Speaker 1: James Carville is the legendary political consultant who rose to
Speaker 1: prominence after he helped Bill Clinton win the presidency in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. He is a colorful character with a
Speaker 1: shrewd grasp on how to craft a political campaign and
Speaker 1: how to communicate a message. Matt Turnauer is another great communicator.
Speaker 1: He has written for Vanity Fair for years, profiling cultural
Speaker 1: icons and moguls, myself included. He now makes documentaries and
Speaker 1: episodic series about all kinds of fascinating subjects. Valentino, Roy Kane,
Speaker 1: and Nobu are a few. His latest film tells the
Speaker 1: story of James Carville's work and his famous marriage to
Speaker 1: the Republican operative Mary Madeleine, and follows him over eighteen
Speaker 1: months of the incredibly divisive and consequential twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: presidential campaign. I am very glad to have both of
Speaker 1: them join me today on my podcast. Welcome James, Welcome Matt.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, Arthur, thank you.
Speaker 1: Excited So James, the title of this film is winning
Speaker 1: Is everything stupid?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: What in your forty plus years as a consultant on
Speaker 1: campaigns from Clinton to now are the keys to winning well?
Speaker 2: First of all, thank you and delighted to be here.
Speaker 2: The point I'm trying to make is is that winning
Speaker 2: is everything, and the primacy of politics, it trumps everything else.
Speaker 2: Political power is more important in cultural power. Political power
Speaker 2: is more even more important in financial power, all the
Speaker 2: different religious power. Of all the different sources of power,
Speaker 2: the one that affects the most lives the most directly
Speaker 2: is political power. And without winning, you have no political power.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty straightforward argument that we make it.
Speaker 1: And it's extremely worriesome at present.
Speaker 2: Isn't it. It's worsome, but r out of the level
Speaker 2: will stay out on a limb. I think there are
Speaker 2: reasons to think that we can win this. We're gonna winness.
Speaker 1: Today, Okay, And Matt James was the subject of the
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three documentary The War Room. What propelled you
Speaker 1: to make a documentary about James Carrville at this time?
Speaker 3: The War Room is a very memorable film.
Speaker 4: I think it's a great film, but it's more than
Speaker 4: thirty years ago, and that was really the beginning of
Speaker 4: James Carville's fame. Since then, he's had more than three
Speaker 4: decades of being a household name. And as Paul mcgala,
Speaker 4: his former partner as a campaign strategist, says in the movie,
Speaker 4: He's the smartest son of a bitch who ever did
Speaker 4: this for a living. So my thought was that I
Speaker 4: started this more than two and a half years ago,
Speaker 4: was that it would be amazing to hear from James
Speaker 4: and do a film about him and show how politics
Speaker 4: has transformed in the thirty years since he, in essence,
Speaker 4: taught Democrats how to win again. They've been in the
Speaker 4: political wilderness for a quarter of century elements by the
Speaker 4: time he spirit Clinton into victory.
Speaker 3: But what happened was that he inserted himself into the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four race in a really profound way while
Speaker 3: I was making the film and the entire kind.
Speaker 4: Of arc of this change when James began very early
Speaker 4: on in the spring of twenty twenty three, after seeing
Speaker 4: an ABC News poll that showed really scary numbers for
Speaker 4: president by to try to persuade the incommon president to
Speaker 4: step aside.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I'm leaping ahead here, but the rest
Speaker 3: is history.
Speaker 4: No one thought this quick sonic idea he had would
Speaker 4: ever work.
Speaker 1: I did. I thought, so, oh really O good? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I did, and I knew it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Why did I know. I'm not involved in any personal
Speaker 1: personal way other than observing, but boy, I knew he
Speaker 1: had to drop out.
Speaker 4: Well, the pressure and I'll let you and speak to this,
Speaker 4: because it was really on him. The pressure for him
Speaker 4: to shut up about.
Speaker 3: This was enormous.
Speaker 4: And even I was getting texts from powerful democrats and
Speaker 4: donors saying, you're with James Carblobat, tell him to be
Speaker 4: quiet because there was a collective ostriches with heads in the.
Speaker 3: Sand thing happening, if you recall. But James was really
Speaker 3: feeling to keep because he was the one out on
Speaker 3: the limb.
Speaker 1: But I also kind of thought that George Clooney had
Speaker 1: something to do with it.
Speaker 3: Did he work with you people?
Speaker 1: Did George Cooney work with you at all? James on
Speaker 1: that decision?
Speaker 2: No? Both, No one did. And George wrote about Ed Peach.
Speaker 2: I was thinking early July. I don't think he was
Speaker 2: probably there before, but people, I think have an impression
Speaker 2: made it. I'm more at Hoka impulsive, and before I
Speaker 2: did this, I really thought about it and thought about
Speaker 2: it deeply, talked to a lot of different people, and
Speaker 2: I've been at it for almost two years.
Speaker 1: I wish, and we all look in hindsight, I wish
Speaker 1: that we could have done that before a couple of
Speaker 1: months before an election. It would have been it would
Speaker 1: have been so much fairer to the new opponents, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it have been.
Speaker 2: I wasn't surprised about any of it. I wasn't even
Speaker 2: mad about any of it. I knew this is gonna happen.
Speaker 2: But I felt it in my bones, or you felt
Speaker 2: in your bones. There were other people that did also.
Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't like I was some Cassandra and
Speaker 2: it was the only person thinking this, but there were
Speaker 2: way too few. And the people that came aboard may
Speaker 2: because you know, we could argue with this late or not,
Speaker 2: but right now, for thirteen days to go, who cares.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're just where we are. And I really
Speaker 2: am a kind of person that lives in the present.
Speaker 2: Because the philosopher one said the past, we know the present,
Speaker 2: But I sure I just live in the president right now.
Speaker 2: The president is we got to figure a way the
Speaker 2: complish thing together and save the country.
Speaker 1: Well, you're so eloquent about all of this, and what
Speaker 1: was it like to see your life as observed by
Speaker 1: Matt and his collaborators in this new film.
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to say, all sharks, I'm just a Cajun boy,
Speaker 2: you know, a poor time. But it was actually quite flattering,
Speaker 2: and I hope that the message that people take from this,
Speaker 2: and particularly young people, is that, hey, this is not
Speaker 2: a profession that people go around wearing Hairsharks actually had
Speaker 2: a good time. They laughed a lot, they were happy
Speaker 2: a lot. They you know, slapped each other's back, they
Speaker 2: high five, they did all of the other things. And
Speaker 2: if we keep demeaning the profession of politics, we're going
Speaker 2: to continue to have not very good people decide to
Speaker 2: pursue this as a career choice. And I think that's unfortunate.
Speaker 2: I think that if we are honest about politics, yes,
Speaker 2: it's like any other business. It's got ups and downs
Speaker 2: and good people and bad people, but in the whole,
Speaker 2: it's an old business. And I do think that kind
Speaker 2: of came through in the documentary. But that I'm great.
Speaker 1: Are there parts you don't agree with?
Speaker 2: Well, I I kind of agree with Bernie Sanders called
Speaker 2: me a political hack. I don't agree with John Fetterman
Speaker 2: that should shut the cup, but that his request. But
Speaker 2: you know, it's not I could go through and Matt
Speaker 2: will tell I didn't watch it, Mary and I didn't
Speaker 2: watch it, till tell you right, because I just felt
Speaker 2: I feel like, if you have a creative you know,
Speaker 2: if you're cooking a dish and you're sitting the table,
Speaker 2: you know what you're doing. You don't need somebody looking
Speaker 2: over your shoulder. You're you know, doing a telling people
Speaker 2: how to arrange flowers and tell people how you greet people.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what you do better than anybody that's
Speaker 2: ever lived. And we had Mary and I had a
Speaker 2: lot of confidence in back. We had a lot of
Speaker 2: confidence in his storytelling ability. And you know it was
Speaker 2: it had some like anybody else has had a life.
Speaker 2: I've had some rough spots and things I wish I
Speaker 2: could take back and come of course kind of gitting
Speaker 2: husband to take the truth. But on the whole, I
Speaker 2: think it was a portrait of a life in politics,
Speaker 2: and to the extent that people see it and want
Speaker 2: to get into politics, I encourageable.
Speaker 1: So he got a lot right in your mind, that's
Speaker 1: that's wonderful. How did Matt convince you to let him
Speaker 1: tell your story? Was it or was it the other
Speaker 1: way around.
Speaker 2: It was some friends of the origins of it were
Speaker 2: some friends of mine and they went to Matt he
Speaker 2: can take the story. They asked him to recommend a director,
Speaker 2: and he said, yes me. So it's always good if
Speaker 2: you got something that's going to do a project about you,
Speaker 2: you'd rather there somebody do it that's enthusiastic of U.
Speaker 2: I said, well, I don't have any work right now.
Speaker 2: My schedule is vacant for the next fourteen months. You're
Speaker 2: not going to get the same product, all right, And
Speaker 2: he didn't say I got several things going on. I'm
Speaker 2: going to try to jam this thing through and you know,
Speaker 2: work over time. He said, I want to do it.
Speaker 2: And that's the you know, that's the most important thing
Speaker 2: that you're doing anything, is to have somebody do something
Speaker 2: that they want to do, as opposed to talking them
Speaker 2: into doing.
Speaker 1: How long did it actually take from start to finish
Speaker 1: for you, James.
Speaker 2: I'd have to go back get the timeline. It was
Speaker 2: Susan mque who was Ferry read Sheep as the f
Speaker 2: when she was thirty years old. It was a post pandemic.
Speaker 2: It had to have been like late twenty one or
Speaker 2: early twenty two. Said, I was a student at Rutgers
Speaker 2: and I saw this and it motivated me. The moilroom,
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety three film motivated her, and she said,
Speaker 2: we should make another film about you to motivate other
Speaker 2: young people. And I thought it was kind of flattering,
Speaker 2: and you know, kind of mos Yeah, that's a great idea,
Speaker 2: and I didn't think any more about it. And the
Speaker 2: next thing, you know, she'd call Matt. She'd called some
Speaker 2: big fundraisers and she said, we got to go meet
Speaker 2: with these people. I'm raising money for the movie, and
Speaker 2: we got a director, and you know, I just I
Speaker 2: didn't I don't know if I ever, Like most things
Speaker 2: in my life, some strong woman made a decision for
Speaker 2: me and I just went along with it. If it
Speaker 2: was my mother and my sister, my wife, you know, somebody,
Speaker 2: a couple of more than two people have come in
Speaker 2: it that they've washed it with their wife, and they said,
Speaker 2: people think it has real strong feminist undertopes. So really,
Speaker 2: I don't know if there was ever a point just
Speaker 2: one strong woman said we're doing this, and the next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, I was doing it.
Speaker 1: That's good, Matt. The action of the film covers the
Speaker 1: history of Carville's career with a focus on the current
Speaker 1: presidential campaign. How did you decide what the arc of
Speaker 1: your story would be? Is it the timing because it's
Speaker 1: so close to a new an election, a very very
Speaker 1: very important election.
Speaker 3: It kind of changed.
Speaker 4: We worked on it for two and a half years.
Speaker 4: I'd say these things sometimes take a year to add it.
Speaker 4: It's seen him a very tee for the most part,
Speaker 4: which is I think the highest form of documentary filmmaking,
Speaker 4: you know, following someone being a fly on the wall.
Speaker 4: But I think any director who starts at Verite Film
Speaker 4: and tells you that they know how it's going to end,
Speaker 4: he is lying to you. I mean, that's actually the
Speaker 4: joy of the process. It's a little like the journalistic process,
Speaker 4: where you might have a conception about where you're going.
Speaker 4: And I told you a bit about what I thought
Speaker 4: I was doing at the outset of the podcast. But
Speaker 4: when James began to show what kind of political muscle
Speaker 4: and influence he has in real time by getting on
Speaker 4: his platforms. He has a podcast himself, He's welcome on
Speaker 4: MSNBC and CNBC at will, He's quoted in all the
Speaker 4: major political follows. This is a guy with really important platforms.
Speaker 4: But he's also someone and this we started doing from
Speaker 4: the outset, who works the phones every morning with the
Speaker 4: same group of people since the nineties.
Speaker 3: It's extraordinary. It's like a hidden political think tank. Really.
Speaker 4: So we're talking about George Stephanopoulos, Paul mcgalla, and Grenwald
Speaker 4: who was the media consultant for Clinton and illustrious career
Speaker 4: ever since. Thence Dan Greenberg, the launted Polster to the
Speaker 4: Blue and Fall, Rob Emanuel.
Speaker 3: This is a phone chain and a phone tree.
Speaker 4: I guess that has been going on for more than
Speaker 4: thirty years, and they're all are the most informed people
Speaker 4: about politics. And James gathers information like the kind of
Speaker 4: central intelligence sort of political, not spy, but sort of
Speaker 4: you know, like intelligence master. And he's not just a
Speaker 4: TV talking head. He pushes political strategies out that he
Speaker 4: has considered very carefully, and you see him in process
Speaker 4: doing that in the film. And actually, you know, you mentioned,
Speaker 4: Martha that I did a couple of profiles of you
Speaker 4: and one of the things that fascinated me about you
Speaker 4: was that you're all about process and you explain process,
Speaker 4: and I like to.
Speaker 3: Do that in my film. So I thought I'm going
Speaker 3: to show how this guy does it because he's a.
Speaker 4: Master of the craft, and too for the person who's
Speaker 4: interested in politics and wants to know how it works.
Speaker 4: That you're seeing it here in the film as we
Speaker 4: cover James doing that then leaving ahead, he sees this
Speaker 4: whole and he sees the future. He sees around the corner,
Speaker 4: he sees that Biden's numbers are terrible and probably insurmountable,
Speaker 4: and then he uses the platforms to push an agenda,
Speaker 4: and you see him become, in my opinion, the elder
Speaker 4: statesman of the Democratic Party. He's not elected to anything.
Speaker 4: He's not a Washington lawyer like Bob Strauss and Riven Jeordan.
Speaker 4: He's not a lobbyist. He's James Carvill. So he uses
Speaker 4: his fame and his intelligence and his persuasiveness to change
Speaker 4: the world. And for a filmmaker, if you have that
Speaker 4: happening live in front of your cameras, that's lightning the bomb.
Speaker 1: Well, James, I've always enjoyed listening to you and to
Speaker 1: hear your opinion about current events and what's going on
Speaker 1: in politics. Did you ever consider going into politics yourself?
Speaker 2: No, ma'am, I wouldn't that. Well, Okay, it wouldn't. It
Speaker 2: would not be a very pretty picture. And you know,
Speaker 2: some things about I have two daughters, one twenty nine
Speaker 2: and uh one twenty six, and there are things about
Speaker 2: their dad's life would as soon leaving the dust bit
Speaker 2: of history. And one thing when you get into politics.
Speaker 2: But I was a very late bloom. I didn't win
Speaker 2: my first campaign. I was in my forties, so and
Speaker 2: I never wanted to be I actually was thinking about this,
Speaker 2: Martha was actually watching a movie and watching the part
Speaker 2: about Carville. I actually grew up to be the person
Speaker 2: that I really wanted to be, and not many people
Speaker 2: get to do that. Yeah, all right, whatever dreams I
Speaker 2: had is sitting on the levee, you know, throwing rocks
Speaker 2: in the river, whatever idle fourteen year old boys did.
Speaker 2: I actually ended up leading the life I dreamed of,
Speaker 2: which is and that's a pretty remark alcable thing to
Speaker 2: say as you approach eightieth birthday. But I got to
Speaker 2: be the person I wanted to be, and I never
Speaker 2: envisioned myself. You know, every supposedly Louisiana, every boy grows
Speaker 2: up wanting to be governor. I mean that's you know,
Speaker 2: Russell Longs I was thirty years in the Senate, and
Speaker 2: he just always wanted to be governor, but circumstances didn't
Speaker 2: provide way he could. I never wanted to be governor,
Speaker 2: but I did dream of being the guy behind the governor,
Speaker 2: or the friend of the governor's or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: It turned out very that's the most fortunate thing.
Speaker 1: You can say, well, with your analytical mind and your
Speaker 1: and your perspicacity, if you want to use that word,
Speaker 1: you really have done what you set out to do.
Speaker 1: And I applaud that, and I think that I like,
Speaker 1: I like hearing that because as I have already reached
Speaker 1: the eighty eighty year.
Speaker 2: Mark, I up there.
Speaker 1: I feel I feel like I'm reaching more of my
Speaker 1: my potential now too, and it's it's good. It's really
Speaker 1: a good feeling. But when you look back, I have
Speaker 1: so many questions for you that are not in my script,
Speaker 1: and Heather's Heather, my producer is going to start cringing
Speaker 1: over there. I just thought it would be kind of
Speaker 1: interesting just to ask you just a couple of questions
Speaker 1: that have bothered me that are not really covered in
Speaker 1: the in the documentary, but your opinion of Obama and
Speaker 1: his presidency.
Speaker 2: Obviously it was enormously historic. Feather Obama have something that
Speaker 2: is rare in a politician. He pretty gagged impression he
Speaker 2: didn't much like politics. That it was like somebody that
Speaker 2: wanted to have children but didn't like sex. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 2: and I mean that in a very respectful way, that
Speaker 2: President Clinton loved relish politics and relish being there. President Obama. Gay,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to a critique at all. I think
Speaker 2: he governed the country exceedingly well. He was good at it. Okay,
Speaker 2: but you don't. You didn't You didn't have that that
Speaker 2: what do we call him? These other Okay, he didn't
Speaker 2: have that about.
Speaker 1: Well Clinton Clinton, I totally agree with you. He loved politics,
Speaker 1: He loved loved his job.
Speaker 2: People would complaining about Clinton. I said, what pissed you
Speaker 2: off the peace of the prosperity, because that really got
Speaker 2: under your skin, was that that you were making money,
Speaker 2: you weren't getting shot at.
Speaker 1: No, that none of that bothered me.
Speaker 2: What I have come to learn is most good politicians,
Speaker 2: or I'd say no, both great politicians really try hard.
Speaker 2: But you never see him sweat. You never saw Reagan sweat,
Speaker 2: You never saw Clinton sweat. You never saw Obama sweat.
Speaker 2: They were really you.
Speaker 1: Know, Trump is sweating a lot, by the.
Speaker 2: Way, that's all he does, sweating. But you know, stink, sweat, stink,
Speaker 2: that's what he is, you know. But the classic exam
Speaker 2: Bobby Jenda was the man who tried too hard. He
Speaker 2: just had to. They give you the impression to something said.
Speaker 2: Although I think he was a great man, was write
Speaker 2: about more things than by my life. Al Gore always
Speaker 2: gave you the impression that he was really trying. I
Speaker 2: used to say that Bill Clinton could look better missing
Speaker 2: a free throat than Al Gore can look making a
Speaker 2: free throw. And just some people, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: one of the marks of great politicians. They trying hard.
Speaker 2: They're competitive to the core, but they never let you
Speaker 2: know that. And that's not an easy thing to do
Speaker 2: in life.
Speaker 1: Well, let's let's keep on with the documentary. First, Can
Speaker 1: you both talk about what it took to build the
Speaker 1: trust in each other to let this story come out
Speaker 1: so beautifully?
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, I'm pretty good at this after doing him
Speaker 4: for so many years.
Speaker 3: I mean, in Vanity Fair.
Speaker 4: I wrote long form profiles. You spend weeks and weeks
Speaker 4: and weeks of people. It was a great training ground
Speaker 4: for this, and I think the stories I wrote at
Speaker 4: Vani Fair were almost like paper documentaries that were very observational.
Speaker 4: They included process, Like I said, I love writing about
Speaker 4: you because I had to spend time with you and
Speaker 4: see your process.
Speaker 1: And did James Carvill know? Does he know what what
Speaker 1: happened as a result of that profile?
Speaker 3: Well? I did too.
Speaker 4: The first was uneventful. The second I'll leave it to
Speaker 4: you Martha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so James. After the second profile, when when Matt
Speaker 1: reported that I took a walk from my house down
Speaker 1: to my stable to look at my horses, the parole
Speaker 1: officer gave me another five months of home confinement because
Speaker 1: I went outside the perimeter of my home on my
Speaker 1: own property.
Speaker 2: You know, our can address the restaurant in your Orleans.
Speaker 2: We had a party at a one of one of
Speaker 2: my best friends, one of our dollars to the film,
Speaker 2: who was a victim, and personally they decided that they
Speaker 2: were going to pursue it. And I saw it happened
Speaker 2: because of Clinton. People have to understand it. We have
Speaker 2: a government that sometimes can get way ahead of itself
Speaker 2: and way too enthusiastic about things. And I think that,
Speaker 2: but you fat you clearly fall into today.
Speaker 1: But that parole officer reading van is the most He
Speaker 1: was the most unread person on earth. Somebody gave him
Speaker 1: that article.
Speaker 2: I used to I used to teach my students. The
Speaker 2: one thing you never do in life is argue with
Speaker 2: minor power. You better off arguin with a federal judge
Speaker 2: and your parole officer. Okay, if you don't ever argue
Speaker 2: with the immigration and Customs guy, Okay, because you do,
Speaker 2: you can. You can tell a sentence that you know,
Speaker 2: go f yourself and that's going to be fine. But
Speaker 2: but always don't argue mind power, but don't want to
Speaker 2: go back to the movie. One of the things that
Speaker 2: sold me on Matt from beginning is he had been
Speaker 2: around politics. He was actually like a driver in the
Speaker 2: eighty four Mondale campaign, he was like Susan Estrich's administrative
Speaker 2: persists or whatever you call it. In the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: eight Do Coccus campaign, he profiled any number of people
Speaker 2: in politics. So if you're doing something like this, it's
Speaker 2: important as a director understand at more than a rudimentary
Speaker 2: level of what this is and what it entails, because
Speaker 2: if you just have a voyeur come out of an
Speaker 2: English professor or or engineered that decides I want to
Speaker 2: do a documentary about politics, and they have no no
Speaker 2: matter how smart or how talented they are, if they
Speaker 2: don't understand the rudimentary things that you're trying to accomplish
Speaker 2: and communicate, they're not going to be able to do that.
Speaker 2: So that's why I was kind of pretty comfortable with
Speaker 2: Matt doing this from the get go, because I kind
Speaker 2: of knew who he was before, obviously, not that cavalier
Speaker 2: person that I didn't, you know, look him up and
Speaker 2: look at his body at work, and you know, look
Speaker 2: at some of the things that he did in life,
Speaker 2: and that gave me a great deal of credit that
Speaker 2: he it matters, not the kind of coastal person that
Speaker 2: looks down on political people. He actually worked at it.
Speaker 2: He knows him, He knows that we have the same
Speaker 2: strengths and flaws and quirks and people that everything and
Speaker 2: everything else has. But that was an important thing to
Speaker 2: Marry and I that we had somebody that knew something
Speaker 2: about it that didn't start from zero.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, And it's obvious in the finished film. It's such
Speaker 1: a fantastically well put together film. So you were shocked, James,
Speaker 1: by that Trump Biden to be which shocked all of
Speaker 1: us and made us so uncomfortable. Uh, And I mean
Speaker 1: it wasn't as bad. In my mind, it wasn't as
Speaker 1: bad as it was made up to be by every
Speaker 1: single person that was reporting on it.
Speaker 2: Did you think it was that bad the first thing?
Speaker 2: It was bad. It was bad, it was, but the
Speaker 2: first fifteen minutes couldn't be very worse.
Speaker 1: No, that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it kind of didn't matter because the work
Speaker 2: at the point I'm making in the film, in this
Speaker 2: one hundred per cent certain of the worst thing can
Speaker 2: happen to you in politics is you confirm an existing suspicion.
Speaker 2: And the entire suspicion was that Biden was who o
Speaker 2: and this is akimulis. This is not instinct, This is people,
Speaker 2: hundreds of focused groups. But people were would say bid
Speaker 2: they just buried their facing their hands and.
Speaker 1: Run to run the country.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, in the first fifteen minutes, and I was
Speaker 2: getting texts like, oh, James, that was daddy eight years ago.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody knew this it's aging is in the
Speaker 2: film was very I thought, very You can't deny it.
Speaker 2: You can't prove it, you can't triangulate it. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can exercise and you can keep your blood pressure
Speaker 2: and your blood sugar, you know, under control, but you're
Speaker 2: not going to in the end, it's gonna it's gonna
Speaker 2: bite you no matter what.
Speaker 1: But what about a thirty seven or thirty nine minute
Speaker 1: swinging to ave Maria and during a during a public
Speaker 1: appearance in front of a huge crowd just the other
Speaker 1: night on Trump's part? Is that is that a little
Speaker 1: bit of a slip? Why and why hasn't more been
Speaker 1: made of that?
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's let's do political campaign in one on one.
Speaker 2: So Martha, you are the chief strategiest. So Matt comes
Speaker 2: in and says, we got to make more of Trump,
Speaker 2: that he's not cognitive with it at all. He wonders,
Speaker 2: he's just losing it. He's just an old man. And
Speaker 2: James says, we got to say that General Millie, General
Speaker 2: Kelly has said he's fascist to his bone. We got
Speaker 2: to say that Dan Coats, who was of twenty years
Speaker 2: of Republican senator, was Trump's DNI it's called Director of
Speaker 2: National Intelligence, which is the highest of it, says that
Speaker 2: he is convinced that Trump is a Russian agent, an
Speaker 2: agent in a criminal So if we say that he's
Speaker 2: cognitively out of it and can't do and then you
Speaker 2: say he's the fascist, people say, well, he's too out
Speaker 2: of it to be one. So you got to be
Speaker 2: very that. That's the hardest thing in political strategy. To
Speaker 2: do one thing is to choose not to do another.
Speaker 2: We hate making choices. We can have love and prosperity,
Speaker 2: and you know, we can have all of We can
Speaker 2: be peaceful and tell you he got to thirteen days
Speaker 2: ago in a race that's forty eight forty eight. You
Speaker 2: got to pick a side. Okay, In picking aside, you
Speaker 2: have to ignore all of the other stuff, and you
Speaker 2: can't come in with contradictory messaging.
Speaker 1: Are they listening to you?
Speaker 2: You know? I think some of the stuff they do
Speaker 2: agree with him. I think the worst answered that she
Speaker 2: gave was when they said what's the difference between you
Speaker 2: and Biden? And she couldn't think anything, which is something
Speaker 2: you should have gone in. I would be critical about that.
Speaker 2: That was you know, every campaign makes mistakes, all right.
Speaker 2: You can't do one hundred things in a day and
Speaker 2: not do ten of them.
Speaker 3: Wrong.
Speaker 2: But she's who cares? Who got thirteen days to go?
Speaker 2: Get on the stack, Create momentum, Create people have a
Speaker 2: stake in the election. Create a choice, stick with it,
Speaker 2: go with it, don't look back.
Speaker 1: Do you have any sense of how Donald Trump feels
Speaker 1: about running against Kamala Harris versus Joe Biden? I mean
Speaker 1: he is he more unsure of himself or what do
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 2: I think he's a scared old man, knows that he's
Speaker 2: losing it. He can't control his memory loss.
Speaker 1: Well, here's a question that's also been bothering me for
Speaker 1: a couple of months now. Why did they delay his
Speaker 1: sentencing after he has been convicted of a crime and
Speaker 1: was due to be sentenced. Why did they delay that sentencing.
Speaker 2: I think that the judge felt like if he did it,
Speaker 2: it might even aneure more to Trump's benefit. I don't know.
Speaker 2: They shouldn't have. And the idea to Supreme Court from
Speaker 2: every from the time I was before the first grade,
Speaker 2: you learn that you know in America and no one
Speaker 2: is above the law. The reason that we broke off
Speaker 2: from the britiship because the king was above the law
Speaker 2: and which kind of lived under that is the foundational
Speaker 2: principle of the United States, and then the Supreme Court says, Haha,
Speaker 2: you're wrong, he's above the law. I mean, how andy,
Speaker 2: AMERI can you possibly be so? And there's a lot
Speaker 2: of things I'm distressed about. There's a lot of things
Speaker 2: I'm concerned about. But right now we got thirteen days
Speaker 2: to go. We have to pick a side, We have
Speaker 2: to pick a message, and to choose one thing to
Speaker 2: do one thing is to not choose to do fourteen
Speaker 2: other things. We got to pick.
Speaker 1: One good advice. So maybe you could give us, like, well,
Speaker 1: that's your one piece of advice. What is that one
Speaker 1: thing that you would advise them all? To say?
Speaker 2: That? He would end the Constitution of the United States
Speaker 2: as we do it, whatever, the order that millions of
Speaker 2: Americans died to protect, sometimes not even knowing the reason
Speaker 2: that sets us apart, and he wants to destroy. And
Speaker 2: I know it doesn't quite match the price the price
Speaker 2: of a dozen eggs, but I think there is a
Speaker 2: majority art the people in the United States that quite patriotic.
Speaker 2: May not be able to articulate it, but kind of
Speaker 2: like the idea of us having a constitution that evolves.
Speaker 1: So what hopes our ideas remain as true to you
Speaker 1: today as when you first got into politics. Besides saving
Speaker 1: the Constitution, I mean what I think.
Speaker 2: I think that I've always thought and still do, that
Speaker 2: government condull the sharper edges of capitalism. A By that,
Speaker 2: I mean some people do better than other people. I
Speaker 2: think that the people that do well have some obligation
Speaker 2: to people for whatever circumstances don't. I do think that
Speaker 2: there are people in the United States that start out
Speaker 2: with more advantages than other people. I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: we have to, you know, be some kind of socialist thing,
Speaker 2: but we can also wreck I said, We're only as
Speaker 2: good as people do. And I've seen in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty five, I was what twenty one years old,
Speaker 2: the elderly populy rate in the United States was thirty
Speaker 2: one percent. Today is nine. That's that's because we had
Speaker 2: government intervention. We're now in nineteen sixty five, segregation was
Speaker 2: the law of land all right. Now It's decidedly not now.
Speaker 2: I mean, are there's still inequalities and imperfections that exist. Sure,
Speaker 2: When I was in nineteen seventy, I guess it was
Speaker 2: or somewhere around there. The cyugar Ribbon. Cleveland started burning
Speaker 2: because it was so polluted. Now they tell me you
Speaker 2: can swim in it. You know why? That was because
Speaker 2: of government action. And if we're going to solve the
Speaker 2: mega problems we have, if it's climate, if it's inequality,
Speaker 2: if it's access to health care, if it's anything is
Speaker 2: dealing with he's horrible foreign adversaries is to government, just
Speaker 2: gonna do it for us. Get over it. That's just
Speaker 2: the way we are. That that would be a cool message.
Speaker 1: And how can we get more people to speak as
Speaker 1: clearly as you speak? Do you give seminaris to newscasters?
Speaker 3: That's why I made this movie?
Speaker 1: You, I know, how do we how do we get it?
Speaker 1: Is it airing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's in theaters.
Speaker 4: James is a masterclass in synthesizing a message and getting
Speaker 4: it across concisely, and it's an immortimous skill and talent.
Speaker 4: He does it better than you've heard it for the
Speaker 4: last half hour. I mean, I just sit here and
Speaker 4: all I've been listening to it for two years. He's
Speaker 4: a genius at it and everyone in communications needs to
Speaker 4: learn from this. But the thing is, and this is
Speaker 4: the whole point, is do it for good, do it
Speaker 4: for good, and we have a real decision point here
Speaker 4: that is life or death of the Constitution. I'll be
Speaker 4: quiet now and let him saying more, because he's better
Speaker 4: at it than I am, and he's more learned. But
Speaker 4: the movie does show you that it is a masterclass
Speaker 4: in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you, Matt. I think that people become
Speaker 2: enamored with showing that other people are smart they are.
Speaker 2: The way that you generally did ad is through language.
Speaker 2: And I think the Democrats, not Democrats, certain part of
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, certainly not much Democratic voters decided that
Speaker 2: they were going to change the way that people communicated
Speaker 2: with each other, and they were going to change nouns
Speaker 2: that we use previously. And of course they did no
Speaker 2: such thing, and it all blew up in the stupid faces.
Speaker 2: But they were well menting people, all right, there's nothing
Speaker 2: that beats what time is it? Well, it's one fifty
Speaker 2: five Central, Okay, you know, we always I would tell
Speaker 2: my student. Yeah, some people what time it is? They
Speaker 2: tell you what time it is. Other people will tell
Speaker 2: you how you make a watch, and then that people
Speaker 2: that tell you how to build a Swiss village. Okay,
Speaker 2: just go with the people and tell you what time
Speaker 2: it is. And it's always people wanting to explain in
Speaker 2: depth a simple thing. And what you want to look
Speaker 2: for in politics or in anything in marketing is you
Speaker 2: want something sticky, right so, and you want to get
Speaker 2: visual images like in a movie. Once you see these
Speaker 2: poll numbers, they're like seeing your grandma neck it. You
Speaker 2: can't get it out of your mind. Well, everybody can
Speaker 2: relate to what I'm saying because good communications. I always
Speaker 2: tell my students words are visual. You think that words
Speaker 2: are not. It's a visual thing. And Matt can tell
Speaker 2: you and people that you know study radio, and the
Speaker 2: people that were good at radio knew the or in
Speaker 2: a visual art. There wasn't just in an audio art,
Speaker 2: so you had to like envision, you know, people would
Speaker 2: our parents would huddle around of radio and listened to
Speaker 2: Saint Louis Cardinal's game and you felt like in the
Speaker 2: good announcements made you feel like you were in the
Speaker 2: stadium exactly, that you could actually see baserunners advance, and
Speaker 2: that I think that's a really really important thing to
Speaker 2: remember when you're communicating, that audio is visual. And I
Speaker 2: think adding a film has maybe made verbal communications we
Speaker 2: rely on video images or that to substitute sometimes for
Speaker 2: what we say that people can remember that. I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a kind of different.
Speaker 1: But I totally agree with you and the audio visual
Speaker 1: is the most expressive way of dealing with all all
Speaker 1: of this that we are facing at prison time. And
Speaker 1: I'm really appreciative of your your loud voice, James, keep
Speaker 1: it loud and clear. And Matt, can you just talk
Speaker 1: about what projects you're working on now for more stuff
Speaker 1: for us to look forward to, hopefully in a happier era.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've just as you know, I just finished a
Speaker 4: film about Know Who, Matsuhisa.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I loved it. I loved Nobu so much,
Speaker 1: and I really loved seeing him and his life portrayed
Speaker 1: as you have as you have chosen to portray it.
Speaker 3: Fascinating fact.
Speaker 4: I want to Know Who for the first time with
Speaker 4: you and Susan mcgreno.
Speaker 3: That's where I met you.
Speaker 4: It was so long ago now that I never read
Speaker 4: right when it opened. It was a revelation away. I
Speaker 4: ended up making this movie about him. You were so
Speaker 4: important in his career, championing champion, meaning his incredible Cuisy
Speaker 4: so that's the next one. And then I'm finishing a
Speaker 4: film about Sam Bankman freed and that mess.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, did you have full access to him?
Speaker 3: Well, he was not available.
Speaker 1: Uh, they don't. They don't let him come out for
Speaker 1: a day to talk.
Speaker 4: Well, he and he and P Diddy are together, I think, uh,
Speaker 4: lots lots of time to converse. Refrectional facilitation. That's another
Speaker 4: fascinating story.
Speaker 1: Thank you both, gentlemen, for your frankness and for your openness.
Speaker 1: And and James, get a rest and keep going. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and happy
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye, guys.