people inclined

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Speaker 4: to support him is his superpower. But I think equally

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Speaker 4: critical was that the cross pressure of the economy caused

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Speaker 4: a lot of voters who.

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Speaker 3: Remain hasard Trump to vote for him.

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Speaker 4: Anyway, It's worth noting a couple of these between the

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Speaker 4: exit polls and votecasts, which are two major sources right

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Speaker 4: of people's attitudes as they were voting, fifty five percent

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Speaker 4: said he was too extreme, fifty five percent said they

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Speaker 4: were he would lead the country in an authoritarian direction.

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Speaker 4: Two thirds almost said they wanted the abortion to remain

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Speaker 4: legal in all most circumstances. Fifty five fifty six percent

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Speaker 4: majority said they opposed mass deportation, and roughly that many

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Speaker 4: said they want the government to do more to provide

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Speaker 4: access to healthcare, all of which they're not going to

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Speaker 4: get with Trump. And the reason he won is because

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Speaker 4: there was a substantial slice of voters in each of

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Speaker 4: those questions who express negative views about Trump who voted

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Speaker 4: for him. Anyway, Here, I'm going to give you the

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Speaker 4: world premiere of something that will be in my Atlantic

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Speaker 4: column later this week. Voters who said abortion should be

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Speaker 4: legal in all or most circumstances. Okay, pro choice voters

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Speaker 4: but were negative on the economy said the economy was

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Speaker 4: only fair or poor.

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Speaker 3: How do you think they voted? Trump won? And this

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Speaker 3: was a big group. This is over one.

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Speaker 4: Third of the electorate said they were pro choice but

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Speaker 4: the economy was fair poor.

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Speaker 3: Trump won them.

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Speaker 1: Wow? Is that because he just was able to neutralize

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Speaker 1: the issue by saying that he wanted to throw it

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Speaker 1: back to the States and then just shutting it down.

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Speaker 3: Some of that and some of that.

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Speaker 4: The economy mattered more to them the way I phrased it.

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Speaker 4: And this is not the first time this has happened.

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Speaker 4: This was what happened to Carter with Reagae, It's what

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Speaker 4: happened to George H. W. Bush with Clinton. If people

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Speaker 4: are dissatisfied with the status quo, stability is the risk

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Speaker 4: people view continuing along the track of an unacceptable present

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Speaker 4: to be a greater risk than leaping into an unpredictable future.

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Speaker 4: And Trump, again, this is a well trod dynamic. The

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Speaker 4: shocking part is that it applied to Trump. You know,

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Speaker 4: I mean that Trump got all of the traditional benefits.

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Speaker 4: He recumbent, and he's someone to try to overthrow the government,

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Speaker 4: and he has ninety four felony indictments and convictions.

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Speaker 3: And adjudicated sexual assault and all of that.

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Speaker 4: And yet if you kind of look at the numbers

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Speaker 4: and didn't have his name on it, it would be like, humph,

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Speaker 4: this is what the out party gets.

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Speaker 3: And you know, maybe part of that.

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Speaker 4: And this is where I think there's going to be

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Speaker 4: a lot of second guessing about some of the Democratic

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Speaker 4: strategy in twenty three and twenty four. His favorability was

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Speaker 4: much higher in the electorate in twenty four than it

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Speaker 4: wasn't twenty two. His retrospective job approval was over fifty percent.

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Speaker 1: That's insane.

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Speaker 4: And that is pretty striking given everything else. A big

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Speaker 4: part of that is that voters, as we've talked about before,

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Speaker 4: you could see this happening all the way through twenty

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Speaker 4: three and twenty four. Voters were judging Trump retrospectively through

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Speaker 4: the lens of what they didn't like currently about Biden,

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Speaker 4: primarily inflating and maybe the border. But it also meant

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Speaker 4: that all of the other things they didn't like about Trump,

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Speaker 4: they kept his approval rating from ever hitting fifty while

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Speaker 4: he was president, were kind of fading in their memory,

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Speaker 4: and Democrats didn't really do a great job of reminding

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Speaker 4: them of that until the end. I mean, let's just

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Speaker 4: consider here, this was the only president ever who's approval

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Speaker 4: rating never reached fifty percent while he was in office

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Speaker 4: in Gallup, and his retrospective job approprating in Vodecast was

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Speaker 4: fifty or fifty one percent. Like that is something, and

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Speaker 4: that is partially a reflection of I said, the hydraulics,

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Speaker 4: you know, Biden goes down, Republicans go up. But it's

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Speaker 4: also the extent to which everything else about his presidency,

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Speaker 4: which by the way, people are going to get exposed

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Speaker 4: to again that they didn't like kind of faded next

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Speaker 4: to the fact that people felt they had more money

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Speaker 4: in their pocket at the end of the week.

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Speaker 1: That is wild, wild, wild wild.

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Speaker 3: And by the way, like, here's one thing that goes

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Speaker 3: with that.

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Speaker 4: Biden won the popular vote by four and a half point, right,

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Speaker 4: So we're gonna have to wait and see when we

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Speaker 4: get the actual analysis it's done with the data files,

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Speaker 4: which is both Catalyst and Pew. But right now, Biden

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Speaker 4: won by four and a half points. But when among

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Speaker 4: the people who voted in twenty twenty in both the

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Speaker 4: exipol and votecast, they were even in how they voted

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty plus one for Biden or zero difference.

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Speaker 4: So that means that a lot of people who voted

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Speaker 4: for Biden in twenty twenty did not come back. Did

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Speaker 4: they not come back because they didn't fear Trump enough?

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Speaker 4: Did they not come back because they didn't like the

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Speaker 4: results they got from Biden? Was it both? But there

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Speaker 4: was a big fall off in the kind of surge

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Speaker 4: anti Maga voter. It came out in eighteen twenty two.

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Speaker 1: I wondered if that was the Democratic base staying home. Well,

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Speaker 1: it was something she lost young people.

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Speaker 4: Well, she won young people, but retreated from Biden in

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Speaker 4: twenty I actually think that was probably the surge. Again,

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Speaker 4: when Catalyst and Pugh does this and they match their

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Speaker 4: analysis to the actual voter file, will have a better idea.

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Speaker 4: But if I had a guest today, the irregularly voting

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Speaker 4: Democratic leaning constituencies, they came out to vote against Trump

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Speaker 4: in eighteen twenty and twenty twenty two, a lot of

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Speaker 4: them stayed home, whereas Trump continued to turn out his

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Speaker 4: irregularly voting, his low propensity voters, particularly younger men.

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Speaker 3: Again, we'll look.

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Speaker 4: At later when we get these other sources, but right now,

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Speaker 4: what we have, the exits of the votecast told us

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Speaker 4: that Republicans outnumbered Democrats among voters to the biggest degree

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Speaker 4: I think ever in the exipolse. I mean the exipolse,

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Speaker 4: you know, the exipole was Republicans were four points more

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Speaker 4: of the electorate than Democrats, and I think votecast was

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Speaker 4: the same.

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Speaker 3: There's never been a gap like that, never, never.

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Speaker 1: But that's because he got those low propensity ones and

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Speaker 1: twos out right.

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Speaker 4: And then the low propensity Democrats would be my supposition

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Speaker 4: did not come back. Now, why you know, one view

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Speaker 4: is they did not have the sufficient sense of alarm

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Speaker 4: about MAGA, despite Trump being more radical than he was

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Speaker 4: in twenty or sixteen. The other are though, is that

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Speaker 4: they came out, they voted for Biden, and their lives

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Speaker 4: didn't get better in the way that they hoped, and

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Speaker 4: interest rates and inflation were weighing on them, and they

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Speaker 4: were just like, screw.

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Speaker 1: It, unbelievable. Ron Brownstein, appreciate you so much, and also

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Speaker 1: so Deprodson. We're all gonna die, but thank you for

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Speaker 1: coming on.

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Speaker 3: Can I just say one last thing real quick?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't get movement of this magnitude on an

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Speaker 4: ideological shift. I don't think the consistency of this across

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Speaker 4: every kind of county says to me that this was

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Speaker 4: more about performance than anything else. It was a common

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Speaker 4: national verdict. Biden's administration did not deliver what people hope,

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Speaker 4: even though they had a lot of positive achievement.

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Speaker 1: Should that make me feel better, Yes, yes, okay, it should.

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Speaker 4: Make you feel better, only in the sense that if

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Speaker 4: Trump doesn't deliver. People hired Trump to solve some specific problems,

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Speaker 4: particularly they're squeeze in the cost of living. They remain

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Speaker 4: hesitant about a lot of the things that he wants

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Speaker 4: to do back the APA, undermining vaccines.

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Speaker 3: Mass deportation.

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Speaker 4: If he gives them a lot of that and doesn't

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Speaker 4: deal with doesn't solve the problem that they hired him

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Speaker 4: to do. You could see the same kind of uniform

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Speaker 4: movement in the other direction in the elections of the

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Speaker 4: near future, and.

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Speaker 1: It is, I might add, a very hard problem to solve, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's no quick fix for making things less expensive.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Ron Brownstein. Will you

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Speaker 1: please come.

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Speaker 3: Back, thank you, thank you. You know where to find me.

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Speaker 1: Miranda Green is an independent investigative reporter. I'm Miranda. Welcome

436
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 1: to Bath Politics Biggs. Talk to us about what you

437
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 1: discovered and how the right and mago world more specifically

438
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 1: gets its news.

439
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:49,199
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think post this most recent election,

440
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 5: a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of the

441
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 5: kind of internal dialogue has been about what the media missed, right,

442
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,959
Speaker 5: A lot of kind of self lagulation about what we

443
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 5: could have done more, or how we didn't see that

444
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 5: Trump would win with such overwhelming numbers. And as people

445
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 5: were having that dialogue, it made me think about the

446
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 5: reporting that I've been doing these past two years, which

447
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 5: is not just about kind of where people are getting

448
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,879
Speaker 5: the news, but also how the right has really created

449
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,639
Speaker 5: this ground game of taking advantage of the depletion of

450
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 5: local news across the country and how they're leveraging that

451
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 5: to get out their message in oftentimes very secretive, non

452
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 5: transparent ways. And the reporting that I've been doing these

453
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 5: past couple of years has been looking into this kind

454
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 5: of playbook that a lot of these organizations, largely backed

455
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,920
Speaker 5: by the oil and gas industry, are using to take

456
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,639
Speaker 5: advantage of this kind of dual lack of trust in

457
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 5: mainstream media and also lack of opportunity of taking advantage

458
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,199
Speaker 5: of a local news that no longer exists across the

459
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 5: majority most of the country, you know, newspapers around seventy

460
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 5: five percent since two thousand and five across the country.

461
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 5: More than half of the counties across the United States

462
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 5: only have one or no local news sources. And this

463
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 5: is something that players in the oil and gas industry

464
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,199
Speaker 5: and on the right are taking advantage of. And so

465
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 5: that was something that I really wanted to highlight.

466
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: So make that make sense when it comes to oil

467
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: and gas and local news and what that means.

468
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 5: Sure, you know, the oil and gas industry has been

469
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 5: feeling the pressure for at least five years now. You know,

470
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 5: it started under the Obama administration, It was lacks or

471
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 5: under the first Trump administration, and it became much stronger

472
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 5: under the Biden administration. This idea that we as a

473
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 5: globe are seeing the impacts of climate change, that climate

474
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 5: change scientists and science show is because of human impact,

475
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 5: because of the emissions of the Oil and Gas Sact,

476
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 5: and that in order to change that, we need to

477
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 5: dramatically curb those emissions. And so, you know, the businesses

478
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:12,360
Speaker 5: that make their money off of these admissions, they're struggling

479
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 5: to figure out how to continue to make money, how

480
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 5: to continue to benefit their shareholders, and to stay afloat.

481
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 5: You know, their business is like anything else, and so

482
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 5: one of the ways that they can do that is

483
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 5: by you know, helping to change public perception over their industry.

484
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 5: A lot of this is happening because people, the kind

485
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:35,199
Speaker 5: of public consciousness has changed to understand that, you know,

486
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 5: climate change is largely asked that, you know, because of

487
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 5: these companies, because of what they're doing. What is happening

488
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 5: is that you know, as mainstream media, as reporters have

489
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 5: changed from you know, myself included from having to write

490
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 5: stories that said, on one side, climate change is real.

491
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 5: On the other side, let's quote a climate denier. And

492
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 5: now we are finally in this you know, this place

493
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 5: where we don't have to do that anymore. The science

494
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 5: shows that climate change is at the hands of you know,

495
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:06,400
Speaker 5: of humans, that it is coming from fossil fuels by

496
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 5: and large, and so we don't need to do that.

497
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 5: But the media is turning against these industries, and so

498
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 5: you know, what they're doing, by and large is trying

499
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 5: to find, well, how are alternative ways of getting our

500
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 5: messaging out there if we can no longer rely on

501
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 5: reporters to kind of carry this one sided messaging because

502
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 5: they're going to poke holes in it. And so what

503
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 5: they have done and I found in my reporting largely

504
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 5: across the southeast and areas where you know it is

505
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 5: Republican and areas where oil and gas still has a

506
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 5: stronghold because it's largely produced in those areas, they are

507
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 5: buying up local newspapers, creating newspapers online and paying for

508
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 5: content in kind of you know, papers that are willing

509
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,120
Speaker 5: to take that kind of news to take those kind

510
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 5: of pay to play stories to push this messaging that

511
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 5: shows that they are still they are great community supporters,

512
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 5: that they are there for jobs, that you know, they

513
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 5: have the best interests of Americans at heart, and that

514
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 5: what they're doing is not that bad. In a lot

515
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,439
Speaker 5: of the reporting I found in these papers where they

516
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 5: are kind of buying this influence or creating this influence,

517
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 5: It's not so much that they were pushing anti climate

518
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 5: change initiatives or that they were saying how great oil

519
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 5: and gas was. They were just not reporting on the

520
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 5: negative aspects of their companies at all.

521
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: Right, So they were sort of just selectively covering what

522
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: they felt like covering that worked for their narrative exactly.

523
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 5: And you know, you have to keep in mind in

524
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 5: these communities. You know, I'm talking about rural Alabama, I'm

525
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 5: talking about communities in the Gulf Coast of Florida. I'm

526
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 5: even talking about community in Richmond's, California, just outside of

527
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 5: San Francisco. I mean, in these communities, they have very

528
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 5: few other options for local news. So when these newspapers

529
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 5: come online and then residents are thinking, Okay, this is

530
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 5: a place where I can read community profiles, this is

531
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,479
Speaker 5: a place where I can understand the businesses that are

532
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 5: opening around me. They're not aware of what they're not

533
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 5: seeing in those papers because they have so few other alternatives.

534
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 5: So by being able to control this narrative in this way,

535
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 5: that is a when for these companies, and it's something

536
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 5: that they openly talk about. Actually they and they learn

537
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 5: from one another. And the reporting that I did for

538
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 5: a story I worked on with The Guardian about Alabama

539
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 5: Power and it's control of these two newspapers in Alabama,

540
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 5: one of their PR specialists, who ironically was a former reporter,

541
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 5: actually went on too a PR podcast and they asked him,

542
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 5: you know, where did you come up with this idea

543
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 5: of launching this Alabama News Center, which is one of

544
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 5: these organizations that they launched in I think it was

545
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:47,239
Speaker 5: twenty sixteen, And he said, we were thinking that we

546
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 5: were pitching our stories to reporters. Reporters were no longer

547
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 5: writing the stories that we wanted them to write, so

548
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 5: we're thinking, how else do we get these stories out there?

549
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 5: We're going to launch our own newsroom. And they actually

550
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 5: said we got this idea from chev because the year earlier,

551
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen, Chevron had launched the Richmond Standard in California,

552
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 5: which was a newspaper that had not exist prior in

553
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 5: that area, and it was a huge community that was

554
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 5: lacking local news. And it's doing something very similar where

555
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 5: it was covering local news. It was covering what was

556
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 5: happening in the community, but it was not covering itself critically,

557
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 5: even though it was the largest employer in the area.

558
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: Wow, how does this relate besides climate change?

559
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I spoke to Anne Nelson. He is

560
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 5: a prolific writer. She wrote a book about kind of

561
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 5: the oil and gas influence and the kind of dark

562
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 5: money behind manipulation and in the media. And one of

563
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 5: the things that she said to me, which I thought

564
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 5: was really interesting, is that, you know a lot of

565
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 5: the donors that donate to conservative interests and the Trump campaign,

566
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 5: you know, they make their money in oil and gas.

567
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 5: You know, some of the largest donors out there, Harold

568
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 5: Ham out of Oklahoma, Timothy Dunn out of Texas. That

569
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 5: is where they made their bread and butter. And they

570
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 5: care about the future of the industry that they've made

571
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 5: this money up, and they care about conservative ideology, and

572
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 5: so they're not necessarily just focused on oil and gas

573
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 5: and climate initiatives, but that is kind of where a

574
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 5: lot of some of this money stems from. And so

575
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 5: you start seeing the echo chamber of this and other

576
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 5: news organizations and other kind of pink slime journalism, which

577
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 5: is another aspects that I've covered, where it's these news

578
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 5: seeming websites that exist online that are perpetuating this kind

579
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 5: of not journalistic news articles that people are picking up

580
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 5: and reading and thinking that they are vetted in the

581
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 5: same way. And that is kind of, you know, I

582
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 5: think the heart of so much of what people are

583
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 5: trying to grapple with here, which is again, where are

584
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 5: Trump voters getting their messaging? Where is the other side

585
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 5: getting their messaging? Where's Middle America reading? And these are

586
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 5: some of the places where you know, Middle America is

587
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 5: getting their news, not exclusively, but it is definitely a

588
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 5: part of the puzzle here. These organizations like Metric Media,

589
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 5: which is part of a larger network which has more

590
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 5: than eleven hundred online news sites that span the country.

591
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 5: I mean, they found an opportunity here to really get

592
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 5: their messaging out and they are known pay to play players.

593
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 5: New York Times to the story on them back in

594
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 5: twenty twenty about how they take money for specific stories

595
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 5: that they write, and they kind of put them together

596
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 5: into these packages of these websites that look mostly real.

597
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 5: They're a little odd, they're a little funky. But if

598
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 5: you're a normal reader and you're kind of pushed to

599
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 5: these websites, you don't know, right, you know, journalists like us,

600
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 5: we have a trained eye. Where like most stories have bylines,

601
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 5: it's kind of weird if they don't articles. What makes

602
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 5: articles distinct is that they have both sides of the story,

603
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 5: and they both perspectives, right Like, any time I write

604
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 5: a story about anyone, you know, say I write a

605
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 5: story about Exxon, I reach out to Exxon, and I

606
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 5: give them a chance to comments, and I make sure

607
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 5: that I have try to represent their point of view

608
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 5: in the story, even if they don't want to talk

609
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 5: to me. These stories don't do that. And what they're

610
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 5: doing furthermore, in what they were specifically doing in the

611
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 5: lead up to this election that I noticed is that

612
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 5: in addition to these websites that kind of exist online

613
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 5: and sometimes there really have a ton of content, sometimes

614
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 5: kind of seem a bit like sleeper cells, they were

615
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 5: publishing print versions of some of these key websites ing

616
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 5: key counties and then sending them to people's mailboxes directly

617
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 5: who obviously had not paid for them, had no idea

618
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 5: what they were, but they were showing up and kind

619
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 5: of pushing specific key issues related to that election.

620
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. I know what red

621
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: sludges explain to us what pink sludges.

622
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 5: Yeah, So pink slime is a terminology that kind of

623
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 5: it's kind of this gross terminology. Honestly, it comes from

624
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 5: this idea the term that people have used to describe

625
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 5: the additive filler and meat in food, So you know,

626
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 5: additives in something like hamburgers or chicken nuggets, say something,

627
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 5: it's called pink slime. And so it's been kind of

628
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 5: reutilized as this idea that there is these fake news

629
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 5: sites that just have this fake content that's like fluff

630
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 5: and filler contents in these these websites that look real

631
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 5: but really have bias and have a partisan kind of

632
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 5: you know, spin on them. And so that's why I

633
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 5: tend to try to like to use the word news

634
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:34,359
Speaker 5: seeming or news appearing, because it looks real, but if

635
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 5: you look close, it's it's not what it seems it

636
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 5: is something that has been utilized by organizations for years now,

637
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 5: but really seems to kind of pick up and take off,

638
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,720
Speaker 5: especially around elections or key culture war issues.

639
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: Interesting.

640
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 5: So, one of the papers that I actually highlighted that

641
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 5: came out was shipped to people's doorsteps in North Dakota

642
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 5: October fifteenth. Was a very interesting kind of odd oddity

643
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 5: because this this paper showed up with people's stores is

644
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 5: called the Central Lord Dakota News, and it's ten pages long,

645
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 5: and it's very clearly right leaning. But North Dakota is

646
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 5: right leading, so, you know, not the kind of place

647
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 5: that you know, maybe people would automatically.

648
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: Fill this away.

649
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 5: And it talks about key issues that I'm sure voters

650
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 5: and that state care about, inflation, security issues, immigration. But

651
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,439
Speaker 5: if you dig deeper into the story, you realize there's

652
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 5: kind of an odd angle to some of these articles.

653
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:34,919
Speaker 5: It talks a lot about protests. It talks a lot

654
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 5: about the Dakota access protests that happened back in twenty sixteen.

655
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 5: So this is eight years ago, right, twenty sixteen. This

656
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 5: nowhere close to, you know, what we're currently dealing with.

657
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 5: Why would they be have an entire section in this

658
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:53,280
Speaker 5: paper that says, you know, on this day in twenty

659
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 5: sixty and that talks about all these disruptive protests. Well,

660
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 5: turns out that the Key pipeline company but that owns

661
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 5: the Dakota Access pipeline, has a lawsuit against Greenpeace, which

662
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 5: is a major organization that have protesters protesting against the

663
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 5: pipeline that is coming up in North Dakota in February.

664
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 5: And this lawsuit is considered one of the biggest lawsuits

665
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 5: it's probably going to happen in the state in its history.

666
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 5: And this is you know, most likely part of their

667
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 5: ground game to try to get public perception to benefit

668
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 5: them and turn against remind locals how frustrating that situation was.

669
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 5: And so again it's all wrapped up in other stories

670
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 5: that seem just like, Okay, this is part of the

671
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 5: news cycle. This is not the out of the ordinary,

672
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 5: but it's putting that back into people's mind. You know,

673
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 5: do you remember eight years ago about all these protests.

674
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 5: Do you remember that the roads are blocked. Do you

675
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 5: remember that the police had to deal with this? You

676
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 5: remember it was expensive for the state to try to

677
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 5: remind people before in the lead up to this lawsuit.

678
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 5: In this court case, is about to happen.

679
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: Wow, how widespread is this news? Like? What percentage of

680
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 1: Americans do you think get these mailers or read this

681
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:00,720
Speaker 1: news online?

682
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really hard to tell how widespread this practice is.

683
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,280
Speaker 5: We know that there are at least eleven hundred websites

684
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 5: that exists across every single state and many communities to

685
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 5: target at them. It's really hard to tell how many

686
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 5: people are actually getting the sense to them, you know,

687
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 5: besides people who are tweeting them out or sending them

688
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 5: to me. That's kind of how I get an inkling

689
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 5: of what's happening. We do know it's overwhelmingly on the right.

690
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 5: You know, they arought eleven hundred sites on the right.

691
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 5: There are about seventy sites on the left that do this.

692
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 5: So it's not entirely done by conservatives, but it is

693
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 5: largely done by conservatives. And what's really interesting too, is

694
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 5: that the conservatives that are doing this, their funding is

695
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 5: tied to the Koche Brothers. Their funding is tied to

696
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 5: this kind of conservative apparatus that is taking advantage of

697
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:52,120
Speaker 5: alternative news. We see organizations like Center Square, we see

698
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:55,280
Speaker 5: organizations like The Daily Signal from the End, the Daily Caller,

699
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 5: News Foundation. You know, those are all right leaning state

700
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 5: policy network backed Coke money taking organizations. They're all kind

701
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 5: of part of this network. And what I am noticing

702
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 5: as a reporter is that this is bigger than just

703
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:15,760
Speaker 5: the election. This is about how do we rework trust

704
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 5: in news to be trust in us. People don't trust

705
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 5: the mainstream media. There are a lot of conservatives aren't

706
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:25,280
Speaker 5: reading the New York Times, They're not going on NBC

707
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 5: or ABC. They are looking for partisan news, and so

708
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 5: partisan think tanks, partisan entities are thinking, well, how do

709
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,399
Speaker 5: we capitalize off of this and how do we then

710
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 5: utilize those eyeballs to push our best interests. It's very strategic.

711
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 5: They are echo chambers of one another. You know, these

712
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 5: metric media sites have shared Daily Caller articles, they do

713
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 5: share Center Square articles. I mean, they are creating this

714
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 5: robust conservative news movement. And the thing that I find

715
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 5: the most concerning as a reporter is that there's so

716
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:13,800
Speaker 5: little transparency there. You know, if people choose to read

717
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 5: write leaning or left leaning news, that's their prerogative. If

718
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 5: they want to listen to Joe Rogan because they like

719
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 5: him and they like his perspective and they kind of

720
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 5: know where it's coming from. That's their prerogative. But if

721
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 5: you go on Metric Media's website and you look at

722
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 5: their about as section, there's nothing there. If you try

723
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 5: to contact anyone, it is just a form you fill out.

724
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: We really appreciate you taking the time.

725
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 5: I would just say from a you know, I think

726
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 5: that the lack of transparency in these pink s Lin

727
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 5: sites is really the most concerning here. That you know,

728
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 5: listeners and readers should be able to choose where they

729
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 5: get their news from, but they should know who is

730
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 5: behind that news. They should know where the money from,

731
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 5: they should know the motivation behind those individuals who are

732
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,320
Speaker 5: pushing those narratives. And as long as they do, you know,

733
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,479
Speaker 5: that's up to them. I think that you know, more

734
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 5: opportunity and more you know, venue to find news is

735
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 5: never bad, but it's the facts. I want to make

736
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 5: sure that the facts are accurate, that people are really

737
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 5: understanding what they're reading and understanding, you know, what the

738
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:24,319
Speaker 5: motivations are for those who are you know, putting out

739
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 5: those those papers that they're picking up. Thank you so much,

740
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 5: thank you, Mollie, pect.

741
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:37,959
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, so my young fast.

742
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, the Republicans seem to have quenched having the majority

743
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 2: in the House. But there's an interesting asterix that you

744
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,080
Speaker 2: and I were just discussing. What are you seeing here?

745
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 1: Trump is nominating people who feel more establishment because he

746
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 1: thinks it will be easier to get Some of these

747
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,360
Speaker 1: people a need to send a confirmation and some of

748
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,399
Speaker 1: them don't. But he's trying to pick from a sort

749
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 1: of group that's more quote unquote establishment, and this is

750
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: leading him to take Republicans from the House of Representatives.

751
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: Now the House of Representatives has not yet been called,

752
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 1: though Republicans are going to win the House of Representatives.

753
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: They're going to win it by four five seats about

754
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: what they had in the previous Congress, or is we

755
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: like to think of it here at fast politics in

756
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 1: unngovernable majority, right, we saw Mike Johnson really had a

757
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: lot of trouble getting stuff passed, almost always had to

758
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: caucus with the Democrats. Now he has this situation where

759
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has literally already is talking about taking five

760
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 1: Republican members of Congress and putting them either in his

761
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:51,399
Speaker 1: cabinet or in his administration. That will mean that while

762
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: those I mean, we'll see what happens how he'll take

763
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: them out or when they have specials. Each state has

764
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: different calculus for special et cetera.

765
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 2: We know how this shakes out of New York State

766
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 2: and if he's taking a least Stephonic out. We saw

767
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 2: this with George Santos already.

768
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: The only thing I would say with that is that

769
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 1: Stephonic has a safe red seat, So George Santos didn't.

770
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 2: Yes, but it's still time where that seat will be

771
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 2: blank and the majority will be slimmer right, and.

772
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: That'll be a real problem for Mike Johnson.

773
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:26,399
Speaker 2: And potentially our democratic name only Governor Kathy Hochold might

774
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 2: slow walk.

775
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:31,240
Speaker 1: That one hard to imagine, but it's possible that, my friends,

776
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:37,279
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson with his ungovernable Republican majority is our moment

777
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: of fuck Gray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

778
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear

779
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: the best minds and politics makes sense of all this chaos.

780
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a

781
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:00,080
Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening and