Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Brian larr is the best of New York City. When
Speaker 1: New Yorkers want a fair Mayorld debate, we call Brian.
Speaker 1: Let me jump in and Mr Mayor, if you have
Speaker 1: the right approach, why has your rezoning plan resulted in
Speaker 1: so much opposition in neighborhood after neighborhood where you're trying
Speaker 1: to w n YC needed someone to help us process
Speaker 1: our own me to moment. We called Brian. I've been
Speaker 1: shocked to find it in our own house. The pressure
Speaker 1: needs to be on us, guys. As I mentioned, and
Speaker 1: when Brian got the Peabody Award for Broadcast Excellence for
Speaker 1: his daily public affair show on w n y C,
Speaker 1: the jury put its finger on exactly what he represents
Speaker 1: real engagement, respectful dialogue and getting to the truth. Brian
Speaker 1: Lara on w n YC and Governor Culomos joins us
Speaker 1: now to talk about a few things. The grassroots group
Speaker 1: Make the Road released an anti Amazon statement. Do you
Speaker 1: think that's just petty politics? First two is Make the Road, Brian,
Speaker 1: do you want to characterize it? No? I don't know
Speaker 1: who they are you don't know at this point, as
Speaker 1: active as they have been in New York politics for
Speaker 1: this long. You don't know who make the road is?
Speaker 1: Should you know? Who make the road is? The very
Speaker 1: thing that makes Brian so good at his job makes
Speaker 1: him a tricky subject. It's not about him, which is
Speaker 1: exactly what New Yorkers have craved for over a generation.
Speaker 1: We are in our thirtieth year. This is the world
Speaker 1: has not ended, but nor has it improved all that month.
Speaker 1: How's the show changed? Well, the show changes depending on
Speaker 1: the state of the world. When we started in September,
Speaker 1: it was this incredibly optimistic moment. The fall of communism
Speaker 1: was taking place right at that moment. We started in
Speaker 1: late September nine. By six weeks into our run, the
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall had fallen and New York City had elected
Speaker 1: its first black mayor, and there was all this optimism
Speaker 1: at the local level and at the national and international level.
Speaker 1: Freedom was breaking out around the world, Democracy was breaking out.
Speaker 1: What a heady time. Well, let's jump ahead, oh thirty years.
Speaker 1: Optimism is just not in right now. But also you nine,
Speaker 1: you say, interesting, how New York contradicts the national trend.
Speaker 1: Maybe George the first becomes president in Dinkins becomes mayor
Speaker 1: in eighty nine, and so in New York. Sometimes not always,
Speaker 1: but sometimes interesting how they go contrary to the national trend.
Speaker 1: That right right, There are parallels too, though. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: when I think about the ninety nineties, it was the
Speaker 1: Clinton era and the Juliania in aberration in New York
Speaker 1: that a Republican in order candidate would be elected mayor.
Speaker 1: But New York is thriving in many ways. The economy
Speaker 1: is growing, crime is going down. Um. At the same time,
Speaker 1: the economy is growing and crime is going down nationally,
Speaker 1: and the Democrats are saying, look, we have a liberal
Speaker 1: in the White House and everything's getting better. And the
Speaker 1: Republicans are saying, look we have a conservative in city
Speaker 1: Hall and everything's getting better. So sometimes it's just the
Speaker 1: larger trends of history and whoever wants to latch onto
Speaker 1: it politically, you know, you're so measured, you're so careful,
Speaker 1: like what pisces you off without naming names and getting
Speaker 1: you know, stepping outside your role. Is Brian Larris sitting
Speaker 1: there in the bathroom with a bob of vaka in
Speaker 1: his hand, throwing a plate of haggandahs at the TV.
Speaker 1: There's plenty that pisces me off, and you can probably
Speaker 1: hear it on the show by the way I frame
Speaker 1: a question or by a monologue that I'll do introducing
Speaker 1: a segment. But at the same time, I want to
Speaker 1: invite everybody in. So sometimes people have said to me, oh,
Speaker 1: your show is the opposite of Rush Limbaugh. And it's
Speaker 1: not because he's conservative and on liberal. It's because he
Speaker 1: makes no secret about the show is about what he thinks.
Speaker 1: There's a joke I've heard him tell that this show
Speaker 1: isn't about what you think, it's about what I think.
Speaker 1: And he says it in this kind of jokey, pompous way,
Speaker 1: and it's a joke, but it's also true. And that's
Speaker 1: the commercial radio formula. This isn't just about Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 1: For me, I have opinions. I sometimes state my opinions,
Speaker 1: or I sometimes frame questions in a leading way that
Speaker 1: suggests an opinion. But the show is not about what
Speaker 1: I think. So if I'm expressing a point of view,
Speaker 1: which I'm allowed to do on the show, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a robot, and nobody wants me to be
Speaker 1: a robot. But If I do express an opinion, it's
Speaker 1: in the context of Okay, this is what I think. Now,
Speaker 1: everybody else who agrees or disagrees, come on in and
Speaker 1: let's have a meaningful conversation about it. That's how it's
Speaker 1: different from Rush Limbo or you can pick any liberal
Speaker 1: or conservative or opinionated host. Now, when you mentioned Limbo
Speaker 1: and the reporter asked you, I think it was in
Speaker 1: two thousands of sixteen you were talking to the observer.
Speaker 1: He asked, you know why left wing radio had failed?
Speaker 1: I think you said to him, but that failure was
Speaker 1: a mystery to you. It's still a mystery to me.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of liberal or progressive people in the country,
Speaker 1: though there are a smaller percentage than there are conservatives,
Speaker 1: by you know the surveys over the years. Um. But
Speaker 1: the way you're asking the question, UM, feels like you
Speaker 1: think you know the answer. So sometimes when people say
Speaker 1: they think they know the answer to that, it's sort
Speaker 1: of a corporate conspiracy. There's no company because it's not
Speaker 1: in the interest of corporate America to put liberal media
Speaker 1: out there. Um, Is that where you're going with it? No? No,
Speaker 1: I mean I wasn't. I don't think I had an answer. Uh,
Speaker 1: my thinking has always been that I've always felt and
Speaker 1: this is a pejorative, this is a judgment at the
Speaker 1: very least that the conservatives need their media predigested more
Speaker 1: than liberals do. I don't want to judge all conservatives
Speaker 1: are all Fox News viewers or the majority of them
Speaker 1: by saying conservatives need their opinions predigested for them, but
Speaker 1: I will say that it's been a problem for the
Speaker 1: Democrats relative to the Republicans in the political space. Where
Speaker 1: Republicans do digest very simply what there for? You know,
Speaker 1: wherefore family values, a strong enforcements, and free economy. Democrats
Speaker 1: struggle with it. Chuck Schumer wrote a book a number
Speaker 1: of years ago that I don't know the title of it,
Speaker 1: but one of his main themes was Democrats have to
Speaker 1: learn to say what therefore in seven words? And that
Speaker 1: was hen fifteen years ago. And I don't think Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer himself has figured out how to do that yet.
Speaker 1: And the Democrats as a party have not figured out
Speaker 1: how to do that yet. For whatever reason, they think
Speaker 1: more in terms of complexity and um, so it sometimes
Speaker 1: does not accrue to their benefit. Earlier, in your career.
Speaker 1: You had a TV show for ten years. I had
Speaker 1: a weekly public fairs TV show on the old w
Speaker 1: n y C TV when that existed, that was Channel
Speaker 1: thirty one. That's part of the history of w n
Speaker 1: y C. When it was owned by the city. There
Speaker 1: was the radio station and there was the television station.
Speaker 1: And when Rudy Giuliani became mayor and decided he was
Speaker 1: going to get the city out of the broadcast business
Speaker 1: because that wasn't a function for city government. Fair enough,
Speaker 1: but it was a threat to public broadcasting in New
Speaker 1: York City. Um, w n y C is not where
Speaker 1: on the radio dial public radio stations usually are. There's
Speaker 1: a nonprofit public radio zone below FM, and we have
Speaker 1: got this technically commercial frequency of point nine. So Giuliani
Speaker 1: considered selling all of w n y C into the
Speaker 1: commercial sector, and ultimately there were a lot of people
Speaker 1: who really valued w n y C Radio w n
Speaker 1: y C TV maybe not so much who ever heard
Speaker 1: of it, even though they were doing some good things,
Speaker 1: And that was sort of the deal that was struck.
Speaker 1: The city sole channel thirty one for I think two
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars, and that helped make it okay to
Speaker 1: let public radio sort of retain our license. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that was the l w N y C TV. Did
Speaker 1: you enjoy that? I do enjoy television, but they're really different.
Speaker 1: On television, you have to look at the camera, and
Speaker 1: you know, radio is sort of an open book test.
Speaker 1: People say, oh, you seem to know so much about
Speaker 1: the topics that you're talking about. Well, I have notes
Speaker 1: there in front of me for everything, and I refer
Speaker 1: to things, and you can cheat and you can look
Speaker 1: down and you don't have to make eye context. So
Speaker 1: that makes radio a little bit easier. But television is fun.
Speaker 1: It's nice to be seen, it's nice to be able
Speaker 1: to play with visuals. You know, they're very different media.
Speaker 1: What I liked about it was you can read the
Speaker 1: person's expressions in their faces and you and there's something
Speaker 1: to be said about that in an interview, how do
Speaker 1: they behave? The other thing about live radio as opposed
Speaker 1: to podcasts, people are constantly coming and going, so you
Speaker 1: have to reset right, this conversation has to make sense
Speaker 1: if you tune in at ten o'clock or if you
Speaker 1: tune in at ten oh eight. We have to constantly
Speaker 1: be thinking, okay, if this person tuned in to this
Speaker 1: half hour segment seventeen minutes through. We wanted to be
Speaker 1: able to make sense for them, but at the same
Speaker 1: time be able to progress for the people who have
Speaker 1: been there since the big inning. It's just sort of
Speaker 1: a whole other layer of presentational awareness that you don't
Speaker 1: have on television and they don't have on podcasts. That's
Speaker 1: one of the interesting thing about podcasts having come in
Speaker 1: and become such a dominant form in the world. A
Speaker 1: podcast is like a private space. You go into the podcast,
Speaker 1: you know you've chosen to subscribe and download, and you
Speaker 1: can start it and stop it. Um And in a
Speaker 1: way it's even more intimate than live radio because it's
Speaker 1: really just you and the podcast talking right in your ear.
Speaker 1: I think it also a podcast there's something about portion control.
Speaker 1: You know. Thank God for my producer, because you know,
Speaker 1: I would argue, I'd say, let's do the podcast like
Speaker 1: an hour and a half, and then they'll be like, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Podcasts are like the right size. I've been told that
Speaker 1: one popular podcast, I'm not going to call them out
Speaker 1: because I may have the story wrong. UM figured out
Speaker 1: exactly what the average length of a commute is in
Speaker 1: New York City and set their podcast for that length,
Speaker 1: So that's targeted. But look at old news Radio ten
Speaker 1: ten wins. You give us twenty two minutes, we'll give
Speaker 1: you the world. You know why, because the average length
Speaker 1: of listening is no more than twenty two minutes. They
Speaker 1: go through the whole cycle and they start over. So
Speaker 1: if we wanted to do the most commercial show we
Speaker 1: could possibly do in my format, we would take the
Speaker 1: lead story of the day and do it three times
Speaker 1: an hour and three times the next hour. For the
Speaker 1: two hour show, twenty minutes discussions about the one thing
Speaker 1: that people most want to talk about. Because for us
Speaker 1: to the average length of listening is probably about twenty
Speaker 1: minutes per person per listening day, even though for many
Speaker 1: people your shows on later in their day, they're out
Speaker 1: the door by then. I when I'm not working, I
Speaker 1: wake up, I take a shower, I have breakfast whatever
Speaker 1: with my kids. But ten o'clock is right and when
Speaker 1: I might maybe I'm going to shave and comb my hair.
Speaker 1: So for Brian Larra's research, people figure out how long
Speaker 1: does it take the average man to shave and style
Speaker 1: his hair? That's how long like a segment should be.
Speaker 1: And one of the nicest things anybody can say to
Speaker 1: me is you made me late for work. You have
Speaker 1: maybe laid for work. Believe it now. Um, when the
Speaker 1: TV show ends without your choice, could you have gone
Speaker 1: on you wanted to change? Yeah, I would have gone
Speaker 1: on at that time if if I could have. You
Speaker 1: were doing a radio show years ago, and I guess
Speaker 1: in the beginning of your careers, as in Albany Music Program.
Speaker 1: And I read that in the seventies you said I
Speaker 1: think I'll just open the phone lines. That true, Well,
Speaker 1: it was a little more complicated than that. Um. When
Speaker 1: I was coming up, my real goal was to be
Speaker 1: an FM rock DJ. They were some of my role models.
Speaker 1: Dennis Elsis be Dennis ELS's, Vin Scalca, Pete for a tell.
Speaker 1: And these people, this is when I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: were more than what we think of as DJs spin
Speaker 1: in the hits. They were kind of radio artists. They
Speaker 1: were playing an eclectic mix of music that you could
Speaker 1: play on the radio in those days on the FM
Speaker 1: rock stations when they were new. Musically speaking, yes, it
Speaker 1: was rooted in rock, but they played jazz, they played folk,
Speaker 1: they played bluegrass. I remember sitting on the beach one
Speaker 1: summer during college, listening to the old ny WFM, and
Speaker 1: there was I think a Rolling Stone song and the
Speaker 1: next thing that came on was Miles Davis during an
Speaker 1: electric track from his album Bitches Brew, and it blew
Speaker 1: my mind and I was like, what is this? And
Speaker 1: I've never heard anything like that before, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want more of this. Yeah. I said to people,
Speaker 1: I said, I wanna have my own show, and they said,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do with it? I want
Speaker 1: to do anything. I want to play old Cheech and
Speaker 1: Chong clips and then I'm gonna go from like uh
Speaker 1: Emerson Lake in Palmer to Rosemary Clooney like who Cares?
Speaker 1: So there was that part of the art to it.
Speaker 1: There was also the spoken word part of the art
Speaker 1: to it because these DJs or hosts were telling stories,
Speaker 1: they were sometimes reading poetry very much made an impression
Speaker 1: on me as a teenager that Roscoe, that particular DJ
Speaker 1: on the old ny WFM would sometimes read poetry, as
Speaker 1: I recall, and they would do political monologues, they would
Speaker 1: do social commentary in between playing rock records, and of
Speaker 1: course they would talking about music and in the context
Speaker 1: of the times, and I was like, I want to
Speaker 1: do that. Well. In college I did a lot of
Speaker 1: that on the camp's radio station at Albany State. I
Speaker 1: also did news. And after college I got my dream job.
Speaker 1: There was an FM rock station in Albany that was
Speaker 1: just starting out and they were hiring DJs, and I
Speaker 1: got um a job like that, and they said it's
Speaker 1: a six day a week job, so, okay, you have
Speaker 1: your after show. No no, no, I have graduate. They said,
Speaker 1: it's six day a week job, so you have your
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday show and you have to come in
Speaker 1: and pick a weekend shift. And because I was also
Speaker 1: interested in news and talk in the world, I said, well,
Speaker 1: can I come in late Sunday night and open the phones?
Speaker 1: And to my shock, they said yes, and the reasons
Speaker 1: they've been doing that before. No, but in those days
Speaker 1: you needed public affairs credit with the f c C,
Speaker 1: with feral government. Even if you're a music station that's
Speaker 1: all gone now you don't need it. I probably would
Speaker 1: never have been able to break into this business under
Speaker 1: you know, contemporary rules, But at that time, even a
Speaker 1: music station needed some news and some public affairs. And
Speaker 1: they must have been like, oh, this kid wants to
Speaker 1: open the phones for midnight three on Sunday night. What
Speaker 1: have we got to lose? And we get to check
Speaker 1: the box that we have our public affairs credit. Well,
Speaker 1: what happened was, over time I realized that I was
Speaker 1: putting much more mental energy and really time into preparing
Speaker 1: my three hour a week middle of the night talk
Speaker 1: show than my five hour a day, five day a
Speaker 1: week music show. And I realized this is really who
Speaker 1: I am. Was that an unconscious wish fulfillment for you?
Speaker 1: It was conscious wish fulfillment. By then. It was just
Speaker 1: because I was curious, and I like the idea of connection,
Speaker 1: and I like the idea of talking to strangers. But
Speaker 1: then after a while I realized this is actually a
Speaker 1: form of journalism, and I feel woefully underqualified to do this,
Speaker 1: and I went back to school. I actually quit that
Speaker 1: job and went to grad school for journalism so I
Speaker 1: could try to do it more seriously. Now, when you
Speaker 1: see I like to talk to strangers and that curiosity
Speaker 1: you have, is there anything in your childhood that signaled that.
Speaker 1: Did you grow up with your parents? Were you sitting
Speaker 1: with your dad by the radio? What was the home
Speaker 1: life like in terms of media. Um. The home life
Speaker 1: was very average American in terms of media. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we watched definitely candid camera. I mean my parents were,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty cultured. They would I mean, considering that
Speaker 1: they grew up poor in the South Bronx. Um. He
Speaker 1: was an electrical engineer and then a home inspector, and
Speaker 1: my mother was an elementary school teacher. Um. And you
Speaker 1: grew up in the city, grew up in the city,
Speaker 1: grew up in Queens And they also though took us
Speaker 1: to theater. They took us to a lot of UM
Speaker 1: summer stock which was the way we could afford seeing
Speaker 1: Broadway plays. And they had Broadway cast albums that had
Speaker 1: classical music. At home. Um, and we watched you know,
Speaker 1: regular television. Media was was average. But for some reason
Speaker 1: I got curious about talking to people not like me.
Speaker 1: Here's a certain way to look at my progression in media.
Speaker 1: By getting so much out of those DJs who are
Speaker 1: also radio artists. When I was a teenager and feeling
Speaker 1: like I was learning a lot about the world by
Speaker 1: sitting in my bedroom and hearing these people who were
Speaker 1: more connected to things in the outside world, I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to do this someday and connect with kids
Speaker 1: like me. Also, then as I got older, I thought,
Speaker 1: I want to do this and connect to people not
Speaker 1: like me. When I realized that that was a revelation
Speaker 1: that helped motivate me to want to open up the phones,
Speaker 1: that helped motivate me to get into journalism. There was,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe a social consciousness and that realizing that
Speaker 1: I was growing up in a fairly comfortable We certainly
Speaker 1: weren't rich, but I never had a worry where my
Speaker 1: next meal was coming from kind of middle class home.
Speaker 1: And I was realizing there was a lot going on
Speaker 1: in the world that wasn't like me, and there was
Speaker 1: a lot going on that would broaden my perspective on things,
Speaker 1: and I was curious. I wanted to learn more about
Speaker 1: the world, and that got me interested in talking to strangers.
Speaker 1: When you took phone calls back then in the beginning,
Speaker 1: what kind of people were calling you on a Sunday
Speaker 1: between twelve three am. Well, it was a combination of Oh,
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, rock music, stoners who were
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night and had an
Speaker 1: outlet because I was inviting them to call in. Also
Speaker 1: older people that was interesting to me, because they were
Speaker 1: certainly not the music audience for that FM rock station.
Speaker 1: But there were real talk radio listeners who tended to
Speaker 1: be older people who maybe were retired or insomnia. Then
Speaker 1: they wanted some company, absolutely right. Um. Sometimes some of
Speaker 1: those folks would try to call me off the air
Speaker 1: later and just sort of strike up a friend ship.
Speaker 1: And that was one of my early lessons in how
Speaker 1: radio is companionship. Brian Larr the City's companion for more
Speaker 1: than thirty years. Another wonderful fixture of New York media
Speaker 1: is Philip Galanas. He's a novelist and attorney who writes
Speaker 1: the legendary Social Cues Advice column in the Sunday New
Speaker 1: York Times. But advice wasn't the Gray Ladies original idea.
Speaker 1: First they wanted me to do a column, you know,
Speaker 1: one of those you'd know everything about me and my
Speaker 1: boyfriend and my dog. And it was because supposed to
Speaker 1: be about my life, the life of you know, a
Speaker 1: metropolitan gentleman philippin New York going around to the movies
Speaker 1: and what I saw at the theater, and I thought
Speaker 1: people will be so fucking like it's like I can
Speaker 1: see that. For three weeks to hear what advice New
Speaker 1: Yorkers are really looking for. Download my full interview with
Speaker 1: Philip galanas at Here's the Thing dot org. More. Brian
Speaker 1: Larrer coming up. This is Alec Baldwin. Here's Brian larr
Speaker 1: on what he calls the paradox of modern New York.
Speaker 1: The city is cleaner, it is safer. We don't want
Speaker 1: to go back to the nineties seventies where you couldn't
Speaker 1: walk down the street and there was a fiscal crisis. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the city and states finances have been in
Speaker 1: fairly good shape in recent years, and obviously crime is down,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, homelessness is at record levels.
Speaker 1: All of these spectacular contradictions, and hopefully there's a policy
Speaker 1: way out of those things. But I think kind of
Speaker 1: that's the state of New York to meet. New York
Speaker 1: is dirtier than it's ever been. The homeless thing is
Speaker 1: a problem again. The housing thing is a problem again.
Speaker 1: The subways a mess. Also, this construction thing they upperstamp
Speaker 1: every building. There's scaffolding and obstructive driving. If you could
Speaker 1: wave a wand and solve off the top of your
Speaker 1: head two or three problems right now and this is
Speaker 1: a fantasy in the city. What would you address, Well,
Speaker 1: at large, it would be affordability. The real estate industry
Speaker 1: holds incredible power in this city and this state. And
Speaker 1: look at Mayor du Blasio, who I would say, as
Speaker 1: trying to do something about inequality in the city. If
Speaker 1: he could wave a wand and say you can only
Speaker 1: build affordable housing for the next eight years in New
Speaker 1: York City and actually get affordable housing built, he would
Speaker 1: do it. But there's enough power by the industry that
Speaker 1: if they don't get a certain amount of hearn on
Speaker 1: their investment, they're just gonna blow it off. And it
Speaker 1: takes a certain investment to bring the return that can
Speaker 1: makes it worth it for developers, big risk to put
Speaker 1: their money up um. But the city owns land as well.
Speaker 1: What prevents the city from not taking land they own
Speaker 1: and designing properties there that could be affordable. Well, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of that in the nineties when Ed
Speaker 1: Coach was mayored. There was so much more abandoned space.
Speaker 1: At that time it was a lot easier to do.
Speaker 1: Now there isn't as much, though there certainly are advocates
Speaker 1: who say the city should be taking still more of
Speaker 1: land that they own and turn it into affordable housing. Um,
Speaker 1: do they need the state's permission to do that? Is
Speaker 1: it time for the city to be given back more
Speaker 1: of their authorities? Do you believe? In my opinion, yes,
Speaker 1: because Wi Doly need people from and I am still
Speaker 1: living rentally. It shouldn't be up to them to say
Speaker 1: what we do here. It shouldn't be up to us
Speaker 1: to say what they do in Rensselaer, which by the way,
Speaker 1: is pronounced rents. Sorry, it's like Nevada, Nevada. If you
Speaker 1: work in media, you say Nevada all the time, except
Speaker 1: when the primaries and caucuses are upon us in the
Speaker 1: presidential cycle, and then we go back saying Nevada. Well,
Speaker 1: it's Rensler. One of our guests said the word collegio
Speaker 1: and supposed to collegio. I was like, yes, that's another
Speaker 1: except collegial is right. I think collegial is right now. Um,
Speaker 1: the Great Brian Larra wakes up in the morning and
Speaker 1: plugs into media. How how does your morning media feed begin?
Speaker 1: My morning media feed begins with Morning Edition, And I'm
Speaker 1: listening to what we're doing locally from our spectacular newsroom,
Speaker 1: which is the jewel of w n y C as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned when real news organizations are going
Speaker 1: out of business left and right, especially for local news,
Speaker 1: w n y C in the nonprofit space has wound
Speaker 1: up being able to grow the newsroom to dozens of people,
Speaker 1: and we have a bigger reporting staff actually going out
Speaker 1: and digging and doing investigations than some of the old
Speaker 1: commercial news operations, either in broadcast or in newspapers. On
Speaker 1: the way in, I'm reading from various news sources, The
Speaker 1: Times in the Atlantic and Slade and National Review in
Speaker 1: the Wall Street general mix of you know, liberal and
Speaker 1: conservative and other and sources that cover different kinds of stories.
Speaker 1: I'll usually consume a little cable TV audio on an
Speaker 1: app on the way in, you know, give a little
Speaker 1: listen to what CNN and MSNBC and Fox are doing
Speaker 1: on their morning shows. That's my consumption in the morning,
Speaker 1: and it's going to vary from day to day to
Speaker 1: day because to some degree I'm following the thread of
Speaker 1: the topics that I know we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about that day, and that might lead me to any
Speaker 1: kind of news source. Sometimes my entry point to the
Speaker 1: media in the morning is Twitter, just to see as
Speaker 1: a news aggregator. I use Twitter as a news aggregator
Speaker 1: because we at the Brian Laire Show follow a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of journalists and news organizations, and I can see
Speaker 1: from that, what of the zillion news stories that I
Speaker 1: could find on all the news apps people are actually
Speaker 1: talking about Now, I couldn't think of what the beachhad
Speaker 1: would be for the Trump question. But whoever the Democrats
Speaker 1: put forth, what do you think that person needs to
Speaker 1: do to beat Trump in what would the Democratic parton
Speaker 1: need to do to make that happen? I think there's
Speaker 1: a fine line that that person has to walk. I
Speaker 1: think there's a real tension within the Democratic Party over
Speaker 1: the argument that it needs to be someone like Joe
Speaker 1: Biden who can appeal to those quote unquote Obama Trump
Speaker 1: voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, etcetera, who Biden could bring
Speaker 1: back who maybe some of the others couldn't. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, so much of the Democratic victory in the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives in the mid terms last year came
Speaker 1: because of huge turnouts by younger voters. You know, every
Speaker 1: election cycle they say, oh, the youth vote is going
Speaker 1: to rise up, and it's going to be different, and
Speaker 1: often it doesn't happen. It kind of happened last year. Um,
Speaker 1: and to what degree it happens in remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: So there are those two different competing visions of what
Speaker 1: kind of candidate. There's also something that Trump does that
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that Democrats, any Democrats, have figured out
Speaker 1: how to navigate. Yet. People ask is Trump a baby?
Speaker 1: Is he crazy? Or is he a political genius? And
Speaker 1: I tend to fall on the political genius answer, meaning
Speaker 1: all this provocation that he does is not from lack
Speaker 1: of discipline. It's because it's something that he has honed.
Speaker 1: It's the Steve Bannon theory too. You know. Bannon says,
Speaker 1: if somebody on the right does something kind of outrageous
Speaker 1: on purpose, it's in part to draw an overreaction from
Speaker 1: the left. Right. When Trump went out there and said
Speaker 1: about John McCain, oh I prefer people who weren't captured.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is gonna be the end of
Speaker 1: the campaign. Well obviously it wasn't. When he said about
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly after she asked him a tough question and
Speaker 1: a Fox News debate, she's bleeding from the wherever people are.
Speaker 1: But he was actually tapping into something that some people wanted.
Speaker 1: And these things that a lot of people think are
Speaker 1: a bug with respect to Trump aren't a bug their feature.
Speaker 1: And the Democrats haven't figured out how to play that
Speaker 1: yet because so often they get lured into tis tisking
Speaker 1: a Trump and saying, oh my god, this is outrageous
Speaker 1: and we're headed toward a asis sexist, authoritarian country more
Speaker 1: than before. And it may be true, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, it doesn't necessarily win the election. So obviously
Speaker 1: they have to talk about policy. They avoided impeachment and
Speaker 1: investigations and stuff on the stump in and they talked
Speaker 1: about healthcare and other kitchen table issues and that helped
Speaker 1: a lot. And I think they let the undertow of
Speaker 1: objection to Trump's sensibilities, which everybody knows how they feel
Speaker 1: about already one way or another, play itself out as
Speaker 1: a factor. So they probably have to do that. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, and we have this problem in the
Speaker 1: media too. You know why is there so much Trump coverage.
Speaker 1: It's because there's a tension between not getting sucked in
Speaker 1: every time he throws out a little bit of bait
Speaker 1: and ignoring things that are so outrageous that they shouldn't
Speaker 1: be ignored. There's no right answer, there's only attention. And
Speaker 1: so in political terms, for Democrats, they have to figure
Speaker 1: out how to walk that line. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that's going to determine if somebody can be
Speaker 1: Trump in. I think that the way to be Trump
Speaker 1: is you just have to point your finger right at
Speaker 1: his skull, if to hit your finger like an inch
Speaker 1: from his temple, and say this guy said this, and
Speaker 1: this guy and just don't back off from the indictment
Speaker 1: of his behavior when you say, is he a genius?
Speaker 1: Trump has a talent for something. But I think it
Speaker 1: would be so easy to be Trump in. There's a way.
Speaker 1: You just have to find those pressure points and just
Speaker 1: drive them in saying because I think he has nuts.
Speaker 1: The argument against your way of running against Trump, though,
Speaker 1: is that everybody already knows how they feel about Trump.
Speaker 1: So if you're taking dead rhetorical aim at him and
Speaker 1: not letting him off the hook, it could just repolarize
Speaker 1: everybody into the positions that they're already in, and his
Speaker 1: supporters will get, you know, pumped up from that, and
Speaker 1: his opponents will get pumped up from that, But it
Speaker 1: doesn't change anything. No matter what happens. Have you noticed this,
Speaker 1: No matter what happens with respect to the Russian investigation
Speaker 1: or policies, whatever it is, Trump's popularity remains in a
Speaker 1: very narrow range. Right. It's like never goes below, never
Speaker 1: goes above. Bill Clinton, for example, when he was going
Speaker 1: through impeachment and everything, people say, oh, it made him
Speaker 1: more popular, which it did, but his popularity ratings were
Speaker 1: so changeable, he would be way down, he would be
Speaker 1: way up. We're in a different kind of moment now
Speaker 1: where people already are frozen in terms of what they
Speaker 1: think about Trump. So I'm not sure that making Trump
Speaker 1: the issue beats Trump because everybody just stays with it.
Speaker 1: But I think that I respect what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: I think that overly simplifies what I'm referring to, which
Speaker 1: is you have to have people that can excite their
Speaker 1: side of the aisle and galvanized their side of the
Speaker 1: aisle with their ideas and their rhetoric, which includes the
Speaker 1: indictment of Trump. The way that Trump excites, You've gotta
Speaker 1: get in there, you gotta get dirty with Trump. Somebody
Speaker 1: once said, a liberal is a person who won't take
Speaker 1: his own side and an argument. Now. My last quick
Speaker 1: question is Brian Lair runs out the door. It's a
Speaker 1: sunny day in Manhattan. He's got the time doing something.
Speaker 1: Guy that was the host of a music show. What's
Speaker 1: your pleasures? Is it? The opera? Is it? The symphony?
Speaker 1: Is a jazz clubs? Is it? What does Brian Lair
Speaker 1: do in New York to have some fun? It is,
Speaker 1: first of all, going running on those streets of New York.
Speaker 1: I love to run. I don't run long distances, but
Speaker 1: I try to run about three miles every day. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's my zen. Once upon a time I did a
Speaker 1: lot of yoga and meditation. Now I run. I once
Speaker 1: had a conversation with Peter Segal on the host of
Speaker 1: Wait Wait, Don't tell me who's really a runner. I'm
Speaker 1: not really a runner. He's really a runner. And he
Speaker 1: was making a big case about not running with headphones
Speaker 1: so you could be very present, and so it was
Speaker 1: zen for him in that respect. I find for me,
Speaker 1: if I just go running with nothing, I'm still thinking
Speaker 1: about work and I'm still thinking about the world. So
Speaker 1: I like to go into my music and run and
Speaker 1: I'm escaping. So I do that. UM Theater art museums,
Speaker 1: jazz clubs, restaurants. What does Brian Lair like to eat?
Speaker 1: Ethnic foods or a thing you crave. One of the
Speaker 1: ethnic foods I like is Ethiopian food because you can
Speaker 1: eat it with your hands that have that wonderful and
Speaker 1: jeribread and you can get vegetables or you can get
Speaker 1: meat and then you just take that bread and you
Speaker 1: scoop it up. And I love Ethiopian food. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: end with this, which is we paint this picture Brian
Speaker 1: there on the subway with the New York Time, reading
Speaker 1: the Times on his way to work. He goes running
Speaker 1: to zen out in the streets of New York, and
Speaker 1: he loves Ethiopian food. You really are the ultimate New Yorker,
Speaker 1: Brian There. There is no ultimate New Yorker, but thank you.
Speaker 1: Alc Bolo Ultimate new Yorker. Brian Larr broadcasts his ultimate
Speaker 1: New York talk show, The Brian Larr Show, every weekday
Speaker 1: at ten am on w n y C. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to here's the Thing, testing one
Speaker 1: to three, testing one toy. I'm sorry, that's me here
Speaker 1: here we go, So maybe I'm deaf. Literally so I
Speaker 1: need to have it very loud. Okay, you dry allergies?
Speaker 1: Are we do? What do we do? What's that bring
Speaker 1: it in? And bringing the bringing His Majesty's I hear
Speaker 1: you use this, um. But how can I be second
Speaker 1: on this and be talking about saying maybe that's the
Speaker 1: way I could teach you how to eat a ricola
Speaker 1: while you give out the news. That's right,