Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Trump's approval rating is underwater in
Speaker 1: eleven of the states he won. We have such a
Speaker 1: great show for you today. The Link Project's own Rick
Speaker 1: Wilson joins us to discuss Donald Trump having his bank
Speaker 1: accounts closed on suspicions.
Speaker 2: Of money laundering.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Status News's own Oliver Darcy about
Speaker 1: Barry Weiss running CBS into the ground.
Speaker 2: But first the news Somali.
Speaker 3: Trump really does not have an easy time prosecuting people
Speaker 3: for the crimes that they He often is inventing that
Speaker 3: they've done. And if we have another failure and the
Speaker 3: seat of the crime is the reflecting pool or the
Speaker 3: scene of the not crime.
Speaker 1: So just for those who have a life unlike Jesse
Speaker 1: and I, there's a guy he gets in trouble for
Speaker 1: he gets arrested for stacking his hand in the reflect pool.
Speaker 1: They decided to charge him with vandalism. Trump had been
Speaker 1: for a couple of days before and after tweeting about
Speaker 1: vandalism the reflecting pool. Of course, you'll be shocked to
Speaker 1: know just like the sandwich guy. Remember the sandwich guy.
Speaker 1: This is the deep gray.
Speaker 4: How could I forget?
Speaker 1: Yeah, who threw a sandwich? And it turned out the
Speaker 1: sandwich guy had worked in the DOJ That guy who
Speaker 1: threw a sandwich and an officer. They tried to charge
Speaker 1: him with battery, assault or something that effect, and you
Speaker 1: know what happened, got a no bill.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The grand jury was like, uh uh and uh that's
Speaker 1: basically what happened here. There was no damage. No, Okay,
Speaker 1: is there damage that reflecting pool. There are different theories
Speaker 1: of the case, but if there is, it's very possible,
Speaker 1: nay likely, that that damage came from Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: his people driving their cars on the reflection pool, or
Speaker 1: perhaps it came from the no big contract that he
Speaker 1: gave to green Water Water Treatment or whatever it is
Speaker 1: who put together a plastic thing at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the reflecting pool, the reflecting pool. I just want to say,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's so stupid and it shows really
Speaker 1: how disinterested Donald Trump is in affordability, which is the
Speaker 1: one thing that anyone wants him to be interested in.
Speaker 1: But the other thing about this stupid story, which I
Speaker 1: will be talking about for the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: besides the Marie Antoinette of it is the fact that
Speaker 1: like Obama had trouble with the reflecting pool too. And
Speaker 1: actually it's funny. I was talking to someone who worked
Speaker 1: in New York City government, in city government when Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was a young developer, and he was talking about
Speaker 1: how when Donald Trump took over the ice rank in
Speaker 1: Central Park, Donald Trump said, oh, look I did it.
Speaker 1: I fixed the ice rank no one else could. And
Speaker 1: you felt like he was kind of a scammer, like
Speaker 1: he was saying he was saving something that he really wasn't.
Speaker 2: That this was just like he was making it seem
Speaker 2: like more than it was.
Speaker 1: And that is sort of I think the core of
Speaker 1: trump Ism is it's this sort of scamminess, this belief
Speaker 1: that he can do things that other people can't, when
Speaker 1: in fact, he can't do things that other people can.
Speaker 1: And so I say to you, if you suffer from
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome, you should look to Donald Trump to see
Speaker 1: that there is no You should feel pretty good about yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that whole thing is really well chronicled in
Speaker 3: the movie The Apprentice. It really gets snails that sentiment
Speaker 3: very well. So speaking of people who one day will
Speaker 3: be mocked in a movie. In a similar way, Elon
Speaker 3: Musk is going all in on Senator Susan Collins, and
Speaker 3: he's opening up his wallet and saying, here you.
Speaker 2: Go, girl, yeah you know. So here's what's happened.
Speaker 1: Has decided to do one hundred million in the midterms.
Speaker 2: Maybe more. Now, Elon Musk is a big that's just Susan.
Speaker 2: Oh just one hundred million for Susan. Oh wow, look
Speaker 2: at this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Musk plans to spend between one hundred million and
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty million to help Collins as well
Speaker 1: as other Republicans candidates. I think that's the whole group
Speaker 1: in close Senate races. Now here's the thing. Troy Jackson,
Speaker 1: fifth generation Maynor was a lumber guy, okay, running against
Speaker 1: Susan Collins. Susan Collins is from the fancy part of
Speaker 1: Maine Portland. She has the support of fancy people like
Speaker 1: the Bushes. She is now got the support of the
Speaker 1: richest man in the world, okay, the.
Speaker 3: Richest man of the world, but also mister Data Center,
Speaker 3: which shob not very popular like janit bills like basically
Speaker 3: took off like ten points of her popularity.
Speaker 4: People estimate from just supporting data centers.
Speaker 1: Data centers is a real eighty twenty issue, and people
Speaker 1: hate them. They're scared of them, and they see that
Speaker 1: they use electricity, they use water. They're terrible, I mean,
Speaker 1: and the idea that you should you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure people have seen the videos of the noise
Speaker 1: that data centers make, or that they raise your electricity bills,
Speaker 1: or that they use your water, or that they I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many reasons to hate data centers and did
Speaker 1: not want them to move into your state. And so
Speaker 1: if Elon Musk is able to get Susan Collins reelected,
Speaker 1: which he very warm might because she often overperforms polling,
Speaker 1: it will mean very likely that mean and the rest
Speaker 1: of us will get more data centers, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty distressing situation. But he plans to also spend his
Speaker 1: America pack plants to spend in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan.
Speaker 1: By the way, you know why he's spending money in
Speaker 1: those dates.
Speaker 3: Because the republicanscerned trouble. Yeah, So there's an interesting thing
Speaker 3: happening here. On the cover of Drudge Today, we have
Speaker 3: a really wild graphic about Iran's plans to poison our
Speaker 3: water in seven different states.
Speaker 4: Yes, and Governor Walls is accusing the Trump administration of
Speaker 4: covering this up.
Speaker 1: It's not good. So here are a couple things here.
Speaker 1: We know that you can't trust this administration. We know
Speaker 1: that this administration does a lot of really destructive shit.
Speaker 1: We know that this administration is deeply dishonest about all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. So it's not hard to put together
Speaker 1: the Walls that he would be right about this. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he says President Trump is lying about who committed
Speaker 1: the cyber attack on his state and purposefully hiding how
Speaker 1: many states were affected. Trump on Friday dismissconcerns that Iran
Speaker 1: was likely responsible for a cyber attack against him. By
Speaker 1: the way, Iran has done a lot of cyber attacks.
Speaker 1: And also Donald Trump did go to war with Iran again,
Speaker 1: we still don't know why. The probably because Natanyahu convinced
Speaker 1: him to. Trump knows exactly who is responsible for the attack,
Speaker 1: and other states were hit too, Waltz wrote on X
Speaker 1: and remember like this is an administration that has been
Speaker 1: really disinterested in cyber warfare or getting us up to
Speaker 1: speed on this stuff, and has asked for you know,
Speaker 1: they're more focused on trying to test war fighter's testosterone
Speaker 1: and making sure that black people don't get promotions, because
Speaker 1: anti anti racism is racism.
Speaker 5: So Molly the Daily Mail has this wild report that
Speaker 5: MAGA exiles, including Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker Carlson, thought
Speaker 5: to launch a new political party and are going to
Speaker 5: wage war on Trump.
Speaker 4: We're not going to have a Never Trump party. We're
Speaker 4: going to have, of course, the America First Party.
Speaker 2: If it's never Trump and it's Trump, then what is this?
Speaker 1: This is like get we need sometimes sometimes before Trump,
Speaker 1: right exactly, we need we want the racism.
Speaker 2: But none want.
Speaker 4: I wanted to be Trump's mistress for many years, and
Speaker 4: now I don't.
Speaker 1: It's important to remember, I think, like when we talk
Speaker 1: about this, So these are former Trump allies turn detractors
Speaker 1: who have grown frustrated by the President's broken campaign promises.
Speaker 1: The people in this group Tucker Grlst and Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 1: Thomas Massey, Joe Kent. Okay, so I want to pause
Speaker 1: for a minute and just explain the danger of this. Okay,
Speaker 1: these are not our friends. Okay, these are not like,
Speaker 1: these are not just because they're anti Trump and and good.
Speaker 1: These are not the people you want to be okay,
Speaker 1: Like these are people who don't want to fund I mean,
Speaker 1: these are not your father's Republicans. These are like real,
Speaker 1: this is the racism and the anti Semitism and all
Speaker 1: the stuff that is really it's just not this is
Speaker 1: not this. This is not the stuff than any of
Speaker 1: us wants to be associated with. So look, if there's
Speaker 1: a split in MAGA, which is something we have talked
Speaker 1: a lot about, right it started with the Iran war,
Speaker 1: it went to the Ebstein stuff. You know, in every
Speaker 1: which way Donald Trump made promises. But some of these promises,
Speaker 1: like these people, you know, they want to end forem wrest,
Speaker 1: but they don't necessarily want to do it because they
Speaker 1: are against war or you know, I just think you
Speaker 1: should be really, really really cautious about this group. And
Speaker 1: by the way, Laura Lumer, who is still all Trump,
Speaker 1: called for all seven of them to be put on
Speaker 1: a watch list for being traders to the country. Everyone's
Speaker 1: gotten so far afield from normal here. Every single one
Speaker 1: of these people belongs on a government watch list. Every
Speaker 1: persons photo is a trader to an America America and
Speaker 1: an anti Trump operative amplify by foreign adversaries.
Speaker 2: Megan McCain. I don't know if you know who her
Speaker 2: dad is.
Speaker 4: Never never heard her talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she I mean, look, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm very suspicious about all.
Speaker 3: But well, I mean, i'll tell you why it'll be suspicious.
Speaker 3: We discussed this previously. I said the thing I said,
Speaker 3: I bet you this happens once Trump crosses the bushline.
Speaker 3: Trump cross the bushline sweep right. It's like, this is
Speaker 3: no coincidence. I could have imagined that in a meeting
Speaker 3: so easily.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so the idea is that Trump's polling has gotten
Speaker 1: bad enough that this crew has decided that they don't
Speaker 1: have to pretend to like him anymore. And that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense, I think.
Speaker 2: And you know.
Speaker 1: Look, you have a party that basically still has had
Speaker 1: absolutely no nothing besides Trump. Right, there's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's just Trump. You know, there isn't like a megabase, right,
Speaker 1: it's Trump Advance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that's it, all right, My.
Speaker 3: Since I know he's your fave, I have a president
Speaker 3: for you. We're going to listen to RFK Junior go
Speaker 3: absolutely batshit on data. Basche's state of the Union show
Speaker 3: and see and.
Speaker 1: Then I just want to say that Chiron reads US
Speaker 1: measles cases reach thirty five year high.
Speaker 6: Let's watch there are other countries that at higher.
Speaker 7: But you can go ahead about why we had that,
Speaker 7: but you nobody can tell you. I mean, we have,
Speaker 7: as you say, in the highest crimes in the world.
Speaker 7: And Anthony Fauci was mismanaging the COVID pandemic. Who was
Speaker 7: doing it under the Biden administration. President Trump wanted to
Speaker 7: hand the lockdowns, And in fact, in Anthony Fauci's diaries,
Speaker 7: he talks about how President Trump is calling him every
Speaker 7: day trying to get him to reopen the country.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, the lockdowns were done by governors. I mean,
Speaker 6: certainly Anthony Fauci and the President had opinions at the
Speaker 6: lockdowns were done by governors.
Speaker 8: And largely because and largely because largely because they were
Speaker 8: hearing they were hearing from hospitals saying that their ICUs
Speaker 8: were overrun and they needed some help while that was happening.
Speaker 9: But I wasn't.
Speaker 4: That's just not true.
Speaker 10: What you're saying is not true.
Speaker 4: No, they were doing it.
Speaker 7: Because Anthony Fauci was telling him from the top, you
Speaker 7: need to lockdown. There were ICUs that were empty all
Speaker 7: over the country, including in New York at the height.
Speaker 9: I'm asking you, I'm going to go back to what
Speaker 9: I asked you at the beginning, which is President Trump
Speaker 9: and he was the guy in charge, and you tweeted back.
Speaker 6: In twenty twenty four that he let bureaucrats like Anthony
Speaker 6: Fauci shut down the entire country.
Speaker 2: Again the president.
Speaker 7: The president was trying to reopen the country when he left.
Speaker 7: The country was kept closed for another almost a year
Speaker 7: and a half after.
Speaker 1: Boy, I'm telling you what I love about this is
Speaker 1: nothing the idea that they're still litigating COVID, that they're
Speaker 1: litigating COVID and we are what we're year six years
Speaker 1: past COVID.
Speaker 2: It's such a loser.
Speaker 1: And and look, this is coming up because ram Paul,
Speaker 1: you know, has released the diaries and had him come.
Speaker 1: And it's all distraction from the poor polling, from the
Speaker 1: high gas prices, from all of this stupid crabs. This
Speaker 1: is such an unnecessary distraction. And like, instead of getting
Speaker 1: us prepared for more, you know, for whatever is coming
Speaker 1: down the pipe next, or dealing with the measles outbreak,
Speaker 1: or doing any of the stuff that could be productive
Speaker 1: or working on climate change or the forest fires in Canada,
Speaker 1: any of that shit, Nada.
Speaker 2: What do we have instead? We have them, like, you know, having.
Speaker 1: These hearings with his eighty four year old public servant
Speaker 1: because they want to get him for not get for
Speaker 1: not what for not for being.
Speaker 2: Too much for COVID restrictions. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's
Speaker 2: so stupid, it's like being in a house.
Speaker 1: Wick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and
Speaker 1: the host of the Lincoln Project podcast.
Speaker 10: Rick Wilson Wellie John Fast.
Speaker 1: Capital on Financials said it closed accounts belonging to President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, not Donald Trump's real estate company, in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, not because of politics, but because of legitimate
Speaker 1: reasons after an internal review by the banks anti money
Speaker 1: laundering team.
Speaker 11: I don't know about you, Molly. I mean, first off,
Speaker 11: everyone knows Donald Trump is really on the up and
Speaker 11: up as a businessman, so I don't know why this
Speaker 11: would have fled. Oh wait, they fagged it because he
Speaker 11: had over three hundred checking accounts apparently, and it triggered
Speaker 11: this automatic review in their software. Is it targeting him
Speaker 11: personally because he was a bad person. It was targeting
Speaker 11: him because the software showed that he was engaged in
Speaker 11: patterns that they associated with money laundering. And the irony
Speaker 11: is they are required to do this under federal law.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 11: They don't get a vote on this. They don't get
Speaker 11: It's not like it's like they can say, yeah, well
Speaker 11: this guy's a nice guy. We're not going to cover this.
Speaker 11: They know your customer law. If there are signs of
Speaker 11: money laundering, they have to either investigate it or close them,
Speaker 11: and they closed them.
Speaker 2: I also think what.
Speaker 1: Is so relevant about this story and important is that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. They the bank made this revelation in a
Speaker 1: filing as a response to a lawsuit from Donald Trump
Speaker 1: because he said they debanked him for political reasons.
Speaker 11: The performative nature of all Trump lawsuits. I think this
Speaker 11: is my third Wilson rule. Everything Trump got just dies.
Speaker 11: Everybody hit said cruise. And the third one is no
Speaker 11: Trump lawsuit survives discovery, right because now that the bank
Speaker 11: is going to say, okay, well, if you want us
Speaker 11: to show why we think you were money laundering, we
Speaker 11: will reveal in court why we think you were money laundering.
Speaker 11: And Trump's people, I promise you they're gonna go h
Speaker 11: haamahammahammahamda nevermind, right, it always it is. It is like
Speaker 11: all these cases where that when the rubber hits the road,
Speaker 11: when the facts matter, when the discovery is going to
Speaker 11: embarrass the living hell out of them. You know. It's
Speaker 11: why they dropped the charges against the Olympian this week
Speaker 11: after he allegedly personally destroyed the reflecting pool. It's why
Speaker 11: they just can't hold up on these these bs defamation cases,
Speaker 11: like against the BBC and other things. They there's just
Speaker 11: a sense that that these lawsuits are are like a
Speaker 11: lottery ticket for him. Maybe sometimes somebody will just collapse
Speaker 11: and go, okay, we'll give you money.
Speaker 1: Well, and that it's interesting because it's like it has
Speaker 1: certainly worked with some people, right, law firms and edu, SHC, ABC,
Speaker 1: A lot of places have settled.
Speaker 2: You know. Trump has been able.
Speaker 1: To censor certain groups, right the lawyers, the some universities
Speaker 1: some but ultimately, if you push back at all, it
Speaker 1: all falls apart. And like the reflecting pool is a
Speaker 1: great example, right, they drove the cars on the reflecting pool,
Speaker 1: like clearly, you know, like there's a reason people don't
Speaker 1: drive tons of cars on things like that, and you know,
Speaker 1: and then they hired Trump hired this no bid contract
Speaker 1: for Greenwater, right, Greenwater.
Speaker 2: The guy who looks like a who looks like looks.
Speaker 11: Who looks like he was rejected from the Sopranos for
Speaker 11: looking too mobbed up.
Speaker 2: That's right, that guy.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he's and he turns out he's a mar
Speaker 1: a Lago member. Turns out Yeah, shockingly, he's a mar
Speaker 1: Alago member. And he's also more importantly, like, this was
Speaker 1: a no bid contract. And you know, I think, like, so,
Speaker 1: there's also this other thing that's happening right now besides
Speaker 1: the Trump money laundering fiasco, is that Trump is also
Speaker 1: the true social is selling this ability to get Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's truth earlier so you can insider trade Rogie, so.
Speaker 11: You can front run the market by signing up for
Speaker 11: one hundred thousand dollars a month of service that is
Speaker 11: going to give hedge funds and private equity guys and
Speaker 11: other people who want to do short trading on Trump's
Speaker 11: coming tweets. And look, if we had a securities an
Speaker 11: exchange commission that was functional, he would have already been
Speaker 11: indicted for trying to do it. And I will say this,
Speaker 11: I think There are probably plenty of companies out there
Speaker 11: that will do this, that will sign up for this.
Speaker 4: They will make a ton of money on.
Speaker 2: It, and they'll have to pay it back like with.
Speaker 11: The and when there's an SEC again, and there will
Speaker 11: be folks in for sure three years.
Speaker 2: Maybe three months. If Democrats flip back the.
Speaker 11: House, you know, yeah, you were going to see you
Speaker 11: were going to see an absolute bloodbath. If you're paying
Speaker 11: one hundred thousand dollars a month for this, you better
Speaker 11: be ready to pay one hundred million dollars in legal
Speaker 11: fees and penalties. Are in penalties and legal costs to
Speaker 11: defend yourself on it when there is a recapitulation or
Speaker 11: reconstitution of the power of the SEC or eventually a
Speaker 11: Department of Justice not run by Donald Trump's personal attorney.
Speaker 1: That's right, Noah agreed. And I think we're going to
Speaker 1: see quite a lot of that. And I think and
Speaker 1: that's the real question is when you look at this moment.
Speaker 1: But I just I want to turn now because what
Speaker 1: we saw this week was so many bad polls for Trump.
Speaker 2: Like this morning, as I was.
Speaker 1: Walking home, I was looking at a tweet from Jonathan
Speaker 1: and Leamir that talks about how Donald Trump is actually is.
Speaker 1: There is no president in like basically since the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties who has been this unpopular.
Speaker 11: Molly, I'm I have a big piece coming out tomorrow
Speaker 11: on Substack about this. I spent the morning writing, going
Speaker 11: through my personal archive of numbers and looking online for
Speaker 11: all these back you know, all these previous moments in
Speaker 11: electoral politics, and that one lesson that comes screaming out.
Speaker 11: It's like in two thousand and six when Bush's numbers
Speaker 11: and they were better than Trump's. Right now, they were bad,
Speaker 11: but they were still higher than Trump's are right now,
Speaker 11: and high gas prices in an unpopular war in the
Speaker 11: Middle East and high growing inflation. We couldn't win even
Speaker 11: with great candidates and good messages back then. On the
Speaker 11: Republican side, in twenty ten, we couldn't lose even with
Speaker 11: morons and widows, right and so so right now you
Speaker 11: a very unhappy political dynamic for Trump and the Republicans
Speaker 11: is that the Democrats have a lot of good candidates.
Speaker 11: Trump's numbers, which define where Republicans fall, are in the
Speaker 11: basement and going lower, and the political climate is absolutely
Speaker 11: brutal now and you're seeing the real breakout. Democratic voter
Speaker 11: intensity is up, up up the independence you know this
Speaker 11: long slow slide independence. When Trump won office, he won
Speaker 11: independence in twenty twenty four. Yeah, they by the end
Speaker 11: of last year were about two to one against him.
Speaker 11: Now there and most of this year they've been about
Speaker 11: two and a half to three to one against him.
Speaker 11: Now they're closing in on four to one against Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 11: this is an electoral nightmare for them. They're watching Texas
Speaker 11: slip away, They're watching North Carolina slip away, They're watching
Speaker 11: Alaska slip away. Iowa is not feeling great for them anymore.
Speaker 11: They are really looking at a bad, bad, bad day.
Speaker 11: And it all comes down to the fact that they
Speaker 11: define themselves as Trump's party, and when Trump is this unpopular,
Speaker 11: they pay the price.
Speaker 2: Because there's no one else.
Speaker 1: But also the Texas. I want you to talk about
Speaker 1: the Texas pulling because what I think people don't understand
Speaker 1: is that Beto never pulled better. Then, so explain to
Speaker 1: us this story here, because better never pulled better than
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz.
Speaker 11: Right, Look, Beto was a talented candidate. Is a talented
Speaker 11: guy like that.
Speaker 2: It has done a lot to flip Texas. If Texas
Speaker 2: f I was done.
Speaker 4: I was just getting to that.
Speaker 11: He has built a lot of the foundational things that
Speaker 11: have let Texas Democrats survive in the most hostile political
Speaker 11: environment right all credit to Taller. Rico has done two
Speaker 11: things I think that only he could have pulled off
Speaker 11: in Texas so far. And look, he's got a lot
Speaker 11: of work to do. It's still got still a long
Speaker 11: way between nown election days, still over ninety days. But
Speaker 11: he has done two things. He has relentlessly focused on
Speaker 11: the economy corruption. He has tied those two together in
Speaker 11: the minds of Texas voters, and Ken Paxton is the
Speaker 11: poster boy for for both right for economy and corruption.
Speaker 11: But he's also been able to go out and walk
Speaker 11: away from a lot of the culture war bullshit. They've
Speaker 11: tried to hang on it. Okay, all the he's trends,
Speaker 11: he's a vegan, all the all the shit. Okay, you
Speaker 11: know what, anybody who's going to vote based on those things,
Speaker 11: those lies, was already voting for Ken Paxton. They're only
Speaker 11: doing base maintenance in the GOP in Texas right now
Speaker 11: because they and even Greg Abbott, a four term governor
Speaker 11: who has much better numbers than Ken Paxton, Hussa is
Speaker 11: three points behind him in a poll the other day,
Speaker 11: and you know that's that one like if you're Ken Paxton,
Speaker 11: like somebody's walking over your grave, you're feeling the the
Speaker 11: the you know that he b gb feeling of like.
Speaker 10: What's going on?
Speaker 11: And look, these people have they have done this to themselves, Molly,
Speaker 11: they they have bought this problem for themselves.
Speaker 1: It is so interesting to me when we look at Texas,
Speaker 1: so Texas, Alaska, Iowa.
Speaker 2: You know, we've had Rob Sands on this podcast. We've
Speaker 2: had Josh Turrek like part of the other thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna make you talk about this with me
Speaker 1: because nobody else will. Is that one of the things
Speaker 1: that I'm struck by is that in the spots where
Speaker 1: the Democratic brand really sucks, like Nebraska, you have independence
Speaker 1: running so you don't have like, you know, we spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time in cable news world talking about
Speaker 1: like you know, Mon Damie and Democrats getting too woke,
Speaker 1: but like Dan Osborne is a great example of not
Speaker 1: being woke but being the thing that is not the
Speaker 1: Democratic brand but can still win working class voters.
Speaker 2: In the great state of Nebraska.
Speaker 11: This is there used to be a trick that Republicans pulled, okay,
Speaker 11: and we would let the candidates be the right fit
Speaker 11: for the state or the district. We knew. And he's
Speaker 11: a bad example on one level, but it's a legitimate example.
Speaker 11: Rudy was able to win the mayor's race in New
Speaker 11: York first in ninety three and then in ninety seven
Speaker 11: in part because he was pro choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a stager, was pro choice.
Speaker 11: In California, you had moderate Republicans. I elected a pro
Speaker 11: a pro environmental Republican governor in Vermont a couple of times,
Speaker 11: Jim Douglass, who believed in climate change. Way back when
Speaker 11: it was like if you said climate change is the Republican,
Speaker 11: you were off the reservation. Yeah, now that's flipped. Now
Speaker 11: the Democrats are figuring out, Oh, you can't win Florida
Speaker 11: with a raging mom dommy type or a squad type.
Speaker 11: You gotta go with the David Jolly type. You got
Speaker 11: to go in Texas. You can't win it back with
Speaker 11: a guy who's going to be out there talking about
Speaker 11: you know, the center and God bless Bato, but the
Speaker 11: center pain was gun control in Texas. I'm sorry it
Speaker 11: doesn't work, but cats are getting this lesson figured out.
Speaker 11: You got to run the right person in the right race.
Speaker 2: But you also you can't. You have to run someone charismatic.
Speaker 2: And that is the.
Speaker 11: Flora, authentic and charismatic.
Speaker 2: And and look you can't, David really is that?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Oh oh yeah?
Speaker 11: And and and also in Iowa, Sand is a I mean, folks,
Speaker 11: if you haven't gone out and watched Rob sand talk
Speaker 11: to an audience, he couldn't chill up your spine. He's
Speaker 11: as good or better than Tallarico. And people are underscoring
Speaker 11: that race. Sand Turk and three congressional seats are in
Speaker 11: play in Iowa, folks, a state Donald Trump should have
Speaker 11: felt very comfortable being able to hold onto.
Speaker 2: That ten points.
Speaker 1: And also more importantly, you know who got off the
Speaker 1: bench and got and did an.
Speaker 11: Ask Barack Obama a great little lad They.
Speaker 1: Did and yep, and he said, the most meaningful thing
Speaker 1: to me as a politician has been winning Iowa.
Speaker 2: So I think part of it too.
Speaker 1: And we saw this with Nebraska's first district to get
Speaker 1: really nerdy when Republicans wanted to take away that first district,
Speaker 1: they became very furious. And Iowa is a state that
Speaker 1: matters and they often get treated like shit. For example,
Speaker 1: the guy who's running against Rob sand lives in Kansas
Speaker 1: is this city.
Speaker 11: He flies his plane from Kansas to Iowa, just like
Speaker 11: Tommy Tupperville lives in my state of Florida and commutes
Speaker 11: to Alabama. Yeah, by the way, Mine, I want to
Speaker 11: mention one other stick because I left this off my list. Folks,
Speaker 11: I think if you're the Republican party of the state
Speaker 11: that should scare the crap out of you. The most
Speaker 11: right now is Ohio because Shared Brown is coming back
Speaker 11: with a vengeance. You've got Amy Acton, who is coming up?
Speaker 11: Who's Ramaswami's campaign is collapsing. I've heard in the last
Speaker 11: few days that Trump is about to pull his support
Speaker 11: out of Ramaswami. He was never he was always lukewarm
Speaker 11: about him. That he's not going to bother with going
Speaker 11: there or helping him. And you've got Max Miller, remember
Speaker 11: of Congress, who should not be in Congress. He should
Speaker 11: be in jail if the documents are correct. Yes, who
Speaker 11: threw hot boiling water on his wife and put.
Speaker 1: It the allegations and the allegation is that he broke
Speaker 1: the daughter's coming.
Speaker 11: He broke it, Yeah, and attacked their daughter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, awful, right, and that is the Republican Party, right.
Speaker 11: But Ohio, if that super deep red state of Ohio
Speaker 11: starts to turn, it is a signal of something much
Speaker 11: bigger in the country, not only for twenty six but
Speaker 11: for twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. But it's also like, if Democrats win back
Speaker 1: the House and they flip the Senate, it is going
Speaker 1: to be just even if they don't, even if they
Speaker 1: just get close with this Senate. But I actually I
Speaker 1: still think, like if you MATHI through, I just read
Speaker 1: this thing that Fetterman's maybe not going to switch.
Speaker 2: So again, who knows.
Speaker 1: But still, I mean, I think this is I think
Speaker 1: this is.
Speaker 2: Really a big deal.
Speaker 11: I think it's a huge deal, Molly, and I think
Speaker 11: that in part the reaction of trying to hide the
Speaker 11: corpse of Mitch McConnell, or or hide what's going on
Speaker 11: with Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 2: I think is going on with Mitch mcconne.
Speaker 11: So we have some information a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 11: that he was in a special acute cardiac rehab facility
Speaker 11: at GW Hospital. But what I here's my guess this
Speaker 11: is I'm not based on any insider knowledge. My guess
Speaker 11: is he's had some sort of cardiac or stroke event,
Speaker 11: is completely incapacitated, and they are waiting for the deadline
Speaker 11: to pass to announce it. And it will go down
Speaker 11: in history as a great failing of the American media
Speaker 11: because there's nobody twenty seven interests on the ground for
Speaker 11: the GW hospital and nobody's managed to sneak up there
Speaker 11: and do any reporting at all. Nobody no more in
Speaker 11: DC has seemed very motivated to find out about this
Speaker 11: in the way that they wanted to know every single
Speaker 11: thing about Joe Biden's health when he was experiencing some problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, no, no, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1: I also want to ask you when we look at
Speaker 1: this moment here, what do you think when you look
Speaker 1: at the House and the Senate?
Speaker 2: What are the Senate races? House races?
Speaker 1: You feel like people are still not are sleeping on
Speaker 1: besides Iowa.
Speaker 11: Well, look, I think I think we've got to watch
Speaker 11: Maine again because you know the Platiner Brew Haha. You
Speaker 11: know a lot of people Von and the Democratic Party
Speaker 11: it's over, it's over, it's over. Well, Tony's actually posting
Speaker 11: up some pretty good numbers. And I think that Collins
Speaker 11: is in a tougher position than she was in a
Speaker 11: weird way because Platner was an unknown quantity with bad
Speaker 11: oppo and Tony is a known quantity with you know,
Speaker 11: maybe he's got a temper, but I don't think that's
Speaker 11: a disqualifier now. And and I think that race is
Speaker 11: when people got to put their eyes back on. And
Speaker 11: I think her people had a premature victory lap when
Speaker 11: they got rid of Yeah, I think so Jim.
Speaker 2: I mean I also think, I mean.
Speaker 1: She is the kaiser soosee of all of this, Like
Speaker 1: she has managed to survive. I mean I've seen polls
Speaker 1: with her, you know, down six and then she comes
Speaker 1: out to win.
Speaker 2: So but I do think believe me.
Speaker 11: In twenty twenty one of her people called me on
Speaker 11: election Nai was like livid with me, like so angry
Speaker 11: because our last part, you know, you get you bastards
Speaker 11: did this to her and Eda da da da, And
Speaker 11: he's like, we were eight points ahead and you know
Speaker 11: two months ago, and now we last night we finished six,
Speaker 11: six or seven points back, and you bastards did this,
Speaker 11: and well she won the next day. She blew us
Speaker 11: out right right. So I don't know how that. I
Speaker 11: don't know how that happened, but you know, and she's
Speaker 11: hadn't she said, six more years of Trump since then,
Speaker 11: And it's all.
Speaker 1: So there's that she's signed the death warrant for Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade by voting for Kavanaugh. But I also think no
Speaker 1: Gorsic by voting for Gorsich. But I also think part
Speaker 1: of it it is this she has managed to really
Speaker 1: be this kind of She's been able to be this
Speaker 1: last like Trump, but not Trump right, not piss him
Speaker 1: off the way a corner in her Cassidy has, but
Speaker 1: not be trumpy. And I just don't think I think
Speaker 1: that world is over. And then I also think Troy
Speaker 1: has this thing, which is he really does seem like
Speaker 1: he's of the place. And and I.
Speaker 11: Was I saying Tony, I think I'm saying Tony Troy.
Speaker 11: He does come across as a genuine downies kind of
Speaker 11: main guy. You know, he's rough on the edge.
Speaker 10: A little bit.
Speaker 11: He's not He's not the smooth, modulated politician that that
Speaker 11: you know a lot of people are. And it's okay,
Speaker 11: there's nothing wrong with that in this day and age
Speaker 11: at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think I think that it's two things, right.
Speaker 1: I think it's that he's he and like even the
Speaker 1: opo that they have on him, they're like, he married
Speaker 1: his second cousin.
Speaker 2: It's like that part of Maine, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: Man Like, there's two hundred people in that town.
Speaker 11: Listen, if marrying your second cousin was was illegal, the
Speaker 11: marriage rate in the state of Florida would drop significantly.
Speaker 4: I've seen it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I already married his first cousin.
Speaker 11: Okay, folks.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's like he's fifth generation Maine.
Speaker 1: He's like a genuine and and he's a longer and
Speaker 1: he really does sound like a manor.
Speaker 11: He's a manor. He's a real guy and and and look,
Speaker 11: authenticity overcomes a lot of a lot of elite qualms
Speaker 11: about people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 11: It is why if you would con if Platner didn't
Speaker 11: have all of the stuff right his the sense of
Speaker 11: connection he was building with people in Maine would have
Speaker 11: would have been a blowout. It would have been it
Speaker 11: would have been a knockout blow And I think this
Speaker 11: partly reflects the fact that they realize in this day
Speaker 11: and age. Susan Collins can't just fake being the moderate. Yeah,
Speaker 11: you can't just pretend anymore. The world knows everything about everything,
Speaker 11: and it's hard for her to do that.
Speaker 10: I'm going to be this and then in the middle.
Speaker 11: I'm not gonna get but she never does. She always
Speaker 11: votes for Trump in the end ninety nine percent of
Speaker 11: the time, So people get it. I'm watching that race.
Speaker 11: I think we've got to watch the Katie Hobbs race
Speaker 11: out there. And Republicans are starting to think that that's
Speaker 11: a place they can pour a lot of money into.
Speaker 11: I don't think it's gonna work because I think Andy
Speaker 11: Biggs is a lunatic and a rabid creature. Yeah, but
Speaker 11: I've heard some Republicans I was saying, that's one we
Speaker 11: can do, and that's our future. And good luck.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson, Molly drunk Fast. Will you come back?
Speaker 4: I sure will.
Speaker 1: Oliver Darcy is the founder of Status News. Welcome, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Oliver Darcy.
Speaker 10: I'm Allin'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1: You write this amazing media newsletter called Status the Media.
Speaker 2: There's a a lot of shit going down.
Speaker 1: I can't decide whether we should start with what Barry's
Speaker 1: done or what Bearry wants let's talk about the merger,
Speaker 1: because it's really interesting. I would love you to start
Speaker 1: by sort of painting the picture of what's happening here
Speaker 1: with Paramount merger.
Speaker 10: Sure, it's complex, but it's simple at the same time.
Speaker 10: So Paramount, which is the owner, it's a media conglomerate
Speaker 10: in itself, not only owns Paramount Pictures, which I think
Speaker 10: a lot of people are familiar with, but it owns
Speaker 10: a bunch of cable networks, and it owns CBS, which
Speaker 10: means it owns CBS News, and it controls programs like
Speaker 10: sixty Minutes. Paramount is headed by a man named David Allison,
Speaker 10: and he would like to purchase another media conglomerate called
Speaker 10: Warner brother Discovery, and that company owns HBO Max, it
Speaker 10: owns Warner Brothers Pictures. It also owns a bunch of
Speaker 10: cable networks, including CNN, And this has caused a lot
Speaker 10: of controversy for a few reasons, but one is that
Speaker 10: they need to make this deal happen. They need a
Speaker 10: clearance from regulators, both federal and state and international regulators.
Speaker 10: And to get clear into the federal regulators, which is
Speaker 10: Donald Trump's Department of Justice, they have to clear this.
Speaker 10: They needed Donald Trump basically to sign off on this,
Speaker 10: and so you've seen over the past year David Ellison
Speaker 10: have a very cozy relationship with Donald Trump. And one
Speaker 10: of the things that has been obvious is that CBS
Speaker 10: News under David Ellison has been a lot closer to
Speaker 10: the administration than a lot of people would like to see.
Speaker 10: And there's been reporting that if David Ellison were to
Speaker 10: control CNN, they would make changes to make Donald Trump happy.
Speaker 10: And the other thing to keep in mind is that
Speaker 10: Donald Trump, you know, he is not a Paramount plus viewer, right,
Speaker 10: He is not watching Landman on Paramount. He's probably not
Speaker 10: watching the Tom Cruise movies. What Donald Trump cares about
Speaker 10: and what he watches is the news. So if you
Speaker 10: want to make Donald Trump happy, one he wants CBS
Speaker 10: News in particularly sixty minutes, to be in his court.
Speaker 10: And two, he has said out loud that any deal
Speaker 10: that involves Warner brother Discovery needs to involve CNN, it
Speaker 10: needs to involve CNN changing ownership hands. And so this
Speaker 10: entire deal really has hinged on how Donald Trump is
Speaker 10: portrayed by these two news outlets and what David Ellison
Speaker 10: would do with CNN, should it be under his control?
Speaker 10: Because the only way Donald Trump is signing off on
Speaker 10: this deal is if he likes the way he's being
Speaker 10: portrayed by CBS News and if he feels that CNN
Speaker 10: is going to be more favorable to him, should he
Speaker 10: give his blessing. Otherwise this deal is not going through.
Speaker 10: And Donald Trump's DJ did sign off on the deal.
Speaker 10: The only problem is and perhaps David Ellison and his
Speaker 10: team at Paramount didn't anticipate this, But the States Office
Speaker 10: also have a say in this, and so you've seen
Speaker 10: the states, a dozen of them, led by California, follow lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Rom Bonta right.
Speaker 10: Rob Bonta, Yes. The Attorney general there while the lawsuit
Speaker 10: to block this steal on antitrust grounds, arguing that these
Speaker 10: two companies consolidating is not good for consumers and it's
Speaker 10: not good for the industries either.
Speaker 2: I have a couple of questions.
Speaker 1: But the first is sky Dance, which is this big
Speaker 1: company which David Allison is heading, which is right, one
Speaker 1: of the investors has money from the Qatars and from
Speaker 1: other Middle Eastern entities. Aren't American news channels not supposed
Speaker 1: to take money from foreign entities.
Speaker 10: This is actually very true, Meli. I mean, it would
Speaker 10: be a scandal in any other era if CNN could
Speaker 10: be partly owned by the Saudis, which literally just directed
Speaker 10: the brutal murder of a journalist only a few years ago.
Speaker 10: But I think it speaks to how much corruption has
Speaker 10: been involved domestically with this deal with the Ellisons, that
Speaker 10: that is sort of a side note. Like, by the way,
Speaker 10: not only will David Ellison on this, not only will
Speaker 10: Donald Trump probably get what he wants, but all these
Speaker 10: Middle Eastern countries which don't have the best record with
Speaker 10: the press, particularly Saudi Arabia, are also going to be
Speaker 10: part owners in CNN, and they're also going to be
Speaker 10: part owners of CBS News. That is wild, That is
Speaker 10: that would be unacceptable. I mean, if you had gone
Speaker 10: back in time ten years ago, the idea that these outlets,
Speaker 10: particularly seen it and because of its global reach, could
Speaker 10: be involved in a deal like this and own a
Speaker 10: company like this would have been grounds for not approving
Speaker 10: the deal just to begin with. And you've seen some
Speaker 10: congressional Democrats in the Senate and I believe in the
Speaker 10: House express alarm about this. It's just that the federal
Speaker 10: regulators have not really done anything, and people would say
Speaker 10: that's because Donald Trump controls the DOJ. He has a
Speaker 10: tight grip on that DOJ, and he wants this deal
Speaker 10: to go through because he really I mean, if you
Speaker 10: think about what Donald Trump wants, he has been at
Speaker 10: war with CNN for over a decade. There is nothing
Speaker 10: more that he would like than to breach the walls
Speaker 10: of CNN and to have outlet in the hands of
Speaker 10: an ally, and that is you know what he would
Speaker 10: get if this deal goes through.
Speaker 2: First of all, I think.
Speaker 1: You're right about the canceling things Trump doesn't like, and
Speaker 1: a good example of this is the Cherry Redstone canceled
Speaker 1: Colbert in order to get regulatory approval from the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a very clear decision to try
Speaker 1: to get this together, and it worked, right or at least,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why they can't They'll say they canceled
Speaker 1: Colbert for other reasons, but clearly that was part of it.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if you could talk about the way
Speaker 1: this deal is structured. First of all, it was a
Speaker 1: lot of money put in by the Allisons, and then
Speaker 1: the Allisons also backstopped the money, right so now Oracle's
Speaker 1: worth quite a lot less than it was when this
Speaker 1: deal started. So there is this scenario even though if
Speaker 1: they lose an investor, our Oracle could be on the hook.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different scenarios Oracles on the
Speaker 1: hook for a lot of money. Can you talk us
Speaker 1: through those?
Speaker 10: Yeah? And also keep in mind that you know these
Speaker 10: Middle Eastern countries, given the war and the pressures on
Speaker 10: their pocketbooks. I mean, they think there's a lot of
Speaker 10: pressure on the people backing this deal financially. And the
Speaker 10: way this deal works is that if this deal does
Speaker 10: not close, which means it does not get regulatory approval
Speaker 10: by September thirtieth, David Allison and Larry Ellison ultimately, because
Speaker 10: this is this is his money, they're on the hook
Speaker 10: for what it's called a ticking fee, which means they
Speaker 10: have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter
Speaker 10: to Warner Brothers shareholders if this deal does not close.
Speaker 10: It's a line in the deal they had put to
Speaker 10: win over this deal from Netflix, So there was a
Speaker 10: if you go back. Netflix had struck a deal with
Speaker 10: one of brothers, Discovery, to buy the HBO Max streamer
Speaker 10: to buy the movie Studio, and that deal was done,
Speaker 10: and there was a lot of concern you know, from
Speaker 10: from the media industry or from you know people, There
Speaker 10: are a lot of worries or whatever that Netflix was
Speaker 10: not going to get regulatory approval from on anti trust
Speaker 10: ground to close this deal. Because Netflix is the number
Speaker 10: one streamer buying the number three streamer, that would present
Speaker 10: some legitimate anti trust concerns. So David Ellison came along
Speaker 10: and he said, actually, not only do we think our
Speaker 10: deal is better, but we'll sweeten the pot. We're so
Speaker 10: confident that we can close this deal when Netflix can't
Speaker 10: that if we don't do it by September thirtieth, we
Speaker 10: will pay you guys this extra fee and every day
Speaker 10: that this deal is not closed, we will keep paying
Speaker 10: one of Brother Discovery shareholders because we're confident we can
Speaker 10: close the deal. And they were probably confident they can
Speaker 10: close the deal because they thought they had Donald Trump,
Speaker 10: and they did in his pocket right like he was
Speaker 10: going to approve the deal. They did not anticipate the
Speaker 10: States doing to block the deal. So long story short,
Speaker 10: if this deal does not close, which is not going
Speaker 10: to close, it seems like by September thirtieth, maybe it will,
Speaker 10: but it doesn't seem like it's going to close.
Speaker 1: Both the Allisons and the Democratic Ags have said this
Speaker 1: that it's not going to close by September thirtieth.
Speaker 10: They will owe a lot of money to one of
Speaker 10: the Discovery shareholders, and the longer this drags out, the
Speaker 10: more money they're gonna owe. And that's important because as
Speaker 10: you said, you know, Oracle's stock is not doing as
Speaker 10: well as it once was, right, It's down quite a
Speaker 10: bit in the last year, and there are a lot
Speaker 10: of financial pressures on these Middle Eastern countries as Donald
Speaker 10: Trump's warn Iran rages on, and so, you know, I
Speaker 10: think there's maybe less of an appetite to eat a
Speaker 10: lot of this cost if they can't get this deal approved.
Speaker 10: And so it's just a matter of time.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 10: They've said basically they'll they'll give it till next next summer.
Speaker 10: But if it's not closed by next summer, it doesn't
Speaker 10: seem like this deal is going through. And I think
Speaker 10: a lot of that has to do with, you know,
Speaker 10: their willingness. They they don't want to spend capital just waiting.
Speaker 1: Around if it doesn't close. The Allisons are on the
Speaker 1: hook for seven billion dollars. Right, there are all sorts
Speaker 1: of penalties filled into the because of having this second bidder,
Speaker 1: the Allisons have agreed to a contract the not as
Speaker 1: good as it would have been had there been just
Speaker 1: one vedder, and so the Warner shareholders get a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that they might not otherwise get. Right, Like
Speaker 1: a big penalty fee explains that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's a breakup fee, and that's not uncommon when
Speaker 10: organizations are merging. Usually there is some sort of breakup
Speaker 10: feel like if it doesn't go through, we will owe
Speaker 10: you this much money. So yes, not only do they
Speaker 10: owe money because of the ticking fee, but if it
Speaker 10: doesn't go through at all, they have this big breakup
Speaker 10: fee that they have to pay shareholders. So you know
Speaker 10: they're going to be paying money to Warner by the
Speaker 10: Discovery shareholders. And a lot of that is because you know,
Speaker 10: they had a deal with Netflix and that deal was
Speaker 10: scuttled to make way for the new suitor with Paramount,
Speaker 10: and so you know, like they want their money, Like
Speaker 10: you know, they they've put this out themselves in a position.
Speaker 10: They said no to Netflix, and so that deals out
Speaker 10: the window could come back, but it's out the window
Speaker 10: for now. This is all because David Allison was so
Speaker 10: confident that he could close the deal because of Donald Trump.
Speaker 10: I think a lot of these hinges on on Donald
Speaker 10: Trump granting clearance for this deal. The DOJ reportedly, you know,
Speaker 10: senior leaders of the DJ according to the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 10: over road concerns that prosecutors had that career prosecutors had
Speaker 10: with this deal and just cleared it. This is according
Speaker 10: to the Wall Street Journal. And you wonder why that
Speaker 10: would happen. It's again because Donald Trump likely wants to
Speaker 10: steal to close like he's he's the guy that's that's
Speaker 10: that's making these calls. He's using government, you know, in
Speaker 10: a very weaponized way. It's not surprising that he would
Speaker 10: give a favor out to an ally. But Donald Trump
Speaker 10: does not control all the states. And you've seen the
Speaker 10: states be successful too. We should know in other cases
Speaker 10: where the federal government has granted clearance and the states
Speaker 10: have said wait a second. And the most notable example
Speaker 10: is Nextstar in Tegna. These two local station giants, and
Speaker 10: Next Star has done everything they can to win Donald
Speaker 10: Trump's favorite, talking about how they're not fake news and
Speaker 10: all this other you know, using in all the right
Speaker 10: words to woo Donald Trump. His DOJ cleared that deal,
Speaker 10: California and other states sued, and even after it closed,
Speaker 10: the judge has kind of put a hold on it
Speaker 10: and said, don't integrate any further. We're going to play
Speaker 10: this out and see if this is actually legal.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's super interesting. So just give me a sense
Speaker 2: of what happens now.
Speaker 1: It's put on hold for a year, right, isn't this
Speaker 1: deal put there's some explain where the courts have left it.
Speaker 10: Well, they need to do a trial, so it's on
Speaker 10: hold until a trial is completed. And Paramounts obviously going
Speaker 10: to argue that we need to have this trial as
Speaker 10: soon as possible. It's be speedy. They said, basically, if
Speaker 10: this deal's not done by next summer, then we're at
Speaker 10: the end of the line, and I guess they're out,
Speaker 10: but they want a trial later this year. I'm not
Speaker 10: an anti trust lawyer, so I don't know you know
Speaker 10: how to analyze this. I can only look at what
Speaker 10: you know. Tell you what other anti trust experts are
Speaker 10: telling us. When we asked a wide array of them,
Speaker 10: or my calling Natalie Korak, she messaged a bunch of experts,
Speaker 10: and you know, the general consensus is that paramounts not
Speaker 10: you know, they don't have maybe the best case here,
Speaker 10: like they could very well lose a trial. I think,
Speaker 10: if you know, I'm a betting man, If I was betting,
Speaker 10: I would bet that David Ellison and his team at
Speaker 10: Paramount are putting together a potential settlement deals or some offers,
Speaker 10: trying to figure out a way to get this approved
Speaker 10: without going to trial. But we'll see.
Speaker 2: Barry Weiss is in charge of CBS.
Speaker 1: Now. CBS is actually not that much stuff. It's only
Speaker 1: a few news programs but the biggest and it's just
Speaker 1: the nightly news, which she has put her ideological spin
Speaker 1: on and and the numbers tell us about the ratings there.
Speaker 10: Yeah, So Barry Wise has come into CBS News and
Speaker 10: she's made a lot of changes pretty quickly. You know,
Speaker 10: she hasn't even been there for a year, and she's
Speaker 10: upended a number of the shows. Most notably, I think
Speaker 10: is sixty Minutes, but let's put that aside for now.
Speaker 10: The first change she made was to hire or to
Speaker 10: tap Tony Deakoppel, who is a morning show anchor on
Speaker 10: the CBS Mornings and move them from that show to
Speaker 10: the Evening News, and this has been a disaster in
Speaker 10: the ratings. And that's typically how you judge the success
Speaker 10: of television news programs, right, Maybe you judge them based
Speaker 10: on how many Emmys they win or how many awards
Speaker 10: they win. That's not really how a lot of these
Speaker 10: shows are judge, at least commercially. It's about the ratings,
Speaker 10: and the ratings were bad before that put Tony in,
Speaker 10: Like it made sense why they would want to revamp
Speaker 10: the show. CBS has always been in third place. But
Speaker 10: the latest version of the CBS Any News feature two hosts,
Speaker 10: it wasn't very good. It was not doing well in
Speaker 10: the ratings. It actually collapsed in the ratings, and we
Speaker 10: had covered that, and so it made sense you want
Speaker 10: to put a new anchor in. But Tony has done terrible,
Speaker 10: and you know, you're seeing historic low ratings for the
Speaker 10: CBS Evening News, historic low ratings, like the worst ratings
Speaker 10: of the twenty first century. Literally, And not only should
Speaker 10: we say CBS Evening News isn't doing well, but the
Speaker 10: Morning Show, which is led by a Gail King, which
Speaker 10: is down a host because she moved Tony de Kopple
Speaker 10: from the morning show to the evening news. They're posting
Speaker 10: the worst ratings in the show's entire history. So you
Speaker 10: look at the backdrop for how Barrier Wiss is coming
Speaker 10: in to revamp sixty Minutes, and people at CBS News
Speaker 10: right look like you don't have a good track record, Barry.
Speaker 10: The shows that you've meddled with, the shows that you've
Speaker 10: put your stamp on, are really not doing well at all.
Speaker 10: I mean they're performing abysmally. And not only is that
Speaker 10: the case, but you have no television news experience Berry
Speaker 10: like she used to apparently boast that she didn't own
Speaker 10: a TV. The people she's hired have no television news experience.
Speaker 10: So her two deputies, they come from a print background.
Speaker 10: They don't have any new televisions experience.
Speaker 2: Who are her two deputies.
Speaker 10: There's a man named Charles Farrell. He came from the
Speaker 10: Wall Street Journal. He's the managing editor of CBS News.
Speaker 10: Then there is Edit Raumstein, he's the deputy editor at
Speaker 10: CBS News. These are typically actually not even television titles,
Speaker 10: but she's implemented it, so we'll go with it. And
Speaker 10: then you know her had a talent. I believe you
Speaker 10: know one of them, at least a key executive came from.
Speaker 2: Substack right and then Nick Belton.
Speaker 10: And then Nick built into the executive producer of sixty minutes. Now,
Speaker 10: he is a print guy. He had a career Vanity
Speaker 10: Fair and he's done some documentaries, but for the most part,
Speaker 10: he's a print guy. He's not a broadcast news guy.
Speaker 10: And so people at sixteen minutes are just worried from
Speaker 10: a competence level, from a production standpoint level, like these
Speaker 10: are people who don't know how to make television news
Speaker 10: and it's complicated, Molly. Like I was talking to someone
Speaker 10: earlier today, I have a print background, okay, but I
Speaker 10: worked at CNN for a while, but I have I
Speaker 10: mostly print, right, Like I do you print? I do YouTube.
Speaker 10: When I was at CNN, you know, I was learning
Speaker 10: how to make packages for television, and that is a
Speaker 10: totally different skill than writing a column for the New
Speaker 10: York Times than writing a print story. Like I will
Speaker 10: tell you just to get the voice right where it's
Speaker 10: the voiceover, the pictures on the screening and all that
Speaker 10: stuff that is way more complicated and takes way more
Speaker 10: talent in training than you would imagine. It's called your
Speaker 10: tracking voice, and I was being coached. They had a
Speaker 10: coach at CNN that would come in and he would
Speaker 10: talk to you about how to improve your tracking voice.
Speaker 10: And you think, Oliver, that is so easy. You just
Speaker 10: talk into a microphone. And then you watch it back
Speaker 10: and you're like, wow, that is crunch. It doesn't sound
Speaker 10: anything like you know when the professionals do it like.
Speaker 10: It is an art. Just to do a tracking voice.
Speaker 10: To have to narrate that, that takes literally dozens and
Speaker 10: dozens of hours of training. You know, at TNN, I
Speaker 10: was doing it. I would have an hour every week
Speaker 10: or so and they would come in and having read
Speaker 10: scripts and they would give you notes and you would
Speaker 10: again you would watch it back and think, wow, do
Speaker 10: I really sound like that? And why is it so bad?
Speaker 10: But that just to track the piece. When you write
Speaker 10: a television news piece, it's different. I would write a
Speaker 10: script and then I would come to say it and
Speaker 10: be like, that's not That's not how you talk in
Speaker 10: real life, So that won't work, so you have to
Speaker 10: rewrite it. Anyway. Long story short, making TV this is
Speaker 10: These are for easy quick packages. Making a thirteen minute
Speaker 10: CBS crazy investigative package that's suited, that's fit for sixty minutes,
Speaker 10: the crown Jewel a broadcast news television. It takes a
Speaker 10: lot of skills that a lot of these people just
Speaker 10: don't have or might not even think of right and
Speaker 10: so from a competence level, these people are worried. And
Speaker 10: then there's the politics of it all, which is that
Speaker 10: you've had Scott Pelly, you've had Cecilia Vega, you've had
Speaker 10: Sharon al Fonsi. They've all come out, those were all fired.
Speaker 10: They're all fired by Barry Wis the way. But they've
Speaker 10: all come out and said that she is inserting political
Speaker 10: bias or misinformation into their stories, and that is causing
Speaker 10: alarm inside this show team. And so you know, and
Speaker 10: then you think about the backdrop this is happening on again.
Speaker 10: Remember the backdrop is that David Ellison, the owner of Paramounts,
Speaker 10: the owner of CBS News, needs to make sure that
Speaker 10: Donald Trump is happy with him so that he can
Speaker 10: get a deal across the finish line. So it's hard
Speaker 10: to ignore that context. Now, maybe they would say there's
Speaker 10: nothing related, you know, we don't talk to Dave. I'm
Speaker 10: sure that would be what to say. But like at
Speaker 10: the same time, it's difficult to avoid looking at these
Speaker 10: two things. They're not not related, right. And the only
Speaker 10: thing again, when you think about it, that Donald Trump
Speaker 10: cares about when it comes to Paramount's entire portfolio is
Speaker 10: he cares about how he's covered on really a couple
Speaker 10: of programs, and one of them is sixty Minutes. He
Speaker 10: sued sixty minutes. If you remember, like that was one
Speaker 10: of the shows you sued.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
Speaker 12: Oliver Darcy, thank you, thank you, Molly, No moment, Wick Wilson,
Speaker 12: Molly John Fast.
Speaker 2: It is time for that moment of moment, that.
Speaker 11: Beautiful moment we share every week of your fuckery. I
Speaker 11: don't know about you, but Mama want to fuckerated this
Speaker 11: week's amazing Wall Street Journal article about how the Republicans
Speaker 11: are maintaining this cash advantage in part because major donors
Speaker 11: have now said about the DNC that it stands for
Speaker 11: it do not contribute, which is.
Speaker 1: Ironic because remember Trump had that thing where they called
Speaker 1: the DN I do not invite.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Telsea Gabbard was never allowed to come to
Speaker 1: any cabinet meetings because she was.
Speaker 2: Dn I do not invite.
Speaker 1: Is the problem created by Democrats for Democrats hurting Democrats.
Speaker 11: You know, this is one of the things that voters
Speaker 11: want to see. And I've said this phrase a lot
Speaker 11: in the South. If you're at a fight, you want
Speaker 11: to see some fight in the dog and they don't
Speaker 11: feel that fight coming from Ken Martin and just an
Speaker 11: honest answer. You very affable guy, very nice guy. But
Speaker 11: I think a lot of Democratic donors want a wartime consigliary, right.
Speaker 11: They want somebody who's going to go and be an
Speaker 11: absolute fighter and he's sort of captive to the Democratic
Speaker 11: DC consultocracy, and the donors are just like, nope, we're done.
Speaker 11: Look they're giving lots of money to the candidates, they're
Speaker 11: not giving lots of money to the party, right.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm telling you this is such a
Speaker 1: good example of like a problem that is created. I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's no world in which any of this should
Speaker 1: be happening like Democrats. And you know, I just want
Speaker 1: to say one to think the polling when you look
Speaker 1: at the polling on this, like all people want when
Speaker 1: you look at Democrats, why they're mad at their own
Speaker 1: party is because they want them to fight. That's it.
Speaker 2: It's not even ideological.
Speaker 11: Just go out and fucking fight. It's the simplest thing
Speaker 11: in the world. They want you to fight, and they
Speaker 11: don't want sternly warded. They want people going upside the
Speaker 11: head of the bad guys. It's just that simple.
Speaker 2: And here we are, and here we are, Quick Wilson.
Speaker 10: Why we drove fast. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.