Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as
Speaker 1: chairman of Fox and News Corp. We'll see how long
Speaker 1: that lasts. Because we've seen the show, we've seen succession,
Speaker 1: we know how this goes. We have a fantastic show
Speaker 1: for you today. Michael Wolfe joins us to talk about
Speaker 1: his new book, The Fall, The End of Fox News
Speaker 1: and the Murdoch Dynasty. Then we'll talk to polster Ben
Speaker 1: Tulchin about how Biden can adopt a populist message to
Speaker 1: do better with the voters he struggles with. But first
Speaker 1: we have Squawkbox contributor and host of on the tape,
Speaker 1: my friend and yours, Dan Nathan. Welcome back, my friend
Speaker 1: Dan Nathan to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Molly. It's great to be back with you.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the economy, the Goldilocks economy. So is
Speaker 1: the economy good or bad?
Speaker 2: Well, it depends in which line you're looking through, right, So,
Speaker 2: if you have a job and you benefited from basically
Speaker 2: wage growth that we've seen over the last few years,
Speaker 2: I think it's been pretty good, right. But the flip
Speaker 2: side of that is, like, you know, inflationary pressures have
Speaker 2: been around now for a couple of years, and you
Speaker 2: know that is the very thing that US Federal Reserve
Speaker 2: is trying to combat. It's also one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why the Biden administration named their fiscal spending policy last
Speaker 2: year the Inflation Reduction Act. I think you and I
Speaker 2: have spent some time talking about that. I'm not really
Speaker 2: sure that that kind of battles high inflation. If anything,
Speaker 2: that could be inflationary, and it could be the very
Speaker 2: situation that we're in right now. You know, you'll hear
Speaker 2: that term goldilocks a bunch. What does it mean. It
Speaker 2: means that, you know, we have, you know, seventy year
Speaker 2: low unemployment, we have wage growth that we haven't seen
Speaker 2: in a long time, but we also have a whole
Speaker 2: host of other costs for lots of consumers that maybe
Speaker 2: wages are not keeping up with. Right So, to answer
Speaker 2: the question, it's not a great economy for kind of
Speaker 2: lower end wage earners right now, despite the benefits that
Speaker 2: they've had of late. Okay, but on the higher end,
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like in every which way, you know,
Speaker 2: the higher end consumer is doing just fine. So some
Speaker 2: of the stuff that we track fairly closely is the
Speaker 2: savings rate that was really high, you know coming out
Speaker 2: of the pandemic is being drawn down. Consumer credit is
Speaker 2: really high at a time, and this brings us back
Speaker 2: to inflation, where the US Federal Reserve has raised interest
Speaker 2: rates basically from a zero interest rate bound during the
Speaker 2: pandemic to about five and a half percent. We have
Speaker 2: not seen interest rates this high in a very very
Speaker 2: long time. So if you are a consumer and you
Speaker 2: are living paycheck to paycheck, okay, and you are buying
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff on credit and these are floating rates,
Speaker 2: they are astronomically high right now. And so you know,
Speaker 2: there's a whole host of things that I think as
Speaker 2: we settle into and the Federal Reserve set it to
Speaker 2: us this week, that rates are going to be higher
Speaker 2: for longer. I think the lag effects of that tighter
Speaker 2: monetary policy are going to first hit lower end consumers
Speaker 2: and then it's going to work its way into the
Speaker 2: middle and higher you know, kind of bounds in the
Speaker 2: consumer landscape. And so to me, I think that is
Speaker 2: a story for twenty twenty four and through the lens
Speaker 2: that you look at all this, Molly. It's not, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, a great setup if you are the incumbent president,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, because sooner or later, the economy is
Speaker 2: going to slow and we're going to be in a recession.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm sure the Biden administration is hoping
Speaker 2: it comes after the election, but at some point, I
Speaker 2: think the market is a discounting mechanism. It will sniff
Speaker 2: it out if the economy is going to weaken.
Speaker 1: So you think we're heading for a recession. It's just
Speaker 1: a question of when. But I don't understand because of
Speaker 1: the higher interest rates. Sooner or later, though the Fed
Speaker 1: did just not raise interest rates yesterday.
Speaker 2: They did and so one of the big issues is
Speaker 2: that this lag effect of monetary policy, right, and so
Speaker 2: they acknowledged that. Economists acknowledge that, and so here we are.
Speaker 2: They started raising interest rates in March of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: so we're about eighteen months. And normally when you have
Speaker 2: that sort of tightening a monetary policy, you will see
Speaker 2: the economy start to weaken. That was the goal of
Speaker 2: raising interest rates to cool off the economy. If the
Speaker 2: economy continue to go and gangbusters pace because of all
Speaker 2: the fiscal and monetary stimulus, we're ultimately going to have
Speaker 2: a bubble inflate and then crash. And you don't have
Speaker 2: to go too far back to remember the global financial
Speaker 2: crisis where interest rates were kept too low for too
Speaker 2: long to combat what we had as a recession post
Speaker 2: of the dot com bubble, right, And so in each
Speaker 2: of those instances, they were followed by market crashes where
Speaker 2: the S and P five hundred, the major US equity market,
Speaker 2: was cut in half. Okay, and then we also had recessions.
Speaker 2: And so I think the FED fear is that, and
Speaker 2: you hear all this talk about a soft landing or
Speaker 2: a no landing. A hard landing would be a very
Speaker 2: bad recession. I think the FED is trying to wrap
Speaker 2: kind of wrap their arms around how do we get
Speaker 2: to a soft landing where the tighter monetary policy kind
Speaker 2: of slows the economy, doesn't break the economy and push
Speaker 2: us into a hard recession.
Speaker 1: I want to go further on this monetary policy idea
Speaker 1: because there are people who blame Biden, And if you
Speaker 1: blame Biden for this, you also have to blame Trump
Speaker 1: for this, because this is something Trump did too, that
Speaker 1: we have had years and years and years of like
Speaker 1: printing money, of pushing money into the economy, a very
Speaker 1: cheap money, of this modern monetary theory which says, just
Speaker 1: go for it, Nothing's going to happen. So how much
Speaker 1: of this is a blowback from that?
Speaker 2: I will say this that President Trump brought in the
Speaker 2: current FED Chair, Jerome Powell, Okay, to be his pick.
Speaker 2: And this was in back in twenty and seventeen. And
Speaker 2: FED Chair pal started out by raising interest rates in
Speaker 2: twenty and eighteen, and you know, he was trying to
Speaker 2: normalize interest rate policy after years and years of easy
Speaker 2: monetary policy that came with the financial crisis. Right. So
Speaker 2: here drum pale is under President Biden, and you know,
Speaker 2: interest rates have gone up faster than they have on
Speaker 2: any administration in decades. Okay, So now all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you have this situation. Though I think the Biden
Speaker 2: administration is probably correct to identify the fact that if
Speaker 2: they were to kind of support a pullback in rates,
Speaker 2: that inflation could be a worse enemy than high interest rates. Right,
Speaker 2: So they're in a really difficult situation here, and it
Speaker 2: does become political as we get into twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: because every week we are going to have candidates on
Speaker 2: the right that are going to be kind of railing
Speaker 2: against whatever that FED share pals doing. They're going to
Speaker 2: say it's perfectly political. They're going to say that the
Speaker 2: former FED chair Janet Yellen, who is now Biden's Treasury secretary,
Speaker 2: right is in bed with the FED, and the FED
Speaker 2: is supposed to be an independent organization. So this is
Speaker 2: going to get very politicized very soon. And going back
Speaker 2: to what I said before is that if you think that,
Speaker 2: you know, a stronger economy has been a good thing
Speaker 2: for this administration, I'd say yes, but he's not getting
Speaker 2: any credit for it. That's present and Biden, if just
Speaker 2: look at the polling on the economy, it's really bad.
Speaker 2: And so I don't know if it gets better from here,
Speaker 2: which is why I think that that whole campaign that
Speaker 2: they had a couple months ago with Bidenomics and getting
Speaker 2: them out there and his folks, you know, and I
Speaker 2: think the last time we talked, they need to do
Speaker 2: a better job on this because if the economy is
Speaker 2: okay right now and we are not in recession and
Speaker 2: it's been able to withstand the sort of interest rate
Speaker 2: hikes that have happened over the last eighteen months, then
Speaker 2: there's a story to tell. With unemployment as low as
Speaker 2: it is right now. So to me, I think that's
Speaker 2: a whole host of great things that they could be
Speaker 2: talking about. And then the reshoring of a lot of
Speaker 2: jobs that are incentivized by a lot of stuff in
Speaker 2: this fiscal you know, plans that they kind of laid
Speaker 2: out last year and the IRA and stuff. Those are
Speaker 2: all good for US workers, but they're also inflationary because
Speaker 2: one of the worst sort of I think takes about
Speaker 2: the last fifty years with globalization is that you know,
Speaker 2: we got as consumers, you know, we got addicted to
Speaker 2: cheap goods, and if that's going to be reversing out
Speaker 2: of China, it's going to be inflationary and better be
Speaker 2: prepared to pay more for your iPhone and some other
Speaker 2: things that are going to be made in other places
Speaker 2: closer to home.
Speaker 1: Yes, for sure. And I mean that's the fundamental thing
Speaker 1: that people are so upset about, is paying more for things. Right,
Speaker 1: Like people in America do not like pay more for things.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, listen, it goes back in the Trump
Speaker 2: administration when they started this trade war with China. I
Speaker 2: mean it was really interesting in a way, is that
Speaker 2: a lot of folks are a lot of people that
Speaker 2: support him didn't realize that they were supporting something that
Speaker 2: worked against their best interests. Right when steel prices are
Speaker 2: more expensive and you are you know, an auto worker,
Speaker 2: you know, and less cars are being sold because the
Speaker 2: prices are higher, you know, this all happens to come back.
Speaker 2: And so if plants have to close because there's less
Speaker 2: demand for things, I mean, these are all the fundamental
Speaker 2: you know, economic issues that we have to deal with.
Speaker 2: And when you map them to politics, and when you
Speaker 2: have people like the last administration who surely have no
Speaker 2: idea about much of this, you know, it gets really slow.
Speaker 2: You could make the case that the Biden administration has
Speaker 2: been as hard or harder on China. So like the
Speaker 2: situation with China only gets worse from here. Also, and
Speaker 2: I'll just tell you a lot of folks that are
Speaker 2: involved in markets and this is the number one bugaboo,
Speaker 2: if you will, China and kind of decoupling from China.
Speaker 2: And I don't think whoever wins in twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: and whoever takes the Senate, I don't think anything changes
Speaker 2: in that regard. It seems to be fairly bipartisan. And
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that. The other thing that you know,
Speaker 2: it might not be under the radar for too long,
Speaker 2: the fact that our neighbors to the north are in
Speaker 2: this big brew haha with India. India's most beneficiary of
Speaker 2: kind of you know, moving away from China. And if
Speaker 2: the North America is in a bit of a row
Speaker 2: with two and a half trillion as far as populous,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, between India and China, we
Speaker 2: might be headed to what looks like a more bipolar
Speaker 2: world as it relates to just kind of geopolitics and
Speaker 2: economics globalization.
Speaker 1: With China, one of the things that Biden administration has
Speaker 1: been doing is they've been quietly trying to sort of
Speaker 1: shore up that relationship, but also shore up in Japan,
Speaker 1: South Korea, the other countries on that peninsula or near
Speaker 1: that you know, in that area who are useful if
Speaker 1: you need to kind of go against China. I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels like we're at an uneasy day tent with China.
Speaker 2: Very uneasy. I mean, it doesn't get better from here,
Speaker 2: as I said before, because you know, at some point.
Speaker 2: All indications are that they're going to make some sort
Speaker 2: of move on Taiwan, and it could start out as
Speaker 2: some sort of economic sort of blockade, it could be
Speaker 2: something militarily. I mean some of the exercises that they're
Speaker 2: running right now, those are the sorts of things that
Speaker 2: obviously make the Japanese and the South Koreans very nervous.
Speaker 2: And when you think about China and you think about
Speaker 2: North Korea, how they've been cozing up to Russia, who
Speaker 2: just invaded obviously last year, a sovereign neighbor of theirs,
Speaker 2: A lot of these things are really intertwined, right And
Speaker 2: so you know, when I think about China is like
Speaker 2: the multinationals US multinational companies and the precedent that they
Speaker 2: set when Russia rolled into Ukraine by pulling out of Russia,
Speaker 2: you know, is that going to be the map? Is
Speaker 2: that going to be the playbook for US multinationals if
Speaker 2: the Chinese do anything with Taiwan. And when you think
Speaker 2: about China as being this engine for global growth over
Speaker 2: the last twenty years, the economic data in China right
Speaker 2: now is really bad. Export data is really bad. They're
Speaker 2: facing bouts of deflation right now. So if they in
Speaker 2: an effort to kind of restimulate, you know, whatever sort
Speaker 2: of activity, and they see Taiwan and a good way
Speaker 2: to do it. You know, US multinationals, Japan and South Korea,
Speaker 2: you know, are very staunch allies. We're going to be
Speaker 2: in a bit of a pickle. And that is the
Speaker 2: sort of thing that could send the global economy into
Speaker 2: a really bad place, especially if you think that we
Speaker 2: will have a redo of the inflationary pressures on natural resources.
Speaker 2: You know, remember what happened with oil after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Speaker 2: So those are you know, China is a huge buyer
Speaker 2: of natural resources and crewed in the like in natural gas.
Speaker 2: So you know, all this stuff is kind of interrelated
Speaker 2: and it makes a lot of people, you know, away
Speaker 2: from the human aspect of it. And I think that
Speaker 2: obviously is not something that we should kind of poo poo,
Speaker 2: But from an economic standpoint and from a geopolitical standpoint,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is the one thing I
Speaker 2: think that has the ability to really kind of break
Speaker 2: the economy right now at a time where interest rates
Speaker 2: again have only been going higher to deal with inflation,
Speaker 2: and all of what I just said is inflationary deglobalization
Speaker 2: and then geopolitical rowse between you know, China and Taiwan
Speaker 2: or Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 1: That's very annoying. But can China kick the rest of
Speaker 1: the world into a recession? Is that what you're painting?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that does have the potential to do that, right,
Speaker 2: So where is the incremental growth that could happen around
Speaker 2: the globe right now? Europe is in a you know,
Speaker 2: recessionary sort of.
Speaker 1: Environment, right and England does forget it, Yeah, England is
Speaker 1: not particularly great here.
Speaker 2: And so when you think about what is the kind
Speaker 2: of knock on effect of US consumers are basically seventy
Speaker 2: percent of our GDP our gross domestic product here, and
Speaker 2: if the US consumer to slow down because interest rates
Speaker 2: are too high because you know, they're not going to
Speaker 2: tap home equity loans with you know, mortgage rates you know,
Speaker 2: above seven percent, if floating rates on credit, which is
Speaker 2: hitting for consumers all time highs right now, is just
Speaker 2: not sustainable to continue this level of growth. I mean
Speaker 2: it's going to be really hard, right like to keep
Speaker 2: our economy humming along. So the idea of a recession
Speaker 2: that's two consecutive negative quarters of GDP. That's not so hard,
Speaker 2: and it's not even that bad of a thing. Those
Speaker 2: are their natural cycles in economies here, right, But the
Speaker 2: fact that we've become so interrelated with let's say Europe
Speaker 2: and with China, and if China is weakening and Europe
Speaker 2: is already weak, and there's a potential for you know,
Speaker 2: some major hiccups as it relates to our manufacturing in China.
Speaker 2: Like to me, I just don't know how we avoid
Speaker 2: recession in the next year or so. And if you
Speaker 2: had asked me a year ago at this time, I
Speaker 2: would have said in twenty twenty three. But the longer
Speaker 2: we kick the can down the road, the more unstable
Speaker 2: our US consumer is. And if our US consumer is
Speaker 2: literally the engine behind our economic growth, with China weakening
Speaker 2: at a time when we're diversifying away from China, it's
Speaker 2: just not a great picture right now. So I wish
Speaker 2: I know you said it's annoying. I wish I had
Speaker 2: a rosier outlook. And if you want to talk about goldilocks,
Speaker 2: that's great, that's backward looking. If you look at a
Speaker 2: lot of the leading indicators for the economy, they're softening
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: So interesting so let me ask you, what could the
Speaker 1: Biden administration do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, at this point, I don't think, you know,
Speaker 2: more fiscal stimulus is the right thing that.
Speaker 1: Will cause more inflation.
Speaker 2: And you know, like when you think about polls and
Speaker 2: you think about the sorts of things that like voters
Speaker 2: when they're going to vote, you know, I mean, what
Speaker 2: do they care about? They care about their economic stability,
Speaker 2: They care about their job and that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: and a lot of these other issues that will help,
Speaker 2: I think, define the twenty twenty four election. Guns and
Speaker 2: abortion and immigration. I think they're a side show if
Speaker 2: you feel like you you know, have to make a
Speaker 2: choice between feeding your family and paying your heating bill
Speaker 2: or you think you're going to be you know, losing
Speaker 2: your job, and tuition has become too expensive, healthcare is
Speaker 2: to so they have to control the narrative better. I
Speaker 2: think they've done a very poor job. I'm at doing that.
Speaker 2: They need more, you know, people out there telling the
Speaker 2: story how US consumers are doing better than they were
Speaker 2: four years ago in the like, and I just don't
Speaker 2: think they're good at that. Again, I don't think more
Speaker 2: fiscal stimulus would do the sort of thing. But some
Speaker 2: sort of good resolution with this United Auto Worker and
Speaker 2: where the government is helpful, I think would be really
Speaker 2: good because that is a voting you know, block that
Speaker 2: I think is should be important to the Biden being
Speaker 2: re elected. So I think there's just being more upfront
Speaker 2: about these issues and how this is not going to
Speaker 2: be an easy situation to tame because inflation is not
Speaker 2: going down meaningfully anytime soon, and interest rates are to
Speaker 2: have to stay higher for longer. That's at least what
Speaker 2: the Fed's telling The only way interest rates go down
Speaker 2: a lot. They're not going to be good for good
Speaker 2: economic reasons. They've gone down in the post Dot com recession,
Speaker 2: and then they went down in the period during the
Speaker 2: financial crisis. We don't want any of those sorts of
Speaker 2: situations happen. So if they can kind of thread the
Speaker 2: needle a little bit and kind of get to the
Speaker 2: other side of twenty twenty four without having to do
Speaker 2: anything dramatic, I think they just have to control the
Speaker 2: narrative better.
Speaker 1: And that's why they didn't raise rates again.
Speaker 2: I think what the FED is saying to us, and
Speaker 2: this has nothing to do with the administration. I mean,
Speaker 2: the administration can try to put pressure on them, but
Speaker 2: they are independent of the administration. Janet Yellen, who's the
Speaker 2: Treasury Secretary, the former the head of the FED, I mean,
Speaker 2: she can be as political as she wants, but she
Speaker 2: cannot try to do things to influence the US FED.
Speaker 2: So they didn't raise interest rates because they wanted to
Speaker 2: take a pause. Now, the likelihood is that they raise
Speaker 2: interest rates at the next meeting in November another twenty
Speaker 2: five basis points, getting the FED funds rates of five
Speaker 2: point seventy five percent. That shouldn't have a too dramatic
Speaker 2: of impact on the economy, especially after they've just raised
Speaker 2: five and a half percent over the last eighteen nineteen
Speaker 2: months or so. But the point here is that they
Speaker 2: are going to watch the data, and if the data
Speaker 2: continues to be inflationary, then they need to have tighter
Speaker 2: monetary policy. But if the data falls off a cliff
Speaker 2: and gets much worse, that's a whole host of other problems,
Speaker 2: and especially politically for the Biden administration. So I think
Speaker 2: if they could freeze things right here, right now and
Speaker 2: flash forward to the November twenty twenty four, I think
Speaker 2: they would do that. But the likelihood that things stay
Speaker 2: static right now is not particularly great.
Speaker 1: Dan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Molly. I appreciate being on the pod. I
Speaker 2: love the pod, and I'm amazed at which you do
Speaker 2: nine a plus interviews a week on Fast Politics. It's
Speaker 2: just beyond me, so keep it up.
Speaker 1: Michael Wolfe is the author of The Fall, The End
Speaker 1: of Fox News, and The Murdoch Dynasty. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Michael Lollie, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on this as a hot hot book.
Speaker 3: Have you gotten a copy of it?
Speaker 1: I have a copy, but I just got it, so
Speaker 1: I haven't finished yet. Let's talk about first. You've written
Speaker 1: a lot of books. You have written about a lot
Speaker 1: of politicians and people, and why did you pick this.
Speaker 4: I haven't written about a lot of politicians. I really
Speaker 4: don't like to write about politicians. I have written about
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, who I would say is distinguished by not
Speaker 4: being a politician.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point.
Speaker 4: But I have written a lot about Rupert Murdoch. So
Speaker 4: I have been writing about Rupert Murdoch since when was
Speaker 4: my Murdoch biography published in two thousand and nine, And
Speaker 4: before that I was New York Magazines media reporter and
Speaker 4: vanity fairs media reporter. So I often wrote about Murdoch,
Speaker 4: and then Murdoch let me in for some reason that
Speaker 4: I'm sure he can't explain, nor can I let me
Speaker 4: into his world, very quite intimately, and I spent a
Speaker 4: year basically interviewing him, his family, his executives, anybody I
Speaker 4: wanted to, including his mother. So I have been writing
Speaker 4: about him on a fairly steady basis since then. And
Speaker 4: this is kind of, you know, a book end. I mean,
Speaker 4: it is ending. I mean, Murdoch is ninety two, and
Speaker 4: the end comes even to him sooner rather than later.
Speaker 4: The curious point of this story is that that end
Speaker 4: will take Fox, arguably the most powerful political influence in
Speaker 4: this country. His end will take Fox with it. You
Speaker 4: can't take Fox with you. You can't take Fox. So
Speaker 4: you really do think that the death of Ruper Murdock
Speaker 4: will be the end of Fox News?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think that there's any piece of
Speaker 4: logic that could find an alternative to that. It ends.
Speaker 4: Because this is a company that is really exists because
Speaker 4: of one man, and he has children who will take
Speaker 4: over control of the company. Four children. You have six children,
Speaker 4: but there are four who will take over they do
Speaker 4: not agree with each other on and their disagreements kind
Speaker 4: of approach the mortal level. It's a blood score between them,
Speaker 4: and there's a virtually no scenario in which they can
Speaker 4: go forward in agreement.
Speaker 1: So tell me what you think Ruper Murdoch will think
Speaker 1: of this book if he has not gotten it yet.
Speaker 4: That's an interesting thing because when the Murdoch organization doesn't
Speaker 4: like something, it responds with, or, at least in my experience,
Speaker 4: responds with a unique.
Speaker 3: Kind of venom.
Speaker 4: After my biography of Murdoch was published, which he did
Speaker 4: not like at all, which I always found somewhat curious
Speaker 4: because it's really not a negative biography. When he got
Speaker 4: a copy of it, he called me up and a
Speaker 4: fear tried to get him to tell me what he
Speaker 4: objected to, and he finally sputtered out, but it's just
Speaker 4: so personal, and I said, but.
Speaker 3: Rupert, it's a biography at any rate.
Speaker 4: He didn't like it, and part of his response ended
Speaker 4: up being quite painful for me because my marriage was
Speaker 4: then breaking up at that point, and I was involved
Speaker 4: with someone else, which nobody else knew except the New
Speaker 4: York Post found out. They went out of their way
Speaker 4: shall we say, to find out and raked me through
Speaker 4: for weeks or certainly what felt like weeks on and
Speaker 4: I was hardly a celebrity, was treated as a celebrity
Speaker 4: with outrageous marital difficulties and anyway it was, it was terrible.
Speaker 4: So I would like to say I am poised now,
Speaker 4: but I am not poised. And I firstly, I really
Speaker 4: can't imagine what is going to come my way, but
Speaker 4: I would not.
Speaker 3: Be surprised if it was some serious stuff.
Speaker 1: So what do you think is the thing that's going
Speaker 1: to make him the most enraged?
Speaker 4: I mean, it's personal. This is about his family. I
Speaker 4: mean this is about Fox too. It's not just about
Speaker 4: his family. I mean it's about the personalities at Fox,
Speaker 4: which has its own problems. I mean, there's the Foxes
Speaker 4: has problems with the Murdoch families, but it has problems
Speaker 4: with Donald Trump, who the Murdochs hate, but Fox's audience love.
Speaker 4: It has problems with its various personalities. The whole Tucker
Speaker 4: Carlson story is laid out here. I would safely say
Speaker 4: that there's not one single thing that Rupert Murdoch is
Speaker 4: going to like about this book.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about Laura Ingram. There's some very interesting
Speaker 1: stuff in here.
Speaker 4: I think I kind of feel sorry for Laura. You know,
Speaker 4: Fox is a very difficult place, to say the least
Speaker 4: for a woman to work. I mean, it was particularly
Speaker 4: difficult in the age of Roger Ayles, but it hasn't
Speaker 4: gotten much better. I don't think that they necessarily jump
Speaker 4: on you there anymore, but they certainly don't treat women
Speaker 4: like they treat men. And I think Laura Ingraham has
Speaker 4: been put in the very difficult, difficult position. And there's
Speaker 4: a lot of reasons that she would want this job
Speaker 4: and does want this job, but is.
Speaker 3: Her heart in it?
Speaker 4: And you know, that's one of the interesting things about
Speaker 4: about Fox and why it has done so well, is
Speaker 4: that its stars have their heart in it. They are
Speaker 4: fully invested in being Fox people, in talking to the
Speaker 4: Fox audience. And I think she's been a little resistant
Speaker 4: to this, reticent about it, although she has tried curiously.
Speaker 4: You know, she's one of Murdoch's favorites, and she's one
Speaker 4: of his favorites because she's actually not a Trump Maga
Speaker 4: right winger. She's kind of an old fashioned, a nineties
Speaker 4: right winger, which Murdoch is.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot about her drinking, which I think
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, and she's not the only drinker at Fox. It's
Speaker 4: a big drinking place. The Murdoch family is a big
Speaker 4: drinking family. But yeah, I mean, and there's a particular
Speaker 4: scene in.
Speaker 1: The scene with the plane. Will you talk about that.
Speaker 4: I tell the story of a trip on Sean Hannity's
Speaker 4: plane to Roger Ayles's funeral in the spring of twenty seventeen,
Speaker 4: and Laura was, who was not working at Fox at
Speaker 4: the time but wanted to work at Fox at the time,
Speaker 4: was at the funeral and she got very, very drunk.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of those kind of drunken scenes that
Speaker 4: is a kind of television worthy drunken scene, the full
Speaker 4: monty of drunkenness, and so much so that she tried
Speaker 4: to get a ride with Hannity on his plane back
Speaker 4: to New York. She wanted to be dropped off of Washington,
Speaker 4: but Hannity wouldn't let her on the plane because he
Speaker 4: said those planes are too small for someone who would
Speaker 4: clearly end up in the bathroom vomiting the whole time.
Speaker 1: That is not the only time she gets rejected. The
Speaker 1: Murdoch suns found her retro not aspiring talk to me
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 4: When she was highed, that was a kind of tussle
Speaker 4: between between father and sons about who would get to
Speaker 4: make this higher and it was actually Rupert who finally.
Speaker 3: Decided to make this attire.
Speaker 4: And the sons were annoyed about this and regarded her
Speaker 4: as kind of an old fashioned conservative who was in
Speaker 4: an old fashioned you know, a person who sell by
Speaker 4: date as a media personality had passed.
Speaker 1: Right, but she has really hung on. I mean, what
Speaker 1: do you think about that?
Speaker 4: She was the only woman in the lineup, and she
Speaker 4: was kind of convenient in the lineup between the two
Speaker 4: big enchiladas of the primetime schedule who didn't want someone
Speaker 4: else who might compete with them. So she was a
Speaker 4: sort of convenient buffer for Tucker and for Hannity. But
Speaker 4: now she has just been relegated out of official prime time.
Speaker 1: There's so many personalities in this book, and there's so
Speaker 1: much for Rubert Murdos.
Speaker 4: Is just like when liberals such as I suppose ourselves
Speaker 4: write about Fox, it's always written as the overriding point
Speaker 4: is politics, And I've tried to make this the overwriting
Speaker 4: point here. Television that it's really not you know, Fox
Speaker 4: is not. Yes there's politics at Fox, and yes that's
Speaker 4: the subtext, But the overt text is how do I
Speaker 4: stay on the air? I am, you know, like all
Speaker 4: television people. I mean, what do all television news people
Speaker 4: have in common is desperate desire and need to stay
Speaker 4: on the air. And it's I will do anything to
Speaker 4: stay on the air. That's this motivation that I tried
Speaker 4: to I try to convey that unique experience.
Speaker 1: And it's really about the family, which is really interesting.
Speaker 1: Before we talk about Tucker hals and we need to
Speaker 1: talk about Arena Braganti. Please tell our listeners who she
Speaker 1: is and sort of she is really one of the
Speaker 1: most important figures in anything about Fox.
Speaker 3: She's the pr person.
Speaker 4: But what that means, you know, she comes out of
Speaker 4: the Ales era, is that she is the enforcer. If
Speaker 4: I get it by the Murdocks in any way, it
Speaker 4: will come from her. She is the one who is
Speaker 4: out there selling the Fox message to other media, but
Speaker 4: she is punishing anyone who crosses who Fox feels has
Speaker 4: crossed them. She's I mean, super good at her job.
Speaker 4: One interesting aspect is that she often uses the New
Speaker 4: York Times to do this, which seems counterintuitive since The
Speaker 4: New York Times hates Fox so much, But since she
Speaker 4: has often dissing people who are on Fox, then The
Speaker 4: Times becomes a willing and convenient outlet. So I was,
Speaker 4: for again reasons that are not necessarily clear or intuitive,
Speaker 4: I was very friendly with Roger Ayles for many, many years.
Speaker 4: I was friendly with him because he was a great source,
Speaker 4: because he was a great gossip, because he had really
Speaker 4: unique insights into the media business, which I was covering
Speaker 4: for much of much of that time. On one occasion,
Speaker 4: I can't remember what I was writing about, but I
Speaker 4: didn't call him. I called the Fox PR people, and
Speaker 4: he got wind of this, and he called me up
Speaker 4: and he said, why wouldn't she call me? If you
Speaker 4: want to know what happened, don't quote I reading. Her
Speaker 4: job is not to tell you the truth. It's the
Speaker 4: opposite her job. You want to know something, you call me.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, So talk to me about the dominion case.
Speaker 1: Because that was like a very sort of will there
Speaker 1: won't they settle situation?
Speaker 4: It always seemed that way. There was no possibility that
Speaker 4: they were not going to settle this. You know, the
Speaker 4: first rule of any media company in a libel or
Speaker 4: defamation case is never go before a jury. You go
Speaker 4: before a jury, you're going to loose. But they got
Speaker 4: awfully close to going before a jury. I mean I
Speaker 4: was actually sitting there. I was face to face with
Speaker 4: that with that jury shortly after.
Speaker 3: You know, and I believe it would have been right.
Speaker 4: After the lunch break the jury was seated. There was
Speaker 4: a lunch break, and then the lunch break was prolonged,
Speaker 4: and then they settled because of that immutable rule that
Speaker 4: was this, This was the line in the saying you
Speaker 4: could not face the jury. And so the real story is,
Speaker 4: how in hell did it get that close? Yeah, they
Speaker 4: should have settled months and months and months and months
Speaker 4: and months before. There was a moment. Would think it
Speaker 4: would be about a year and a half before when
Speaker 4: Murdoch was complaining that this could cost him fifty million
Speaker 4: dollars in the end, and it cost him seven hundred
Speaker 4: and eighty five eighty seven million dollars. That's the story.
Speaker 4: Why did it take so long? And that's the indication
Speaker 4: of the kind of disarray that was going on within
Speaker 4: the organization.
Speaker 1: So you think they just couldn't get it together in time.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean they couldn't get it together, and I
Speaker 4: would say it was There was and continues to be
Speaker 4: only one real decision maker, and that's Murdoch and he
Speaker 4: is ninety two, So getting him to make decisions, I
Speaker 4: think is very difficult. I think getting him to focus
Speaker 4: becomes more and more difficult. I think that he processed
Speaker 4: this whole as being not Fox's fault, but Donald Trump's fault,
Speaker 4: and in some way this became about Donald Trump paying
Speaker 4: for this, and somehow it became about his grievance against
Speaker 4: Donald Trump instead of focusing on the fact that this
Speaker 4: lawsuit was directed at him.
Speaker 3: In fact, the.
Speaker 1: Tucker Cross and Fox fight continues.
Speaker 4: I thought it's probably an indication of an even broader
Speaker 4: fight that's happening, and that's going to happen in conservative media.
Speaker 4: For a long time, Fox has been at a monopoly
Speaker 4: position in conservative media. There was only one outlet, and
Speaker 4: it was dominant to a dramatic extreme. And I think
Speaker 4: now we see more and more that there are other
Speaker 4: possibilities here and that conservative media will fragment and this
Speaker 4: shouldn't be a surprise in the same way that liberal
Speaker 4: media has spregnant.
Speaker 1: So interesting. Thank you so much, Michael.
Speaker 3: And thank you.
Speaker 1: Ben Tulchen is a pollster and the founder of Toulchien Research.
Speaker 1: Welcome to you fast politics.
Speaker 5: Ben, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to let you introduce yourself to us. Tell
Speaker 1: me about what you do.
Speaker 6: Sure, I'm a political poster for Democrats, helping get them elected.
Speaker 6: Also do bout measures, work for isshie clients, nonprofit organizations,
Speaker 6: labor unions and those kinds of clients. Best known for
Speaker 6: poland for Bernie Sanders presidential kpaign in twenty sixteen and
Speaker 6: twenty twenty also elected the Mayor of New York City,
Speaker 6: Eric Adams, which I was named Polster of the Year recently.
Speaker 6: So I work for lots of clients around the country
Speaker 6: as well, but those are kind of my claim to fame.
Speaker 1: So you're a Democratic pollster, but you have candidates that
Speaker 1: are sometimes not in the Democratic mainstream.
Speaker 6: As a consultant, we I work for cancer. I like
Speaker 6: shout out what I work for. I tend to be
Speaker 6: kind of a broad ideological mix.
Speaker 1: Yes, let's talk about what the nuts and bolts of
Speaker 1: pulstering looks like for you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, I mean one, we have to get hired
Speaker 6: by a cant right and we have to get paid.
Speaker 3: But in all seriousness, doesn't how always happen.
Speaker 6: But the industry self polling has gone under a lot
Speaker 6: of changes and transformations the last several years. I mean
Speaker 6: a lot's been discussed about. There are fewer people willing
Speaker 6: to respond to surveys. We used to call landlines. Those
Speaker 6: don't really exist anymore. So now we have to find
Speaker 6: other ways to reach people through cell phones, texting, calling,
Speaker 6: cell phones, email, you name it. So the industry has
Speaker 6: changed a lot. It's gotten harder to do what I do.
Speaker 6: But my value adds a pulster and a strategist, and
Speaker 6: I really pride myself for being a strategist. I don't
Speaker 6: just deliver poll numbers. I provide strategy and that's kind
Speaker 6: of my value ad. And you know, I've been instrumental
Speaker 6: and you know, taking Berry Sanders from zero to percent
Speaker 6: to the brink of the nomination. I was instrumental electing
Speaker 6: Aericam's mayor. And you're sitting a very difficult, diverse, multi
Speaker 6: candet field with ring choice voting scenarios.
Speaker 5: So my job is.
Speaker 6: To not just tell you what the numbers are, but
Speaker 6: like figure out a strategy how to win.
Speaker 1: But you also do focus groups.
Speaker 5: We do, Yes, we do, and.
Speaker 1: Lately you've been doing focus groups. Tell us what you've
Speaker 1: been sort of working on and the stuff that you
Speaker 1: have been talking to my friend Ron Brownstein about.
Speaker 6: Look, I mean, as we kind of heading into a
Speaker 6: presidential election year and having worked for Bernie, and I've
Speaker 6: seen kind of a clear pattern of merge where Democright
Speaker 6: Party has struggled with working class voters right, and they've
Speaker 6: struggled in delivering an economic message, and that was clear.
Speaker 6: What the driver of success for Bernie's campaign in both
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen and twenty twenty was he had a very clear, powerful, progressive,
Speaker 6: economic populist message. And I feel that Direct Party is
Speaker 6: kind of hasn't learned the lessons from that. Whi he
Speaker 6: was successful, Many people in the party view him as
Speaker 6: his kind of left wing crazy guy, and the fact
Speaker 6: is that he actually had a very clear coping here
Speaker 6: an economic message that resonated very powerfully with young people
Speaker 6: and Latinos in particular, and that drove a success. And
Speaker 6: those are two groups quite frankly, that Biden struggled with
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty that Bernie did much better than Biden
Speaker 6: within those two groups, and it didn't start off that way.
Speaker 6: With Latinos in particular, we were tied with Biden the
Speaker 6: begining of the campaign, and over the course of the campaign,
Speaker 6: through a very discipline focused economic message, we gained separation
Speaker 6: for Biden and ultimately ran circles around him. And that's
Speaker 6: We're able to win Nevado at California and do quite
Speaker 6: well with Latinos. So I'm seeing that. And then I
Speaker 6: did a really fascinating project of left leaning gun owners.
Speaker 1: I want to get to that, but first I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about Latino voters, because that is
Speaker 1: the two really the weak spots for Democratic reelection are
Speaker 1: the young voters and the Latino voters, right, especially Latino men,
Speaker 1: male voters. Right. That is a number that Biden is
Speaker 1: losing and that the Republicans are picking up for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: For the people who are staunchly anti Bernie who are
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, and I know there are some
Speaker 1: of you, Bernie has already endorsed Biden, so that is done, right.
Speaker 1: He's not going to primary him, period paragraph But Bernie
Speaker 1: had a bunch of really exciting progressive ideas, like the
Speaker 1: climate Core and that now Biden has just implemented, right,
Speaker 1: He's implemented two of Bernie's key kind of things. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think that there is a way for do
Speaker 1: you think that more successful messaging of that will help?
Speaker 1: And do you think that Biden did these things because
Speaker 1: he knows he needs those voters?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I look, I mean I know that Biden if you
Speaker 6: look at the polling, right or he's lot Biden's locked
Speaker 6: into a very close rate with Trump, who's the likely
Speaker 6: Republican nominee. What I've been observing is having gone through
Speaker 6: the twenty twenty campaign to do a lot of polling
Speaker 6: and watching you know, Burry do very well with young
Speaker 6: people and Latinos and Biden struggle with them. They eventually
Speaker 6: rallied to Biden in the general election, but then three
Speaker 6: months into Biden's presidency they kind of left it right
Speaker 6: and just and a lot of move to kind of
Speaker 6: unsure undecided. But they weren't sold on Biden at the beginning.
Speaker 6: They warmed up to him and when it was a
Speaker 6: comparative a choice between Trump and Biden, but then they
Speaker 6: didn't show a lot of loyalty, and then having stuck
Speaker 6: with them now in looking at recent polling versus Biden
Speaker 6: versus Trump, example, Latinos and exit polling. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: Biden won Latinos by thirty three points sixty five to
Speaker 6: thirty two, and recent polling against Trump, Biden is only
Speaker 6: winning among Latinos by seven points forty five thirty eight
Speaker 6: with a lot.
Speaker 5: Of others, so there's a net twenty six point drop off.
Speaker 6: Young voters show a very similar pattern where Biden won
Speaker 6: them by twenty four points sixty to thirty six and
Speaker 6: twenty twenty Corten exit polling and now he's only up three,
Speaker 6: so it's a dramatic chip. Now my view is this
Speaker 6: should be low hanging fruit for the Biden campaign. So
Speaker 6: to your point is he's focusing on them, embracing policies,
Speaker 6: advocating policies that young people support, that Latin they should
Speaker 6: be appealing to Latinos. But he's always struggled with these
Speaker 6: two groups, so it's going to take a lot of
Speaker 6: work for him.
Speaker 2: To win them over.
Speaker 1: In my view, talk to me about gun owners, who
Speaker 1: exactly is in this group?
Speaker 6: So these are you know, left leaning gun owners, right,
Speaker 6: So if you think about where Trump has made inros
Speaker 6: with working class voters and Biden and Democrats expense. It's
Speaker 6: been you know, versus Hillary and versus Biden. African American
Speaker 6: men and Latino men. Right, So there's the two subsets
Speaker 6: that Trump has made some inroads with. And they're disproportionately
Speaker 6: working class, and they're disproportionally gun owners. So I've been
Speaker 6: working with a coalition trying to organize and connect with
Speaker 6: left leaning gun owners. After every mass shooting, right, there's
Speaker 6: obviously rush for advocating for tougher gun safety laws, and
Speaker 6: the challenge of left leaning gun owners is then they feel.
Speaker 5: Kind of, oh, do I belong in this party?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: So this effort is to kind of make them feel
Speaker 6: welcome voting.
Speaker 5: For progressive candidates and causes.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: You know we found is that they own God, these
Speaker 6: folks own guns. They like owning guns. They're proud to
Speaker 6: be gun owners, right, So, which is not a typical
Speaker 6: profile of today's in today's Democratic Party, which has become
Speaker 6: more white collar professional, right. So, you know, they're just
Speaker 6: purtily working class and many of them are struggling financially
Speaker 6: and they're really worried about the economy, and we're more
Speaker 6: inclined to vote for Biden over Trump, but you don't
Speaker 6: have concerns, especially on economic issues.
Speaker 1: So this is the group that is being affected by
Speaker 1: inflation the most.
Speaker 6: Yeah, our experience if you look at kind of acroeconomics
Speaker 6: microaps and our research, I mean young people in Latinos.
Speaker 6: These are the two groups that you know Biden is
Speaker 6: struggling with the most now compared to where how he
Speaker 6: did in twenty twenty. They have been deeply impacted by inflation. Right,
Speaker 6: You're a young person, and people tend to make less
Speaker 6: money they're earlier in their careers. And so if you're
Speaker 6: a young person and the groceries st have gone up,
Speaker 6: and costs and price of gas has gone up, in
Speaker 6: rent has gone up, you feel that a lot and
Speaker 6: young people don't have any sort of historical perspective, right,
Speaker 6: they have been through inflation.
Speaker 5: This is new to them.
Speaker 6: Inflation is the first time they're really experiencing inflation. And
Speaker 6: they just know that A things cost more and b
Speaker 6: that Joe Biden is present. Right, And so while they
Speaker 6: are left leaning politically and voted for Biden in big
Speaker 6: numbers in twenty twenty, you know a lot of them
Speaker 6: moved to the on side of column. Right, now in
Speaker 6: a matchup between Biden and Trump, and they'll say, well,
Speaker 6: five years ago we didn't have inflation.
Speaker 5: Today we have inflation.
Speaker 6: So the Bien folks and del grag Parry has to
Speaker 6: vote to young people and compel them to vote for
Speaker 6: Biden and tell them a convincing economic message and b
Speaker 6: why Donald Trump is really really bad or not that
Speaker 6: they don't know that, but you just have to an election.
Speaker 6: It's a binary choice between two people. You got to
Speaker 6: remind them why they hate Donald Trump, so they vote
Speaker 6: for Joe.
Speaker 1: Biden, right exactly? With student debt, are they mad about
Speaker 1: the student debt situation? And if so, who do they blame?
Speaker 6: They're frustrated for sure, because it has real impact. I mean,
Speaker 6: if you want student debt payments.
Speaker 1: And interest rates just went ah, yes, So.
Speaker 3: It's it's real.
Speaker 6: It's a real pocketbook issue, and it's impact in a
Speaker 6: real way.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think from pulling.
Speaker 6: We've done and others done. They largely blame the Supreme
Speaker 6: Court and MAGA and call tunes. But Biden's present, right,
Speaker 6: so and he got it done, but they didn't get done.
Speaker 6: So that's the story that Biden's going to have to
Speaker 6: tell is explain point direct their anger at Donald Trump's
Speaker 6: Supreme Courts right, and say, look, this is the reason
Speaker 6: why you're student loans paying forgiveness got thrown out, and
Speaker 6: I'm the one who stood up for you. So the
Speaker 6: challenge Biden has is he has to make the argument right,
Speaker 6: He has to make the case to them about why
Speaker 6: Donald Trump's bad for them, and Joe Biden stands up
Speaker 6: for their interests.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the most interesting and useful
Speaker 1: things that I have been hearing about is that this
Speaker 1: polling is really sort of directional. Right, this is what
Speaker 1: Biden needs to do over the next four hundred plus
Speaker 1: days in order to win. Right, talk to us about
Speaker 1: the sort of like how Biden should take these polls.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean he's got to make a concerted effort
Speaker 6: at targeting these groups in a way that's meaningful, authentic,
Speaker 6: and constantly right. I mean, the you know, younger rooters
Speaker 6: and Latinos and they lean left, they voted for him
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty, and he's got to woo them and
Speaker 6: win the back. And I think, look, I think it's
Speaker 6: a multi step process. I mean, he's got to lay
Speaker 6: out a pot positive messages story to tell which look
Speaker 6: at people have their own personal economic experience. You know,
Speaker 6: the positive messaging about what he's done the economy is
Speaker 6: going to have a limited impact, but he still has
Speaker 6: to tell that story, especially on student loan debt forgiveness. Right,
Speaker 6: But then he's got to go destroy Donald Trump and
Speaker 6: just just savage Donald Trump. And he's starting to do
Speaker 6: that more. But that's one big critique I've had of
Speaker 6: the of the Biden administration is he wouldn't even mention
Speaker 6: Donald Trump's name for the first two years. And look,
Speaker 6: I mean, every good narrative, every good story has a feeling, right,
Speaker 6: I mean, Star Wars is nothing without Darth Vader, right,
Speaker 6: And their refusal to kind of engage Trump and Maga
Speaker 6: Republicans consistently. I mean they've started doing it now, but
Speaker 6: for two years, they wouldn't even mention the other side,
Speaker 6: including Trump. And I just feel like the reason Biden
Speaker 6: got elected was if you look at exit polling, most
Speaker 6: people said it was a vote against Donald Trump, not
Speaker 6: a vote for Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: And maybe the Biden folks.
Speaker 6: Thought that, well, he can become president, be this inspirational figure,
Speaker 6: and he didn't.
Speaker 5: He's done amazing job and policy.
Speaker 6: Accomplished a lot on a policy front, but I feel
Speaker 6: like he's always stronger when he's put it against somebody else, Right, Well,
Speaker 6: that's Vanders or Donald Trump or whomever. Biden does better
Speaker 6: when he is up against somebody else other than himself.
Speaker 6: And I just think that making the next year about
Speaker 6: why Donald Trump's a horrible person president and why he's
Speaker 6: bad for these voters in particular, and how Biden has
Speaker 6: made an effort to do good by them.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm thinking about sort of this idea of populism,
Speaker 1: really like successful economic populism. One of the reasons why,
Speaker 1: and again I don't want to relitigate because Bernie endorsed
Speaker 1: Biden and AOC endorsed Biden. But I want to say
Speaker 1: something about Biden which is really about Bernie, which is
Speaker 1: a Bernie had this incredibly good economic populist message that
Speaker 1: was very compelling. It was Democrats speaking to working class
Speaker 1: voters in a way that Hillary could not. Because clearly,
Speaker 1: if you look at Biden's legislation, he has been an
Speaker 1: economic populist. Right, He's done tariffs, he's pro union, he's
Speaker 1: doing the kind of economic populism that you know Americans
Speaker 1: desperately need How could he sort of steal that playbook
Speaker 1: from Bernie a little bit?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the ironies he has, right, I mean
Speaker 3: that's the thing is.
Speaker 1: Right, the legislation, but the advertising.
Speaker 6: It, I mean, that's the iron is why Bernie endorsed
Speaker 6: him early, right, because he's Bernie feels like Biden's done
Speaker 6: a great job on the policy front, and you know,
Speaker 6: so Bernie's behind him. It's tough because Biden is who
Speaker 6: he is, and he got elected president for being who
Speaker 6: he is, right, which is kind of a steady hand
Speaker 6: in stormy weather, right, and so you know, it can't
Speaker 6: really embrace his inner Bernie and be Bernie. So I look,
Speaker 6: I do think though, that advertising matters, right, telling story
Speaker 6: over paid communication, whether digital TV ads matters, And it
Speaker 6: takes time. I mean, if you look at you know,
Speaker 6: the presidential primary toy toy, I mean, we Bernie has
Speaker 6: a very compelling economic message, but look at our TV ads.
Speaker 6: I mean we really focused on economic messages in the
Speaker 6: primary and that's where we will to win the first
Speaker 6: three states so resoundingly. And if you look at Biden campaign,
Speaker 6: they had limited resources and they were very biocentric about
Speaker 6: you know, Biden's story, and they were kind of light
Speaker 6: on economics, and I think that's one of the reason we
Speaker 6: were so successful at the being in that. But look,
Speaker 6: I think they're starting to talk about the economy that
Speaker 6: can't Biden and this team are. And again, it's going
Speaker 6: to have a as the incumbent if people aren't feeling
Speaker 6: great about the economy. If you're saying how great the
Speaker 6: economy is, is going to meet some resistance. But he's
Speaker 6: going to highlight his accomplishments, highlight all the jobs he's
Speaker 6: creating with manufacturing, Infrastructure Bill and the Chips Bill, and
Speaker 6: tell us compelling story and contrast that with Trump's you know,
Speaker 6: economic RECERD, which is basically a big tach cut for
Speaker 6: big corporations. So that's how he's going to be come populous. Look,
Speaker 6: I mean Barack Obama wasn't a populist, sounded like a
Speaker 6: populist when he ran for re election at twenty twelve
Speaker 6: because we're against Mitt Romney was a plutocrat and it
Speaker 6: was the effective strategy. So I think the Biden folks
Speaker 6: and Biden will are coming around to that. But but
Speaker 6: also Biden, look, he can't he's Scranton Joe. I mean,
Speaker 6: he does have these working class roots, so he does
Speaker 6: have the ability to connect with working class people, and
Speaker 6: he just has to channel that as best.
Speaker 5: He can't in his own voice.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing.
Speaker 6: He can't get up there and sound like Bernie because
Speaker 6: then everyone's know it's not that's not who Joe Biden is,
Speaker 6: but in his own way as Scranton Joe, and through
Speaker 6: policy accomplishments and highlighting Trump's true economic record, which is
Speaker 6: massive task us for big corporations of the wealthy, and
Speaker 6: while Joe Biden's trying to bring jobs back from China,
Speaker 6: manufacturing jobs and high tech jobs. Heldough a compelling story
Speaker 6: to tell, but it's just going to take a while
Speaker 6: to tell it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Ben, Really interesting sure.
Speaker 5: Thing and a moment.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, Molly job fast. Those Republicans are in disarray,
Speaker 1: and I think it's always funny because we often make
Speaker 1: a joke about that.
Speaker 5: But what else do you call this?
Speaker 1: They can't get the rules vote passed, and the rules
Speaker 1: vote is like a very standard you know, like what
Speaker 1: kind of paper shall we write this on? Since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, the House has failed to pass rules eight times,
Speaker 1: all under GOP control. McCarthy has failed three times in
Speaker 1: the last eight months, including twice this week. Con Gradations,
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy, you are our moment of Ourckeray. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.