Speaker 1: Welcome back, SNAFU listeners. We're back to discuss a dicey subject,
Speaker 1: a far right coup, an attempt to overthrow the democratically
Speaker 1: elected government of the United States of America. Because you'll
Speaker 1: never dee our country with weakness. You have to show
Speaker 1: strength when you have to be strowing.
Speaker 2: We all know.
Speaker 1: Nope, not that one.
Speaker 3: In the United States District Court Washington DC.
Speaker 1: Chief Justice Edward C. Iiker. Besides, at the trial of
Speaker 1: thirty elled seditionists. Here we go. That's the one that's right,
Speaker 1: my friends. Back in nineteen forty four, the Nazis tried
Speaker 1: to overthrow the US government with the help of some
Speaker 1: US congressmen know less. I'm talking about the Great Sedition
Speaker 1: Trial of nineteen forty four, which is the subject of
Speaker 1: a history podcast hosted by Rachel Maddow called Ultra. Now.
Speaker 1: Ultra and Snaffo have a lot in common. Both podcasts
Speaker 1: are deep dives into important moments in American history which
Speaker 1: are largely forgotten, and yet they feel oddly prescient to
Speaker 1: our world today. So naturally I wanted to sit down
Speaker 1: and talk with Ultra's creator. So today I'm coming into
Speaker 1: your feed with a treat. My conversation with Rachel Maddow
Speaker 1: about Ultra and Snaffo. We talk about these two extraordinary stories,
Speaker 1: forgotten history in general, the roots of authoritarianism, and how
Speaker 1: it all weaves into current events. Rachel is well known
Speaker 1: for being a rigorous on air journalist, author, and podcaster.
Speaker 1: She's curious, a deep thinker, profoundly insightful, and pretty damn funny,
Speaker 1: all of which makes her a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: of fun to talk to. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot, and I think you will too.
Speaker 1: So here it is my chat with Rachel Matdow. Hello.
Speaker 3: Hi, It's Rachel Meadow.
Speaker 1: Rachel Maddow. It's so cool to meet you. This is awesome.
Speaker 3: Nice to meet you too. It's great. This is very exciting.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I agree, Thanks so much for jumping into our
Speaker 1: SNAPU universe. So what's happening? Where are you?
Speaker 2: I'm in rural dirt road, western Massachusetts road.
Speaker 1: I don't know that.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the ambient vibe where I have. We're
Speaker 2: really out in the middle of nowhere. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: What are you hiding from, Rachel? What's going on?
Speaker 3: Humans?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, that's fair. Are you in a bunker?
Speaker 2: What's weird? Actually, and this is true. The cottage that
Speaker 2: I'm in right now, this little house in which we
Speaker 2: built this studio, audio studios and stuff so I can
Speaker 2: do my TV show from here, has a legit nuclear
Speaker 2: bomb shelter in the basement, like.
Speaker 1: Because you built it or because it was already there.
Speaker 3: No, it was there.
Speaker 2: It was built by whoever had this house in the fifties.
Speaker 2: And it's got concrete like this and triple rebar. And
Speaker 2: when we came in to like flatten out the floor
Speaker 2: and make everything normal, the contractor was like, we have
Speaker 2: to leave the basement.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you something. I'm not like a crazy
Speaker 1: prepper kind of doomsday person, but like I would like
Speaker 1: to have a bunker.
Speaker 3: It just seems like a nice option.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well this is fun. I would love
Speaker 1: to go deeper into apocalypse preparation, but we have some
Speaker 1: really fun stuff to talk about. First of all, your
Speaker 1: podcast Ultra was the number one podcast on Apple for
Speaker 1: what like five weeks, a bunch of weeks.
Speaker 2: A bunch of weeks it was number one, and then
Speaker 2: it was less than number one, and then it was
Speaker 2: back up to number one again.
Speaker 3: So It was really a surprise and very exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and very well deserved. I listened to it twice.
Speaker 1: I just had it was so fun. I listened to
Speaker 1: it all the way through and then I was like,
Speaker 1: I got to hear that again, but I don't have
Speaker 1: as much time, so I listened to it at like
Speaker 1: one point eight speed. And it's funny when you listen
Speaker 1: to something sped up like that, everyone sounds unbelievably intelligent.
Speaker 2: I had the opposite problem, which is that my doctor,
Speaker 2: who is you know, my doctor, like kind of my friend.
Speaker 3: But my doctor.
Speaker 2: Texted me all concerned that there was something wrong with
Speaker 2: me because he had listened to Ultra and he was like,
Speaker 2: you really, I know you've had issues with depression and
Speaker 2: stuff in the past, and you really turns out he
Speaker 2: was listening to it on zero point seventy five.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: He thought I was really down.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: He thought he had special medical insights into what was
Speaker 2: going on with this podcast.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Great Ultra. It is an extraordinary story. It
Speaker 1: is extremely well told. It's incredibly engaging and really really fun.
Speaker 1: And I would love to just for our SNAFU listeners
Speaker 1: if you haven't heard, Ultra. Can you break it down,
Speaker 1: just like, what's the basic story.
Speaker 2: The basic story is, in the lead up to World
Speaker 2: War Two, there was a really really big Nazi and
Speaker 2: I mean that specifically. I don't mean like Nazis, I
Speaker 2: mean we're the Nazis, big Nazi effort to try to
Speaker 2: exploit what the Germans called kernels of disturbance in the
Speaker 2: United States, and so they were trying to propagandize us
Speaker 2: really heavily. They supported a bunch of American native fascist
Speaker 2: movements that were way scarier than we remember them in history,
Speaker 2: and they paid a bunch of members of Congress and
Speaker 2: senators to be on their side for this effort. And
Speaker 2: it all sort of culminated in the Great Sedition Trial
Speaker 2: of nineteen forty four, when nearly thirty of the folks
Speaker 2: who were involved with the Nazis in these various plots
Speaker 2: got put on trial and they got off.
Speaker 3: There was a mistrial, and they were all let go.
Speaker 1: It's so profound, this story, it is so intense, and
Speaker 1: it's totally mind blowing. In your description just now, you
Speaker 1: said the trial was the Great Sedition Trial of what
Speaker 1: nineteen forty four forty four, that implies that this was
Speaker 1: like a landmark event that we all know and understand.
Speaker 1: What's so incredible about this story to me, among there's
Speaker 1: lots of things incredible about it, but one of the
Speaker 1: most incredible things is how forgotten it is. And it's
Speaker 1: something that I think our podcasts share, which is the
Speaker 1: sort of forgotten history stories that are that are insanely important.
Speaker 1: And one of the historians in your podcast actually says
Speaker 1: at one point, I'm a PhD in history, and most
Speaker 1: of my colleagues who are PhDs in history have never
Speaker 1: heard of this, and so then, of course the general
Speaker 1: public has no idea, and I wonder why is it forgotten?
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, I was thinking about the parallels
Speaker 2: with that and with Able Archer with what you cover
Speaker 2: in SNAFFU, and I think there there is something that's
Speaker 2: like important for us to reflect on as people who
Speaker 2: tell stories and who are interested in history, which is
Speaker 2: that sometimes the reason something is forgotten is because of
Speaker 2: who won and who lost.
Speaker 1: Right Like, of course, the good history is told the winners.
Speaker 2: History is told by the winners, and sometimes what the
Speaker 2: winners most want is for us to forget that the
Speaker 2: thing happened and that's definitely. I feel like that's a
Speaker 2: little bit of the story that you unfold in in Snaffu,
Speaker 2: Like with the the doing its assessment of what happened
Speaker 2: with Abel Archer and whether it was a close call,
Speaker 2: They're like, no, no, no, it was fine.
Speaker 3: It was no big deal.
Speaker 2: And that's part of the history that you uncover and
Speaker 2: that you tell in the story. But it's also important
Speaker 2: that the CIA wants it to be minimized, wants it
Speaker 2: not to be remembered as a significant thing. And a
Speaker 2: sort of different version of that happens in my story
Speaker 2: where the good news, ending to the extent that there
Speaker 2: is one, is that all of the elected officials who
Speaker 2: were part of this plot, who are the real bad
Speaker 2: guys here, the public knew enough, they found out enough
Speaker 2: about what those guys were up to that they voted
Speaker 2: them all out of office, like one of them got
Speaker 2: voted out of office. And so even though a lot
Speaker 2: of them were household names, really influential members of the
Speaker 2: House in the Senate at the time, once they got
Speaker 2: turfed out by voters who were disgusted by their behavior,
Speaker 2: they went from being big deals to being losers.
Speaker 3: And the losers get forgotten, and.
Speaker 2: So part of the history that we have to contend
Speaker 2: with is how much are the players here minimized in history,
Speaker 2: either because it's convenient for somebody or because the good
Speaker 2: guys won, And how much does that affect whether this
Speaker 2: story is easy to find or easy to be told.
Speaker 2: So I just I find that dynamic interesting because you
Speaker 2: have to put yourself then in the story. In terms
Speaker 2: of how hard it is for you to find these things.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a little bit of a scary reality when
Speaker 1: you think the forgotten stories of history are very often
Speaker 1: some of the most important because the reason that they're
Speaker 1: forgotten is that they were either painful or embarrassing or
Speaker 1: extremely problematic. And yet those are the things that we
Speaker 1: do have the potential to learn the most from.
Speaker 2: And the other circumstances in which that happens is because
Speaker 2: it was a really scary thing and some Americans or
Speaker 2: some characters in the story rose up and did the
Speaker 2: right thing and neutralized the danger right here, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But that's also those heroes. We also need to learn
Speaker 2: that story. So it's it can't it can be like
Speaker 2: a deliberate shunt this away. Let's not think about it,
Speaker 2: But it can also be a like who close call,
Speaker 2: let's forget about it?
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, yeah, okay, so how the hell did
Speaker 1: you find it? Like with SNAFU, we just we knew
Speaker 1: we wanted to do a podcast, and we wanted to
Speaker 1: do something kind of history and irreverent, and we set
Speaker 1: about looking for the thing. Did you know you wanted
Speaker 1: to do a podcast and look for something exciting and
Speaker 1: meaningful or did you just dig up this story or
Speaker 1: stumble on it and then say this has to be told?
Speaker 2: So I was I sort of feel like the all
Speaker 2: the best stories that I've ever been involved in telling
Speaker 2: come out of ignorance, like, come out of legitimate curiosity,
Speaker 2: like I don't understand where this came from, or this
Speaker 2: thing that everybody thinks makes sense to them doesn't make
Speaker 2: sense to me. And I was going through that sort
Speaker 2: of train of thought just as part of my news
Speaker 2: you know, my day job at MSNBC, thinking about Holocaust denial.
Speaker 2: So we're having this big upsurge in anti Semitism and
Speaker 2: kind of anti semitism wedded to political power, which is
Speaker 2: a very dangerous thing. And at the core of all
Speaker 2: of it is this sort of burbling thing where people
Speaker 2: say the Holocaust didn't happen. And I've always felt like
Speaker 2: it's not obvious to me how that can exist. Intellectually, sure,
Speaker 2: like it's one thing to be prejudiced, it's another thing
Speaker 2: to say this obvious thing and history of which we
Speaker 2: have all this proof, I choose to.
Speaker 3: Contend that it didn't happen.
Speaker 2: And so I was interested in where that came from,
Speaker 2: and particularly where it came from in the first instance,
Speaker 2: like how early on did people start denying it?
Speaker 3: And what I.
Speaker 2: Found, to my surprise, is that Holocaust denile really came
Speaker 2: from the United States. It didn't come from Germany, and
Speaker 2: it happened really early on. It happened in the forties.
Speaker 1: Wow, which is.
Speaker 2: Nuts, because there's all these American Gish and refugees from Europe,
Speaker 2: including refugees from Germany coming here, who are eyewitnesses, who
Speaker 2: are survivors who had family members killed or who were
Speaker 2: liberating the concentration camps. I mean, so all this irrefutable evidence,
Speaker 2: and yet this thing emerges in the late forties in
Speaker 2: the United States and then starts pinging around the world.
Speaker 2: Where we're going to say that didn't happen? So interested
Speaker 2: in where the hell did that come from and why
Speaker 2: and who were the characters who dreven this up knowing
Speaker 2: that it was false but concocting it for a political reason.
Speaker 2: And in trying to figure that out, which is a
Speaker 2: story I'm still going to tell, but I haven't gotten
Speaker 2: there yet, I realized that actually those folks came out
Speaker 2: of this milia during World War two in the United
Speaker 2: States that we've forgotten about, and they all went on
Speaker 2: trial and oh my god, the judge died in the
Speaker 2: middle of the trial and they were all set free,
Speaker 2: and then what happened to them is so it ended
Speaker 2: up being kind of the prequel to the story that
Speaker 2: I wanted to tell, but I realized there was enough
Speaker 2: there that I should probably tell it.
Speaker 1: That's that is fascinating. I feel like that's of how
Speaker 1: some of the best stories do come about.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you a Snafu question about that, Liz? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought the thing that I most admired about the
Speaker 2: storytelling in Snaffhu was your sort of fearlessness about casting
Speaker 2: doubt on the story. So obviously there's I mean, for
Speaker 2: everybody's listened to it, like, there's lots of twists and
Speaker 2: lots of you know, backing up and reconsidering stuff that's
Speaker 2: earlier been presented. And I wondered, when you constructed the
Speaker 2: story and when you decided to do it, did you
Speaker 2: know about the doubt and uncertainty and sort of woliness
Speaker 2: of the bottom line of that story when you started,
Speaker 2: or did you think it was a more certain story
Speaker 2: when you started and you only got to that you know,
Speaker 2: more mature, complex bottom line once you were into it
Speaker 2: in the middle of the research.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the latter. Like everything you read about
Speaker 1: Able Archer in the sort of to the extent that
Speaker 1: it's in the zeitgeist, just little blips and blurbs. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a very cut and dry thing, but like anything,
Speaker 1: the more you dig, the more nuanced it becomes. And
Speaker 1: then it became for us as storytellers just feeling a
Speaker 1: kind of responsibility to reflect that nuance and the complexity.
Speaker 1: You know, even some even historians, have some different perspectives
Speaker 1: on it that are very meaningful. I don't know. We
Speaker 1: really wanted to lean into the integrity of it, and
Speaker 1: that made it a little bit messier of a story,
Speaker 1: but ultimately the messiness kind of gave rise to some
Speaker 1: really exciting questions and kind of pontifications, and that's really
Speaker 1: where we wound up, kind of putting the focus in
Speaker 1: that last episode.
Speaker 2: Well, it makes it more profound and more real. It
Speaker 2: also makes it more of a contribution to the history
Speaker 2: of it. Right to have all the interviews that you
Speaker 2: do and to have an honest reflection of the real
Speaker 2: you know, the legitimate contention with the various facts and
Speaker 2: the various perspectives on it. It's a it's a real
Speaker 2: work of history with all the jokes included. But also
Speaker 2: it does get you to a more profound place in
Speaker 2: terms of getting I think, encouraging critical thinking about seemingly cut.
Speaker 3: And dry episodes.
Speaker 2: I just thought that was really, like I said, mature
Speaker 2: and complex and cool.
Speaker 1: Go on.
Speaker 3: Also, you guys, you're just so handsome, and it was.
Speaker 1: No, that's I'm literally like getting chills. That means so
Speaker 1: much to hear from you, Rachel. I really really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we really put a ton of work into it,
Speaker 1: and so that means a lot.
Speaker 2: I think you had it harder than I did, because
Speaker 2: in my case, the Great Sedition Trial of nineteen forty
Speaker 2: four is forgotten. The only histories of it have been
Speaker 2: written by people who simple thized with the fascist defendants,
Speaker 2: and so all the histories of it have all been
Speaker 2: about how they were railroaded, and it was terrible that
Speaker 2: these people were put on trial, and how ridiculous this
Speaker 2: contention that the Nazis were working with any Americans? Do
Speaker 2: you believe how prejudiced the Department of Justice is against
Speaker 2: good American conservatives? And so all the history, all the
Speaker 2: history of it was really biased and all in the
Speaker 2: same direction. And nobody had ever revisited that history looking
Speaker 2: at it from a more balanced perspective, And so I
Speaker 2: didn't have to I didn't have to contend with sort
Speaker 2: of you know, great nuanced, honest broker perspectives on both sides.
Speaker 3: There was just a bunch of clap trap about it.
Speaker 2: And nobody had ever done a broader, less I think,
Speaker 2: in my from my perspective, less biased look at the evidence.
Speaker 1: Wasn't I thought Roggy wrote a book. But were you
Speaker 1: able to dig that up? Is that is that findable?
Speaker 2: Ish?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean, if you want to get a copy of it,
Speaker 2: I can maybe give you a deal. I think I
Speaker 2: own all the copies of it. It never had like
Speaker 2: a second printing. It never went anywhere.
Speaker 1: So sorry to tell us who Roggy is, because I
Speaker 1: just brought him up out of the blue.
Speaker 2: So Roggy is O John Roggy, who is a German American.
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, he grows up in the United States, son
Speaker 2: of German immigrants, speaking German at home, and he's this
Speaker 2: wonderkin's lawyer and prosecutor and Justice Department official, and he
Speaker 2: ends up being the crusading prosecutor who tries to bring
Speaker 2: the sedition trial home, who tries to finish it, who
Speaker 2: fights against the mistrial. And the great twist in my
Speaker 2: story in Ultra is when as the trial's falling apart,
Speaker 2: Raggy gets leave to go to Germany and he gets
Speaker 2: to try to prove his contention that these weren't just
Speaker 2: conservative Americans who had their own anti Semitic fascist ideas
Speaker 2: that were actually working with the Nazi government. They're being
Speaker 2: paid by the Germans in many instances. He gets to
Speaker 2: prove that from the German side, and he interviews all
Speaker 2: these Nazi prisoners and they in fact give him all
Speaker 2: the dirt on all the Americans they were working with,
Speaker 2: and so he's able to prove the collusion, if you will,
Speaker 2: from the other side, and by the time he brings
Speaker 2: those findings home to the United States, we have won
Speaker 2: the war. Everybody wants to move on. Roggy has become
Speaker 2: a political figure in a way that he is very
Speaker 2: much demonized by one side and then ultimately by the
Speaker 2: other side, and nobody really wants to hear it. And
Speaker 2: so he does create this really valuable historical record. But
Speaker 2: by the time it lands he finally gets it published,
Speaker 2: he has to fight with the Justice Tournament to get
Speaker 2: it declassified and all this stuff. By the time it
Speaker 2: finally lands in the public record, it's nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 2: and this is ancient history, and nobody buys the book,
Speaker 2: and nobody reviews it, and nobody stocks it in their archives,
Speaker 2: and it just disappears until you know, all these decades later,
Speaker 2: that story ends up being of interest to me because
Speaker 2: of its resonance with our current situation and it's and
Speaker 2: thank god he did it, because the records there, even
Speaker 2: though nobody cared about it in his lifetime and he
Speaker 2: died in obscurity.
Speaker 1: It just raises so many fascinating questions and issues. Okay,
Speaker 1: so anti semitism or racism in all its forms, these
Speaker 1: are things that most people agree are bad, right, bad
Speaker 1: and gone. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. They also seem embedded
Speaker 1: in most modern emergencies of fascism.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know, throughout history, totalitarianism pops up in many different
Speaker 1: forms all over the political spectrum, but fascism, and I
Speaker 1: ask this not as any kind of indictment of conservatism,
Speaker 1: but fascism in particular, seems to bubble up from the right.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I do think that there's you know,
Speaker 2: there's different types of authoritarianism, right, and there's definitely you know,
Speaker 2: left wing authoritarianism as well, and the when you're talking
Speaker 2: about you know, tyrannical forms of government, right wing authoritarianism, which.
Speaker 3: In some instances is fascism.
Speaker 2: Not always, but sometimes this is fascism ends up having
Speaker 2: a recurrent appeal in our country and in other Western democracies.
Speaker 2: I think because people don't like democracy. I mean, the
Speaker 2: basic idea of democracy is that everybody gets a say.
Speaker 2: And if you think that you and people like you
Speaker 2: should get a say but other people shouldn't, that's a
Speaker 2: that's an instinct that people have. And there can be
Speaker 2: left wing authoritarianism, which is a different drive and comes
Speaker 2: from a different place and leads to murder, leads to
Speaker 2: mass murder in general as well.
Speaker 3: Just as much mayhem.
Speaker 2: But on the right, the way it works is me
Speaker 2: and my people were the only people who should count
Speaker 2: as citizens. The other people who are technically you're telling
Speaker 2: me how to be part of this democracy are lesser
Speaker 2: than or evil or their interlopers, and we not only
Speaker 2: need to exclude them from the decision making process, but
Speaker 2: we need to blame them for all the things that
Speaker 2: are going wrong here, and we need to exclude them
Speaker 2: from the decision making process and punish them for all
Speaker 2: the terrible things they've done.
Speaker 3: Because if it was just us in charge, everything would
Speaker 3: be fine.
Speaker 2: And that's the basic idea, and that's why authoritarianism on
Speaker 2: the right almost always.
Speaker 3: Comes with antisemitism.
Speaker 2: It's either going to be anti semitism or it's going
Speaker 2: to be some other thing that looks like anti semitism
Speaker 2: that is directed towards some other minority, because you need
Speaker 2: some out group to define as the source of all
Speaker 2: the problems, because you, the in group, are perfect, and
Speaker 2: if you were just given full control, everything would be fine.
Speaker 2: And it's just it's dumb, and it's simple and it's
Speaker 2: recurrent and.
Speaker 1: Well, humans, we're dumb. Us are dumb, we do dumb things.
Speaker 2: And we don't remember what the old dumb things were.
Speaker 2: So the new dumb things come around and we're like,
Speaker 2: whoa wait, you're telling me it's the Jews.
Speaker 1: You know. Shocker, there's that great Hegel quote. The only
Speaker 1: thing we've learned from history is that we learn nothing
Speaker 1: from history. And I wonder if you have any thoughts
Speaker 1: on how we can do better. It feels like in
Speaker 1: with modern technology, we should be able to be better
Speaker 1: at learning from from history, but maybe we're just not
Speaker 1: wired for it in our DNA.
Speaker 2: I think that you know, fart jokes helps, like you know,
Speaker 2: like when you know you did that whole riff on,
Speaker 2: like the Valentines, Like I have so many treasons that
Speaker 2: I love you, like Valentine's for Spies huh, and the
Speaker 2: well fake game show that you inserted into, like like
Speaker 2: the it's storytelling skill and up being the entertainment quotient
Speaker 2: in direct ratio with the complexity of the story that
Speaker 2: you're telling. That helps, Like, I don't know that that's
Speaker 2: technological innovation, but it's it's an evolution of our sort
Speaker 2: of ambition to make these stories understandable, memorable, repeatable, you know,
Speaker 2: both on TV and in this kind of podcast and
Speaker 2: book world that I'm into. I try to tell stories
Speaker 2: in such a way that they stick. And so even
Speaker 2: if you can't persuade somebody else to listen to Ultra,
Speaker 2: or you can't persuade somebody else to read my book
Speaker 2: about Spiro Agnew, if you listen to the podcast or
Speaker 2: if you read that book, you will have absorbed the
Speaker 2: story well in us that you can give somebody the
Speaker 2: gist of it and pass on. And that's what you're
Speaker 2: doing in SNAFU. That's the whole idea of doing real
Speaker 2: history that's rigorous and honest and intellectually engaged with the
Speaker 2: ambiguities and all those things. But it's also fun and
Speaker 2: is also not homework. It's just it's something that's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: And I think that's you know, if you've got those skills,
Speaker 2: that's a that's a mitzvah, that's a service to humanity
Speaker 2: into our country to use them that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to give give people some some candy
Speaker 1: with the vegetables, right, you gotta.
Speaker 2: Do you got to do your Nancy astrologer stuff. It
Speaker 2: turns out to be important.
Speaker 1: It is. It's crazy how important astrology was in the
Speaker 1: Reagan administration. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy.
Speaker 2: Growing up in the eighties in San Francisco, I have
Speaker 2: to tell you the fact that Nancy's astrologer was in
Speaker 2: San Francisco, I remember being like kind of proud.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that's funny.
Speaker 2: This idea, like the rasputant pulling the strings in the
Speaker 2: Reagan white House might be this lady in knob Hill.
Speaker 3: It's actually like a source of regional pride for me.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great. I think the thing that I feel
Speaker 1: like is missing is And maybe this is a maybe, Rachel,
Speaker 1: maybe this is a book pitch for us. Maybe we
Speaker 1: do a book together, and it's basically like the lessons
Speaker 1: of history. These are the lessons, and then here are
Speaker 1: the events that teach us those lessons. So you can
Speaker 1: no longer say like, well, I don't know how to
Speaker 1: interpret that, or I don't know what to learn from that,
Speaker 1: Like we need a compendium of the lessons.
Speaker 2: Lesson seventeen, Stop blaming the juice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, here's what that's one, right, Here's why this
Speaker 1: is a book. We need to write have a phone.
Speaker 2: That connects between Washington and Moscow.
Speaker 1: That you have that phone, Yeah, and you and use
Speaker 1: it occasionally.
Speaker 3: But I think that.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to me that there really is a lot
Speaker 2: of interest in documentary and history stuff. That's a surprise
Speaker 2: to me, Like seeing like how popular documentaries are on Netflix.
Speaker 2: When Netflix offers you in with literally equal effort, like
Speaker 2: clicking on one side of the screen versus the other,
Speaker 2: you can watch anything. So many people opt for documentaries.
Speaker 2: There there's something there isn't There's a rational and constructive
Speaker 2: human hunger to learn stuff. And that's that to me
Speaker 2: is very heartening. You know, I feel like that's room
Speaker 2: to run.
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree with that, and I actually I
Speaker 1: think the success of your podcast to me was very
Speaker 1: reassuring just the you know, I think the lessons baked
Speaker 1: into your podcast are so important and meaningful and prescient,
Speaker 1: and I loved I was just so thrilled that that
Speaker 1: so many people were we're getting.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Both of these stories able archer or or Snaffo, i
Speaker 1: should say, and ultra our podcasts. And you have an
Speaker 1: incredible career as a broadcaster, legendary broadcaster for many many years.
Speaker 1: How how is this kind of segue back into audio gone,
Speaker 1: And how did it affect how you consider telling this story.
Speaker 2: It's a good question because definitely sort of falling in
Speaker 2: love with the story and doing the research and realizing
Speaker 2: like kind of where it was going and what the
Speaker 2: bottom line of it was going to be and everything,
Speaker 2: it was definitely an open question as to how to
Speaker 2: produce it, like make I could. I know that I
Speaker 2: could write a book about it, because I'm almost done
Speaker 2: with the book about it now, or I could try
Speaker 2: to produce it for TV, or try to make it
Speaker 2: into a movie or do some other thing. And ultimately
Speaker 2: I decided to do it as a podcast because I'm
Speaker 2: kind of just in love with audio. I think that
Speaker 2: my background in radio was I don't know if that
Speaker 2: if it stamped a love for audio on me, or
Speaker 2: if I was just wired that way anyway. But when
Speaker 2: I even when I when I do TV shows and
Speaker 2: stuff like, I don't really think about what stuff looks like.
Speaker 2: I think of the visual presentation of whatever's going on.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of decoration for the words. And when
Speaker 2: you do audio, there's this I don't know, level of.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say, like.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be too sappy about it, but
Speaker 2: there's a sort of level of intensity, like you're kind
Speaker 2: of speaking into somebody's ear rather than sitting in front
Speaker 2: of them talking, and it's it's it's can be intense,
Speaker 2: and it's also unforgiving. I think you have to be
Speaker 2: more precise in an audio environment and than you do
Speaker 2: when you have the help of visuals to distract people.
Speaker 2: So I find it to be more challenging and more rewarding.
Speaker 2: It's also kind of more more the way that I
Speaker 2: like to absorb information. I don't like to watch stuff
Speaker 2: as much as I like to listen to it.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, I'm I feel similarly, I found myself just
Speaker 1: devouring podcasts and audio books in a way that I
Speaker 1: never really consumed television. I mean I watched TV, of course,
Speaker 1: but I never I was never like a, you know,
Speaker 1: addicted to shows or anything. And I but then podcasts
Speaker 1: would just suck me in and I realized, like, this
Speaker 1: is this incredibly powerful vehicle, and and the way that
Speaker 1: we work with a microphone it's incredibly intimate, and I
Speaker 1: love that.
Speaker 2: I think it's like, oh god, I'm pregnant, I'm very powerful.
Speaker 1: My voice is very powerful. No, But I feel when
Speaker 1: I watch a documentary, especially something historical, a lot of
Speaker 1: times you can feel the sweatiness of the visuals there.
Speaker 1: They clearly had to dig for something to put here,
Speaker 1: Like okay, we're panning over photographs. Here, we're you know,
Speaker 1: we've got some weird visual metaphor happening, or we're looking
Speaker 1: at uh, like reenactment footage. Sometimes it just feels like, okay,
Speaker 1: we get it, Like you had to put something there
Speaker 1: and you didn't have something. But with audio, there's you
Speaker 1: don't there's no cheating, you just it's all. It's all there.
Speaker 2: It's all speaking right into the person ear, which is
Speaker 2: inside their head, which is right next to their brain.
Speaker 1: It's like a laser.
Speaker 2: And I found that in an interesting way when we
Speaker 2: put out the first couple episodes of Ultra, we didn't
Speaker 2: make up any of the sound. All the sound that
Speaker 2: we used was was real tape. But a lot of
Speaker 2: people thought that we had faked the news broadcasts, that
Speaker 2: we had found actors who were going to speak in
Speaker 2: weird old trans Atlantic accent.
Speaker 1: It is hard to believe that broadcasters spoke in this
Speaker 1: heightened tone like that. Yeah, it's it's kind of wild,
Speaker 1: but they really.
Speaker 2: Told ourselves that old timey news was all very objective
Speaker 2: and stayed and there wasn't any opinion or emotion in it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because they really did talk like this and then threw
Speaker 2: all sorts of shade and their side and they were,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: And lots of asides and lots of opinion, and that's
Speaker 3: what it sounded like.
Speaker 1: Well, so tell us what's happening next with Ultra because
Speaker 1: there's a very exciting sort of next step.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is I kind of can't believe it.
Speaker 2: But Steven Spielberg optioned Ultra to make a movie out
Speaker 2: of it, and so he's this you know, he's an
Speaker 2: up and comer, is the one that sort of one
Speaker 2: to watch.
Speaker 1: First of all, huge congratulations, and it's a no brainer.
Speaker 1: This makes perfect sense. The story is so riveting.
Speaker 3: I hope that that is true.
Speaker 2: I mean what I am learning is as I am
Speaker 2: sort of tiptoeing into this side of the world where
Speaker 2: I have never been before, is that a movie is
Speaker 2: going to be made?
Speaker 1: Is you know, yeah, we're going to ruin it with visuals.
Speaker 3: Well no, but like is a movie going to be made?
Speaker 2: Like until someone is buying a ticket, receiving their change,
Speaker 2: and walking into a dark room where a projector is running.
Speaker 2: I don't believe the movie exists, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: there's a lot that goes in between optioning a movie
Speaker 2: and then it actually coming into the world, and.
Speaker 3: So I believe that it's going to be a movie.
Speaker 3: But we'll see. I know, I'm you know, I did this.
Speaker 2: My previous podcast was called Bagman, was about Spiro Agnew
Speaker 2: and that's also in the movie making process. That's going
Speaker 2: to be a focus features film. But it just takes
Speaker 2: a long time, and there's all sorts of things that happen.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm used to a daily production cable
Speaker 2: news world, where you think of something in the morning
Speaker 2: and it's on TV at night and then you have
Speaker 2: to stop thinking about it because you got to do
Speaker 2: something else the next day.
Speaker 1: And that's how we make movies. Rachel No, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, there's a whole rigamarole, and you're very wise
Speaker 1: to kind of hold off on on the excitement of
Speaker 1: having a movie until you're walking in the door. But
Speaker 1: just having a movie optioned by someone like Spielberg is
Speaker 1: so thrilling or focused features for the Agnews story. Those
Speaker 1: are just such credible storytellers and you can sort of
Speaker 1: feel confident that they'll be these stories will be handled
Speaker 1: very well. I feel like this would be such a
Speaker 1: cool movie.
Speaker 2: Both of them feel like movies to me too, Like
Speaker 2: I like, you know, I watch as much you know,
Speaker 2: streaming television and miniseries and all that stuff as anybody else.
Speaker 2: But I do feel like both of these stories like
Speaker 2: seem like, you know, sit down for two hours and
Speaker 2: watch a single arc in the movie theater like its
Speaker 2: just and I would. I'd just love for it to
Speaker 2: work in both cases.
Speaker 1: So I think I should play Oh, John Rocky, Okay,
Speaker 1: you think I should be Roggy in this movie?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I mean that just skills obvious, obvious obvious. Okay. So
Speaker 1: both of our podcasts have a lot of present day
Speaker 1: relevance and impressions, and yours, I think is is really
Speaker 1: really intensely relevant to right now. So in what at
Speaker 1: what stage in your process did the events of January
Speaker 1: sixth happen? Was that? Were you already working on this podcast?
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't working on the Sedition trial by that point.
Speaker 3: What was weird is that the.
Speaker 2: Resonance stuff like I felt like I got a little
Speaker 2: kick in the teeth from the universe because when the
Speaker 2: first episode of Ultra was posted, when we published was
Speaker 2: the day that the Oathkeeper's sedition trial started, so.
Speaker 3: That was that was weird.
Speaker 2: And then it was eight episodes and by the time
Speaker 2: we got to episode eight was when we were waiting
Speaker 2: for the verdict. So it was really just that was uncanny.
Speaker 2: I just felt like that was a that was a
Speaker 2: little that was unsettling almost, But you know it also
Speaker 2: I feel like you do in trying to pick the
Speaker 2: right story to tell, you have to believe in the
Speaker 2: story on its own terms, sort of regardless of the resonance. Like, yes,
Speaker 2: there is going to be resonance, and there are lessons
Speaker 2: to be learned and things to be gleaned from the
Speaker 2: past that could help us in our current contention. But
Speaker 2: I don't feel like you can you can't let that
Speaker 2: drive you know, that has to a little bit of
Speaker 2: that is just going to be stuff that you can't
Speaker 2: see along the way, I was thinking about it with
Speaker 2: Able Archer and Snafu with the before the Korean airliner
Speaker 2: was shot down, you highlight how the Russians were essentially
Speaker 2: paying were giving bounties to their own side for people
Speaker 2: who were spotting radar incursions on the radar, and so
Speaker 2: you were essentially saying, like, that's bad news in terms
Speaker 2: of what eventually happens with the civilian airliner being shot
Speaker 2: down after being misidentified as a military threat in Russian airspace. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, just within the past week, Russia just gave
Speaker 2: medals to the fighter pilots who dumped all that fuel
Speaker 2: on the US Reaper drone over the Black Sea.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the same.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure you weren't thinking about that when
Speaker 2: you didable Archer and suffer, But Russia is doing the
Speaker 2: same thing in monetarily and with military awards, rewarding people
Speaker 2: for doing incrediblyckless things that threaten conflict between the East
Speaker 2: and West.
Speaker 1: Sure. Well, one of the things that I think was
Speaker 1: really profound in Ultra was what this idea that emerged
Speaker 1: that there was no legal remedy for all of this
Speaker 1: horrible behavior. The legal remedies failed, there was a mistrial,
Speaker 1: and then the government basically just gave up on prosecuting
Speaker 1: these misdeeds and because they didn't want the headache, and
Speaker 1: so Roggy sort of makes the case in that Meet
Speaker 1: the Press interview that the remedy then must be just
Speaker 1: transparency and information, getting it out there, educating the public.
Speaker 1: That's all you can do. When this bad behavior can't
Speaker 1: be actually meaningfully reprimanded in some way, all you can
Speaker 1: do is expose it. And I think that's very powerful.
Speaker 1: It's also a little bit terrifying and disheartening, and I
Speaker 1: wonder if you feel like the January sixth trials have
Speaker 1: They've obviously gone a lot smoother than the Great Sedition trial,
Speaker 1: but is that evidence of progress? Do you think we're
Speaker 1: doing better?
Speaker 2: It's interesting because it really does. I think it cuts
Speaker 2: both ways. I think there is a case to be
Speaker 2: made by looking back at the fascist movements in this
Speaker 2: country that were supported by Nazi Germany, including an element
Speaker 2: of that that operated inside the Congress. There's ways to
Speaker 2: look back at that, all that story that I tell
Speaker 2: in Ultra and say, you know, some of these things
Speaker 2: were legit crimes and people should have gone to jail,
Speaker 2: and that like crimes were committed here and crimes should
Speaker 2: have been prosecuted as such, including by some members of Congress,
Speaker 2: where that escaped punishment. I think largely because they bullied
Speaker 2: the Justice Department into not coming out for them, and
Speaker 2: we're seeing a little bit of that happening. We're seeing
Speaker 2: some resonance with some of the stuff that's happening right
Speaker 2: now in our new cycle. But the other, the sort
Speaker 2: of good news side of what Roggy was preaching on
Speaker 2: Meet the Press that day is that, you know, the
Speaker 2: people need to know this information. The legal remedy isn't there.
Speaker 2: The legal remedy is that the legal solution has failed.
Speaker 2: The legal remedy cannot be used as are the sum
Speaker 2: total of our response here. What has to happen is
Speaker 2: that the people need to know. And obviously people knowing
Speaker 2: isn't an end in itself. That doesn't fix it. What
Speaker 2: he means, what goes unsaid, is that when the people know,
Speaker 2: they will act and if and you can trust Americans
Speaker 2: to defend our democracy and to stand up against tyranny
Speaker 2: and to reject authoritarianism and anti semitism and all the
Speaker 2: other things that go with it, but they need to
Speaker 2: know that it's happening. And so that one calls on
Speaker 2: all of us. Yeah, I mean, it calls on journalists,
Speaker 2: it calls on activists, it calls on everybody. Who can
Speaker 2: contribute to the public record, including you know, dorks making
Speaker 2: podcasts down the road. But hopefully it means that a
Speaker 2: well informed public will make righteous decisions.
Speaker 3: And I want to believe that I.
Speaker 1: Do too, And I think that's a good note to
Speaker 1: end on. Rachel, thank you so so very much for
Speaker 1: jumping in the booth here and having this chat with us.
Speaker 1: It's just really, really fun, and I wish you the
Speaker 1: best of luck with the movie adaptation.
Speaker 3: Thanks Ed, Thanks this has been super fun. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: SNAFU is a production of iHeartRadio, Film Nation Entertainment, and
Speaker 1: Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. It's
Speaker 1: executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo,
Speaker 1: Andy Chuck, and Whitney Donaldson. Our lead producers are Sarah
Speaker 1: Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Our producer is Carl Nellis, Associate
Speaker 1: producer Tory Smith. Our senior editor is Jeffrey Lewis via
Speaker 1: Canny as our production assistant. Our creative executive is Brett Harris.
Speaker 1: Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Alison Cohen and Matt Eisenstadt.