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Speaker 1: Hello there, Welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Tara pomyer uh Terra, somebody I've

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Speaker 1: known as a colleague in political journalism and whether it

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Speaker 1: was Politico, whether it's Puck, and she's most recently gone independent.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of us that have recently gone independent,

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Speaker 1: and there's you know, plenty of explanations of why suddenly

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Speaker 1: being an independent journalist feels a bit more liberating and frankly,

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Speaker 1: uh a place to be that makes it a bit

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Speaker 1: easier to practice journalism because I think right now, as

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Speaker 1: you can see, traditional media is struggling, uh to deal

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Speaker 1: with Trump two point zero. I think, for instance, it's

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Speaker 1: been atrocious how traditional media has handled the Trump white

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Speaker 1: House's attempts to kick the Associated pressens inside of the

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Speaker 1: press pool, the inability of the press corps to night

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Speaker 1: together to sort of stand with AP because the rationale

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Speaker 1: the White House used to kick AP out of the

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Speaker 1: press pool was unconstitutional. You know, look, I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to sit here and say they should protest over office

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Speaker 1: space and all this stuff, but when the rationale for

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Speaker 1: kicking AP out of the press pool is the way

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Speaker 1: they describe the body of water that borders the states

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Speaker 1: of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The Gulf of

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Speaker 1: Mexico as the world calls it, and what America called

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Speaker 1: it up until about sixty odd days ago, and Gulf

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Speaker 1: of America, which President Trump renamed via executive order. The

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Speaker 1: Associated Press made it clear they were sort of going

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Speaker 1: to use both names at times but mostly refer to

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Speaker 1: it as the Gulf of Mexico, considering that they're an

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Speaker 1: international news organization, etc. The fact that the White House

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Speaker 1: used that decision is the rationale to kick him out.

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Speaker 1: That's just simply unconstitutional, just like you can't fire or

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Speaker 1: somebody simply because of how they look, right, there are

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Speaker 1: protections in the law for that. Well, the Constitution's the

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Speaker 1: ultimate protector on this one. So it was unconstitutional, a

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Speaker 1: pretty simple thing to stand for principally, and yet there's

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Speaker 1: not a single leader of a single traditional media company

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Speaker 1: that is willing to stick their head out on behalf

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Speaker 1: of the Associated Press. If anything, you saw certain competitive

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Speaker 1: news organizations come out with their own decision on what

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Speaker 1: they were going to call it, and in some way

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Speaker 1: it was almost sort of not dissimilar to what happened

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Speaker 1: with the Paul Weiss Law firm right in the memo

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Speaker 1: that the managing partner put out when he said, we

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Speaker 1: sort of explained why they capitulated to the demands of

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Speaker 1: the White House when it came to when it came

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Speaker 1: to providing pro bono work in exchange for them not

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Speaker 1: being targeted or not being denied security clearances and things

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Speaker 1: like that. What the managing partner said is, you know,

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Speaker 1: they tried to rally other law firms, and instead they

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Speaker 1: found that other law firms were trying to coach their

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Speaker 1: clients where everybody was out for themselves. Everybody was looking

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Speaker 1: for a short term advantage even if it was going

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Speaker 1: to wound or hurt a long term principle in this case,

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Speaker 1: the principle being the First Amendment. Look, whenever you've got

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Speaker 1: somebody trying to push back, if you don't draw a

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Speaker 1: line in the sand, they're going to keep coming back

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Speaker 1: for more. All you have to do is read the

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Speaker 1: children's book if you give a mouse a cookie, and

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Speaker 1: you will know how this will keep going. And in

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Speaker 1: fact it has. First it was associated press, that it

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Speaker 1: was office space. Now it's sort of deciding, you know

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Speaker 1: where different news organizations sit and when a government is

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Speaker 1: trying to pick its press corps, it's as if you

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Speaker 1: were allowing, you know, a college football team to pick

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Speaker 1: its referees. Imagine if the home team gets to decide

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Speaker 1: we're going to decide who the referees are, We're not

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Speaker 1: going to have a fair make this fair with the

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Speaker 1: team on the other side. Is it is certainly frankly

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Speaker 1: on American, it's certainly unconstituted. But I would I think

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Speaker 1: things that are unconstitutional that that is synonymous with the

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Speaker 1: phrase on American. And I will tell you I think

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Speaker 1: traditional media made a gigantic business mistake by the decision

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Speaker 1: not to stand by the Associated Press and if anything,

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Speaker 1: capitulate to the White House, because what it does is

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Speaker 1: traditional media has already lost one part of the country,

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Speaker 1: either fairly or unfairly, on ideological charges. The folks that

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Speaker 1: are still trusting and reading traditional media now have to

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Speaker 1: ask themselves, hmm, what how are they rounding the edges?

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Speaker 1: Are they holding back reporting? Are they pulling their punches

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Speaker 1: simply to maintain access? Are they pulling their punches simply

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Speaker 1: to maintain their ability to work within the confines of

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Speaker 1: the US government? And that is a that's an uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: place to be. I know if I were at one

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Speaker 1: of these organizations, I would probably be a louder voice

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Speaker 1: of complaint. And look, I was among the journalists back

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Speaker 1: ten years ago when the Obama White House attempted to

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Speaker 1: block Fox from access to a pooled interview. We said

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Speaker 1: we weren't going to participate unless Fox was also included.

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Speaker 1: Why did we make that decision then, as leaders of

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Speaker 1: the White House Press corps back then, simply because we

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Speaker 1: knew someday the shoe could be on the other foot

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Speaker 1: and that you might have an administration that decided to

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Speaker 1: leave us out and only allow Fox special access. And

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Speaker 1: it's been disappointing that Fox has not stood up more

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Speaker 1: aggressively on behalf of their colleagues at the Associated Press

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Speaker 1: or others, given the history of and given the fact

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Speaker 1: that traditional media companies stood by them when there was

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Speaker 1: a time that they were going to get ostracized by

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Speaker 1: a white House that didn't trust their reporting. But it

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Speaker 1: seemed like a basic principle, It was an easy decision

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Speaker 1: for me and others to sort of sit by there.

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Speaker 1: To the Obama white House's credit, they certainly didn't want

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Speaker 1: to pick a fight with all of us. So they capitulated,

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Speaker 1: and I think the fact that you have leaders, the

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Speaker 1: current leaders of traditional media not willing to do this

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Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons. Some of them are because

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Speaker 1: they're owned by corporations that have other business before this government.

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Speaker 1: The most obvious place to look these days is the

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Speaker 1: Paramount merger and CBS, and that decision by it looks

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Speaker 1: like by CBS to find a way to settle this

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Speaker 1: ridiculous sixty minutes lawsuit that Donald Trump filed rather than

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Speaker 1: stand on principles and fight the ridiculous lawsuit. ABC did

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Speaker 1: a similar thing with George Stephanopolis, again sort of in

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Speaker 1: some ways undermining its reporters by settling and leaving the

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Speaker 1: impression that somehow they were in the wrong and that

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Speaker 1: they certainly didn't have a First Amendment right in this

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Speaker 1: case to being wrong. They did, and it certainly wasn't

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Speaker 1: defamation by any stretch of the imagination. But the point

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Speaker 1: is is all of these decisions by traditional media in

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Speaker 1: not pushing back at the Trump White House has not

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Speaker 1: made them stop. If anything, they're getting more aggressive and

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Speaker 1: more aggressive. And so when they ask themselves, why are

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Speaker 1: they losing audience. Why are they losing trust? I would

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Speaker 1: argue they've already lost trust with one half of the country.

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Speaker 1: Now they're going to lose trust with the other half

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Speaker 1: because they're capitulating and they're going to be raising questions

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Speaker 1: can you trust everything they say? So now you understand

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Speaker 1: the appeal of frankly declaring your independence. Right. We've seen

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Speaker 1: politicians do it because they don't want to be defined

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Speaker 1: by the unpopularity of the Democratic party brand or the

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Speaker 1: Republican party brand. Well, I think many of us journalists

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Speaker 1: don't like to be defined by the unpopularity of bad

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Speaker 1: decision making by bosses of said media companies, rather than

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Speaker 1: being judged by the journalism itself. And I do think

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Speaker 1: that we're in a period where we look, we're in

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Speaker 1: the middle of re creating a new mainstream media. One

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Speaker 1: of the things that I said is a Trump victory

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Speaker 1: was probably going to be the end of this era

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Speaker 1: of mainstream media. And some of it has to do

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Speaker 1: with technology. You know, when life magazines stop being relevant,

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Speaker 1: I don't remember a lot of articles going oh boy,

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Speaker 1: there goes the end of mainstream media because Life magazine

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Speaker 1: is irrelevant. Life magazines stop being relevant because moving pictures

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Speaker 1: is a lot more interesting and easier to showcase than

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Speaker 1: still photos. Still photos are great, but moving pictures tell

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Speaker 1: a richer story. And of course we all want to

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Speaker 1: see the pictures move more than we want to see

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Speaker 1: the pictures not move. So there is part of this

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Speaker 1: is technological and so, but that doesn't mean we're not

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Speaker 1: in the middle of something here. And I think that

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Speaker 1: we see this sort of fragmentation of media, it's actually

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Speaker 1: something similar that we've seen at the beginning of different

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Speaker 1: technological advancements. Right when magazines or started the ability to

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Speaker 1: reproduce a photograph, magazines popped up all over the place,

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Speaker 1: and after a couple of decades you started to see

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Speaker 1: the consolidation of magazines. When radio stations and radio signals

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Speaker 1: were first started to you know, you had radio stations

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Speaker 1: pop up all over the place, and then over a

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Speaker 1: couple of decades you had consolidation. Television sort of became

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Speaker 1: sort of morphed from radio, and that consolidation continued until

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Speaker 1: we had fragmentation, right thanks to satellites and the like,

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Speaker 1: and that gave us more and we had some fragmentation,

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Speaker 1: and then we got some consolidation and then here we now,

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Speaker 1: in the air of streaming digital video. We have fragmentation again,

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Speaker 1: and at some point I think we will have consolidation.

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Speaker 1: Right whether it's substack or YouTube, these are two of

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Speaker 1: the sort of best examples of sort of it's almost

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Speaker 1: as if there was a shattering of mainstream media and

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Speaker 1: pieces of it are showing up everywhere newsletters and substack,

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Speaker 1: video podcast hello like this one, on YouTube and in

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Speaker 1: other places, which inevitably will probably lead to some sort

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Speaker 1: of curation consolidation of some point. The question is what

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Speaker 1: does that consolidation look like, when does it begin, etc.

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Speaker 1: But this is only part of the story. And when

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Speaker 1: I went about when I left Meet the Press, one

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Speaker 1: of the first things I wanted to focus on was

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Speaker 1: dealing with this trust and media issue and to see

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Speaker 1: is this something that could be fixed from the top

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Speaker 1: down or is this something that was going to take

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Speaker 1: longer to deal with. And the conclusion I came to

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Speaker 1: is that the big sort of you know, we had

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Speaker 1: sort of two big moments that I think that radically

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Speaker 1: changed journalism, particularly political journalism, and put us in this

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Speaker 1: position today where we have this distrust, where we have

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Speaker 1: an information ecosystem where all politics is national. The first

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Speaker 1: is the OJ A. Simpson trial, and I'm going to

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Speaker 1: get to the O. J. Simpson trull, but I want

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Speaker 1: to plant that flag right here and explain how OJ

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Speaker 1: Simpson sort of got us. You know, without the O J.

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Speaker 1: Simpson troll, maybe Donald Trump isn't elected president. But the

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Speaker 1: second big change and disruption arguably began when a man

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Speaker 1: named Craig decided that classified ought to be free. And

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Speaker 1: I'm referring to, of course, to Craigslist and the gentleman

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Speaker 1: being Craig Newmark a conversation I've had with him, by

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Speaker 1: the way, and something that he's aware of. In fairness

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Speaker 1: to him, had he known that Craig's list was going

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Speaker 1: to lead to essentially the destruction of just about every

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Speaker 1: local news organization with a circulation of fifty thousand or less,

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Speaker 1: he might not have pursued free classified. But as he says,

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Speaker 1: guess what somebody else would have right this, This is

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Speaker 1: what happens right Technology things can change, business models can

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Speaker 1: evaporate and change overnight. You know, there used to be

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Speaker 1: a robust block of ice industry until we figured out refrigeration,

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Speaker 1: and we didn't blocks of ice in order to preserve

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Speaker 1: our foods. So in many ways, this is sort of

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Speaker 1: a form of creative destruction, if you will, in the

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Speaker 1: world of capitalism. So here we are. But what did

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Speaker 1: that do well, the loss of local news. What it

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Speaker 1: did was, you know, I take it with my first job.

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Speaker 1: My first job was at the Hotline, and we were

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Speaker 1: a trade publication in the nineties that aggregated local political news. Well,

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Speaker 1: if I were trying to aggregate local political news today,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have very many locally local sources to do

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Speaker 1: that with. Most political coverage these days actually emanates out

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Speaker 1: of Washington. Not that long ago, just a generation ago.

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Speaker 1: It was the reverse. In fact, the folks that worked

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Speaker 1: in Washington were all associated with a local or regional paper.

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Speaker 1: In the early nineties, for instance, night Ritter was a

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Speaker 1: massive newspaper conglomerate, and they would have they had a

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Speaker 1: pre large Washington bureau, and in essence, they had one

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Speaker 1: journalist assigned to each paper that they had. The Philadelphy

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Speaker 1: Inquirer was a night rid of paper, Miami Herald, Kansas

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Speaker 1: City Star, Saint Paul, Pioneer Press, Santos a Mercury News,

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Speaker 1: Fort Worth Star Telegram. I could go on and there'd

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Speaker 1: be one reporter in Washington dedicated to that newspaper. So

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Speaker 1: what does that mean? Well, that meant when Congress passed

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Speaker 1: a big law, take Joe Biden's large energy bill, the

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Speaker 1: Inflation Reduction Act it was named, was really more of

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Speaker 1: a of an energy bill more than anything else. But

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Speaker 1: still each one of those stories would have had a

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Speaker 1: local lead to it, local explanation of how the local

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Speaker 1: members of Congress voted, perhaps, how some of the money

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Speaker 1: would be spent locally, would be divvied up locally, what

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Speaker 1: some of the local elected officials were hoping they get

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Speaker 1: out of this bill, you get my drift, And what

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Speaker 1: did that do well? That informed local citizens about what

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Speaker 1: their government was up to. Well fast forward thirty years

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Speaker 1: and the Washington bureaus are almost non existent for domestic

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Speaker 1: news organizations. The very largest ones have large Washington DC presents.

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Speaker 1: Some international news organizations do, but you know, most of

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Speaker 1: these sort of mid size news organizations around the country

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Speaker 1: do not have a dedicated Washington presence anymore. Now there's

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Speaker 1: some startups trying to do this. Our friends at Notice

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Speaker 1: are doing some of these things for some smaller local

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Speaker 1: startups and trying to become the Washington Bureau for them.

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Speaker 1: Some college journalism programs do this sort of sporadically semester

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Speaker 1: by semester. So there's definitely some attempts to fill in

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Speaker 1: the gaps. But when you look at the sort of

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Speaker 1: the knowledge gap about Washington, I would argue this is

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Speaker 1: probably the biggest one. And so this is why you know,

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Speaker 1: if part one of my attempt at starting a media

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Speaker 1: company and going independent my journalism going independent, well, look,

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Speaker 1: part one is that, right, my public persona using whatever

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Speaker 1: capital I have to try to bring some attention, whether

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Speaker 1: it's important political analysis or frankly what we're doing here

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Speaker 1: in the media space. But part two of my enterprise

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Speaker 1: here is to try to find a way to supercharge

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Speaker 1: the expansion of local news. I think we need a

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Speaker 1: thousand new community based information sources. And I use the

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Speaker 1: word information, not news. I think the word news has

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Speaker 1: become polarizing, right. I have a vision here that if

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Speaker 1: we can we can sort of rebuild trust on a

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Speaker 1: local level, starting with news organizations locally, Who's north star

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Speaker 1: is to help you live your life? That that's what

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Speaker 1: and that's always been the partnership between local and national.

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Speaker 1: I've come to the conclusion that national media has never

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Speaker 1: really had trust that it was local, if you will,

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Speaker 1: local journalists that gave the national media trust. You know,

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Speaker 1: my longtime colleague Tom Brokaws when he first got assigned

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Speaker 1: by NBC to cover the civil rights movement from Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: NBC wasn't trusted by locals. In fact, it was distrusted

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Speaker 1: by locals anytime the national media came into the South

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Speaker 1: to cover some of these confrontations over civil rights. But

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Speaker 1: the local media, when their coverage matched what national coverage

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Speaker 1: was doing, it was sort of almost like a character witness,

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Speaker 1: if you will. Local media was our character reference, and

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Speaker 1: if local media reported something the nationals were saying, there

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Speaker 1: would be a bit more trust and a bit more

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Speaker 1: credibility given to that report. Well, we've lost our local

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Speaker 1: character references. They're gone. And in many ways, if you're

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Speaker 1: wondering why it feels like all politics is national, it's

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Speaker 1: because we don't. We don't start from a local prism anymore. Look,

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Speaker 1: when I go to a restaurant in my neighborhood, I

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Speaker 1: want locally sourced ingredients. That makes me feel good. Oh

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Speaker 1: sourced ingredients, that's great. Well, guess what I want? My

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Speaker 1: political news locally sourced, and I think that if we

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Speaker 1: can create an information ecosystem that has more journalists on

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Speaker 1: the ground, fewer political journalists in Washington, and more political

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Speaker 1: journalists everywhere else in the country, you're going to get

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Speaker 1: a locally sourced version of this stuff, and then people

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Speaker 1: will understand and feel like they have an idea of

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Speaker 1: what the federal government is doing for them. Right now,

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Speaker 1: they don't have a clue, and I don't blame them

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Speaker 1: because they only hear about it nationally. It's very reported

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Speaker 1: in very general terms. National coverage of these big government

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Speaker 1: decisions is usually done from the widest possible prison you have,

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Speaker 1: So sometimes people think, well, that doesn't apply to me.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what that means for me. Well, they

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Speaker 1: don't know what it means for them, because there's nobody,

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Speaker 1: none of their friends and neighbors are charged with reporting

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Speaker 1: on what it means for them. And so one of

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Speaker 1: the hopes I have is that we can that I

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Speaker 1: can put together a group of people where we can

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Speaker 1: help super There's a lot of great local startups around

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Speaker 1: the country, local news entrepreneurs that are out there, but

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Speaker 1: they need some help, and I think if we can,

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Speaker 1: if I could we could put together some national organizations

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Speaker 1: to do this. Look, I want to find a revenue

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Speaker 1: stream that's similar to classifieds in order to fund this.

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Speaker 1: I think nonprofit can help get stuff started, but it's

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Speaker 1: not a sustainable way to keep local news thriving. We

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Speaker 1: have to find a revenue stream. My dream, of course, is,

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Speaker 1: and I sort of I said this in the New

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Speaker 1: York Times piece about the launch of my media company,

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Speaker 1: is I'd love all local news ownership to look like

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Speaker 1: the Green Bay Packers, meaning that it was community owned,

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Speaker 1: that there isn't an individual owner, or there isn't a

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Speaker 1: corporate owner, because I do think you know, corporate owned

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Speaker 1: media companies their first responsibility is to their shareholders, not

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Speaker 1: the general public, and they have a fiduciary response ability

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Speaker 1: to their shareholders. So you already have potentially a conflict there.

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Speaker 1: I think if you have sort of the way the

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Speaker 1: Green Bay Packers are community owned, right, if we had

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Speaker 1: a community owned Washington Post or a community owned Miami

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Speaker 1: Herald or a community owned still you got to make

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Speaker 1: a profit. There'd be a local board of directors helping

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Speaker 1: to oversee the business. But what's in the best interest

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Speaker 1: in the community. So I look at the current media landscape.

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Speaker 1: It's a mess. It's very partisan. It's being exploited and

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Speaker 1: manipulated by the political parties. If we have any hope

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Speaker 1: of fixing this, we can whine all we want about

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Speaker 1: the big tech companies, and they are Look, they're not

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Speaker 1: good actors here, right, They're vying for the attention economy.

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Speaker 1: They've created algorithms that personally, I believe makes them publishers

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Speaker 1: and makes them much more vulnerable and have some liability

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Speaker 1: when it comes. I don't think Section two thirty provides

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Speaker 1: the the umbrella coverage for them of avoiding being publishers.

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Speaker 1: I think the minute they've created an algorithm to decide

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Speaker 1: what to amplify that shows up on my feed, they've

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Speaker 1: become a publisher, and therefore then they sort of have

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Speaker 1: to be held to the same standards that other national

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Speaker 1: news organizations are held to when it comes to advertising

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Speaker 1: and things like that truth and advertising in particular. But

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Speaker 1: I haven't heard a lawyer make that argument yet. But

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Speaker 1: I'm convinced that when it is seen through the prism

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Speaker 1: that the minute these tech companies use algorithms in order

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Speaker 1: to keep me on their platform longer than I want

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Speaker 1: to be because they've amplified something that emotionally has gets

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Speaker 1: me all charged up, that's made them a publisher. That's

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Speaker 1: an editorial decision. That is something that I think needs

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Speaker 1: to be relooked at. But look, would I love to

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Speaker 1: see these algorithms either regulated or eliminate it all together.

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Speaker 1: I would, But the fact of the matter is, while

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Speaker 1: a majority of this country would like to say big

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Speaker 1: tech regulated, half the country doesn't trust liberal politicians to

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Speaker 1: do it, and half the country doesn't trust conservative politicians

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Speaker 1: to do it. So unfortunately, I don't think you're going

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Speaker 1: to see it happen that way. And so the only

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Speaker 1: other way to fix this information ecosystem is to flush

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Speaker 1: it with better information, and the best way to do

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Speaker 1: that is to start from the bottom up. And I

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Speaker 1: think if we have in the next five years had

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Speaker 1: a thousand new community based news organizations that begin by

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Speaker 1: covering information that helps you live your life, whether it's

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Speaker 1: about getting more access to youth sports, in high school sports,

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Speaker 1: so if you're late for a game, you can catch

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Speaker 1: your kid without missing something. I think you can create

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Speaker 1: a great advertiser market on that front, or you have

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Speaker 1: somebody that's helping you micro forecast micro forecasting of weather.

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Speaker 1: We've never had better data to do this than ever before.

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Speaker 1: It's the one good thing Washington Post does locally is

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Speaker 1: Capital Weather Gang. That's something worth replicating around the country.

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Speaker 1: I think you could make sure you're hiring a report.

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Speaker 1: It figures out how to save people mind. Right, the

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Speaker 1: old days, the newspaper gave us coupons and circulars and

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Speaker 1: where we could go find sales. Well, the twenty first

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Speaker 1: century of this ought to be a really smart and

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Speaker 1: savvy consumer reporter that's helping you figure out how to

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Speaker 1: save money just in your community. And then from there

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Speaker 1: you start to build trust, You start to knit a

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Speaker 1: community together, and you're doing it without some sort of

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Speaker 1: political motivation, right, And when you put that together, then

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Speaker 1: suddenly you're going to get journalists that are covering Washington

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Speaker 1: through the prism of what's important to the community, not

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Speaker 1: through the prism of what's important for one party to

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Speaker 1: win or the other party to win. So, look, this

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Speaker 1: is just a short little rant here about the state

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Speaker 1: of media and about why you're seeing so many of

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Speaker 1: us come into the independent space. I think it's pretty

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Speaker 1: clear traditional media and the ownership structure is broken I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure it's fixable in the moment because many of

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Speaker 1: these traditional media companies are our publicly traded companies, and

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Speaker 1: I think it's there unfortunately, maybe five percent of the

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Speaker 1: bottom line of some of these places, so it's almost

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Speaker 1: not worth the investment for many of them to fix it.

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Speaker 1: So if you care about the democracy, I think you

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Speaker 1: sort of have to take matters in your own hands,

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Speaker 1: and we've got to sort of go back beasts, be

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Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and fix this information ecosystem from the bottom up.

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Speaker 1: I think that can be done. In the meantime, we've

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Speaker 1: got a lot of really smart journalists who've decided they

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Speaker 1: don't want to be defined by, frankly, the bad brands

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Speaker 1: of some of these traditional media companies. They want to

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Speaker 1: let their work stand on their own. So after the

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Speaker 1: break my conversation with Tara Palm Mary, who is one

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Speaker 1: of those journalists who's declared for independence. Well, joining me

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Speaker 1: now is somebody who also just recently declared her journal independence.

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Speaker 1: It's Terra Palm Mary, formerly of Puck And in fact,

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Speaker 1: this is basically that I'm finishing a home in a

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Speaker 1: way I believe I was a guest in New York

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Speaker 1: Podcast yeah, a few months back. So now it's my

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Speaker 1: turn to host you. So welcome to the world of

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Speaker 1: independent media. You got here a little bit sooner than

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Speaker 1: I did. How's the water, I'm still getting used to it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I've sort of been tiptoeing my way in

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Speaker 2: here for a while. I was at Puck, which is

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Speaker 2: new media obviously as well. I joined as one of

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Speaker 2: their first reporters. So I kind of left the Masthead,

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Speaker 2: I left Politico, and I'd worked at ABC News as

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Speaker 2: a White House correspondent. I was really like trading on

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Speaker 2: my name in a way, my journalism and my reputation,

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Speaker 2: which is something that you've obviously built over decades, Chuck,

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Speaker 2: So you should have a problem with that at all.

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Speaker 2: And it just felt like the next natural step. I

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Speaker 2: was already I already had a podcast in a newsletter,

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Speaker 2: and now I'm doing it for myself. I have a

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Speaker 2: podcast Fast still with Spotify, and I have a newsletter,

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Speaker 2: the Red Letter on substack. I hope you all subscribe,

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Speaker 2: and I'm on YouTube and that was kind of exciting

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Speaker 2: for me to do a partnership deal with YouTube, and

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Speaker 2: like to me, I realized that YouTube had become so influential,

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Speaker 2: especially in this past election. I go home and I

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Speaker 2: see my dad as a boomer watching YouTube shows on

434
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 2: you know, on his TV, one show after another, after

435
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 2: another hour, and.

436
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: So a boomer on YouTube. I haven't gotten my bo

437
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:28,120
Speaker 1: It's very.

438
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 2: It's an older crowd. You'd be surprised. The demo is

439
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 2: a bit older. So I just and I was making

440
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 2: Instagram videos. My cousin, who was like my age, my thirties,

441
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 2: was telling me, why aren't you on TikTok? Why aren't

442
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 2: you on Instagram? That's how I get my news. And

443
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 2: it's like, I just realized that everyone around me was

444
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 2: not getting the news where I was producing it, so

445
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 2: I had to go to them.

446
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 1: I look, I you know, it's interesting. I've been going

447
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 1: through this process over the last couple of months. It

448
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: was crystal clear to me the worst thing to do

449
00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: would be to work for one employer. Right, you realized, Now, look,

450
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: I think you had an advantage. You brought up the

451
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: advantage I had. Right, I've built years of brand equity,

452
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: and so it's certainly easier for me. You've had some

453
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,400
Speaker 1: Your career is about half as long as mine has

454
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: to do simply with the biological age. It differs between them, right,

455
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,479
Speaker 1: and but you had it and look not everybody. You know.

456
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: The good news in this world is that the barrier

457
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: to entry is low, as it should be right in

458
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: a a in a small de democracy, there should be

459
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: this feeling that the that a press corps can pop

460
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: up anywhere and the barrier to entry is low. But

461
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: you certainly do need to have some standing, right And

462
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: I think that that's the that's the I think that's

463
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,159
Speaker 1: the challenge in navigating this new independent system.

464
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 2: What do you mean by standing, like stand some.

465
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: Reputation, some success in sort of the you know, in

466
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: order to I think start with a you know, to

467
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: start building an all audience quick.

468
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 2: I actually I kind of disagree with that, Chuck, actually,

469
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 2: because some of the people that are the top influencers

470
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 2: right now, and I'm saying like news influencers that people

471
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 2: go to for news, considering them to be journalists, like

472
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 2: Vsephyer and she's a top liberal commentator. She's up there

473
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 2: with Tucker Carlson and like Ben Shapiro in terms of

474
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 2: influencers on the various you know, news sources on I don't.

475
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: Lie between an influencer and a journalist.

476
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people go to her for news, right,

477
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: understand that, Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. But like,

478
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 2: she was a caterer. I knew her through my friend

479
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 2: who is also a caterer in New York in DC. Sorry,

480
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 2: and she was not in the business. People trust her

481
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:44,679
Speaker 2: more than they trust NBC.

482
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: Like, oh.

483
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 2: And honestly, like if you go and watch her do reporting,

484
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 2: like she knows how to investigate. She has an opinion

485
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: that she has a perspective, but some people would argue

486
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 2: that a lot of people on the networks also have

487
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 2: opinions and perspectives. And she's incredibly bunchel. You know, you

488
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 2: saw Moshu do this. You saw Jessica Yellen. There are

489
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 2: various other people who have come before us and done this.

490
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 2: I don't actually believe that you have to have a brand.

491
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 2: In some ways, I think it hurts, Like sometimes I

492
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 2: don't want to play up my credentials from having worked

493
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,199
Speaker 2: in mainstream media because the fact that people don't trust

494
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 2: the mainstream media right now, it makes makes them more

495
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,199
Speaker 2: suspicious of you. I'll see in comments like but you

496
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 2: worked here and you work there. It's like, actually, I

497
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 2: don't I want you to take me for who I

498
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 2: am and my journalism and the stories I've broke. But

499
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm also creating a community with people who

500
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 2: don't go to traditional sources, and I'm creating a community

501
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 2: based on trust, and so they're just getting to know me.

502
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 2: It's like dating, you know what I mean. Like they

503
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 2: are getting to know me, I'm getting to know them.

504
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 2: We are building a community of trust together, and I'm

505
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 2: in it for the long haul, and so it takes

506
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 2: a long time. Like it's not a flash in the

507
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 2: pan kind of thing. With social media, you are you

508
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 2: are creating something that's bigger and longer lasting. So I

509
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 2: don't necessarily agree that you have to be a big brand.

510
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of people who aren't big brands,

511
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 2: who are never big brands before, have millions and millions

512
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 2: of people follow them and consider them to be news sources.

513
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: Look, I get that, and I and I admire it.

514
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 1: I've been watching it, and I'm the last thing I'm

515
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: going to do is be somewhat critical of it, because

516
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: I think some of the success is very impressive. Some

517
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: of it is success built on dishonesty. Right, there's always

518
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: that right that is here. There's a fine line. There's

519
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: a few grifters out there, actually quite a few grifters

520
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: out there, because they they see a way if I

521
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: can just hack an algorithm on Facebook or YouTube, I

522
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: can make some extra dollars. Right, So there's there, certainly

523
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: is that, But let's go back there.

524
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: It's a lot of work, though, chuckl like, even if

525
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 2: that is truly what they're doing, like, it's not, it's

526
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 2: a lot of work to make a few extra thousand dollars.

527
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 2: I think what you're seeing is a lot of activists

528
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 2: on both sides claiming to be journalists more so than

529
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 2: anything else.

530
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: I want to get to that. I'm going to put

531
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: a pin in that conversation because I'm going to stick

532
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: to the trust thing a minute, because I do want

533
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: to talk about sort of the intent what I would

534
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: call the intentional fake journalists, meaning they're partisan actors that

535
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: have literally gotten funding from from from official sources in

536
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: order to create like the Michigan Chronicle and things like that.

537
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 2: But well, oh they're getting money from packs.

538
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, no, no, it's a very it's a very dissresive.

539
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: But I want to go back to the trust issue

540
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: because That's how I've I've been spending the last year

541
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: and a half trying to figure out crack this trust code,

542
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: like what and I actually have came to the conclusion

543
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: that national media never had trust and that you can

544
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,239
Speaker 1: go back to the civil rights movement, right. I've had

545
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: these conversations with Tom Broke and he talks about when

546
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: he got when he was became got assigned to the

547
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: Atlanta bureau. Essentially, he moved from LA to Atlanta early

548
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: in the early to mid sixties to cover the civil

549
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: rights movement in Atlanta and the hatred that everybody locally

550
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: had of NBC and any of the national reporters that

551
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: did this, and it was the local reporters confirming what

552
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: national reporters were reporting that over time gave what I

553
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: thought was sort of sort of associated credibility or associated

554
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: trust meeting. If you trust your local journalists and they're

555
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: reporting the same thing the national then you might all right,

556
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: I don't know if I know that guy, but man,

557
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: the journalists that I know in my community, or the

558
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: journalist and my kid goes to the school with his kid,

559
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: he seems to be reporting this, So there must be

560
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: something to this. And I've concluded that over the last

561
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: twenty years, the gutting of local news is probably did

562
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: the most damage to trust in media overall, because we

563
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: had no more character witnesses locally, We didn't have fellow

564
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: journalists in the community covering from the community perspective what

565
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: was happening in Washington, and instead it came across as

566
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: if we were telling them what was happening in their

567
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: communities and nobody else in their community was reporting it

568
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: from their perspective. And so I look at all this

569
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: and think that that in order to truly fix this

570
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: trust issue, we've got to reanimate and help rebuild local.

571
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean I would do

572
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 2: affiliate work when I was at ABC, when I first

573
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 2: started on air, and so you know, I would be

574
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 2: the journalists from Washington doing the affiliate work, and the

575
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 2: affiliates take their reporting extremely serious. They have a lot

576
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 2: of trust, and yeah, you're the girl from Washington telling

577
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:18,719
Speaker 2: them what's going on, and there is a little bit

578
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 2: of distrust. I think there's a number of reasons why

579
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 2: people don't trust the national media. It's very slick that

580
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 2: anchors are very good looking, it's very polished, they're very removed.

581
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 2: They are like celebrities, whereas the people that you watch

582
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 2: on TV, it's a little bit in your local community.

583
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 2: You recognize them, you see them. They're a little flawed,

584
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 2: they're a little imperfect. They sound like you, they look

585
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 2: like you. They have your vernacular, they speak in your voice,

586
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 2: in your tones. And I think that's kind of the

587
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 2: special thing about the social media as well, like the

588
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 2: thing that really seems to resonate what I've noticed is

589
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 2: authenticity on social media. People don't want perfect, they don't

590
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 2: want slick, they don't want highly produced. They'd rather see

591
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 2: you just words and all. And that is where they

592
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 2: build the trust, because they feel like they know who

593
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 2: you are. They want to know a little bit about

594
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 2: who you are as a person. One of the most

595
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 2: popular podcasts I did was when I interviewed my own

596
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 2: mother about why she was independent, why she wasn't sure

597
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 2: who to vote for, why she couldn't decide between voting

598
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 2: for Trump or Kamala Harrison. She's in North Carolina swing voter.

599
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 2: That was one of my most popular podcasts, and it's

600
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 2: like mostly I think because people got to know me

601
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 2: and my mother and our and how we are poor

602
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: and how we feel about my brother and my father

603
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 2: and like our lives, and even when I'm listening to

604
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 2: my favorite podcast hosts, I'm actually sometimes a little bit

605
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 2: more interested about them and their lives and the topics

606
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 2: they're talking about. And so I think, like we have

607
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 2: as journalists. We you know, we're big jay journalists, and

608
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 2: we stand there behind a mic, and we sit at

609
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 2: an anchor desk and all these things, But what we're

610
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 2: really doing is creating a barrier between us and the community.

611
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 2: And like what I do now that I'm an independent

612
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 2: journalist is like I just interviewed Mark Cuban, and I said,

613
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 2: it was like, hey, guys, send me your questions for Cuban.

614
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 2: I'll ask them. That's what people want. Like, why do we,

615
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:09,280
Speaker 2: as the editors or the editorial board decide what gets

616
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 2: between the people and the people we're interviewing. Aren't we

617
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 2: supposed to be the conduits between them?

618
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 1: I've always said that, that's what I mean, you know

619
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: what we are. I mean, I've always you know, I

620
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: had my philosophy at me the press. It's sort of

621
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 1: one half of the job was explaining Washington to America.

622
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: But I also viewed my job as explaining America to

623
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: Washington and trying to have more of a conversation with

624
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: with folks outside of Washington to get a better You

625
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: ask why do people why do we want to know

626
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 1: the personal lives? Because when I hear somebody's background, it

627
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: helps me understand how they come to the conclusions that

628
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: they come to. I've always said I view myself as

629
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,439
Speaker 1: a political anthropologist more than anything else.

630
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good word for it.

631
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: In that I'm always curious of different cultures and civilizations

632
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,359
Speaker 1: in this country and sort of you know, why they

633
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: vote the way they do, and there is regionalism, and

634
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: sometimes it has to do with religion, and sometimes it

635
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 1: just has to do with how the economy is made

636
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: up in a certain area. Sometimes it just has to

637
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: do with the historical migration patterns of a state or

638
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: a district or something like that. And so there's no

639
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: doubt that, you know, you know, I've always said I

640
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: was lucky to grow up in Miami, and I didn't

641
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: know that at the time because I grew up in

642
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: Miami in the seventies and eighties. I always say I

643
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: was born in Miama, and I ended up graduating high

644
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: school in Miami and the point of that being is

645
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: I was born in a small southern city. I graduated

646
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: high school in this dynamic place that was frankly had

647
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: a huge you know, today's problems in Miami or tomorrow's

648
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 1: problems in America, And that's always been the case. We

649
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 1: went through this racial reckoning between Cubans, blacks and whites

650
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: in the eighties. Okay, the rest of the country in

651
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: some ways is having this now. Right. We experienced the

652
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: first massive wave of migration and immigration back in the

653
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, and we had an English only law

654
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,840
Speaker 1: in Miami that passed in nineteen eighty. Asked the county

655
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: in Dade County, it's one of these things that people

656
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: are like, really.

657
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 2: Well, no one's actually been adhering to it, because it.

658
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: Also went away pretty quickly the point, and so I

659
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: always you know, it turns out and I ended up

660
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: growing up in a bipartisan community and I had I'm

661
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: thankful for that because it's made me better today. Like

662
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: I understand. I feel like I understand what's happening in

663
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,720
Speaker 1: the rest of America today based simply on that upbringing

664
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 1: where we were. So I was sort of born into

665
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,359
Speaker 1: polarization somebody born in New York City. I get that

666
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 1: someone born. I do think it's important to find out

667
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,239
Speaker 1: how people have lived their lives, particularly in reporters, in

668
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: order to understand maybe how they're you know, because you know,

669
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: your lived experience is everything you know. I always say,

670
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: you talk about bias. I always do this. I checked

671
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: my pulse. Okay, we're born with original bias, right, meaning

672
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:54,839
Speaker 1: where you were born, who you were born to when

673
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: you were born. All of those things contribute to the

674
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: life you win, uh, living, people treat you, and all

675
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 1: of that matters, and then all of that will have

676
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: an impact on how you react, on how you cover stories.

677
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,760
Speaker 1: You know. For me, it's as simple as I always

678
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: have had a bias towards the issue of Cuba. Why

679
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 1: I grew up with it, that's all. I grew up

680
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: with it. So I was the one guy in the

681
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: White House press room asking about Cuba policy, but no

682
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 1: one else would. It had nothing to do. Now. Is

683
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 1: that a bias?

684
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 2: No?

685
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:25,399
Speaker 1: I just think, well, no, I think it is. It's

686
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:27,800
Speaker 1: a geographic bias. That's what I mean. My point is

687
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 1: we all there's that, we all have bias. The question

688
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: is is it political bias? Is it geographic bias, is

689
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: an economic bias, as a gender bias? You could you know,

690
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: we can go on and on, but but there's there's

691
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: always a bias that that sort of is back there.

692
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: You know. I always find it funny when somebody from

693
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:48,879
Speaker 1: the left says you're not fair, somebody from the right

694
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:50,839
Speaker 1: saysn't not fair. It's like, well, where are you coming from?

695
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: What's fair? What's your definition of fair? Right? If you're

696
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 1: a liberal, is a definition of fair? Anybody that says

697
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: you're right right if you're a.

698
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,080
Speaker 2: Conservative, I mean it's going to be It's hard. It

699
00:37:59,920 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 2: is actually hard as an like as an independent journalist

700
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 2: who doesn't have a left or right perspective, like I

701
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 2: do think that's more difficult because I see it myself.

702
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 1: Have been people to say that that. You know, look,

703
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly admits that she goes she took a side right,

704
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: And it's one way to.

705
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 2: Build an order to take a side actually.

706
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: To build an audience. Yeah yeah, yeah.

707
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 2: They know they're coming back for their dopamine hits. You're

708
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 2: reinforcing how they see the world. You are giving them

709
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 2: their echo chamber. And I'm not for that, Like I

710
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 2: actually want you to come to my page and be like, wait,

711
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 2: what's she doing today? This is totally different, Like, you know,

712
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,479
Speaker 2: one day it's like Mark Cuban's warning that Elon Musk

713
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 2: wants this recession. The next day it's the story behind

714
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 2: the scenes of how you know Kamala Harris had to

715
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 2: beg Joe Biden for an endorsement a disaster that Democratic

716
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 2: Party was this summer. Like I take shots at both sides,

717
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 2: equal opportunity, assassin, Like I truly like, I'm just more like,

718
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 2: if it's a good story, I'm going to follow it.

719
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 2: But that's not necessarily what people want. Like a lot

720
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 2: of people do want their their biases confirmed to them.

721
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 2: But I also think like, if you build it, they

722
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 2: will come. There are some people who want independent journalists

723
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:11,280
Speaker 2: who are genuinely interested in holding just general power to account.

724
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this question. I kind of think

725
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: that the traditional media, mainstream media, however, legacy media, whatever

726
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: term you want to use. I've had people say the

727
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: word legacy media means you're taking a shot, so call

728
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 1: it traditional media, Okay, whatever, You and I both know

729
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. I think they've made a

730
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: massive mistake in not pushing back at and not rallying

731
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: around ap And when I say they, I mean the

732
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 1: big the owners of these media companies. The journalists are

733
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: trying to push back, but their bosses are telling them

734
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: to hold back. Right, we know this, And here's what

735
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: I think they don't fully appreciate. In traditional media and

736
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 1: the media execs, you've already alienated half the country on

737
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: the right. Now those that still trust you now have

738
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,320
Speaker 1: to ask, huh are you holding back? Are you rounding

739
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: the edges You're not going to You're pulling a punch

740
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: because you're afraid of backlash on your football deal. You're

741
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: pulling a punch because you're afraid of backlash on your

742
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 1: Hollywood deals.

743
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,240
Speaker 2: Right, It's like you might as well collapse your news department.

744
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 1: Right. I was just going to say, I think they have.

745
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of like you've already alienated the

746
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,399
Speaker 1: right for one reason. Now you're going to alienate those

747
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: on the left or in the center who are just

748
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: looking maybe look came to you for other reasons, and

749
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: now they're wondering the same thing. I mean this is

750
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 1: they've in a weird way, seated this turf to people

751
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 1: like you and I because I you know, nobody owns me,

752
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: and I'm not afraid. I mean, in some ways, I

753
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: may have hurt myself by criticizing my by now former

754
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: bosses in a very high profile moment, and it's simply

755
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 1: because they didn't like the heat. Right. It had nothing

756
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: to do with speaking or reporting without fear or favor.

757
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: And if traditional media organizations can't do that because their

758
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: bosses don't have their back, I mean, this decision not

759
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: to push back what they did to ap all it

760
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: has done is empowered the White House Press Shop to

761
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 1: push even further. Right, we know the rules of that stuff.

762
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: You've got to draw. They've got to stand on some principles,

763
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: and right now I don't think traditional media is standing up.

764
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: And I say this, I want to exempt our fellow

765
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:24,040
Speaker 1: journalists in that room. A lot of them want to

766
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: fight harder. Most of them have had bosses begging them

767
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 1: not to.

768
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I just think also the White House

769
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,359
Speaker 2: Corspondents Association had a really rough week this week, you know,

770
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 2: with the idea that they're changing the room, which you

771
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 2: know I can see updates from time to time. I

772
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 2: also like, why wasn't Bright Bart in the room. But

773
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,839
Speaker 2: Huffington Post was like you would argue, they had about

774
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 2: they had the same following and they just got in.

775
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 2: So I understand that, But who knows how this change

776
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 2: is going to what this change is going to be Like,

777
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 2: the people who are really going to be impacted are

778
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 2: the TV journalists because they need that on air jousting.

779
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 2: But like the prec reporter, they don't. They don't even

780
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 2: really need to technically be in that.

781
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: I think the White House they don't even want to be.

782
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: I know, there's no other than finding out how the

783
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: White House wants to spin stories. The White House Press

784
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: briefing is not a news source. It is simply right.

785
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: It is simply a temperature check, right, Yeah, that's all

786
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:19,800
Speaker 1: it is. It's just a therma.

787
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 2: It's holding them to account though it's holding them to

788
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:23,359
Speaker 2: account for the public. You're right, it's a temperature check.

789
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,839
Speaker 1: But it doesn't it doesn't ever give news anymore. It's

790
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: more of like, oh, that's interesting that they're going down

791
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: that road, or it's interesting who they are not backing,

792
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: or it's interesting. You know, it's all about having to

793
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: read between the lines of what's not said or stuff

794
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: like that. And you know, it's pretty clear that and

795
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: we've seen this evolution. You know, you go back to

796
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: Mike McCurry in the nineties and even early Ari Fleischer

797
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 1: post nine to eleven. Both of them tried to use

798
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: the podium to deliver information a little bit more than

799
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 1: to deliver spin, right, And the further we got away,

800
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: arguably from a national security crisis or anything like that,

801
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 1: the further the more it just became, frankly a TV

802
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: show for the press secretary.

803
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, like, if you had a big scoop tuck,

804
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 2: you wouldn't ask questions about the scoop before you publish

805
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 2: it in the White House briefing, of course, not never. Yeah, So,

806
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 2: like the real news is often like dug up behind

807
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 2: the scenes and then you know, you privately asked.

808
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 1: I used to say, the real news is always based

809
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 1: on your sourcing on Capitol Hill. If you want to

810
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: know what's going on the White House, go to Capitol Hill.

811
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:26,839
Speaker 1: They're the leakers, they're the best.

812
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I agree with you. And I

813
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 2: also have to say, though the White House Correspondents Association,

814
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:37,879
Speaker 2: like being in these really tenuous times, I also think

815
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 2: they made a mistake with this comedian.

816
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: You completely agree, read the room, go get Shane Gillis,

817
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:46,839
Speaker 1: just you know. And the thing is that the White

818
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: House Correspondence Association was smarter in the mid odds, right

819
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 1: when we had a moment after nine to eleven. So

820
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: one year they went and got Ray Charles rather than

821
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: a comedian. But the point is, you read the room,

822
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: you know the President's going to come. Here's the thing. Look,

823
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: I'm not comfortable with the whole idea of a bunch

824
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: of reporters dressing up in tuxedos while Americans are trying

825
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:10,280
Speaker 1: to figure out where they're going to get.

826
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 2: Their next chicken.

827
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: I think it's a in one of the most mediocre

828
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 1: hotel ballrooms you could find on the East coast, right,

829
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: And the only reason they continue to use that place

830
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: is that there's nothing bigger that's cheaper. No, that's the

831
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 1: reason why they stick to that hotel.

832
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 2: And that.

833
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 1: I'm not going to disparage any brands right now, because

834
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: for all we know, one of them may want to

835
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 1: support you or one of them may want to support

836
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: me right now. But it is a I do think

837
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: the whole spectacle right of what it became, right, It

838
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 1: all started when a journalist back in the late eighties

839
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 1: decided to invite I think it was not Donna Rice,

840
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: but the woman who was famous for like stealing classified

841
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: documents and shoving them in her pants. And I think

842
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 1: it was Vaughn Hall, I think was the name of

843
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: the woman. And it sort of snowballed from there, and

844
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 1: then it suddenly became nerd prompt. It wasn't this in

845
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties and even in the early nineties

846
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: and then but Clinton sort of hollywooded it up. But

847
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,399
Speaker 1: what the White House Correspondent Association was pretty smart about

848
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: doing was always trying to match the entertainment with the cultural,

849
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 1: shall we say, comfort zone of the sitting president. And

850
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:27,160
Speaker 1: I think this was a mistake. Okay, whatever you think,

851
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, go get Bill Burr or

852
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: go get Shane Gillis. You know, yeah, I think you're right,

853
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: which would have reflected the other half of the country.

854
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 2: It reflects the times, I mean, and also it does

855
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,279
Speaker 2: just what Amber Ruffin said that they are murderers. It's

856
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 2: just so off the wall. And I'm talking to people

857
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 2: obviously inside of the White House Press Corps, and they're

858
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,279
Speaker 2: just saying, like we actually need pr right now, like, yes,

859
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 2: we need public relations, a press corps because of how

860
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 2: badly they've taken a beating over.

861
00:45:57,280 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: This one hundred percent, and they have. And I go

862
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: back to there's no leadership in the well, there's no

863
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: k Gram Okay, yeah, there's no true somebody who isn't

864
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: afraid to stand up and to sort of back up

865
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: the journalists. You need a good owner, You need a

866
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: good publisher. You need a strong publisher, strong owner, and

867
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: right now not as you know, I guess The Times

868
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,439
Speaker 1: is about the only one that hasn't been corrupted by

869
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 1: a course, you know, the what.

870
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 2: Do you think about jobs?

871
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 1: Though?

872
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 2: People are comparing her to k Gram right now.

873
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: Who's this could be? I mean, she's certainly doing it

874
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: at The Atlantic, and we're going to find out, right

875
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: But I also, you know, The Atlantic in some ways

876
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 1: has always been a resistance publication, right It was founded

877
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,239
Speaker 1: as an abolitionist publication in the late nineteenth century. So

878
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: I actually believe in many ways this is their tradition,

879
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 1: This is in some ways their brand, and if they

880
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 1: acted any other way, they would actually probably alienate their

881
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: actual subscriber base. You know what I mean? This is

882
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: they've always their print has always been this, right, they're

883
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: a little bit there, so I think it's in their

884
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: ethos when you look at them, and who knows, maybe

885
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 1: Atlantic is going to be morphing into a more you know,

886
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: on par with the Post or the Times of the

887
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: Journal right on there.

888
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 2: Their subscriber base has just exploded thanks to signal Gate.

889
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: Well, there's no doubt that helps quite a bit. And

890
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 1: and let's go to that because you did something that

891
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 1: I think is is was very smart, but at the

892
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 1: same time can be a source berm, which is you

893
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,760
Speaker 1: talked about how Mike Waltz was courting as many members

894
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: of the traditional press score as he could in order

895
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:43,440
Speaker 1: to make sure his name was out there, because we

896
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: all know, how does Donald Trump decide you're somebody worth

897
00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: hiring if you do well in press interviews? And that's

898
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,880
Speaker 1: and you sort of called him out this pretending he

899
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 1: didn't know how Jeffrey Goldberg's number could have possibly gotten

900
00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 1: in there, and you're like, hey, this guy's courting the

901
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:02,879
Speaker 1: press for a year and a half, the mainstream press

902
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: for a year and a half, So I can't I

903
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:07,320
Speaker 1: think I know how this happened.

904
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean exactly, I didn't think of it as

905
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 2: a source burn because I was like, it's a booking

906
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:16,240
Speaker 2: that didn't happen. I'm still happy to talk to the sources,

907
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 2: but I just felt like if he appeared on my show,

908
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:21,839
Speaker 2: then I could have just pointed to it. But there

909
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 2: was like a twenty minute window that I couldn't make work.

910
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 2: And I didn't actually really follow up on it because

911
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 2: at the time, it was like, he's a two term

912
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 2: congressman from Florida who voted to certify the election for

913
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 2: Joe Biden. Trump's going to pick him of everybody to

914
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:36,920
Speaker 2: be the National Security Advisor or some big role in

915
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 2: the administration. I don't know what you were thinking at

916
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 2: the time during the RNC convention, but that's what I

917
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:45,799
Speaker 2: was thinking, And maybe I was wrong, but I felt

918
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:47,839
Speaker 2: like he was really trying to build his profile. But

919
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 2: he wasn't the only one. Like everyone from like the

920
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 2: VP down was trying to talk to journalists. So this

921
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 2: whole idea that like the Cardinal sin was talking to reporters,

922
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:59,919
Speaker 2: it's like that's what you do to survive in Trump

923
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 2: world and to make it really and that's what Trump

924
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 2: does himself. So uh, yeah, I hope that people didn't

925
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 2: see it that way. I just wanted to clear the

926
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,439
Speaker 2: error because truly, this is a person who was trying

927
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 2: to build his profile and it worked.

928
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: I just thought it was notable because no other journalist

929
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 1: did it.

930
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know what, you're on the outside, you

931
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:22,439
Speaker 2: can do some interesting things. You could be a little

932
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 2: bit more real and honest. There's no one there. There

933
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 2: was no editor there being like Tara, I don't think

934
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 2: that's like you know, you don't You're not allowed to

935
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 2: do that. And I'm like, I'm writing now a letter.

936
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 2: I write in the first person. I speak from my

937
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 2: point of view, my perspective. I try to offer what

938
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,439
Speaker 2: I what is part of my mission is to peel

939
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:41,320
Speaker 2: back the onion a little bit and to show people

940
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 2: how the journalism is done, how the sausage is made,

941
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 2: because I think there's a lot of suspicion about us

942
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:47,919
Speaker 2: because they don't know exactly how we do our job.

943
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 2: So whatever I can show without, you know, while protecting

944
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 2: my sources and my relationships, I want to do because

945
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:58,239
Speaker 2: I think that will build trust not just in my community,

946
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 2: but in the broader journal sick community, because there are

947
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 2: still a lot of really great reporters out there working

948
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:06,360
Speaker 2: at mainstream outlets because they have to because they have kids,

949
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 2: and they didn't, you know, they didn't make a lot

950
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 2: of money.

951
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 1: X y Z.

952
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:10,839
Speaker 2: I'm just so happy to be single and have like

953
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 2: be able to do something like this, you know. But

954
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 2: there are various reasons why other people can't leave mainstream media.

955
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 2: But I think it's worth it to explain, like, hey,

956
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 2: this is the transactional like not transactional, but this is

957
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 2: how it's done.

958
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 1: What's a resource though that you don't have as an

959
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: independent journalist that you wish you did. But it's frankly

960
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: just that barrier is too big to build right now.

961
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 2: I mean more money. I mean, if I had more

962
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 2: money than i'd probably go and travel more to places

963
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 2: and do kind of more investigative journalism. But I did

964
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,840
Speaker 2: just start a few months ago, so I assume my

965
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 2: subscription base will built. I hope you'll subscribe to the

966
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 2: red letters on substack and support me, but yeah, my

967
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 2: subscription based on YouTube, and I'll be able to do

968
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 2: more interesting work, investigative like I've always been kind of

969
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 2: been investigative journalists at heart, So I think more accountability journalism,

970
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 2: more investigative journalism. A lot of it now really relies

971
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,239
Speaker 2: on my source relationships that I've built over years, and

972
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 2: I covered the first administration of Trump. I've known them

973
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 2: since I was twenty two. I know you've probably known

974
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 2: them even longer. But like I, you know, I'm using

975
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 2: those sources, those relationships right now. But of course, like

976
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,240
Speaker 2: with more money, I can spend more time, have more support,

977
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 2: have producers that are helping me, maybe editorial assistant that

978
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 2: does some stuff, so I can just churn out more stuff.

979
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:31,719
Speaker 2: Like you know, more more resources means more time and

980
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,440
Speaker 2: more free time to really do reporting. But I'm okay

981
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 2: with the grind right now because it's actually like it

982
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,399
Speaker 2: fills my cup. I love it. There's nothing better working

983
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 2: for yourself.

984
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: I completely agree. And it's interesting, you know, there's no

985
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 1: day off now. I would say I've never really experienced

986
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: a day off and occasional saturdays. You know, that's always

987
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:51,239
Speaker 1: right to me. If you're in if you're in the

988
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: news business, you're kind of always on, you know. I've

989
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:56,439
Speaker 1: always shared that way. Yeah, And I always say it's

990
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: sort of I think I have an idea of what

991
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:00,320
Speaker 1: it's like to be a doctor in that you're always

992
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 1: kind of on call, which also means you'd always kind

993
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 1: of kind of be closer to sober than than not, right,

994
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,839
Speaker 1: you know, because you never know. I remember the night

995
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: of bin Laden. Let's just say a few of my

996
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: colleagues had a little too much and still went on

997
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 1: the air I had. I'll never forget I least.

998
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 2: This was right after the White House Correspondence Association and

999
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:22,040
Speaker 2: on a Sunday night.

1000
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: It was, well so it was. It was the day

1001
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:26,240
Speaker 1: after that, right, Yeah.

1002
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 2: They were drinking on that brunches.

1003
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: Yes, there you go, Okay, it was the Boosy Brunches. Now.

1004
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 1: I remember, I'm not a big drinker, but I had

1005
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 1: half a beer and I remember setting it down on

1006
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: my staircase, right, And I came back at like eleven

1007
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 1: in the morning the next day and I finished that

1008
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 1: warm beer. You know, it felt like I had to

1009
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: do something to toast, to toast the thing. But it

1010
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 1: is sort of one of those that there is no

1011
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 1: off day. How are you have even thought about preventing burnout?

1012
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 1: And if so, how have you thought about it? Yeah?

1013
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I absolutely think about it. I've creating a sabbath.

1014
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 2: I'm not Jewish, but I guess the Christians believe in

1015
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 2: Sabbath as well, So yeah, I'm creating a day that

1016
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:14,880
Speaker 2: is my Sabbath. Saturday is better for me than Sunday

1017
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:16,759
Speaker 2: because Sunday is really a prep day for the rest

1018
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 2: of the week. I send out a newslet around Sundays.

1019
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:20,800
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think you have to choose one day

1020
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 2: where you are truly like disconnected, focused on yourself, your friends,

1021
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:29,439
Speaker 2: your family, doing food, shopping, taking care of yourself again. Though,

1022
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 2: like I hope as I grow that I will have

1023
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 2: more people who are able to help me and I

1024
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 2: can create a more balanced life. But until then, like

1025
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 2: these are this is like any small business, Like you're

1026
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:39,880
Speaker 2: just gonna have to grind it out in the beginning,

1027
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:41,880
Speaker 2: and one day it'll be an empire, you know, And

1028
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:44,840
Speaker 2: that's just life. But I think it's really worth it,

1029
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 2: and I think you always will enjoy these moments of

1030
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 2: the hustle in the beginning because those are the best.

1031
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:51,839
Speaker 2: Those are the best moments, Like the little winds are huge,

1032
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 2: Like I take I took a screen grab the time

1033
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 2: I made a dollar on YouTube, my first dollar, and

1034
00:53:57,480 --> 00:53:59,359
Speaker 2: then I reached ten thousand followers. I take a screen

1035
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 2: grab then I hit. It's like, you have to like

1036
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 2: embrace every little win and moment otherwise you'll get burnt out.

1037
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:08,680
Speaker 2: It's you have to fill yourself up with the with

1038
00:54:08,719 --> 00:54:12,120
Speaker 2: the accomplishments. Otherwise, yeah, you can't because.

1039
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:14,480
Speaker 1: It's I'm going to ask you these questions that I

1040
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: get all the time, which is number one, what do

1041
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: you read every day? Oh?

1042
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 2: I actually read my former employer Politico. I used to

1043
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 2: write the playbook. I still read it, even though they

1044
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 2: hired a guy from the UK that everyone's critical. I

1045
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 2: like Jack, I knew him.

1046
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 1: Feel sorry. I like his uh. I like his tone. Yeah, yes,

1047
00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 1: it's very British.

1048
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 2: Chippy's chippy, he's you know, he's sweet. I I I

1049
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:41,800
Speaker 2: like him. I like Brits. But yeah, so he's fine.

1050
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:44,319
Speaker 2: And also honestly, it's just it was just really an

1051
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 2: aggregator anyway, you know. So it's a nice aggregator of

1052
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:50,880
Speaker 2: all the news of the day and overnight and starts

1053
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 2: you off. I love Mike Gallons play Uh you know,

1054
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 2: uh why my client a playbook used to exactly morning newsletter.

1055
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 2: I used to read punch Bowl. But I just feel

1056
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 2: like it's a little too in the weeds, even for

1057
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 2: me as a journalist.

1058
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: Well, I'd argue that's what they're That's why they charge

1059
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 1: so much money because there it's for a small It

1060
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:14,719
Speaker 1: is not meant to be for the masses, right, It

1061
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:17,960
Speaker 1: is actually meant to be for those professionally working in

1062
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: and around Capitol Hill appearances like.

1063
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 2: The lobbying class. And yeah, so it's probably a little

1064
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 2: bit more. I used to get into some before, but

1065
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:26,160
Speaker 2: I just haven't opened it in a really long time.

1066
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:29,839
Speaker 2: I just I just feel like if you can get

1067
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:32,840
Speaker 2: through those few newsletters and then you click around, you

1068
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 2: got a few homepages, you look on X. That's that's

1069
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 2: pretty much how I start my morning and then try

1070
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:40,400
Speaker 2: to keep up for the rest of the day.

1071
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 1: What do you learn? What social media apps? Do you

1072
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 1: get info from? There's you know, we're all we're all

1073
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:48,359
Speaker 1: having to be on these social media apps for various reasons.

1074
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 1: Because you have to platform neutral. You're always looking for

1075
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:53,720
Speaker 1: you know, just I always say, you know, there's don't

1076
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:57,360
Speaker 1: don't be a snob about any platform. But certain platforms

1077
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,280
Speaker 1: are information vehicle and certain ones aren't. What's the ones

1078
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,839
Speaker 1: that you get the most, where you learn the most.

1079
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:08,720
Speaker 2: I used to learn from X, but I don't anymore.

1080
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:10,880
Speaker 2: It's just like the only a place where I go

1081
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 2: to see people bullying me. But I'm a millennial. I'm

1082
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 2: thirty seven, so I'm very much Instagram, and so I

1083
00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:21,359
Speaker 2: go there and I get a plethora of news. They

1084
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:24,920
Speaker 2: figured out my brain. It's like self help me. It's

1085
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 2: like my friends on vacation and their babies meets. You know,

1086
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 2: I get most when new news stuff. I get Jessica Yellen,

1087
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 2: I get some of my colleagues that work in news

1088
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 2: on there, and you know, it's interesting. Like I've got

1089
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 2: to say, having produced suffer socials on Instagram, the stuff

1090
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:45,880
Speaker 2: that's really highly produced, like the stuff that I have

1091
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:48,120
Speaker 2: package and put it on there, it doesn't do well.

1092
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:50,000
Speaker 2: The stuff that does the best on Instagram and all

1093
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:51,839
Speaker 2: the apps are when I just look into them into

1094
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 2: the phone and talk like I'm talking on FaceTime and

1095
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 2: maybe add in some captions and subtitles and posting that

1096
00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:00,359
Speaker 2: online does way better. And I kind of get it.

1097
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 2: There's something about like the authenticity of it and seeing it.

1098
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 2: And most is a good aggregator, Like I'm looking for aggregators.

1099
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:09,279
Speaker 2: The breaking stuff you're going to get an alert on

1100
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:10,160
Speaker 2: your phone.

1101
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: And yeah, that stuff. It's a commodity. I mean, I

1102
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: always said my job was never to was never to

1103
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: report the news first. It was to explain the news first.

1104
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: Like I always thought I was in the I was

1105
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: always thought I was in the business of the breaking why.

1106
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 1: I used to call it, Yeah, you know, explaining why

1107
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 1: is this happening? Now? Why is it happening? Well, you know,

1108
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:31,640
Speaker 1: explain it. What is it all? You know, the whole?

1109
00:57:31,720 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: What does it all mean? The news itself is, you know,

1110
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:36,480
Speaker 1: is just that?

1111
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 2: Oh what exactly?

1112
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: A lot of people do the what, Yeah, not enough

1113
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: people do the why.

1114
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do more of the what. We're trying to

1115
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,920
Speaker 2: find out, what we're trying to do new angles. I

1116
00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:51,960
Speaker 2: guess I could be more of an explainer, but I

1117
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:53,440
Speaker 2: kind of like I've always been like a bit of

1118
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 2: a scoop artist. I come from a tabloid background. I

1119
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:58,360
Speaker 2: worked at the New York Post. I like to break news.

1120
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 2: I like to think of different angles, and I let

1121
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 2: people like you who have, you know, depth of historical

1122
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:07,040
Speaker 2: knowledge and context do a lot of the explaining. And

1123
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 2: not that I don't think I can't. I have been

1124
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 2: reporting for long enough to do it, and.

1125
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:12,520
Speaker 1: I say I think you've earned your I think you've

1126
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 1: earned your stripes.

1127
00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:15,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I should probably lean it, you know, truthfully,

1128
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:18,320
Speaker 2: I probably should lean into it more than I do.

1129
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 2: But I get so much, like I get so excited

1130
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:25,160
Speaker 2: by like breaking a story. It is kind of like

1131
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 2: it's an adrenaline rush. I like calling sources, I like reporting,

1132
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 2: I like I love just like feeling like I've got

1133
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 2: some information that no one else has and it really

1134
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 2: drives me. And whether it is a commodity or not,

1135
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure I'll figure that out my business plan,

1136
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 2: but it's a part of my DNA. So I think

1137
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 2: whatever makes you you is you should stick with that.

1138
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:47,680
Speaker 2: And so until that's no longer a part of me

1139
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:49,320
Speaker 2: or has been scrubbed out of me, I'm probably going

1140
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:51,120
Speaker 2: to keep doing it. I Mean, my dream is to

1141
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 2: spend like all day long just calling people and having

1142
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 2: other people package it.

1143
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: Well. I always say, that's what what makes you know?

1144
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 1: What what makes a good journalist? Are you constantly curious?

1145
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly?

1146
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: And you strike me as somebody who's constantly curious and

1147
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 1: you assume you don't have no matter what the story is.

1148
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: Now there's something more, there's got something I think there's.

1149
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 2: Still more to Signal Gate. What do you think?

1150
00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 1: Do you think there's more, Chuck, I do I think

1151
00:59:20,120 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 1: there's so there's so many okhams raisers to this. You know,

1152
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: if you told me that Jake Sullivan's contact list ended

1153
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 1: up in Mike Waltz's phones, it wouldn't shock me, Like,

1154
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:38,000
Speaker 1: do you see where I'm going here? Like accidental? You know?

1155
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 1: The transfer over like to me that there's all sorts

1156
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: of scenarios that might be a lot more embarrassing that

1157
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 1: in some ways are worse because it's sort of an embarrassment.

1158
00:59:48,560 --> 00:59:50,960
Speaker 1: You know. The fact is, and what has not gotten

1159
00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:53,160
Speaker 1: a lot of attention is they never went through the

1160
00:59:53,160 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 1: first round of transition sort of security briefings right there.

1161
00:59:56,800 --> 01:00:01,800
Speaker 1: Really is you know, was an entire sort of congressionally

1162
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 1: mandated financial you know, with that is funded to a

1163
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:10,160
Speaker 1: presidential transition in order to make sure people are using

1164
01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 1: secure communications, to understand which apps are hackable and which

1165
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 1: aren't and why even though signal is pretty good at protecting,

1166
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:21,880
Speaker 1: if you're on a phone that isn't protected, then it

1167
01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:25,680
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how good Signal is as encrypting things. So

1168
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: I do think this is a story there of the

1169
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:32,560
Speaker 1: transition arrogance that they all had and that they didn't

1170
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:38,280
Speaker 1: for you know, obviously, Trump's absolutely it's clear to me

1171
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:43,800
Speaker 1: that he thinks his entire first term was undermined by

1172
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 1: this cball of people all over the place. Maybe it

1173
01:00:47,440 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 1: was inside his own cabinet at times, maybe it was

1174
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 1: inside his own West Wing at times, inside his own

1175
01:00:52,200 --> 01:00:55,600
Speaker 1: Justice Department. Right, So he was so determined to prevent

1176
01:00:55,680 --> 01:00:58,280
Speaker 1: that that they sort of went the other way, right

1177
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:03,080
Speaker 1: and didn't get any sort of security briefings, didn't get

1178
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 1: any of these things that they should have had. So,

1179
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's that's something I'd be pursuing

1180
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:09,400
Speaker 1: a lot more of as well.

1181
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:12,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of ego, a lot of testofs awn,

1182
01:01:12,360 --> 01:01:14,960
Speaker 2: like Haig Seth kind of like flexing his powers from

1183
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:19,320
Speaker 2: infantry grind to now being able to like target you know, countries,

1184
01:01:19,360 --> 01:01:21,760
Speaker 2: like this world of warcraft stuff. I mean, it's just

1185
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:26,360
Speaker 2: like there's just so much, so many personality issues that

1186
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:29,480
Speaker 2: I see in the organization as well, and just the

1187
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 2: fact that like Trump is not willing to fire anyone.

1188
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:36,959
Speaker 1: I mean, but I mean the greatest myth of all

1189
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: was the idea that the guy in the Apprentice, is

1190
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:43,120
Speaker 1: was really Donald Trump? He's afraid, you know. One of

1191
01:01:43,120 --> 01:01:46,680
Speaker 1: the interesting things is how he's he actually would rather

1192
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 1: have two sets of White House staff than to have

1193
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 1: to fire anybody. My favorite anecdote on this goes back

1194
01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 1: to twenty eleven when there were he when literally Donald

1195
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: Trump had Roger Stone doing preliminary work for running for president,

1196
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:05,080
Speaker 1: and he also had Michael Cohen doing preliminary work for

1197
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: running for president. Michael Cohen didn't know what Roger Stone

1198
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 1: was doing. Roger Stone didn't know what Michael Cohen was doing.

1199
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 1: I think it was Sam Nunberg, who was working with

1200
01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen at the time, who I think ended up

1201
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:20,080
Speaker 1: stumbling upon, you know, and then they and literally Trump

1202
01:02:20,160 --> 01:02:22,320
Speaker 1: was going in one direction with one of his team,

1203
01:02:22,360 --> 01:02:24,800
Speaker 1: and you know, and this is the Trump way, right.

1204
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: He likes to pit people against each other, He likes

1205
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:31,280
Speaker 1: to have all sorts of He never wants to be

1206
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:34,160
Speaker 1: boxed in. He always wants an exit strategy, you know,

1207
01:02:34,240 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And so he's you know, so in

1208
01:02:37,720 --> 01:02:41,640
Speaker 1: that sense, you know, I you know, personality is personnel

1209
01:02:42,560 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: and is sort of covering this White House these.

1210
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 2: Days, right, Okay, can I ask you a question, Chuck,

1211
01:02:47,840 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 2: can't help myself. How are you feeling about being independent

1212
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:50,800
Speaker 2: right now?

1213
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 1: So I would say about three weeks ago it started

1214
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 1: to feel good. I was very nervous. I didn't know

1215
01:02:58,160 --> 01:03:01,440
Speaker 1: how much of my identity was wrapped up in NBC

1216
01:03:02,200 --> 01:03:06,160
Speaker 1: versus I used to say. I used to say my

1217
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:09,760
Speaker 1: first name was meet right, and I did feel as

1218
01:03:09,800 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 1: if I had to speak for that institution first, and

1219
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:15,240
Speaker 1: then I was representative of that institution, and I would

1220
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:17,520
Speaker 1: be careful in what I say and careful in how

1221
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 1: I worded things. So you just don't know. This was

1222
01:03:22,760 --> 01:03:26,160
Speaker 1: the interest level in what I'm doing was was was

1223
01:03:26,280 --> 01:03:29,880
Speaker 1: really high, and it sort of was reassuring, and then

1224
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:33,400
Speaker 1: you sort of see the abdication of what our colleagues

1225
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:35,680
Speaker 1: are doing, and it's like, you know, look, if I'm

1226
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:38,200
Speaker 1: going to be the middle aged man's you know, yet

1227
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: another middle aged man screaming into the void, fine, I

1228
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:43,960
Speaker 1: will be. I at least think I have the credentials

1229
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:48,240
Speaker 1: to scream accurate things into the void and hopefully and

1230
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:52,840
Speaker 1: hopefully contribute something. I mean, I've always enjoyed politics because

1231
01:03:52,960 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: ultimately I'm sort of old fashioned, right. We created politics

1232
01:03:57,360 --> 01:04:00,480
Speaker 1: to settle disputes without violence. Politics is now meant to

1233
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:04,240
Speaker 1: be satisfactory to every side. Politics is meant to be

1234
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: a compromise. The whole point of it is compromised. And

1235
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:12,080
Speaker 1: so I love that aspect of it, and I hate

1236
01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:14,360
Speaker 1: when we're sort of starting to erode it. Right, we're

1237
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:17,480
Speaker 1: not even engaging in the idea of all right, well,

1238
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:20,760
Speaker 1: let's sit down and see if we can negotiate a

1239
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:24,120
Speaker 1: midpoint here, because ultimately it's the only way anything succeeds. Right,

1240
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:26,000
Speaker 1: You try to do anything rash, and there's going to

1241
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:28,240
Speaker 1: be a huge backlash, and it could very well be

1242
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:31,120
Speaker 1: that that's what the Trump administration is going to be experiencing.

1243
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:33,120
Speaker 1: And I think we're in a period of backlash. We

1244
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:37,560
Speaker 1: have not voted for presidentsince OBAMAA. We've been voting against right,

1245
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:40,720
Speaker 1: We've been voting against things that really don't we don't

1246
01:04:40,720 --> 01:04:44,360
Speaker 1: want and we know what we're for. Let me ask

1247
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:46,080
Speaker 1: something that I read about you that I didn't know

1248
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:49,120
Speaker 1: until I read this about you that you dual citizen

1249
01:04:49,640 --> 01:04:53,920
Speaker 1: Polish citizenship. So I'm obsessed with Poland right now because

1250
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 1: they feel like they're on the front lines of trying

1251
01:04:57,320 --> 01:05:02,520
Speaker 1: to save NATO and trying to present deserve this bulwark

1252
01:05:02,720 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 1: against Russian aggression. How much family do you have? How

1253
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:09,920
Speaker 1: nervous are they? The Poles that I know are like

1254
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 1: not only nervous, but man, they're ready to pick up

1255
01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:16,000
Speaker 1: arms and say, let's go. What's your experience.

1256
01:05:16,520 --> 01:05:19,480
Speaker 2: Okay, So my mom was born in Poland. She became

1257
01:05:19,520 --> 01:05:22,080
Speaker 2: an American in two thousand and one or two thousand

1258
01:05:22,080 --> 01:05:25,800
Speaker 2: and two to vote for George Bush. Talk about like

1259
01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:27,200
Speaker 2: last one in you know.

1260
01:05:27,280 --> 01:05:29,520
Speaker 1: But by the way, you know that, I mean literally,

1261
01:05:30,000 --> 01:05:33,240
Speaker 1: I'll never forget this again. They were the three most supportive,

1262
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:36,480
Speaker 1: The two most supportive countries to the United States in

1263
01:05:36,520 --> 01:05:37,960
Speaker 1: Iraq were the UK.

1264
01:05:37,800 --> 01:05:40,920
Speaker 2: And Poland, right exactly. I mean there's a strategic reason

1265
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:43,520
Speaker 2: for it. I mean where they are placed in you

1266
01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 2: know the map in Europe, it's they've always been invaded.

1267
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:49,080
Speaker 2: They've always been toppled, whether it's Germany or Russia, they've

1268
01:05:49,120 --> 01:05:51,360
Speaker 2: just there's always been a conflict. Where my family is

1269
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:53,440
Speaker 2: from is actually Liviv now, but it was called love

1270
01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 2: Bove when it was Poland. They moved obviously west towards Poland.

1271
01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 2: Like my mom was born, my grandmother was in a

1272
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:05,160
Speaker 2: camp in Hamburg as a as a child, so you know,

1273
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:08,200
Speaker 2: she was used as like a test baby, Like they

1274
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:10,640
Speaker 2: used bear drugs and stuff and they tested them out

1275
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 2: on them in these war camps. So we she speaks Polish,

1276
01:06:13,720 --> 01:06:16,960
Speaker 2: my mom speaks Polish, and people would think, oh, you're Italian,

1277
01:06:17,120 --> 01:06:19,960
Speaker 2: Tara Palmery. My dad is Italian American. But our family

1278
01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:22,200
Speaker 2: goes back to like eighteen eighty five. They just owe

1279
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:25,520
Speaker 2: a bunch of Italians that lived in Hoboken forever. So

1280
01:06:26,040 --> 01:06:28,640
Speaker 2: it's really my mom's side I feel closest to. I've

1281
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:32,920
Speaker 2: always heard war stories in the house. You know, my

1282
01:06:33,600 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 2: Nazis obviously invaded, conscripted my grandfather into Nazi youth. My

1283
01:06:39,160 --> 01:06:42,560
Speaker 2: grandfather was also locked up by the Commis for five years.

1284
01:06:42,760 --> 01:06:45,919
Speaker 2: So it was also like there's so many like there's

1285
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:48,360
Speaker 2: so much intensity and anxiety, and it's kind of like,

1286
01:06:48,440 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 2: I'm not Jewish, but like I understand the Jewish anxiety

1287
01:06:51,200 --> 01:06:54,040
Speaker 2: as well, because it's in the DNA of our people.

1288
01:06:54,200 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 2: Like it just comes down from like as you just.

1289
01:06:57,960 --> 01:07:00,720
Speaker 1: Pointed out, they've been abused either on the by the Germans,

1290
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:03,200
Speaker 1: are on the or the east of the East by

1291
01:07:03,240 --> 01:07:04,760
Speaker 1: the Russians, or the west by the Germans.

1292
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:08,439
Speaker 2: Exactly. They're just like an anxious people in general. And

1293
01:07:08,960 --> 01:07:11,880
Speaker 2: my grandmother like cries and watches the war in Ukraine,

1294
01:07:12,080 --> 01:07:15,040
Speaker 2: my bopjat and so, you know, I think, but at

1295
01:07:15,080 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 2: the same time, like we're a family that's split, like

1296
01:07:17,720 --> 01:07:21,280
Speaker 2: half of them are super trumpy and the other half

1297
01:07:21,320 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 2: and the Polish half, most of them are trumpy except

1298
01:07:23,560 --> 01:07:25,480
Speaker 2: for my Bobsha and my mom and the rest of

1299
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:27,600
Speaker 2: the polls are trumpy. And then my you know, my

1300
01:07:27,680 --> 01:07:30,440
Speaker 2: dad's very trumpy as well. He's like Maga before Maga

1301
01:07:30,480 --> 01:07:33,560
Speaker 2: was a thing. Hannay and Combs Russia Limbaugh he turned

1302
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:36,160
Speaker 2: off Fox when they called uh the election for Biden

1303
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:37,800
Speaker 2: and never turned it on again, which is how we

1304
01:07:37,840 --> 01:07:41,440
Speaker 2: found YouTube. But the point is is that, like, you know,

1305
01:07:41,560 --> 01:07:44,360
Speaker 2: it's I come from a mixed family, and my mom

1306
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:50,680
Speaker 2: votes for uh Trump, then Biden and then Kamala, Like

1307
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:56,080
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of random, so they vote with their pocketbooks.

1308
01:07:56,160 --> 01:07:57,760
Speaker 2: You know, I'm the first person my family to graduate

1309
01:07:57,800 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 2: from college. I'm first generation Americans. So like there's a

1310
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 2: lot of different like plays in there. But I think

1311
01:08:02,840 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 2: for them, like just being Polish, they're very much aware

1312
01:08:05,720 --> 01:08:07,840
Speaker 2: of that border and what that means.

1313
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:09,520
Speaker 1: You know, one thing I learned, like, we don't.

1314
01:08:09,320 --> 01:08:10,600
Speaker 2: Sit around and talk about NATO.

1315
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:12,800
Speaker 1: Though I don't know I understand that. But I have

1316
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who's I have a friend of mine,

1317
01:08:15,080 --> 01:08:18,840
Speaker 1: older friend of mine who's Polish, and he has been

1318
01:08:18,880 --> 01:08:21,679
Speaker 1: flying the Ukrainian flag. And he goes and he explained

1319
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:24,240
Speaker 1: to me. He goes, this is actually a little uncomfortable

1320
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:25,840
Speaker 1: for me at first, And I said, why is that?

1321
01:08:25,920 --> 01:08:28,640
Speaker 1: He says, because US Poles usually hate the Ukrainians, Like

1322
01:08:28,680 --> 01:08:32,880
Speaker 1: there's this like rivalry, you know, there's this like inherent rivalry,

1323
01:08:32,880 --> 01:08:36,439
Speaker 1: and it's just sort of like, yeah, but the enemy

1324
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:39,599
Speaker 1: of my enemy is my my brother forget friend, right,

1325
01:08:39,720 --> 01:08:42,479
Speaker 1: and you know the thing they have in common is

1326
01:08:42,520 --> 01:08:47,479
Speaker 1: the evil Russians, right, And it is really had I

1327
01:08:47,520 --> 01:08:50,040
Speaker 1: didn't know this. Tell me a little. What is there

1328
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:54,559
Speaker 1: anything reasoning why Poles and Ukrainians had sort of this

1329
01:08:54,680 --> 01:08:55,599
Speaker 1: historical rivalry?

1330
01:08:55,840 --> 01:08:57,800
Speaker 2: Okay? Well, first of all, my grandmother always goes to me,

1331
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:03,000
Speaker 2: Kara listen to me, does not understand Putin, and she's

1332
01:09:03,040 --> 01:09:05,960
Speaker 2: like she just thinks that Trump is getting played like

1333
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:11,680
Speaker 2: every day. She says that she's not alone in that exactly. Yeah,

1334
01:09:12,160 --> 01:09:14,800
Speaker 2: although she was actually really turned off by MSNBC because

1335
01:09:14,800 --> 01:09:17,839
Speaker 2: she followed the Mueller investigation and with the Russian collusion,

1336
01:09:17,960 --> 01:09:20,320
Speaker 2: and when there was no result, she stopped watching it.

1337
01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:23,040
Speaker 2: She was a huge fan of Rachel Maddow and just

1338
01:09:23,040 --> 01:09:23,839
Speaker 2: stopped altogether.

1339
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:26,840
Speaker 1: Every day, the big stuff is coming. The big stuff

1340
01:09:26,920 --> 01:09:29,800
Speaker 1: is coming when you over promise and under deliver and

1341
01:09:30,280 --> 01:09:34,240
Speaker 1: you know you're going to trust, going to break trust exactly.

1342
01:09:34,240 --> 01:09:38,080
Speaker 2: That's what the community is based on exactly. So you know,

1343
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:39,960
Speaker 2: it's hard to say. Yeah, like I said, our family

1344
01:09:39,960 --> 01:09:44,320
Speaker 2: is from Leviv, which was conquered by many people Austrians, Germans, Russians.

1345
01:09:44,439 --> 01:09:48,400
Speaker 2: It was the Austria, uh, the Austrio Hungarian Empire. My

1346
01:09:48,439 --> 01:09:51,720
Speaker 2: grandmother speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Polish. You have to speak all

1347
01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:56,640
Speaker 2: the languages in Yeah, the borders have constantly changed, and

1348
01:09:56,680 --> 01:10:00,559
Speaker 2: because of the changes, like, yeah, you have enemies, but

1349
01:10:00,600 --> 01:10:02,320
Speaker 2: for the most part, like I don't think my family

1350
01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:05,320
Speaker 2: thinks that way because again, like my grandmother left like

1351
01:10:05,439 --> 01:10:08,720
Speaker 2: before the war, I mean before the wall fell, and

1352
01:10:09,439 --> 01:10:13,040
Speaker 2: she's just like she obviously is constantly on phone calls

1353
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:15,240
Speaker 2: to pull and she watches TV Polonia all day long.

1354
01:10:15,400 --> 01:10:18,200
Speaker 2: But we they're definitely more of like allies of Ukraine,

1355
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:20,280
Speaker 2: and like Ukraine was Russia for a long time, like

1356
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:23,960
Speaker 2: they are also Viet Union the other A lot of

1357
01:10:23,960 --> 01:10:26,600
Speaker 2: people are like the Ukrainian state wasn't it wasn't a

1358
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:29,120
Speaker 2: state until nineteen ninety one, and they'll say things like that,

1359
01:10:29,200 --> 01:10:34,799
Speaker 2: but those are I'm actually more concerned about my brother's generation.

1360
01:10:34,960 --> 01:10:39,040
Speaker 2: My brother is twenty seven, twenty eight. He doesn't understand

1361
01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:42,600
Speaker 2: why people fear Russia. And that's because he listens to

1362
01:10:42,680 --> 01:10:44,960
Speaker 2: like Tucker Carlson every day and that's his main source,

1363
01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:47,120
Speaker 2: and Ben Shamieren, like those are his top news sources.

1364
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:49,000
Speaker 2: And he I was like, talk to Bob Shei, like,

1365
01:10:49,080 --> 01:10:51,839
Speaker 2: she'll explain to you why people fear Russia.

1366
01:10:52,240 --> 01:10:54,599
Speaker 1: And that's the problem, you know, for me, I don't

1367
01:10:54,600 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 1: know why the trail of dead opposition leaders to Putin

1368
01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:03,040
Speaker 1: isn't enough to convince you this isn't a good place, right.

1369
01:11:03,320 --> 01:11:05,439
Speaker 1: I do believe this is a weak country, but it's

1370
01:11:05,439 --> 01:11:07,719
Speaker 1: a weak country with nuclear weapons, or as John McCain

1371
01:11:07,760 --> 01:11:10,920
Speaker 1: called it, you know, it's a gas station with nuclear weapons. Right.

1372
01:11:11,080 --> 01:11:14,120
Speaker 1: It's sort of right, but it is, and you have

1373
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:16,640
Speaker 1: to you have to pay some respect, but it is

1374
01:11:16,680 --> 01:11:22,880
Speaker 1: not it is it is. It is not a This

1375
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:25,519
Speaker 1: is not a democratic society. This is not a free society.

1376
01:11:25,680 --> 01:11:28,160
Speaker 1: And you can you can you can feel the fear,

1377
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:32,040
Speaker 1: you hear the fear. It is, it is real. Let

1378
01:11:32,040 --> 01:11:34,200
Speaker 1: me ask you this, Would you travel to Moscow right now?

1379
01:11:35,520 --> 01:11:37,600
Speaker 2: No? I would be terrified, would you?

1380
01:11:37,800 --> 01:11:39,960
Speaker 1: I think no? Because I think we would We would

1381
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 1: be we would be targets.

1382
01:11:42,680 --> 01:11:44,240
Speaker 2: And I don't think that I may know that the

1383
01:11:44,280 --> 01:11:48,960
Speaker 2: Trump administration wouldn't bail us out.

1384
01:11:48,760 --> 01:11:53,439
Speaker 1: You know, totally. The most unmooring thing has been this

1385
01:11:53,600 --> 01:11:57,200
Speaker 1: issue with Russia for me, like, wait a minute, what

1386
01:11:58,439 --> 01:12:00,760
Speaker 1: which side are we are? We suddenly on number one

1387
01:12:00,800 --> 01:12:05,040
Speaker 1: and then number two? This feeling of does the president

1388
01:12:05,040 --> 01:12:07,400
Speaker 1: believe he's the president for all Americans or just the

1389
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:10,240
Speaker 1: people that support him? And I think this is a

1390
01:12:10,520 --> 01:12:13,280
Speaker 1: this is you know, is will he fight hard to

1391
01:12:13,280 --> 01:12:15,559
Speaker 1: get any US citizen out of custody or only ones

1392
01:12:15,560 --> 01:12:17,080
Speaker 1: that voted for him?

1393
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:20,920
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean that's a really really good question.

1394
01:12:22,800 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 1: I hope it's not tested. Obviously, none of us want

1395
01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:25,880
Speaker 1: to see aybody kidnapped.

1396
01:12:26,000 --> 01:12:27,479
Speaker 2: If you wanted to get out of prison, you'd have

1397
01:12:27,520 --> 01:12:31,280
Speaker 2: to start putting out really pro trump, pro Trump, you know,

1398
01:12:31,400 --> 01:12:33,519
Speaker 2: voices and material and stuff like that. You have to

1399
01:12:33,560 --> 01:12:35,639
Speaker 2: just like appeal to his flattery, like it is actually

1400
01:12:35,640 --> 01:12:37,240
Speaker 2: easy to get him on your side. But as a

1401
01:12:37,320 --> 01:12:38,599
Speaker 2: journalist like you don't.

1402
01:12:38,439 --> 01:12:41,040
Speaker 1: Do that uncomfortable, right, you just don't. You don't get

1403
01:12:41,080 --> 01:12:43,800
Speaker 1: rid of your principles that way. Look, if I'm Rob Lagoyovitch, fine,

1404
01:12:44,200 --> 01:12:47,880
Speaker 1: but I don't have the moral code of Rod Blogoyovitch.

1405
01:12:47,920 --> 01:12:49,479
Speaker 1: And I'll just leave it at that. All right, where

1406
01:12:49,479 --> 01:12:51,880
Speaker 1: do everybody find you? Let's do it again. Subscribe to

1407
01:12:52,240 --> 01:12:53,920
Speaker 1: all the things, get it all good, Let's see how

1408
01:12:53,920 --> 01:12:54,559
Speaker 1: your plugs are.

1409
01:12:54,920 --> 01:12:58,920
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, First, please subscribe to my newsletter, the Red Letter.

1410
01:12:59,000 --> 01:13:02,400
Speaker 2: On substock, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. And on

1411
01:13:02,439 --> 01:13:06,040
Speaker 2: YouTube you can following find me at Tara Palmry. That's

1412
01:13:06,280 --> 01:13:08,400
Speaker 2: t A r A p A l m e R.

1413
01:13:08,600 --> 01:13:10,479
Speaker 1: That's an open YouTube, right, that's not yes?

1414
01:13:10,800 --> 01:13:12,479
Speaker 2: Pay no pay for it?

1415
01:13:12,600 --> 01:13:14,479
Speaker 1: And what do you get for the money? Why should

1416
01:13:14,560 --> 01:13:18,360
Speaker 1: somebody pay for YouTube? Or why should somebody pay Why

1417
01:13:18,360 --> 01:13:19,719
Speaker 1: should somebody sign up for premium?

1418
01:13:19,880 --> 01:13:21,760
Speaker 2: I mean I have lots of scoops and stuff on there,

1419
01:13:21,880 --> 01:13:24,719
Speaker 2: and information that you can't get elsewhere, So that's why

1420
01:13:24,800 --> 01:13:26,559
Speaker 2: you should pay for the substack, and the.

1421
01:13:26,439 --> 01:13:28,800
Speaker 1: More resources you get, the more likely you can travel more,

1422
01:13:28,840 --> 01:13:29,519
Speaker 1: the more likely.

1423
01:13:29,360 --> 01:13:31,880
Speaker 2: You can be oh oh and for me personally, yeah,

1424
01:13:31,920 --> 01:13:33,600
Speaker 2: my work will get better and better with more and

1425
01:13:33,640 --> 01:13:37,639
Speaker 2: more resources. And yeah, and I think you'll enjoy it.

1426
01:13:37,680 --> 01:13:40,040
Speaker 2: And if you don't, you can always communicate with me

1427
01:13:40,080 --> 01:13:41,360
Speaker 2: and tell me what you like and don't like. It's

1428
01:13:41,360 --> 01:13:44,800
Speaker 2: an open line. So thank you Chuck for having me

1429
01:13:44,880 --> 01:13:47,800
Speaker 2: and supporting me. And I'm supporting you from from the sidelines.

1430
01:13:48,080 --> 01:13:51,120
Speaker 2: I don't I don't think you'll need like I.

1431
01:13:51,040 --> 01:13:54,240
Speaker 1: Said, home and away, you know, we'll keep doing this, Yeah,

1432
01:13:54,320 --> 01:13:56,120
Speaker 1: keep going. Well, congrats to you.

1433
01:13:56,520 --> 01:13:59,840
Speaker 2: It's hard to see too, and it's a lot easier

1434
01:13:59,880 --> 01:14:02,160
Speaker 2: to go to another network, that's for sure, don't you think.

1435
01:14:03,240 --> 01:14:05,719
Speaker 1: Sure, I mean it is, and it's look, it's always

1436
01:14:05,760 --> 01:14:08,160
Speaker 1: easy to fit into a system, so you know, but

1437
01:14:08,479 --> 01:14:11,000
Speaker 1: at the same time, it can be harder to do

1438
01:14:11,040 --> 01:14:14,799
Speaker 1: the job you want to do well. And I certainly

1439
01:14:14,800 --> 01:14:16,760
Speaker 1: did feel like it was harder to do the job

1440
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:17,439
Speaker 1: I wanted to do.

1441
01:14:18,280 --> 01:14:21,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, being that from you by the system. Yeah, when

1442
01:14:21,840 --> 01:14:23,200
Speaker 2: I saw you over the summer, I just kind of

1443
01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:24,760
Speaker 2: got the sense that you were kind of ready to

1444
01:14:24,840 --> 01:14:26,599
Speaker 2: like go out on your own, and you were sort

1445
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:27,920
Speaker 2: of you were feeling like.

1446
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:30,120
Speaker 1: Look, I really want to solve this problem of the

1447
01:14:30,160 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 1: information ecosystem. I mean, I truly believe that our trust

1448
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: issues are not about you and I or how all

1449
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:39,880
Speaker 1: this stuff. I really believe it's the lack of of

1450
01:14:40,240 --> 01:14:44,400
Speaker 1: of local brethren. I really do, and I that is

1451
01:14:44,560 --> 01:14:47,080
Speaker 1: that is something that I want to help rebuild. What

1452
01:14:48,400 --> 01:14:50,640
Speaker 1: we'll see, if you know, I I have a thesis.

1453
01:14:51,000 --> 01:14:54,559
Speaker 1: I think youth sports can bring America together and can

1454
01:14:54,600 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 1: create and can sort of remind people that communities are

1455
01:14:57,800 --> 01:15:01,280
Speaker 1: more than just red and blue. And I do think

1456
01:15:01,400 --> 01:15:03,960
Speaker 1: that that's sort of it. We got to sort of

1457
01:15:04,000 --> 01:15:05,920
Speaker 1: get back to that place in some form or another.

1458
01:15:06,280 --> 01:15:09,479
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, hey, we're going to deal and

1459
01:15:09,479 --> 01:15:11,800
Speaker 1: cover politics as it is and not as not as

1460
01:15:11,800 --> 01:15:13,960
Speaker 1: folks wish it were. We have to do that, really,

1461
01:15:14,320 --> 01:15:18,160
Speaker 1: all right, my friend cool? Thank you well. I hope

1462
01:15:18,240 --> 01:15:20,760
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that conversation with Tara. I did not know

1463
01:15:22,080 --> 01:15:25,320
Speaker 1: that much about her background there in Eastern Europe, but

1464
01:15:25,360 --> 01:15:28,160
Speaker 1: it's always interesting to learn a little bit more about

1465
01:15:28,200 --> 01:15:30,280
Speaker 1: the journalists that I know many of you are going

1466
01:15:30,320 --> 01:15:32,080
Speaker 1: to be subscribing to and want to know more of

1467
01:15:32,320 --> 01:15:35,280
Speaker 1: one thing about Tara. She is she she doesn't hide anything,

1468
01:15:36,320 --> 01:15:38,759
Speaker 1: and I think you can, uh, you can be sure

1469
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:42,320
Speaker 1: that what you're reading, uh is what she's hearing and

1470
01:15:42,320 --> 01:15:46,920
Speaker 1: what she's reporting. With that, I'm gonna let this episode go.

1471
01:15:47,040 --> 01:15:49,280
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm gonna save a question that I

1472
01:15:49,360 --> 01:15:52,720
Speaker 1: was a question in the Ask Chuck segment for my

1473
01:15:52,880 --> 01:15:55,320
Speaker 1: next episode. In fact, my next episode is going to

1474
01:15:55,360 --> 01:15:58,000
Speaker 1: be heavy on mail bag, So get those questions in

1475
01:15:58,479 --> 01:16:01,920
Speaker 1: Ask Chuck at the Chuck podcast dot com. I already

1476
01:16:01,960 --> 01:16:03,800
Speaker 1: have a slew already, but I'm going to try to

1477
01:16:03,840 --> 01:16:06,559
Speaker 1: answer hopefully a half a dozen. You know, I get

1478
01:16:06,560 --> 01:16:08,439
Speaker 1: a little windy with my answers, right because I want

1479
01:16:08,439 --> 01:16:11,000
Speaker 1: to give you some pretty thorough answers, but I want

1480
01:16:11,040 --> 01:16:13,280
Speaker 1: to get at least a half a dozen, if not

1481
01:16:13,400 --> 01:16:16,680
Speaker 1: maybe even ten questions answered in the next episode. So

1482
01:16:17,320 --> 01:16:20,120
Speaker 1: with that, I hope you enjoyed this one on sort

1483
01:16:20,160 --> 01:16:22,479
Speaker 1: of the state of media and where journalism is heading.

1484
01:16:23,280 --> 01:16:26,000
Speaker 1: And then the next time it will be a slew

1485
01:16:26,040 --> 01:16:28,719
Speaker 1: of your questions, the stuff that's been on your mind

1486
01:16:29,080 --> 01:16:32,679
Speaker 1: over the last couple of weeks. With that, thanks for listening,

1487
01:16:32,720 --> 01:16:36,040
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe, and like all those things that

1488
01:16:36,160 --> 01:16:39,639
Speaker 1: help keep this podcast up and running, and I'll see

1489
01:16:39,640 --> 01:16:41,320
Speaker 1: you next time until we upload the game.