Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. We're on vacation, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: we don't have an amazing show for you Today. Director
Speaker 1: Matt Tiernauer stops by to talk some of the hidden
Speaker 1: political figures who've shaped our politics.
Speaker 2: But first we have Viep, executive producer, The One, the
Speaker 2: Only Date Mandel. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Dave Mandel, Thank you, always happy to come back.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you back because I just love
Speaker 1: you and think you're so funny, but also more importantly,
Speaker 1: because I feel like you are both a historian with
Speaker 1: the White House plumbers and a futurist with VEP.
Speaker 4: I didn't know I was a futurist when I was
Speaker 4: a futurist. You know. I think I may have said
Speaker 4: to you one time privately. You know, this was a
Speaker 4: bunch of people sitting in an office in Hollywood thinking
Speaker 4: up the stupidest thing a president could do, like the
Speaker 4: worst thing a politician could do. Like here's something no
Speaker 4: one would ever do. Can you imagine? Can you imagine?
Speaker 4: Can you imagine? And then just on a daily basis,
Speaker 4: and then at some point in the like the true Trump,
Speaker 4: you know, the four years of Trump, like an hourly basis,
Speaker 4: just stuff just started coming true. And now I joke
Speaker 4: with some of the writers in the cast, like every
Speaker 4: year there are certain things that just happen again, Like
Speaker 4: every year the daylight saving stuff happens. And that was
Speaker 4: a big Jonah issue, and it's just it's like we
Speaker 4: just we celebrate deep stories. You know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Joanah is crazy immigration stuff. I mean, just it doesn't stop.
Speaker 4: So I didn't set out to be a futurist. I
Speaker 4: swear to God, Yeah it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way, that daylight savings time, I
Speaker 1: would like to point out that the Senate they voted
Speaker 1: it's actually to stay on standard time I think, and
Speaker 1: stop savings time.
Speaker 2: Well you know about this because you've written about it.
Speaker 4: Allow me to be a historian for a second. That
Speaker 4: idea of Jonah going after daylight savings. And obviously he
Speaker 4: had his own issues because he didn't know what time
Speaker 4: it was, which was you know, very Jonah. But for us,
Speaker 4: that was very much trying to find like the fifty
Speaker 4: five mile per hour speed limit law. You know what
Speaker 4: I mean, like to find those little, tiny things that
Speaker 4: don't make a difference. One could argue it's the modern
Speaker 4: day junk fees, you know what I mean. It's trying
Speaker 4: to find those things that move the dial for the voters,
Speaker 4: but in the grand scheme of things, perhaps maybe aren't
Speaker 4: actually as important.
Speaker 3: Not a lot.
Speaker 4: By the way, I don't like junk fees, but I
Speaker 4: worry much more about voting rights. You know, I'm not
Speaker 4: worried that when Trump's going to be a dictator for
Speaker 4: just a day, there's going to be more junk fees.
Speaker 4: That's not high on my list of worries. But again,
Speaker 4: it was just trying to find those sort of things.
Speaker 4: You know, Reagan did it, Clinton did it, and we
Speaker 4: sort of just picked a really stupid one. Only it
Speaker 4: turned out then, you know, the Concrests and the Senate
Speaker 4: were very interested in It's so I don't know, no
Speaker 4: good answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also me, but I'm very interested in it too.
Speaker 1: As it gets it's about to be dark here in
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes. But no, it's true, and it is
Speaker 1: a low state. I mean, you know, right now, in
Speaker 1: this do nothing Congress, as it's called.
Speaker 4: I think that's an insult to previous do nothing congresses.
Speaker 4: I would make that argument. Yeah, at least some of
Speaker 4: those congresses were trying.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but this Congress can't even name post offices.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The complaint about McCarthy was that all McCarthy was doing
Speaker 1: was naming post offices. Now we have Speaker Johnson and
Speaker 1: they're not even naming the post offices anymore.
Speaker 4: Well, I think he's allowed to name them, but then
Speaker 4: he has to let his son know he named them.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how that works exactly. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: I'm not sure which son, his regular son or his
Speaker 4: secret African American son. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, his secret adopted son.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, come on, man, I wouldn't write that
Speaker 4: on me, you know, like like secret Dutch. So, although
Speaker 4: I guess now I will. But yeah, someday, some days
Speaker 4: my new show on Max Secret Adopted Son coming soon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you actually are doing a show on Santos discuss.
Speaker 4: I'm not there, it is happening. It's Frank Rich is
Speaker 4: doing it.
Speaker 2: But you will end up working on that.
Speaker 4: I'm sure I will help, But god, damn, I need
Speaker 4: a break, and I just I want better smarter criminals,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like, I you know, I want,
Speaker 4: I can't take the gangs that wouldn't shoot straight. The
Speaker 4: Santos stuff, I don't know, when you start getting into
Speaker 4: the botox and whatnot, you just kind of go come on, really,
Speaker 4: I mean, his list looked like someone made this point.
Speaker 4: It looks like a teenage girl's Christmas list, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, like of like where he spent the
Speaker 4: month on the fans.
Speaker 2: Or mass looks like my Christmas. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: The thing with Santos that I was struck by was
Speaker 1: he got elected not because he was like a brilliant criminal, right,
Speaker 1: Like I mean with the White House plumbers, you had
Speaker 1: you know, the wife was working for the CIA the
Speaker 1: whole time, Right, you had some sort of very and right,
Speaker 1: wasn't you working for the.
Speaker 4: Dorothy was a you know, a former agent and was
Speaker 4: a damn good agent who.
Speaker 1: Was still sort of in it, right, you know, you
Speaker 1: had people who were really were this was just like
Speaker 1: a failure at every you know, nobody investigated him, so
Speaker 1: he got elected.
Speaker 4: Well that's that to me is actually the most interesting point.
Speaker 4: To me, the most interesting point is just the sort
Speaker 4: of if you will, The New York Times just ignoring it,
Speaker 4: and wasn't it There was like a small local paper
Speaker 4: like in Long Island that was sort of shouting to
Speaker 4: the heavens and no one was paying attention. And by
Speaker 4: the way, at some point, voters get what they deserve.
Speaker 4: I knew. I mean, I know, we work hard to
Speaker 4: sort of like make that not happen, but at some
Speaker 4: point you just do sometimes kind of go, this is
Speaker 4: what you want. And I don't even have an answer.
Speaker 4: But that's the part of the Santos story I find
Speaker 4: the most fascinating. And then, of course the Republicans, who basically,
Speaker 4: you know, what are they down to now one vote
Speaker 4: with when McCarthy leaves, basically their one death away from possibly.
Speaker 2: Because Shila Jackson Lee went back, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's true, that's true. Yes, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 4: So but I'm just simply saying, it's like the idea
Speaker 4: that the Republicans had to do nothing but sort of
Speaker 4: protect this guy, you know what I mean, and watching
Speaker 4: him sort of trying to make friends in the Congress.
Speaker 4: I don't know. That's that's the part of the story,
Speaker 4: exactly exactly. I want to that's that's the part of it.
Speaker 4: I really want to dig into less the drag queen
Speaker 4: in Brazil and just more him try to make friends
Speaker 4: and like standing next to people who did not want
Speaker 4: to be standing next to him but kind of had to.
Speaker 4: That I find fascinating. Luckily, there's no shortage of hypocrites
Speaker 4: among the Republican Congress as well. They do nothing or
Speaker 4: whenever yet right, And I.
Speaker 1: Mean they were happy that the MAGA crew was happy
Speaker 1: to take him in.
Speaker 4: Oh, thrilled, thrilled in the grand scheme of things. He's
Speaker 4: you know, super qualified. I guess, you know, had a
Speaker 4: lot of credit card numbers. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 4: right exactly.
Speaker 2: He knows how to rip up a lot of people.
Speaker 1: My favorite part of that whole story actually was so
Speaker 1: as they were talking about kick him out, we had
Speaker 1: a congressman who.
Speaker 2: Had been in the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Max Miller, who said that Santos had stolen Max Miller
Speaker 1: and Max Miller's mother's credit card to take illegal donations
Speaker 1: from them both. But it turned out that Max Miller
Speaker 1: was actually had been sort of in trouble for domestic abuse.
Speaker 1: Of course, so even the person who is coming out
Speaker 1: against Santos is not without.
Speaker 4: Look, I don't have any answers. I'm not an expert,
Speaker 4: but somehow this is all Hunter Biden's fault. That's what
Speaker 4: that's the vibe I'm getting from the Republicans.
Speaker 2: It was on the laptop.
Speaker 4: Yep, this is this is what the Bidens have been doing.
Speaker 4: This is very clear. Yeah, very becoming very clear to me.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the only answer.
Speaker 1: But I interviewed an expert in presidential impeachments and we're
Speaker 1: talking about this sort of legal whatever, and this will
Speaker 1: be the first presidential impeachment on vibes.
Speaker 4: Just the it's I get an icky feeling. Is that
Speaker 4: what you mean?
Speaker 1: It's just Republicans don't know what, but they know they
Speaker 1: don't like that guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as long as it's secretive and behind closed doors,
Speaker 4: I'm fine with you, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly what did they do?
Speaker 4: They tried to vote today or yesterday for like the
Speaker 4: Democrats wanted to put in like something like open and
Speaker 4: something into the I don't even know the bill about
Speaker 4: the the coming impeachment, and it was voted down by
Speaker 4: the Republicans.
Speaker 1: Yes, they wanted Hunter Biden to testify, and he said
Speaker 1: he would testify in an open hearing, and they said no,
Speaker 1: they only want him behind closed doors.
Speaker 4: How dare you want to testify it an open hearing
Speaker 4: which none of the people that were called to testify
Speaker 4: for anything against Trump ever showed up for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean the double stand is really infuriating.
Speaker 1: I mean remember all of those hearings where it was like,
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan, won't you I mean, Jim Jordan divide a
Speaker 1: congressional the subpoena. This is the guy who all he
Speaker 1: does is send out congressional subpoenas and.
Speaker 4: They don't care. I mean, you know, we're talking a
Speaker 4: little bit about you know, history, if you will, And
Speaker 4: it is just this sense of like, my god, like
Speaker 4: do you even see yourself? You know, I don't know
Speaker 4: what to say.
Speaker 3: What was it?
Speaker 4: John Allen called it like there used to be shame,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, It's just like what happened
Speaker 4: to shame? Like do you hear yourself? Do you see yourself?
Speaker 1: So my question is it a gourvi daal thing? Is
Speaker 1: it the United States of amnesia? Are we just too
Speaker 1: stupid to remember the last season?
Speaker 4: I do think that is a flaw in America, in
Speaker 4: general that we just sort of I don't know if
Speaker 4: it's we're too stupid, but we just like to put
Speaker 4: it to bed. It's like that happened, let's move on,
Speaker 4: that can never happen again, or that didn't happen, Let's
Speaker 4: just keep going. But I do think there's a little
Speaker 4: bit more of what is it, the difference between like,
Speaker 4: you know, first and second degree murder. There's a lot
Speaker 4: more premeditation these days, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 4: just feel like it's a lot more purposeful, unfortunately, than
Speaker 4: just stupid. It may be counting on people's stupidity to
Speaker 4: not remember it, but the people that are trying to
Speaker 4: do the forgetting, if you will, are far more purposeful
Speaker 4: and unfortunately just far more sinister. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 4: ku jokes don't seem funny anymore. I don't know, just
Speaker 4: speaking from a joke standpoint, from a joke writing standpoint,
Speaker 4: the notion of ha ha, here come armed soldiers to
Speaker 4: take over it just starts to like, oh wait, maybe
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know, right, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, when it's in the possible realm of possibility, I
Speaker 1: feel like that does undermine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's when it couldn't happen that it seems
Speaker 4: funny when it could happen on you know whatever, January seventh.
Speaker 4: I guess maybe they'll give us a day next time,
Speaker 4: I don't know, or January twentieth, twenty first, you know, whenever,
Speaker 4: I don't know, but just a lot less funny. I
Speaker 4: was laughing. I don't know why this keeps making me laugh.
Speaker 4: I just like the idea that Trump will slowly reduce
Speaker 4: the amount of time that he's willing to be a dick,
Speaker 4: where he'll just kind of give these different statements and go,
Speaker 4: I will just be addictated for six hours, you know,
Speaker 4: Like I like as if like, oh, that's so much
Speaker 4: better than a day. It's just like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: I'll just be feurer for six hours.
Speaker 2: Come on, right exactly.
Speaker 1: But it is this larger question of like how we
Speaker 1: got here where, Like I didn't like w I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know that he was a genius, but he
Speaker 1: was a you know, he made it through Yale. He
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess Trump made it through Penn. So
Speaker 1: forget it. Never mind a bad example.
Speaker 4: I mean I'll say this, and it's like I can
Speaker 4: think of a lot of Republican presidents that I didn't
Speaker 4: care for, but I didn't hate them with a passion
Speaker 4: of a thousand suns. And I did not feel like
Speaker 4: they were trying to I don't know, like that there
Speaker 4: was a chance, yeah, that they would and there was
Speaker 4: a chance that they would never leave office, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, or try and pass it on. Well,
Speaker 4: I guess, you know, George Bush technically did eventually pass
Speaker 4: the presidency on to his son, but there were elections,
Speaker 4: or at least they were seemingly elections, you know, So
Speaker 4: maybe that's not a good example either. But you know
Speaker 4: what I'm kind of going for, there's just like a
Speaker 4: true con serence of like we just seem like the
Speaker 4: kind of country we used to make fun of. Like
Speaker 4: it just seems like we're a country, like some weird
Speaker 4: little country in Europe that like no one like you know,
Speaker 4: oh my god, you see what they did, you know,
Speaker 4: and it's just like now it's us. Yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 2: The problem there. We're like Lichtenstein, except exactly like that funny.
Speaker 4: Some weird little movie of some sort where it's just like, well,
Speaker 4: now you're the king. Wait what you know.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good point, and I do.
Speaker 1: I also think that we were always a country that
Speaker 1: the rest of the world made fun of, So the
Speaker 1: fact that we've only become worse is probably not a
Speaker 1: great song.
Speaker 4: Not good at all. But I mean, you know, look,
Speaker 4: there are all these things that we like to ignore,
Speaker 4: that there are no newspapers, and even there the newspapers
Speaker 4: that exist, a lot of people don't read them, and
Speaker 4: where people are getting their news, and all these things
Speaker 4: work hand in hand. And maybe it was all part
Speaker 4: of a master plot. Maybe it wasn't. It doesn't really matter.
Speaker 4: These things all work together.
Speaker 2: So it's just kind of like to get us here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the average Trump supporter, the die hard, you know,
Speaker 4: like like he's the man whatever, the fact that like
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, and by the way, there are probably a
Speaker 4: lot of Democrats that don't really care about the average
Speaker 4: working man, but Trump says it out loud, and it
Speaker 4: doesn't seem to change people's opinions, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I just that's the part where I just go, I
Speaker 4: don't get it, and I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we should devote like the rest of
Speaker 1: our time talking about how much tech bros Have ruined
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 4: That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, not political in nature, it is politically adjacent.
Speaker 2: After making billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: Off us, they have decided now they are going to
Speaker 1: be the mainstream media discuss.
Speaker 4: Obviously, you know, the great defender of free speech, Elon Musk,
Speaker 4: has now decided that some speech is freer than others.
Speaker 4: These tech guys, you know, they've always liked to sort
Speaker 4: of put themselves into this other category. You know, they
Speaker 4: always were you know, we call them jokingly tech bros.
Speaker 4: But you know, they always like wanted to pretend like
Speaker 4: tech was this other thing. And at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, they're just robber barons and they just want
Speaker 4: the same things. They want no taxes, They want their
Speaker 4: workers to work crazy hours at really terrible price. You know,
Speaker 4: they just they want everything that the worst guy from
Speaker 4: the eighteen hundreds wanted, you know, and they but they
Speaker 4: but this idea that somehow that they don't that it's
Speaker 4: other because they're doing futuristic stuff. You know, it just
Speaker 4: it's just absolute fucking bullshit. Just another group of guys.
Speaker 4: Where why not have twenty billion? Oh, if I've got
Speaker 4: twenty billion, boy, twenty two billion would be so much
Speaker 4: fucking better. Let's just fuck everything up and it fuck
Speaker 4: everyone over. I mean, that's the part that's just disgusting.
Speaker 4: I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 1: My favorite part about Elon, though, is here is this guy. Right,
Speaker 1: we have basically been giving tech bros free content because
Speaker 1: we were told that it was the only way.
Speaker 2: Right, you have to give them free you not allow charts.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember my mother writing for the Huffington
Speaker 1: Post a million years ago and people chastising her and
Speaker 1: being like, you know, you're not making any money, you're
Speaker 1: devaluing the currency, right because she would write for it
Speaker 1: for free, because she'd.
Speaker 2: Be on the cover of it. And fast forward right
Speaker 2: here we are now.
Speaker 1: Tech bros have gotten our content for free, and now
Speaker 1: they're like, we don't actually want a mainstream media at all.
Speaker 1: We're just going to have you know, the crass and stems,
Speaker 1: you know, and Tucker Carlson and you know three other guys.
Speaker 4: And as of what as of two days ago, Alex
Speaker 4: Jones now right where Alex is back?
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean, the media is such a like
Speaker 1: piddly little business compared to like.
Speaker 4: But this is the problem. I mean, Elon Musk, you know,
Speaker 4: I guess likes to present himself as one of the
Speaker 4: smartest men in the world. Okay, but bought Twitter basically
Speaker 4: because he kind of said the wrong thing in some ways,
Speaker 4: like Stu like almost like drunkenly bought a billion dollar company,
Speaker 4: has run it into the ground, changed the name of it,
Speaker 4: destroyed the branding of it, opened it up to just
Speaker 4: insane racism and anti semitism. I mean, it's just a
Speaker 4: day does not go by, and this hasn't happened in years,
Speaker 4: where just I'm just constantly being attempted to be followed
Speaker 4: by you know, bots and fake people in a way
Speaker 4: that you know hadn't gone on in like, you know,
Speaker 4: six years, seven years. Like just crazy message. But just
Speaker 4: like I guess where I'm kind of going with this
Speaker 4: is ram this thing into the ground where it makes
Speaker 4: no money. He legitimately lost money on it.
Speaker 2: Like about twenty billion dollars not.
Speaker 4: Like right, but it doesn't matter because his car company
Speaker 4: and his space company that we are still giving giant
Speaker 4: tax breaks to made so much money. It not only
Speaker 4: paid for his fuck ups, but he can like do
Speaker 4: even more fuck ups. So that is the oil company's
Speaker 4: just it's now a tech guy and that's the problem.
Speaker 1: No, that's right, and I think it's both annoying and
Speaker 1: also but I mean, I guess the idea is he
Speaker 1: doesn't want anyone writing anything bad about him.
Speaker 4: Right, I guess everything is free until you criticize him.
Speaker 4: And honestly, if I had the energy, the only postings
Speaker 4: I would do would be just you know, making fun
Speaker 4: of him, if I had the time and the energy,
Speaker 4: Like that, to me is what everyone on Twitter should
Speaker 4: just be doing, like literally posting nothing but making up
Speaker 4: stuff about him. And honestly, at some point, I think
Speaker 4: it's better to do stuff that's real. But honestly, I
Speaker 4: would if if I could, if I could command the world,
Speaker 4: just post fake shit about elon Musk day and night,
Speaker 4: just date this site. That would be enjoyable. We again,
Speaker 4: no lesson learned because even if he shut it down tomorrow,
Speaker 4: but even if he just said Twitter's done, I'm gone,
Speaker 4: we're closing the doors, it doesn't work anymore. He wouldn't
Speaker 4: lose any money, and he'd probably figure out a way
Speaker 4: to sell all our home addresses or something, or all
Speaker 4: our addresses to someplace even worse, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So I don't know that's the problem when you can
Speaker 4: do this and somehow continue to profit. That is our
Speaker 4: system in a nut shell. Oh God, I've depressed myself.
Speaker 4: I got to call my therapist. Sorry this damn man.
Speaker 2: Now, please come back anytime.
Speaker 4: I always love it. I always love coming on saying hi.
Speaker 1: Matt Tyrnauer is a director of films like Where Is
Speaker 1: My Roy Cohen and Valentino The Last Emperor, Welcome Too Fast,
Speaker 1: pology Matt.
Speaker 3: Thank you first.
Speaker 2: You've made so many amazing movies.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk to you about Roy Cohen
Speaker 1: because I feel like this all starts with Roy Cone.
Speaker 2: Trump. Is this whole shit show? Roy Cohen?
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. I mean, he's really the Zaleg
Speaker 3: of our present moment. A few years ago, I put
Speaker 3: out a movie called Where's My Roy Cone? The title
Speaker 3: given to me by the former guy who exclaimed when
Speaker 3: Jeff Sessions wouldn't do his bidding as Attorney General, Where's
Speaker 3: my Roy Cone? Meaning where's my law breaking, convention busting
Speaker 3: mob adjacent attorney slash Attorney General. And the premise of
Speaker 3: that film was to show people in what Gorvie Dahl
Speaker 3: used to call the United States of Amnesia, we're just
Speaker 3: talking about Yes.
Speaker 1: In the last interview, I said, is does this relate
Speaker 1: to the United States of Amnesia?
Speaker 3: Exactly? The man who was Bengali to Joe McCarthy was
Speaker 3: Bengali to Donald Trump. So that type of politics was
Speaker 3: always brewing, kind of coming up above the surface, occasionally geysering,
Speaker 3: like in the McCarthy period, going back down, then the
Speaker 3: John Birch era going back down, and then really it's
Speaker 3: back with a vengeance. Of course, somebody's gone back down
Speaker 3: during a bit during the Biden three years, but now
Speaker 3: we're poised for another big explosion.
Speaker 1: I think about Gorephetal, who I knew a little bit
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and how he was of
Speaker 1: that generation of writers, not so different in age, a
Speaker 1: little bit older than Hitch Chris Brigeons. But those guys
Speaker 1: really wrote these political pieces that really had a lot
Speaker 1: of breadth to them. I wonder why we don't have
Speaker 1: that so much anymore.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think people read fays in the popular
Speaker 3: press anymore. It's weird because just like the magazine I
Speaker 3: used to be a magazine journalist at Vanity's Air, and
Speaker 3: the magazine's really dead. That type of magazine used to
Speaker 3: be it. You know, that was the great vestige thing,
Speaker 3: and that as a forum really doesn't exist in that
Speaker 3: way anymore because media has become adamized. Of course, people
Speaker 3: write at length in places like medium and sub stack,
Speaker 3: and there's wonderful thinking and writing, but it's not in
Speaker 3: that sort of front and center place anymore where Hitchens
Speaker 3: or a Vidal or heaven forfend, William F. Buckley could
Speaker 3: be public figures in public intellectuals and for God's sakes,
Speaker 3: I mean, those guys were on the Dick Caviat Show
Speaker 3: and Johnny Carson and MERV Griffin we had public debates. Yeah,
Speaker 3: well it was just more focus. I mean, if you're
Speaker 3: old enough to remember the twilight of the Great Anchorman era,
Speaker 3: when you had a Walter Cronkite and a John Chancellor
Speaker 3: and later a broke On, a Jennings and a rather
Speaker 3: to sort of give you an agreed upon agenda that
Speaker 3: conformed to an idea of the public trust in media,
Speaker 3: which was that there were agreed upon facts. I mean,
Speaker 3: of course sometimes the narratives were wrong, but they were
Speaker 3: generally think more in the public.
Speaker 2: Trust, more right than they are now.
Speaker 3: Certainly, and people look to those figures, so there was
Speaker 3: sort of like a focal point. Now, of course everything
Speaker 3: to adamize, and we don't need to get into that
Speaker 3: because it's the Twitter versus the experts, and I think
Speaker 3: that's the symptom of the present moment in media that
Speaker 3: we're in. But it, like everything, it's everyone's distracted and
Speaker 3: strung out, and their cortisol levels are so high because
Speaker 3: we're all kind of like bobbing our heads up and
Speaker 3: down to our iPhones and red pilled and blue pilled.
Speaker 3: I think of you, doll and a Hitchens and the
Speaker 3: great public intellectuals of the time, a song tag even
Speaker 3: they wouldn't command the same type of audience. Of course,
Speaker 3: they'd be Twitter stars. And what does that get you?
Speaker 3: I mean your You're a Twitter star, aren't you? I mean,
Speaker 3: what what do you think your influences compared to a Hitchens?
Speaker 2: What kind of question?
Speaker 1: Wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't get it.
Speaker 1: You're on my podcast, buddy, you don't get to ask me.
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm not going to answer that question,
Speaker 1: because what is my influence compared to a Hitchin's or
Speaker 1: more influential? Well, it was rhetorical, but I mean I
Speaker 1: think I don't know that world doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: As someone who is very much a product of that world.
Speaker 1: I don't think that tech pro barons are such a
Speaker 1: great thing because you know, they have a completely narcissistic
Speaker 1: interest in the mainstream media and the interest in creating
Speaker 1: their own media, like a sort of in Style magazine
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty three. Right, they just want sort of adulation.
Speaker 1: But I also think that back then, you know, you
Speaker 1: had this incredible bar to entry, right, you couldn't have
Speaker 1: you know, they were the people who were part of
Speaker 1: the media were affluent, they were largely white, they were
Speaker 1: almost always men. They were you know, they had a
Speaker 1: very similar worldview, The narratives were very very similar. It
Speaker 1: was not easy to break in, and it was also
Speaker 1: there was not a lot of diversity of thoughts. So
Speaker 1: I think, like, yes, there was some great writing that
Speaker 1: happened during that period, and I think about Tom Wolfe's
Speaker 1: journalism was like some of the best.
Speaker 2: Right, all these people are white men.
Speaker 1: There are a few women who are allowed to you know,
Speaker 1: there's a Joan Diddion once in a while, but like
Speaker 1: you know, they're pretty white and they're pretty male.
Speaker 2: So in my mind.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that we were so well off then,
Speaker 1: but I do think what we have now is also
Speaker 1: very promat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you just outlined the bad part. That
Speaker 3: was really the bad part. Of course, of course, I
Speaker 3: mean there's a good part to all of the atomization,
Speaker 3: of course, but obviously there's there're great danger looms ahead.
Speaker 3: The media barons before had to adhere to a kind
Speaker 3: of guardrail, which was the public trust. If you were
Speaker 3: going to be licensed, you had to be responsible. But
Speaker 3: it's a period to that sense that you were talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 3: of course more diversities better, but managing media companies and
Speaker 3: the public, the so called public square, the sense of
Speaker 3: the public trust that the great FCC chairman Newton Minno
Speaker 3: declared in the sixties, you know, has just littled away.
Speaker 2: So what are you working on now?
Speaker 3: Politics wise? I'm actually and I think this is the
Speaker 3: first time this has ever been revealed. I'm doing a
Speaker 3: document theory about your guest of I think three days ago,
Speaker 3: James Carvidal.
Speaker 1: Yes, he told me, that's right, He actually did tell
Speaker 1: me a Carvel documentary. How did you get there? And
Speaker 1: also I am delighted, you.
Speaker 3: Know, James has been on the scene for more than
Speaker 3: thirty years now. It's hard to maintain that level of
Speaker 3: household name fame for that long and relevance, and I
Speaker 3: think he's an American original. I thought that would be
Speaker 3: a great person to focus on. I think he's also
Speaker 3: a truth teller, and I think he's the one Democrat
Speaker 3: that can speak to people who are limiting liberals, it seems,
Speaker 3: which is an incredibly important trait right now in our
Speaker 3: present political moment. So it's also a meditation on politics
Speaker 3: of the last thirty years, at first through his lens
Speaker 3: as someone who's credited with helping Clinton win the White House,
Speaker 3: teaching Democrat that they could win again how to win
Speaker 3: an election, which often is I think something that Democrats
Speaker 3: don't really pay heed to. I think people forget that
Speaker 3: James Carville and Mary Mataline were political media supernovae in
Speaker 3: the nineties, and I want to go back and look
Speaker 3: at that moment because they were a bipartisan marriage, absolute superstars,
Speaker 3: household names, and they really captured the American imagination. I
Speaker 3: think people were sort of filtering their own marriages through them,
Speaker 3: and that moment I think is really fascinating to re examine.
Speaker 3: So it's all wrapped up in this movie I'm doing
Speaker 3: on James. I've been following him for approximately two years
Speaker 3: as he stopped the country. Felt very active, yes, and
Speaker 3: very relevant. I mean he was the first in Kansas
Speaker 3: the National Democrat. I think you'd be the only National
Speaker 3: Democrat to go to Kansas when they were doing the
Speaker 3: pro choice referendum and that one which was a belt weather.
Speaker 1: He actually really is very much part of America. I
Speaker 1: mean he spends a lot of time right in parts
Speaker 1: of Louisiana that don't have a Starbucks.
Speaker 3: Far from it. I mean he's from a place called Carville, Louisiana,
Speaker 3: where I filmed with him. I think it was ninety
Speaker 3: eight percent black when you grew up, and I think
Speaker 3: it still is almost that ratio. They were the family
Speaker 3: that kind of had the postal concession there and ran
Speaker 3: the general store. Well, I realized I went back there
Speaker 3: with James, is that I think his empathy and his
Speaker 3: life's project is to help the marginalize through democratic politics,
Speaker 3: because he comes from one of the most marginalized communities
Speaker 3: in the United States. Yes, he was a white guy
Speaker 3: in a really poor black part of Louisiana, but he
Speaker 3: emerged as a pro civil rights political activist who I
Speaker 3: think learned empathy by seeing all of the disadvantage people
Speaker 3: with whom he grew up, and he devoted his life
Speaker 3: to try to correct the wrongs that were embedded in
Speaker 3: the economic political system of this country. So that's really
Speaker 3: the Carville project I've discovered, and that type of progressive
Speaker 3: Paul politics of that era is something he embodies, and
Speaker 3: he's the best kind of sound bite strategist and big
Speaker 3: picture strategists I think that politics has had in probably
Speaker 3: several generations.
Speaker 1: I also it's interesting that I think about, like the
Speaker 1: Republican equivalent of him, is that like nude Gangridge.
Speaker 3: Well, I think at a moment, it was probably Lee.
Speaker 2: Atwater, right, Oh, that's a good point.
Speaker 3: And Lee Atwater died young, and interestingly Atwater was the
Speaker 3: mentor of Mary Mattlin, who's James Carbill's wife. So there
Speaker 3: are a lot of range and coincidental or maybe not
Speaker 3: so coincidental themes in this that emerge from the politics
Speaker 3: of that era that prefigures our own. Much like my
Speaker 3: Morey Cone movie. What I like doing, I like kind
Speaker 3: of digging out hidden themes or themes that have gone
Speaker 3: underground in the United States of amnesia, since we're not
Speaker 3: talk history and no one remembers anything, or we can
Speaker 3: google it and then forget it two seconds later. I
Speaker 3: think that's how I like to address my form, or
Speaker 3: cut and practice by form, which is the long deep
Speaker 3: dive cinematically, to be a sort of national reckoning moment
Speaker 3: of these themes that have haunted us about the twentieth century,
Speaker 3: and we seem to forget them and then they come
Speaker 3: up and hit us in the face like a two
Speaker 3: by four because we're not looking.
Speaker 2: Were you able to interview any of the Clintons.
Speaker 3: I interviewed Ake Clinton, who was in a presidential situation
Speaker 3: at one time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the one probably the most relevant one to
Speaker 1: that movie, I would think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they're both well, actually Hillary hired, I
Speaker 3: think more or less. I mean, it really was the
Speaker 3: two for one era of the Clintons at that time.
Speaker 3: I mean, she was very important in the campaign, and
Speaker 3: she was a chief strategist in that Campaign's really interesting
Speaker 3: to kind of go granular and revisit how that campaign worked,
Speaker 3: because you have to remember, in the early nineties, a
Speaker 3: lot of really wise people around democratic politics thought there'd
Speaker 3: never be another Democratic president again.
Speaker 2: After Carter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean after Jimmy Carter's loss and Walter Mondale's
Speaker 3: loss and Reagan, you know, Poppy Bush's triumph and as
Speaker 3: the third term of Ronald Reagan. I think what Bill
Speaker 3: Clinton and James Carville and the people involved that campaign
Speaker 3: show was that you could win as a Democrat. And
Speaker 3: I don't agree with a lot of their politics. Frankly,
Speaker 3: I'm a little more liberal than those people, but I
Speaker 3: think that's one of the lessons of Carville that's relevant
Speaker 3: to this moment is you can't let the perfect be
Speaker 3: the enemy of the good. You've got to win election
Speaker 3: in order to affect change. And I mean when he
Speaker 3: talks to you on this podcast, he preaches that, and
Speaker 3: I think it's a really important lesson for us, especially
Speaker 3: at this time when we have such fractics politics and
Speaker 3: identitarian politics that is a particular problem in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: I think James has been the one who's spoken up
Speaker 3: and just said, look, everyone, let's get a Democrat elected
Speaker 3: and not faith the ABYSS and the dissolution of the
Speaker 3: project that the founders kicked off two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely have much higher stakes than a sort
Speaker 1: of normal politics. But that movie, The War Room, Yeah,
Speaker 1: was one of the great movies about a political campaign.
Speaker 3: It was. It's a da Pennebaker film. He's one of
Speaker 3: my heroes, really, one of the gods of cinema verite filmmaking,
Speaker 3: which is the type of filmmaking I like to do most.
Speaker 3: He embedded in the ninety two Little Rock Headquarters. And
Speaker 3: in that film, if the audience hasn't seen it, you
Speaker 3: get to see Carville and George Stephanopoulos, who was the
Speaker 3: communications director at that time before his media career for
Speaker 3: Bill Clinton. Hear of the campaign and it's a really
Speaker 3: interesting fly on the wall. Look at how brilliant they were,
Speaker 3: and particularly James. It's really James's movie to his vision
Speaker 3: and what a kind of inspiring visionary character he was.
Speaker 3: And also, by the way, up from nothing, he was
Speaker 3: a total failure, James Carville until he was in his
Speaker 3: I think late forties. He hit it when he was
Speaker 3: about fifty with that campaign, aren't we all?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: I do think that George Stefanopolis does not age or
Speaker 1: he was eleven in that movie, maybe both, maybe both.
Speaker 1: Matt very excited to see that movie, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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