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Speaker 1: I'm thrilled this afternoon to be joined on the warning

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Speaker 1: by a great American and a great Texan, the founder

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Speaker 1: of the Texas Tribune, the Texas Tribune Festival, Evan Smith.

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Speaker 2: Welcome, Steve, Thanks very much, happy to be with you.

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Speaker 1: So I'm married to a Canadian and I explained Texans

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Speaker 1: to UH to a group of Canadians. I said that,

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Speaker 1: as you know, all Americans are special, but Texans are

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Speaker 1: the most special of all of.

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Speaker 2: Us, right, just ask us. We're happy to tell you

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Speaker 2: how special we are, right, yeah, we have. We have

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Speaker 2: absolutely no end to you know, how exceptional and how

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Speaker 2: different and how much better we are than everybody else's.

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Speaker 1: In a serious in a serious note, though, Texas is

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Speaker 1: a state that is iconic, like California, like New York.

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Speaker 1: It is singular, it is exceptional, and it is a

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Speaker 1: microcosm of the country because Texas is an idea, California

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Speaker 1: is an idea, America is an idea. Now now there

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Speaker 1: are manifestations of that idea, that American idea found in

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Speaker 1: all of our stage. Right, But there's not a New

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Speaker 1: Jersey ideal, right, New Jersey is not an idea, right,

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Speaker 1: Ohio isn't an idea. But Texas is and.

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Speaker 2: There's no question about that. There's no question about that.

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Speaker 1: What is that idea?

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Speaker 2: Look, I think first and foremost this idea, the idea

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Speaker 2: that I've known for the thirty two years i've been here, right,

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Speaker 2: is that the answer to every question is subject verb liberty.

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Speaker 2: Back before people were talking about liberty in the context

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Speaker 2: of our policy, Steve, people here understood that not telling

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Speaker 2: people what to do or how to do it, leaving

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Speaker 2: people to determine their own fates, their lives, the way

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Speaker 2: they run their businesses, the way they raise their families.

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Speaker 2: That has been baked into the cake here. You know,

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Speaker 2: this is a state that prides itself on being independent,

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Speaker 2: being independent of other states. We have an electric grid

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Speaker 2: that is ours. We're not connected to the national grid.

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Speaker 2: We don't want to be told what to do by

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Speaker 2: the federal government. We want to be independent, self determination.

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Speaker 2: And for the people who live here, the idea that

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Speaker 2: you can come here, whether you were you know, someone

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Speaker 2: like Sam Houston who came here, not born here, but

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Speaker 2: came here to make his life, or if you're somebody

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Speaker 2: who was born here, go back many many generations. The

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Speaker 2: idea is we want you to have everything you need

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Speaker 2: to live independently, to think freely, and to determine the

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Speaker 2: course of the way you do things. Of course, the

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Speaker 2: irony of our politics these days is that much as

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Speaker 2: I've heard people talk about Governor Desanta said Florida, it's

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Speaker 2: liberty unless I disagree with you, Because that idea of

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Speaker 2: liberty only extends up to the water's edge. And if

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Speaker 2: you go beyond that and you start talking about wanting

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Speaker 2: to organize your life or organize your business in a

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Speaker 2: way that we don't agree with, Hell, yes, we're going

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Speaker 2: to get in the middle of it.

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Speaker 1: And you what would Anne Richards have said about that?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I think aain. I mean, for a long time,

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Speaker 2: the late mally Ivans would talk about you know what

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Speaker 2: Anne Richards would have said about Rick Perry as governor,

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Speaker 2: right or Rick or you know or did say about

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Speaker 2: Rick Perry's government. Where some of the people who've come

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Speaker 2: along in the last ten to twenty years of politics, right,

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Speaker 2: Ann had a very different sense of what independence meant.

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Speaker 2: Ann had a very different sense of what politics and

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Speaker 2: Texas meant. Remember Steve that Anne was elected governor of

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Speaker 2: Texas more than thirty years ago. Right when Anne lost

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Speaker 2: to George W. Bush in nineteen ninety four. That was

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Speaker 2: the last cycle in which a Democrat was elected statewide

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Speaker 2: in Texas. That's twenty nine years ago. You and I

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Speaker 2: both know people who work for us or who we

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Speaker 2: work with, who are twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight

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Speaker 2: who literally were not alive when a Democrat was elected

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Speaker 2: statewide in Texas. They have to take our word for it.

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Speaker 2: It's like Lincoln striving the earth, something they read about

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Speaker 2: in the history books. This was for a long time

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Speaker 2: one party state. It was just the other party. And

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Speaker 2: surely the people not just Anne Richards, but Lloyd Benson,

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Speaker 2: Ralph Yarborough, the people who were part of that one

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Speaker 2: party rule. A generation or Morigo would not believe what

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Speaker 2: this state is and what its politics are. But this

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Speaker 2: is the Texas we live in today.

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Speaker 1: You know, Will you talk about time in Texas. An

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Speaker 1: astounding fact when you think about the size of the

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Speaker 1: state is that some of the most famous names in

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Speaker 1: the history of the US military Eisenhower Patent the beginning

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Speaker 1: of their careers. Patent in particular is mapping and surveying

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Speaker 1: the West Texas Mountains. They were still unsurveyed in the

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Speaker 1: first decade of the twentieth century. Vast state, tens of

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Speaker 1: millions of people within it, and it's changed in recent

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Speaker 1: years Under Greg Abbott. There is a spike in a

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Speaker 1: lot of hate crimes and a lot of animosity. Or

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Speaker 1: is that a figment of the national media imagination? What

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Speaker 1: is the state of Texas today?

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Speaker 2: Did Greg Abbott cause those hate crimes? I mean, I

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Speaker 2: think you know you'd have to ask yourself is there

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Speaker 2: a direct line or an indirect line from leadership of

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Speaker 2: the state to any number of things that we see today.

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Speaker 2: What I would say, Steve, is this from this state

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Speaker 2: is foundly conservative, profoundly read. At election time, I think

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Speaker 2: you could argue that if everybody eligible to vote voted

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Speaker 2: in Texas, it might be closer to a purple state,

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Speaker 2: or even closer to a fifty to fifty state, or

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Speaker 2: even a little bit of a blue state, if you've

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Speaker 2: got everybody who is eligible to vote to vote. But

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Speaker 2: you and I know that that's not how this works.

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Speaker 2: The people who live in the reddest parts of the

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Speaker 2: state turn out most reliably at election time, and they

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Speaker 2: determine the outcomes of elections. Texas is not just read,

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Speaker 2: but it's blood red. And as I said, twenty nine

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Speaker 2: years since a Democrat was elected. Statewide congressional delegation is

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Speaker 2: two thirds Republican. Texas legislature is overwhelmingly Republican at both

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Speaker 2: the House and the Senate. Do I think that necessarily

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Speaker 2: Greg Abbott or Dan Patrick are famous lieutenant governor or

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Speaker 2: Ken Paxson are even more famous Attorney general? Are themselves

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Speaker 2: responsible for anything going on here that some outside the

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Speaker 2: state might perceive as bad? I mean, I think if

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Speaker 2: you're in charge, you're responsible, right, there's no way around that.

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Speaker 1: And monsible for the climate not the Act.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to say that

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Speaker 2: this is the state that they've led, this is the

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Speaker 2: state that they've built, and if you like it, then

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Speaker 2: you credit them. If you don't like it, then you

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Speaker 2: blame them.

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Speaker 1: Is that state? Is that state a tolerant place?

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Speaker 2: Is the state of Texas a tolerant state? I think

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Speaker 2: it'd be very hard to look at the way that,

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Speaker 2: as an example, our transgender Texans have been treated at

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Speaker 2: the state level and say that that is a treatment

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Speaker 2: that is born of tolerance. I think that you have

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Speaker 2: people in the state who feel like this may not

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Speaker 2: be a place for them. I mean, we're sitting here

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Speaker 2: today on a day when a woman who won a

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Speaker 2: court case that allowed her at the local level, local

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Speaker 2: court limit to get an abortion despite one of the

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Speaker 2: most restrictive laws on the books of the fifty States

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Speaker 2: as it relates to access to abortion, she had to

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Speaker 2: make the decision to leave the state to get an abortion,

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Speaker 2: even though a court found in her favor, because the

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Speaker 2: Attorney General appealed that decision threatened the doctor or threatened

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Speaker 2: the medical provider who might provide such an abortion under

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Speaker 2: court order. If in fact that had occurred, and the

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Speaker 2: Texas Supreme Court stopped the court order while an appeal

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Speaker 2: was in process, this woman's health was in danger and

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Speaker 2: felt like she had to leave the state. If you

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Speaker 2: talk to not all women, but some women in the state,

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Speaker 2: they would say this is not a very tolerant state

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Speaker 2: as it relates to women. I think you have black

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Speaker 2: and Hispanic Texans who see their educational outcomes, or their

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Speaker 2: access to healthcare, or any number of other things, and

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Speaker 2: they might tell you that government is not directed to

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Speaker 2: provide for them what they feel that they deserve as

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Speaker 2: Texans and as Americans, and they feel that there may

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Speaker 2: not be as much tolerance for an equitable policy environment

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Speaker 2: or policy outcomes in the state. I mean, I think

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Speaker 2: where you stand, Steve, always is where you sit. There

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Speaker 2: are problems, a lot of In fact, I can say

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Speaker 2: with certainty that there are a lot of very conservative Texans,

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Speaker 2: some of the most conservative Americans who are also Texas,

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Speaker 2: who would tell you that the state is very tolerable.

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Speaker 2: And then everything going on here is great. We have

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Speaker 2: this incredible business environment, this incredible job creation engine, low taxes,

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Speaker 2: predictable regulation, all the blessings of living in this state.

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Speaker 2: They would say, everything is working just fine. That is

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Speaker 2: not a universally shared.

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Speaker 1: View when you think about Texas. I want to ask

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Speaker 1: you about two events that are unrelated culturally before we

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Speaker 1: talk about the state of news in Texas. Sure, but

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Speaker 1: during a time of crisis, Ted Cruz took off to

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Speaker 1: Can't Kun and this is the state that produced James

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Speaker 1: Earl Rutter, who, for those not for meailure watching, he

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Speaker 1: was the ranger commander who led the assault at Point

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Speaker 1: to Hawk in Normandy, came home, desegregated Texas a and

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Speaker 1: m admitted women, turned it from a small regional university

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Speaker 1: into one of the great world universities in time. The

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Speaker 1: ethos of the state from Audie Murphy, Sam Houston, Colonel

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Speaker 1: Travis is that Texans don't cut and run. And then

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Speaker 1: you come to the shooting in Uvaldi, the murder of

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Speaker 1: the children in the in the police force waiting outside,

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Speaker 1: which which I consider to be the greatest act of

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Speaker 1: cowardice collectively in my lifetime, For there's no other collective

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Speaker 1: act of cowardice, and that's what it is, that's even

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Speaker 1: close that's occurred at an institutional level in my lifetime

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Speaker 1: than what occurred with law enforcement in Uvaldi. There seems

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Speaker 1: to me to be an arrogance in a cover up

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Speaker 1: about what happened on the part of law enforcement, a

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Speaker 1: defiance against the indictment of cowardice, which is real earned,

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Speaker 1: which is well and truly earned. And my question is

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Speaker 1: what has happened to that ethos? Was it always mythological?

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Speaker 1: Is it something that has dissipated, that has changed, that

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Speaker 1: has that has that has rolled back. I think about L. B. J.

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Speaker 1: In his Silver Star. He was so motivated to cast

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Speaker 1: himself as the hero to fit the myth, the iconic

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Speaker 1: Texas myth. What what happened at a cultural level to

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Speaker 1: explain those events. Are they happenstance, random, accidental, or connected

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Speaker 1: to an unraveling of some sort.

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Speaker 2: So let me let me yeah, so let me start

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Speaker 2: at the granule level. Let me back up and talk

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Speaker 2: about the Texas myth second, but let me take the

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Speaker 2: uvality situation first. What you know about what didn't did

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Speaker 2: not happen to evality, I'm say very proudly was in

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Speaker 2: part born of the reporting that the Texas Tribune, not

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Speaker 2: alone but it in partnership with other news organizations, has

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Speaker 2: done since the end of May of last year in

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Speaker 2: that awful day, including most recently the Tribune and Pro

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Speaker 2: Public and Frontline collaborating on a documentary that resulted in

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Speaker 2: extraordinary reporting about what the police did not do, what

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Speaker 2: law enforcement did not do on that day. You know,

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Speaker 2: there's been an effort to force through lawsuit, through court action,

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Speaker 2: the Department of Public Safety in Texas to release records

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Speaker 2: related to activity that day. Courts have found that they're

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Speaker 2: obligated to provide that stuff, and yet there is still

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Speaker 2: resistance to providing us with an accurate picture of exactly

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Speaker 2: what happened on that day. It's unforgivable and if nothing

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Speaker 2: happened on that day that was inappropriate or untoured, Then

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Speaker 2: just show us everything that happened, and that will back

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Speaker 2: up your point of view by dragging your feet by

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Speaker 2: not providing stuff that we as members of the media

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Speaker 2: and as residents of this eight for whom these folks work,

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Speaker 2: if there is an unwillingness on their part to provide

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Speaker 2: the public with greater transparency into what happened on that day,

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Speaker 2: then that simply confirms for me that there's something here

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Speaker 2: that they don't want us to know. It's an awful

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Speaker 2: day that continues to reverberate, frankly politically, because you not

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Speaker 2: only had the issue of the response, but you have

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Speaker 2: the issue of a policy around access to firearms that

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Speaker 2: no one wants to even have an honest conversation about.

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Speaker 2: There was an effort after this horrible day from last

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Speaker 2: year to raise the age that someone can purchase an

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Speaker 2: automatic weapon. There was not even a willingness to entertain

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Speaker 2: a conversation around that in our legislature. So I have

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Speaker 2: real questions about how that went down. I think I'm

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Speaker 2: one of many people in the state who do and

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Speaker 2: it does not It does not square with the expectations

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Speaker 2: that we have for the people in elective office. There

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Speaker 2: is a lack of accountability that we're seeing in the

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Speaker 2: way that people have responded to for more transparency. That

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Speaker 2: lack of accountability is, as much as anything, the new

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Speaker 2: normal in a state that has no competitive elections as

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Speaker 2: a consequence of gerrymandering and one party rule. People don't

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Speaker 2: have to worry about whether they're going to get defeated

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Speaker 2: at election time, so there are no consequences. People are

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Speaker 2: able to do whatever they want or not do whatever

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Speaker 2: they want, without really fearing that voters or anybody else

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Speaker 2: will will be able to hold them too account. Look

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Speaker 2: on the cruise stuff, Steve to be perfectly frank with you,

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Speaker 2: I think that that was just a really bad decision

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Speaker 2: on his part, which he has effectively acknowledged. He made

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Speaker 2: a call in the moment to do something that he

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Speaker 2: recognized quickly, with the public and others calling it out

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Speaker 2: for it that he shouldn't have done. He came back.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that there's more to take from that

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Speaker 2: as it relates to what happened to the Texas myth,

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Speaker 2: other than it was an own goal on his part.

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Speaker 2: He biffed it. He bifted on a very grand scale,

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Speaker 2: But I think he acknowledges that I'm not sure that

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Speaker 2: there's a lesson to take from the cruise thing so much.

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Speaker 2: But let me get to the Texas myth. In a

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Speaker 2: lot of ways, Like so many myths, what we think

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Speaker 2: we know about this state has been stereotyped and exaggerated

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Speaker 2: over the years so much that it no longer looks

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Speaker 2: like anything real. Texas is a very different state today

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Speaker 2: than when I arrived here in nineteen ninety one, and

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Speaker 2: it is vastly different if you go back another thirty

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Speaker 2: years from what it was at that time. Texas is significantly,

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Speaker 2: as you say, growing in population. Thirty million people in

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Speaker 2: Texas today, if you go ahead to twenty fifty it

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Speaker 2: will be forty seven million. It is rapidly urbanizing. Texas

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Speaker 2: now has five of the thirteen largest cities by population

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Speaker 2: in the country, more than any other state. We have

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Speaker 2: the most big cities. The population of Texas that is

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Speaker 2: rural right now is about ten percent three million people.

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Speaker 2: It is the smallest percentage of a state that, again,

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Speaker 2: according to myth and lore and legend, is rural and

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Speaker 2: ranching and agriculture focused. It is an urban state full stop.

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Speaker 2: The smallest percentage of our state right now is rural

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Speaker 2: at any time in the history of this state, and

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Speaker 2: the state is rapidly diversifying. We pass sixty percent people

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Speaker 2: of color this last year for the first time ever.

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Speaker 2: The white population of Texas is below forty percent. By

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Speaker 2: twenty forty it'll be below one third. You would not

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Speaker 2: know that from the way people talk about Texas. You

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Speaker 2: would not know that from the way government talks about Texas.

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Speaker 2: We do not legislate and we do not appropriate like

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Speaker 2: a state that is this fast growing, dynamically diversifying, and

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Speaker 2: rapidly urbanized. So there's a lot about the myth of

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Speaker 2: Texas that is probably outmoded and outdated. To be honest

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Speaker 2: with you, it was probably always a little bit outmoded,

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Speaker 2: but especially today, that Texas myth has really been transformed

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Speaker 2: into something unrecognizable when you understand the reality on the

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Speaker 2: ground in Texas.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question about the state of

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Speaker 1: the media in Texas. Does it exist?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, Steve, you've got some extraordinarily iconic media

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Speaker 2: brands that come from the big cities I referred to earlier,

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Speaker 2: the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, to name two.

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Speaker 2: These are not just Texas newspapers. These are national newspapers

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Speaker 2: of a sort. Yeah, what's happened in Texas is not

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Speaker 2: any different than what's happened to every place else. The

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Speaker 2: big city papers, the big ones, their newsrooms have been

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Speaker 2: hollowed out. Their reporting capacity is not what it used

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Speaker 2: to be.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you would not. I mean at let me

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Speaker 1: back up, so I would have said earlier in my

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Speaker 1: career when it got rolling, right that you know, the

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Speaker 1: national newspapers were the New York Times, the Washington Post,

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Speaker 1: the La Times, USA Today, you know, uh, Chicago Tribune.

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Speaker 1: I would I would put on that list, Miami Harold

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Speaker 1: right right, Dallas Morning News, you know, Houston Chronicle, impactful

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Speaker 1: regional players with national scher right, they could, But those

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Speaker 1: are a national newspapers anymore, right by any.

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Speaker 2: No, No, they and they can't be. Cant they cannot

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Speaker 2: be because they do not have the capacity to do

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Speaker 2: the ambitious reporting on a regular basis. They will occasionally

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Speaker 2: do really ambitious and meaningful reporting, and I believe that

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Speaker 2: Texas needs every one of those papers to be at

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Speaker 2: their absolute best to do as much as they can.

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Speaker 2: We at the Texas Tribune other news organizations. In Texas,

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Speaker 2: we see ourselves as collaborators, not competitors. We root for

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Speaker 2: one another. The state desperately needs people to tell them

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Speaker 2: this is what's going on. This is how it affects

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Speaker 2: your life. To search for the truth and tell people

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Speaker 2: what they find. We need everybody to do that. But

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Speaker 2: these the newsrooms have been hollowed out, these big city papers,

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Speaker 2: and outside the big cities there is largely no meaningful

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Speaker 2: sources of news to speak of, and so you have

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Speaker 2: these vast news deserts where people can't get basic information.

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Speaker 2: We saw that during the pandemic. We saw that during

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Speaker 2: the collapse of our electric grid, to name two examples.

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Speaker 2: We're having a reliable source of information. Steed was literally

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Speaker 2: the difference between life and death. When you do not

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Speaker 2: have a source of news, all you have is the

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Speaker 2: crap that is in your feed literally and existentially, and

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Speaker 2: what that is often is misinformation and conspiracy theories. That

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Speaker 2: is how we get to a point today in Texas

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Speaker 2: and in other places, where truth is not truth, where

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Speaker 2: reality is subjective, where facts are not facts. I will

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Speaker 2: tell you that it is as bad as it has

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Speaker 2: been in my lifetime in Texas, right now in terms

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Speaker 2: of mere access to basic information, our state legislature has

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Speaker 2: been in session all year long, one regular and four

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Speaker 2: special sessions. The last of the four or just ended

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Speaker 2: a couple of days ago, and they made very significant

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Speaker 2: decisions that are going to affect the lives of everybody

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Speaker 2: in the state. I wish everybody knew about it. I

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Speaker 2: wish everybody knew that there even was one regular and

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Speaker 2: four special sessions, or that there was an election coming

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Speaker 2: up next year that's going to be so significant in

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Speaker 2: terms of the policy decisions that affect them. Problem is

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Speaker 2: a lot of people have checked out, and the reason

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Speaker 2: they've checked out is they have no place to turn

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Speaker 2: to get basic information.

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Speaker 1: Let me get your reaction to this premise. So I

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Speaker 1: love old news photographs, and there was one of the

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Speaker 1: great exhibits of any museum I've ever been to was

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Speaker 1: the Pulitzer exhibit at the Museum in Washington, where you

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Speaker 1: had all the Pulitzer photographs right from the years the

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Speaker 1: runner ups really just told the story in this exquisite

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Speaker 1: fashion of the twentieth century. And if you look at

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Speaker 1: old photos and old speeches and old newspapers in images

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Speaker 1: of errors in documentary films. Everyone is reading, right, everyone

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Speaker 1: in the photographs, right, just as they're standing around, as

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Speaker 1: they're sitting on a trolley, on a bus, just passively

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Speaker 1: in those pictures, scores of them, from the Old West

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Speaker 1: to the Rising cities, everybody's reading. My grandfather who was

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Speaker 1: born in nineteen eleven, dropped out of high school in

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Speaker 1: or eighth grade, worked in a factory, worked as a

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Speaker 1: bar back, but read constantly. Now, my kids, who've grown

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Speaker 1: up with a lot of privilege, can't get them to read.

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Speaker 1: And have spent a lot of money right on an

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Speaker 1: education right that has produced on the back end, kids

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Speaker 1: that can really operate that chat ept but aren't interested

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Speaker 1: in reading. And so when you when you go back

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Speaker 1: and you read the Federalist papers, right, and you you

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Speaker 1: kind of examine it through the presum of a manual

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Speaker 1: of how do you maintain the democracy? If nobody will

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Speaker 1: read anything, it becomes possible impossible to understand anything, to

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Speaker 1: know anything. And I and I guess, and I guess,

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Speaker 1: how do you fix that in the in the society?

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Speaker 1: How do you fix that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, first of all, your kids grew up in

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Speaker 2: your house. My kids grew up in my house. Neither

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Speaker 2: of our kids is reading a newspaper, and they grew

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Speaker 2: up in our house, right, They grew up where this

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Speaker 2: stuff was talked about all the time, where elections we're

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Speaker 2: talking about, where issues and ideas were talked about. It's

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Speaker 2: a huge problem. And I think that partly the problem

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Speaker 2: is on the distribution end, and partly is on the

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Speaker 2: consumption end. So let's talk about the distribution end. First.

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Speaker 2: News organizations have not gotten anything close to smart enough

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Speaker 2: about how go to people where they live, young people

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Speaker 2: are particularly, Where are the platforms that people are consuming

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Speaker 2: information in that generation or in those generations plural? How

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Speaker 2: are we going to go to them? We can't wait

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Speaker 2: for them to come to us. There's an enormous amount

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Speaker 2: of work that has to be done to solve the

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Speaker 2: problem of how we're going to get in front of

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Speaker 2: those people. And I will tell you that the answer

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Speaker 2: is not for the legacy news organizations to get somebody

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Speaker 2: to come in and do their tiktoks for them. That

398
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 2: is not the answer. They are very easy and what

399
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Speaker 2: seemed to me to be simple minded answers. The answers

400
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 2: are much more complicated than that, and we don't have

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Speaker 2: them yet. We have to watch what the best and

402
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Speaker 2: most successful people doing this or doing, and we have

403
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Speaker 2: to copy them. We have to innovate, we have to

404
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Speaker 2: replicate and all that. On the distribution side, we haven't

405
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Speaker 2: gotten to be very good on the consumption side. I

406
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:17,640
Speaker 2: would say there's a tendency from these kids to hear

407
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Speaker 2: people of our generation yelling at one another or yelling

408
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Speaker 2: over one another, and they completely check out. They don't

409
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Speaker 2: want to be part of that conversation. They don't believe

410
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Speaker 2: that there's any value in paying attention to it or

411
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Speaker 2: being a part of it. I really do worry that

412
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Speaker 2: there's a whole generation of kids, kids my age. I'll

413
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Speaker 2: tell you my kids you're twenty, about to be twenty

414
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Speaker 2: seven and twenty three, who have been told their entire

415
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Speaker 2: lives that public service is worthless and people in office

416
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Speaker 2: are terrible. They've heard people, not you and me, but

417
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Speaker 2: people in our universe shit talk government, say bad things

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Speaker 2: about what people in power do, and they've decided that

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Speaker 2: none of this is for them. Who is going to

420
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Speaker 2: take the baton from people of our generation in office?

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Speaker 2: If we can't get people of the generation of our

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Speaker 2: kids to pay attention, to consume media, to learn about

423
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Speaker 2: issues to understand the role that they can play. I

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Speaker 2: really do have a lot of concern about that, and

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Speaker 2: I think that it's a two way problem. It's not

426
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Speaker 2: just that the media is not doing a good enough

427
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Speaker 2: job of getting in front of these kids, but it's

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Speaker 2: also that the people on the consumption and have been

429
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Speaker 2: told for years don't pay attention to this stuff. It's bad,

430
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Speaker 2: they're bad, and so they've heard us, They've listened. I

431
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Speaker 2: think it's a real problem.

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Speaker 1: There's a conception of, I think for us growing up,

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Speaker 1: of what the news was. Right. So what that meant

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Speaker 1: was in a world with thirteen television channels, right, it

435
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 1: was network news, right, and it was the news, right,

436
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: it was and you watched ABC, NBC or CBS, and

437
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: we watched ABC. Right. So the news right really meant

438
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: Bill b Tell Eyewitness News New York City, Right, it

439
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 1: meant Frank Reynolds later, Peter Jennings right. Distinctly, remember kind

440
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: of the news as CNN came on, Right was Bernard Shaw, Right,

441
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: There was Chuck Scarborough in New York right, there was right,

442
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: There was of course, you know Tom brokecall later, but

443
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: the but the era of the anchor the news and

444
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: what was happening and when breaking news happened, right, it

445
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: was a big deal, right, like something really bad, right,

446
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: something momentous had had had occurred. Yeah, And I'm thinking

447
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 1: about the news in the context of in this era

448
00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: is the news what just happened? Is weekend that Alex

449
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 1: Jones and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami and Andrew.

450
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 2: Tait so a Flora Loomer, right, Yeah.

451
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 1: Bugish aqu sexual trafficker, a billionaire political and stock hustler, Ramaswami,

452
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: Alex Jones, demented and sick and evil person, evil evil person,

453
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: and Elon Musk fresh off the anti semitism and so

454
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: then gathered on a digital platform, right together. Word of

455
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:47,479
Speaker 1: that conversation spreads here and there. Right, it's certainly in

456
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: all of my feeds that and there's mainstream media that

457
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: covers it, that this convocation of twistedness and the fact

458
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: that ram Swami's taking a leek during the conversation and

459
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: they're all laughing about it. That this is now in

460
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: today's day and age, this is this is the news.

461
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: And if if that's the news, right, right?

462
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 2: Am?

463
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: I am I am I right about that? And then

464
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: there's a there's a market question, then, is what can

465
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 1: compete against that? Yeah, in the public that's in the

466
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: public interest.

467
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 2: I would argue that it's not the news. I would

468
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 2: argue that it's news, but I would argue that the

469
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 2: news covers news. I don't consider X, the social platform

470
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 2: you're talking about, to be a news source. It's a

471
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 2: source of referrals to news sources, and it may be

472
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 2: a source of referrals to stuff that is not news

473
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 2: that maybe once upon a time you would have found

474
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 2: news on there, and today you find a kind of

475
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 2: circus atmosphere that's dangerous and concerning and all that. I mean,

476
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 2: I'll stipulate that it's it's something that people pay attention to,

477
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 2: but I would not call it the news. I would

478
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 2: say that the cable news environment has come to be

479
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 2: more important to the news than the network news environment.

480
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 2: You and I talk about the networks when we were

481
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,479
Speaker 2: growing up. You're exactly right. That was what we had

482
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 2: available to us. The networks still exists, The networks still

483
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 2: produced news. There's still a nightly newscast right but and

484
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:28,959
Speaker 2: even though the numbers, the audience numbers may be down historically,

485
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 2: they still represent a significant audience share compared to what

486
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 2: we now think of as the news, which is the

487
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: cable channels. A lot of that news on cable is

488
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 2: actually not news. You know, Sean Hannity is not news.

489
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Rachel Maddow is not news. Right What CNN

490
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 2: is doing right now is probably closer to news than

491
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 2: what the evening cable shows are providing. I would not

492
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 2: think of it as news. That's not to say that

493
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 2: it doesn't have some value or that it doesn't have

494
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 2: a kind of like the United States have confirmation bias

495
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 2: affirmation quality for some people. You turn on the cable

496
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 2: channel of your preference to have the voices in your

497
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 2: head affirmed or the ideas that are already in your

498
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 2: head affirmed. It has some value, but I don't think

499
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 2: of it as the news. But look, we have to

500
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 2: accept the world we live in. One of the problems

501
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 2: with the world today, Steve, is too many people have

502
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 2: been allowed to live in an alternate reality that exists

503
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: only in their head. The reality that we live in

504
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 2: is that there are more sources of information, good, bad,

505
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 2: and in between than there've ever been before. There are

506
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 2: more places for people to go to get information. There's

507
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 2: terrible media literacy in this country. There's a profound inability

508
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 2: of most people to distinguish between Sean Hannity and the news. Now,

509
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 2: sometimes Sean Hannity is news. President says on Shawn Hannity's

510
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 2: town hall the other day, I'm going to be a

511
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 2: dictator on day one. That's news, But the platform on

512
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 2: which it was made is not the news. We don't

513
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 2: mistake that for the news. We simply don't have enough

514
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 2: places to go to get the news today because people

515
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 2: have run to the burnt ends of the brisket on

516
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 2: either side, thinking that that's their best likelihood to get

517
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 2: an audience. But as a democracy, we need more places

518
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 2: to go that don't have a point of view, that

519
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 2: are simply providing the news, and that's something that we

520
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 2: profoundly lack today.

521
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: I'm afraid you would you put Rachel Maddow into an

522
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: information category if.

523
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 2: Not, yes, I would. And Chris Hayes, of course, I

524
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 2: like them both personally very much. I think their shows

525
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 2: have value. I would say it's information, but I would

526
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 2: also say that stuff but it has a point of view.

527
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 2: It has a point of.

528
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: View, and that point of view is rendered with a

529
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: high level of integrity.

530
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely, I'm not in any way dismissing or undermining

531
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 2: the value of what they provide. It has a high

532
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 2: level of integrity, and it is false equivalency to compare

533
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 2: Rachel Maddow and Sew hay Right and so so.

534
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: And so on Fox the hard news side of this,

535
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: which I think is an extraordinary development right in this

536
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: political moment, in this cultural moment, which frankly I didn't

537
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: see coming. I predicted the violence in September of twenty twenty,

538
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: predicted that Trump would lose, predicted he wouldn't concede, predicted

539
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: the violence that was going to come. The one thing

540
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: I did not predict is that someone like Brett Baer

541
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: would be on television on election Night and come to

542
00:33:56,280 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: the conclusion, WHOA, we can't tell, you can't tell.

543
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 2: We were told, we were told that there was a yea,

544
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 2: we were told that there was a vipercation between the

545
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: so called news people on that station and the non newspeople,

546
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 2: and it turns out that it was all the same same. No,

547
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 2: I completely agree with you. And the reality is that

548
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 2: during the day you have a lot of shows on

549
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,359
Speaker 2: say MSNBC. We were talking about that a second ago

550
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 2: that to me feel much more like traditional news reporting

551
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 2: than not the evening stuff. I think everybody would know

552
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 2: is that the evening environment on those cable channels, those

553
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 2: two in particular, is a little bit less the news.

554
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 2: But it is in the case of MSNBC reliable information

555
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 2: with integrity. On Fox not so much. So.

556
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 1: I say this as a vestigle conservative, deeply skeptical of

557
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: the power of government right to bring about sometimes the

558
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 1: type of change right that, yeah, thing needs to develop

559
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: more so. But I'll tell you one thing that government fixed,

560
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:57,919
Speaker 1: and I say this to someone who's a million mile

561
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 1: or of three different airlines, right, they made this go away.

562
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: And it was the era of sitting on a plane

563
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: where you knew the plane would never take off. You knew,

564
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: right you, and you knew that the flight crew knew it,

565
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,360
Speaker 1: and you knew that the captain knew it. But the captain,

566
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: for whatever reason in an era, would would fuck with you.

567
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: Would would would would as a consequence, it would be

568
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: ten more minutes, We're going to go ten more minutes,

569
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: and you'd have hours of ten more minutes or right,

570
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: you'd have the opposite effect, right where they just wouldn't

571
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: say anything. It was just total silence, right, and no

572
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: one would give you the courtesy of an hour three

573
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: what's happening? What's happening?

574
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:46,919
Speaker 2: Right?

575
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 1: And this provokes people and enrages them to their highest level.

576
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: So we're watching the energy thing and there's this moment

577
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: where where Trump attacks the media and the and the

578
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: crowd just goes crazy prey, you know, like plodding in

579
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: the attack on the media. I think that this is

580
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: a big deal that's not been covered enough and I've

581
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: been looking forward to asking you about it. Joe Scarborough

582
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: goes on his show and he says something out loud

583
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: that's completely tripped. He says, every single Democrat who comes

584
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: on my show, all of them, says one thing out

585
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 1: loud about the president and his ability to beat Trump,

586
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: and then has a completely different conversation off camera. This

587
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 1: is on a network where there's a lot of time

588
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: being spent talked about misinformation and disinformation. If you have

589
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:11,760
Speaker 1: the leading journalists and the leading hosts and the leading

590
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: politicians of one party having a conversation that's private and

591
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 1: having one for public consumption, that's thin and inauthentic, and

592
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: people sense it. The cynicism that that produces is very real.

593
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: But the tendency and I saw it with all of

594
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: the people who came on as Republicans denouncing Trump only

595
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 1: to get in line until there were literally like seven

596
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: people left right, you know that held the line on

597
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: Trump consistently through what's the word you would call that?

598
00:37:58,640 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 2: That?

599
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: That that secret conversation, that green room conversation, And what

600
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: do you do about that? Because that's not the journalism

601
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:13,800
Speaker 1: of Texas Tribune and pro Public in frontline of stripping

602
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: back in Uvaldi. That's the journalism of a very cloister

603
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: geography of people living in a certain kind of radius

604
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:29,840
Speaker 1: of Washington, DC in New York making some proximate range

605
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:34,800
Speaker 1: of salaries in the millions, having conversations with other people

606
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 1: making million dollar salaries on the periphery of government and

607
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 1: politics with each other in secret and calling it news.

608
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:43,919
Speaker 1: What's that?

609
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 2: Well? Look, was that not the criticism of Fox that

610
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 2: came up through the dominion lawsuit and released those text

611
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 2: messages that they were going on the air and saying

612
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 2: one thing, and the evidence was that privately they believed

613
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 2: something else and we're saying that to one another. I mean,

614
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 2: that's is that materially different than going on the air

615
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 2: and saying ex and then backstage or back in the

616
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 2: green room saying why.

617
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 1: One is you have to make a decision as a

618
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 1: matter of fact, right, and the other is about about

619
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: a position of belief right. One is you percent a

620
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: co mession. One's a sin of o mission at someone.

621
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 2: But you have to you have to make a decision, Steve,

622
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: as a journalist, whether you're comfortable putting people on the air,

623
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 2: whoever the subject, saying one thing when you know from

624
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 2: conversations you've had that they believe something completely opposite. You

625
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 2: know you're not an enabler. You're somebody who is supposed

626
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 2: to be scrutinizing and preventing facts, presenting, presenting facts, presenting

627
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 2: the truth. And if you know something that is not

628
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 2: the truth and is not a fact, someone is expressing

629
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 2: an opinion that is the exact opposite of what they've

630
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 2: told you previously that they believe. If you're putting that

631
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 2: on the air, you are part of the problem. I'm

632
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 2: going to say that, regardless of the subject, regardless of

633
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 2: the channel, And I don't think that's journalism. I don't.

634
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: What do you think is more dysfunctional right now? Let's

635
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: state of the parties, the state of politics writ large,

636
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: or the state of the state of journalism, or they

637
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: all won at least as it's applied through Washington, one

638
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 1: confederated mishmash of self interest masquerading as the public interest.

639
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 1: I don't like, how do you see it? And I

640
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,320
Speaker 1: guess the question I'm trying to ask. At a business level,

641
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: there's so much corroptery, malfeasance and wrongdoing right now that

642
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: if you were running a journalistic entity right afflicting the

643
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: powerful would seem to be a joyful, growth oriented business

644
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: in this moment because there's so much low hanging fruit.

645
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 1: Yet there seems to be outside of Pro Publica and

646
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:01,280
Speaker 1: some of these you know, other kind of instant Texas tributes,

647
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:05,320
Speaker 1: certainly one of them, Rolling Stone occasionally, right, you know,

648
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 1: a real lack of appetite right to go together there there,

649
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of there there.

650
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the news on that is a

651
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 2: little bit better than the picture that you just painted.

652
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 2: I think there are more news organizations that are willing

653
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 2: to roll up their sleeves and to do that hard

654
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 2: work and to fade the heat and consequences. I think

655
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 2: the new York Times is in that category. Maybe not

656
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 2: every day, but I certainly think the New York Times

657
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:32,719
Speaker 2: is one of those news organizations that has shown themselves

658
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 2: willing to write those hard stories. I think the Washington

659
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 2: Post has, I think the Wall Street Journal has. Look,

660
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,320
Speaker 2: I think it is hard work, and it's expensive work,

661
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 2: and it's time consuming work. And it goes back to

662
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 2: what we were talking about earlier about the state of

663
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 2: the media that for a lot of organizations that publish

664
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 2: the news, the expense and the time commitment and the

665
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 2: less than one hundred percent certainty that this thing that

666
00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 2: you're spending your time and your money on, our time

667
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 2: and money on is going to pan out. That is

668
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:05,879
Speaker 2: an obstacle for a lot of these news organizations out

669
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,879
Speaker 2: in the world today to commit to doing that kind

670
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:13,720
Speaker 2: of investigation or to holding people accountable on a grand scale.

671
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the problems is that the

672
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 2: news business is really kind of like down to the

673
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 2: stems and the seeds in terms of its capability, capacity

674
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 2: inclination to do that work all the time well, even

675
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 2: though it needs to be done. Look, I think you

676
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 2: asked if this is all a miss match, but you

677
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 2: said the party's politics and the media. Is it all

678
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 2: one thing or is it separate things? I would say

679
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 2: it's a been diagram. I think there are problems with

680
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:44,240
Speaker 2: each that overlap, but each have problems that are unique

681
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:49,320
Speaker 2: to themselves, that are specific. I do think that the parties,

682
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 2: from my perspective here in the middle of the country,

683
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 2: that the parties are in a bad place. And I

684
00:42:56,440 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 2: do think that politics generally is is not functioning in

685
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 2: a way that is benefiting the average person in this country.

686
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:07,879
Speaker 2: Right now, we're not We're avoiding difficult problems and difficult conversations.

687
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 2: We're not getting a lot done. I'd be interested to

688
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 2: see what this session of Congress has accomplished laid out

689
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 2: end to end versus comparable sessions of Congress in previous years.

690
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 2: This feels to me like something of a do nothing Congress.

691
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,880
Speaker 2: And it's in part because you have a divide politically

692
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 2: between the House and the Senate. There's not only is

693
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 2: there no willingness to get along, there's an active effort

694
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 2: to avoid compromising. Compromise used to not be a dirty

695
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 2: word in this country, and that's now where we are.

696
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,240
Speaker 2: And so I think that the whole thing is broken

697
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 2: and I think the journalism was, unfortunately in a moment

698
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:53,959
Speaker 2: when we need it more than ever, in a tough

699
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 2: spot in terms of its ability to tell us all

700
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 2: about it, to shine a light on what's not being

701
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 2: done and what needs to be done. So it's an

702
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: unfortunate overlap kind of the confluence of these things. The

703
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,439
Speaker 2: collapse of these institutions is happening concurrently, and it's bad

704
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 2: for all of us.

705
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: Do you view it as a collapse of these institutions?

706
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: Do you view it as decay of these institutions?

707
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:16,879
Speaker 2: Do you.

708
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:25,600
Speaker 1: View it as these institutions are too far gone that

709
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: they're metastasizing to a place that makes them too far gone? Then, like,

710
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 1: how do you assess the moment with regard to that statement?

711
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you can ask yourself whether politics and

712
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 2: the parties are too far gone to be fixed. I mean,

713
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 2: I don't honestly work in politics or in the party

714
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 2: system enough. My knowledge of them is more educated probably

715
00:44:57,600 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 2: than most people as a close observer, but I'm not

716
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 2: in the middle of all of it. My sense is

717
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 2: that it's a complete mess. It's as much of a

718
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 2: mess as it's been in my lifetime, and I'm not

719
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 2: sure that they can pull themselves back up from it. Ultimately,

720
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 2: it's going to be on the public to spur that

721
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:22,439
Speaker 2: kind of change or reset. The public's capacity to take

722
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 2: less than they deserve from government seems endless, you know.

723
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:29,760
Speaker 2: I mean, the public is going to have to say,

724
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 2: we're not prepared for this anymore, and we demand that

725
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 2: there be something different. I do know about journalism. I

726
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 2: don't think journalism is beyond repair. I don't as an institution,

727
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 2: and I think that what you're seeing around the country

728
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 2: are these green shoots. I think what you're seeing is

729
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 2: evidence that people in communities who have no place to

730
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 2: turn are saying, we've got to figure something out. We've

731
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:56,359
Speaker 2: got to create new organizations. We've got to fund new organizations,

732
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 2: we have to build new models. One of the most

733
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 2: hopeful things the last year that I've spent on the

734
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 2: road as a consultant after stepping down at the end

735
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 2: of last year as the CEO of the Tribune is

736
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 2: I'm seeing from coast to coast and border to border

737
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 2: a lot of very hopeful and optimistic signs start up

738
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 2: news organizations that are trying to come in alongside the

739
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 2: legacy guys and trying to provide real, reliable, credible, consistent

740
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 2: news like I do think journalism is not only savable

741
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 2: or fixable. But it's on the way there. We're not

742
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,280
Speaker 2: there yet. It took a generation for the news business

743
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:35,919
Speaker 2: to get to the place that it is right now,

744
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 2: and it may take a generation for it to come back.

745
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:41,800
Speaker 2: I'm just not really sure about politics and the parties.

746
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 2: I mean, look, we're in a situation right now, Steve,

747
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 2: where we have two unpopular candidates for president who appear

748
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 2: to be on a path to be the nominees of

749
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 2: their parties, whether that is fair to them or not.

750
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 2: The public has said we're not happy with the choices.

751
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 2: You have a bunch of friends candidates, third, fourth, fifth

752
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 2: parties potentially who are not serious and who are not

753
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 2: going to be impactful except possibly to cause a defeat

754
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 2: of one side. We don't know which side yet. Right

755
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 2: this country is looking for something else. The polls say

756
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:25,399
Speaker 2: that now. We're not yet in a general election where

757
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 2: this becomes not just a referendum but a choice. We'll

758
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 2: see in fact, whether the relative unpopularity of these candidates

759
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 2: persists into a general election where we have clarity on

760
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 2: what and who is on the ballot. But it's going

761
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 2: to be up to the voters to say this time

762
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 2: and for all time whether they're prepared to continue down

763
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 2: the path that we're on. What I can tell you

764
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 2: is I believe that the public right now is profoundly

765
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 2: dissatisfied with the politics of the moment, and how long

766
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,279
Speaker 2: that continues before there's change remains to be seen.

767
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: I think that Matthew McConaughey to get elected governor of

768
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 1: Texas as an independent.

769
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:11,719
Speaker 2: You know, we actually had a moment to consider that

770
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:13,879
Speaker 2: in the last cycle where there was some talk about

771
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 2: him running, and there was some question about which party

772
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 2: he would run in. Nobody knew, nobody knows what his

773
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 2: politics are from a party standpoint, and so yeah, a

774
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 2: number of people ask the question, well, if he went

775
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 2: a third way, did he get elected. I tend to

776
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 2: think that celebrity candidates are an interesting conversation like the

777
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 2: one that we're having, but that in the end, I

778
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 2: don't think people are prepared to put government in the

779
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 2: hands of someone who does not have knowledge about the

780
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:46,920
Speaker 2: inner workings of government, of policy making. I mean, you

781
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 2: can always solve for that by putting people around such

782
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 2: a person who know that stuff better than the individual does.

783
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 2: And I guess we did live through a time when

784
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California. So maybe in

785
00:48:58,000 --> 00:48:59,800
Speaker 2: fact that I just said it's complete bullshit.

786
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 1: He was a right, you know, he was a serious governor.

787
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but at the beginning, at the beginning, before

788
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 2: he was governor, probably people had the same conversation about

789
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:15,200
Speaker 2: him that they had about McConaughey. Here, right, is this

790
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 2: guy someone who could actually get elected? And could he

791
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,439
Speaker 2: lead Sportsteger prove that it was possible? Right?

792
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: Do you? But you think he could be formidable?

793
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 2: Matthew? I mean, I honestly don't know whether he could

794
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 2: be formidable. It's very easy to walk up to the

795
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 2: edge of deciding you want to get in this. People

796
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 2: like you for your movies, they like you for your persona,

797
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 2: they like the fact that you're there on the sidelines

798
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 2: of the Texas football game. You know, all of that.

799
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 2: Not with him. It's one thing for him to be

800
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 2: a candidate in theory, but when he gets in and

801
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 2: what he believes is scrutinized and who he is is scrutinized,

802
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:00,320
Speaker 2: people may take a different point of view or have

803
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 2: a different point of view about him. I just don't

804
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 2: think we know. I think it's fan fiction to speculate

805
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:05,200
Speaker 2: about that.

806
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 1: Could Will Herd be on any kind of candidacy in

807
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: Texas well?

808
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, if you're talking about for govern

809
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:17,799
Speaker 2: if you'rek about for governor again, or just for any

810
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 2: offer governor, Yeah, I'm not sure that Will Hurd wants

811
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 2: to be governor of Texas. You'd have to ask him that.

812
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 2: I've not had a conversation with him about whether he

813
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 2: intends to seek any office ever again, or that office particularly.

814
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:31,920
Speaker 2: I do know that Will Hurd is where if I

815
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 2: went back ten or fifteen or twenty years and I

816
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 2: looked at who was a Republican and who was a conservative,

817
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 2: Will Hurd's positions on things and his affect tend to

818
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 2: align much more with the Republican Party and what conservatism

819
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 2: was at that point than what we know it to

820
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 2: be today. Who votes in a Republican primary, as you

821
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 2: very well know, Steve, is often the determining factor in

822
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 2: whether somebody gets elected in the fall. In a one

823
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 2: party state where there is not competition in the fall,

824
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 2: the primary is the general. Can someone with Will Hurd's

825
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 2: politics get through a primary in a state like Texas today.

826
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 2: Will Hurd had one of the lower percentages of alignment

827
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 2: with President Trump. When will Heard served in Congress and

828
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 2: Trump was in the White House, his Trump score was

829
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:30,680
Speaker 2: pretty well. He voted on issues like guns and the

830
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 2: border in ways that aligned with what his constituents in

831
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:41,120
Speaker 2: his district he believed needed at the time, but may

832
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 2: not have been aligned with the Republican Party in the

833
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 2: main in Texas right, Could Willhard get elected to that

834
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:51,840
Speaker 2: seat that he held in Congress today? Would he be

835
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 2: able to get through a primary for any office in

836
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 2: Texas today? It's tough. I mean, look at what happened

837
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 2: with George P. Bush running against Ken Paxson for Attorney General.

838
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 2: I have questions about whether George W. Bush would get

839
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:08,840
Speaker 2: through a Republican primary today. The party today is not

840
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 2: the party it was twenty years ago. It's just not so.

841
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 2: I don't know. Do I think Will Heard is fit

842
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 2: to be in an office?

843
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: I do.

844
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:19,319
Speaker 2: Do I think that Will Heard might have a problem

845
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 2: getting elected?

846
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: I do also now I believe I always say this

847
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 1: of all of the presidential candidates, nominees and winners. Mono

848
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: Amano against Trump right. You can go all the way

849
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: back right to FDR right, who would be the strongest

850
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 1: person on the debate stage against Trump? And I will

851
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 1: never be convinced otherwise than it's George W. Bush right,

852
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:55,239
Speaker 1: that George W. Bush right underestimated as a politician. But

853
00:52:55,360 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: George W. Bush's ability to give him the looks that

854
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: someone should have given him a long time ago, that

855
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:09,520
Speaker 1: Barbara Bush look and the wit right, or you know,

856
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: something that would be effective at confronting Trump. But let

857
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 1: me ask.

858
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:17,360
Speaker 2: Steve, I have to tell you somebody, somebody who you

859
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 2: know very well, who also would have been an interesting

860
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 2: person to debate Donald Trump as John McCain right, I

861
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 2: would have loved to see that. That would have been

862
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 2: really interesting.

863
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know, you know. I mean John

864
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 1: wasn't a great debater, you know, and god, he got

865
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:39,239
Speaker 1: so pissed off in these debates, right, Like I mean,

866
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 1: I just like I don't, I honestly don't know, like

867
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 1: how like he would have held it together right with

868
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 1: Trump on there? I I just it's it's also preposterous.

869
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: I But let me let me ask you this question.

870
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: This is a very real thing. This is this is

871
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: real I'm gonna ask you something that's not science fiction.

872
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:00,080
Speaker 1: This is Donald Trump said that he's gonna do this,

873
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:05,759
Speaker 1: And one thing is true. There's no person who has

874
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: ever promised the concentration camp, the mass deportations, and the

875
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: arrest of political prisoners, who, upon achieving political power, did

876
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: not fulfill the promise ever. Nobody right. So one thing

877
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:27,359
Speaker 1: Trump has said, I'm deploying the military hour one under

878
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:33,919
Speaker 1: the Insurrection Act of seventeen ninety one. Now Congress can

879
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:38,800
Speaker 1: defund that and bring it to a stop, not without

880
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:43,320
Speaker 1: crippling the military, you know, with a lot of consequences

881
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: around the world if they're in the majority. Donald Trump

882
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:52,759
Speaker 1: takes power on January twenty at twenty twenty five, and

883
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 1: if the election were tomorrow, Donald Trump would be elected

884
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 1: president if Joe Biden were the nominee. How do you

885
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 1: think about, as a journalist, a moment of tanks rolling

886
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:11,480
Speaker 1: into Chicago at the order of a president, not like

887
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 1: Eisenhower did with the hundred first Airborne to enforce federal

888
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 1: law and a desegregation order, but but the military to

889
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 1: the control with thinly vamp political purposes. Talk to me

890
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 1: about that coming story, because that's what comes next, right,

891
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 1: that's the next evolution of this. And if you talked

892
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:36,280
Speaker 1: about the progression of all of this over eight years time,

893
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:39,799
Speaker 1: and you got out five years ago to know this

894
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: is we're gonna have an insurrection at the Capitol, people

895
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: would have looked at you crazily.

896
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:46,799
Speaker 2: Trump you would you wouldn't have believed it.

897
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: He's gonna he's gonna disassemble the government in six months

898
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: with the military on the streets to make sure our cities,

899
00:55:57,120 --> 00:56:01,360
Speaker 1: which he said are being invaded, are secure. So what

900
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:06,080
Speaker 1: is your frame to cover that conceptually as a journalist

901
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 1: and event that could be under a year away and

902
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 1: is at the core of the republic The Republican nominees

903
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 1: campaign promise.

904
00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:17,279
Speaker 2: Well, the coverage of it begins now. It doesn't wait

905
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 2: until January twentieth and twenty twenty five. You've got to

906
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 2: think about it, write about it, talk about it now.

907
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 2: Liz Cheney said the other day we have to take

908
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 2: him both seriously and literally. He said, what he intends

909
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 2: to do, maya Angelou. When somebody tells you who they are,

910
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 2: believe them right. This guy's telling us every single day

911
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 2: what he intends to do, who he is. We need

912
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 2: to take him seriously. We need to believe him. My

913
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 2: colleagues at The Atlantic produced what I thought was an

914
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 2: extraordinary issue of their magazine over the last couple of

915
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:51,960
Speaker 2: weeks that essentially laid out end to end what they

916
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 2: perceived to be the threat. You know, Stuart Stevens, who

917
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:57,720
Speaker 2: you know very well, said several months ago, the greatest

918
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,040
Speaker 2: danger is not realizing what the greatest danger is. We

919
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:05,440
Speaker 2: need to be focused on the possibility or the probability

920
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 2: that what you just described in some fashion may be coming.

921
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:12,440
Speaker 2: We can't be caught surprised, caught off guard by it.

922
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 2: We can't be surprised by it. And I think that

923
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 2: as a journalist to have an obligation to take people

924
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:21,560
Speaker 2: at their word and to sort through how abnormal it is,

925
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 2: and to sort through what the consequences of it would

926
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:27,120
Speaker 2: be if it were to happen. You know, we are

927
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 2: not just journalists, Steed. We're humans. We're Americans, we're citizens,

928
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 2: we're people. We're no different than the people we write for.

929
00:57:37,240 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 2: The consequences for us of such a day coming are

930
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 2: not just the consequences for journalists. They're the consequences for citizens.

931
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:49,680
Speaker 2: There are consequences for the residents of a democracy and

932
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 2: it's not playing around time. And I think that we

933
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 2: in the media business have an obligation and obligation responsibility

934
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 2: to start covering the day to day and to anticipate,

935
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 2: to process what would happen if that, in fact happened

936
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 2: on that day. So you know, you're exactly right. What

937
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 2: you said about January sixth is exactly right. If you

938
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:14,000
Speaker 2: go back five years ago, nobody would have believed it.

939
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:16,920
Speaker 2: Nobody would have believed it. And I think to some

940
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 2: degree we're still shrugging our shoulders at it. Right, we're

941
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:22,360
Speaker 2: blurring out the faces of the people on that day

942
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:26,919
Speaker 2: literally and existentially. As the speaker said the other day, Right,

943
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 2: that was a day that none of us ever expected,

944
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 2: and none of us ever could have predicted would ever come.

945
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:34,440
Speaker 2: I think that we're at a point now where our

946
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:42,480
Speaker 2: capacity to be astonished by events has been replenished. Like

947
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 2: we know that astonishing things are going to happen. We

948
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:49,640
Speaker 2: see them happening in real time every single day. So

949
00:58:49,680 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be surprised about the possibility that what the

950
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 2: likely nominee for office of one party says will happen

951
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 2: should he be elected. We should not be surprised by

952
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 2: that because he told does and so as journalists we

953
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:05,440
Speaker 2: have an obligation to report it, to consider the consequences

954
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 2: of it, and to start.

955
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 1: Now when I asked you a question that I think

956
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:16,080
Speaker 1: it's a really relevant one, Steve, Evan's got Eva's got

957
00:59:16,120 --> 00:59:17,120
Speaker 1: a heart out in a little bit.

958
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 2: So this is gonna be.

959
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:24,440
Speaker 1: Last question, last question, the last question. Sure, when I

960
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 1: look at a Dan Patrick, a Greg Abbott attorney general,

961
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:42,920
Speaker 1: packs astoundingly corrupt figure, pas, would they lock up political

962
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:50,919
Speaker 1: opponents in your estimation? Would they lock up journalists? Would

963
00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:54,560
Speaker 1: he prosecute you if he could?

964
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:58,760
Speaker 2: Would the Attorney General prosecute me and mine if he could?

965
00:59:59,240 --> 00:59:59,760
Speaker 1: If he could?

966
01:00:01,080 --> 01:00:04,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no evidence. There's there's no evidence. There's no Yeah,

967
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 2: there's no evidence. Steve that that that's the length to

968
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 2: which he would go. I will say that the relationship

969
01:00:11,480 --> 01:00:13,439
Speaker 2: between the Attorney General and other people in the elect

970
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 2: office and the media right now is also at a

971
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:18,360
Speaker 2: low point in terms of access, in terms of a

972
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 2: willingness to be scrutinized, to hold one's conduct and oneself

973
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:25,680
Speaker 2: up to the to the light. I think that this

974
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 2: is a complicated moment. For sure, have they I don't

975
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:30,480
Speaker 2: know that we go all the way to a jail term,

976
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 2: but but I will say they complicated.

977
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:38,920
Speaker 1: Have they have they exceeded or underwhelmed on the question

978
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 1: of their hostility to democratic norms, meaning are they as

979
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:54,720
Speaker 1: hostile as portraded on MSNBC to the norms democracies are

980
01:00:54,800 --> 01:01:01,920
Speaker 1: sustained by by norms, not rules, Or is it less that.

981
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 2: I would say this. It's an interesting moment and a

982
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 2: difficult moment. If you grew up in a time when

983
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:25,520
Speaker 2: people who disagreed disagreed agreeably, and people who had people

984
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:30,440
Speaker 2: they disagreed with but didn't consider them to be their enemies,

985
01:01:31,720 --> 01:01:33,560
Speaker 2: if you grew up in that time, this is an

986
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:38,040
Speaker 2: unrecognizable time right now. I will say that I think

987
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 2: you're talking about in the case of those three individuals,

988
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 2: different people. I think you have different points of view

989
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:43,960
Speaker 2: about each of the three, and you have different points

990
01:01:43,960 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 2: of view depending upon the day you're talking about. We

991
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:52,480
Speaker 2: live in an interesting time as it relates to norms.

992
01:01:52,520 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 2: As you know, both at the national level and a

993
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:57,280
Speaker 2: lot of states around this country, what you and I

994
01:01:57,360 --> 01:01:59,560
Speaker 2: understood to be the norm growing up is no longer

995
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:01,680
Speaker 2: the normal. Now I'm going to come back to here

996
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 2: at the end what I said earlier, It is not

997
01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 2: up to you or up to me to resolve this,

998
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:12,840
Speaker 2: to to address or to fix the sorry situation that

999
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 2: we're in. It's up to It's up to the people

1000
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 2: around us. It's up to the voters of the state

1001
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:18,360
Speaker 2: like Texas, or the voters of this country. It's up

1002
01:02:18,360 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 2: to regular citizens to do it. All we can do

1003
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 2: is to tell them to pay attention, to give, to

1004
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 2: arm them with the means to be more thoughtful and

1005
01:02:26,560 --> 01:02:29,200
Speaker 2: productive citizens, to arm them with the means to be

1006
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:31,720
Speaker 2: the best civic versions of themselves. They are the ones

1007
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:39,080
Speaker 2: who need to ultimately decide whether abnormal is too abnormal? Right,

1008
01:02:39,160 --> 01:02:42,160
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty clear about where my

1009
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:45,960
Speaker 2: place in this is what my role is, and I

1010
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:49,080
Speaker 2: stay in my lane. But I but I will, but

1011
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 2: I will tell you this is.

1012
01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:56,160
Speaker 1: Not normal, perfectly, perfectly sad. And let me close with this.

1013
01:02:58,400 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 1: The world that Benjamin Frank was born into in seventeen

1014
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:07,640
Speaker 1: oh six, there were two hundred and sixty thousand English

1015
01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 1: settlers on a thin sliver of the East coast, and

1016
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: by the time he died, which was a year after

1017
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:18,840
Speaker 1: the passage of the Bill of Rights. There are about

1018
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 1: three million Americans, and there were about three million of

1019
01:03:25,160 --> 01:03:29,280
Speaker 1: us when he walked out of the Constitutional Convention and

1020
01:03:29,320 --> 01:03:32,200
Speaker 1: a woman shouted to him, doctor Franklin, what have you

1021
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:35,840
Speaker 1: given us? And he said, a Republican, madam, if you

1022
01:03:36,000 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: can keep it. And that is the choice in question today.

1023
01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:43,840
Speaker 1: And it is the same as it has ever been

1024
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:48,200
Speaker 1: in the United States of America, from the beginning through

1025
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:53,080
Speaker 1: every day until this day and the election ahead. And

1026
01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:57,040
Speaker 1: it is great to be with you and everybody not

1027
01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 1: reading the Texas Tribune. Absolutely it's one of the finest

1028
01:04:01,440 --> 01:04:03,560
Speaker 1: publications in the country.

1029
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:10,400
Speaker 2: M M M.