Speaker 1: Ola, I'm called.
Speaker 2: Ramos and I'm Pas.
Speaker 1: And this is the moment juntos.
Speaker 2: George cheesy George.
Speaker 1: Well, I live. Yeah, But it's interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's not only something that I always
Speaker 3: wanted to do, but it's something that we couldn't have
Speaker 3: done just a few years ago.
Speaker 2: I think when when you think of this now, you
Speaker 2: and I were doing a video podcast in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I think this moment does two things for me. No,
Speaker 2: it it's a reflection of the way in which the
Speaker 2: media landscape is completely completely transforming. And this is something
Speaker 2: that I would have never thought we would have been doing,
Speaker 2: say ten five years ago.
Speaker 3: We were thinking in different terms. We were thinking, oh,
Speaker 3: let's do together a TV show, but not this.
Speaker 2: Not this. And I want to tell you about two
Speaker 2: stats that I keep thinking about. I read them the
Speaker 2: other day. So here's the first one that really really
Speaker 2: sticks with me. I am and I'm quoting. Okay, So
Speaker 2: this is according to Oxford's Reuter's Institute for the Study
Speaker 2: of Journalism, for the first time ever, social media is
Speaker 2: overtaking television as American's top news source. I mean, what
Speaker 2: does that say to you?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I still read the newspaper. You're rever.
Speaker 2: You're probably one of the only people that still does that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even when I'm on the planes and then I
Speaker 3: just bring my copy, people look at me and say
Speaker 3: who's who's this person or nobody's doing that.
Speaker 1: But the transition is right there. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I mean twenty years ago, I remember very vividly, of course,
Speaker 2: like I grew up with so many Latinos across the
Speaker 2: country tuning into your newscast every single evening, watching you
Speaker 2: on television, and that was one of the main ways
Speaker 2: that the Spanish speaking Latino community in this country would
Speaker 2: be informed, not through social media, not through TikTok or x,
Speaker 2: but through cable television.
Speaker 3: So remember people telling me, oh, I watched the news,
Speaker 3: and then people would come years later and say, a
Speaker 3: decade later, say well, my mom watches the news, and
Speaker 3: now it ended up being my grandma is watching.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the difference.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, your generation, you were going somewhere else it is.
Speaker 2: But I, you know, I keep thinking about this as
Speaker 2: you and I are doing this new project, like, how
Speaker 2: has that transition been for you know, going from you know,
Speaker 2: being this big voice and legacy media to now jumping
Speaker 2: into the video podcast.
Speaker 3: It hasn't been easy, but either you do it or
Speaker 3: you perish. That's and if you want to continue being
Speaker 3: a journalist and being relevant, either you move with a
Speaker 3: new technology, this new shift, or you disappear. This is
Speaker 3: this is maybe my second wave. The first one when
Speaker 3: I first survived in the United States nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 3: there were only fifteen million latinos and I and I
Speaker 3: feel that I was writing that wave, the LATINX wave
Speaker 3: lao la latina. Right now weur sixty five million latinos.
Speaker 3: So I started with that wave and we went all
Speaker 3: the way to the top. But then something changed. And
Speaker 3: this new wave has to do with technology in which
Speaker 3: we're putting a side traditional media, legacy media and going
Speaker 3: towards social media and being online and digital. And if
Speaker 3: I don't ride that wave, I'm going to disappear. So
Speaker 3: it hasn't been easy, but this is the only way
Speaker 3: to do independent journalism nowadays.
Speaker 2: And it's not easy, you know, especially when you think
Speaker 2: about this idea, know that this digital wave that we're
Speaker 2: writing on also coincides within a larger socio political environment
Speaker 2: where you know, the top people in power question facts
Speaker 2: undermine history, and so this of course changes the way
Speaker 2: that we as journalists can can operate. And I think
Speaker 2: for me, when I think of you, like you were
Speaker 2: able to gain people's trust and credibility.
Speaker 1: So they saw me every day, now they saw you
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 2: But I think in the cable news olds school television environment,
Speaker 2: you were able to do something so important, right, which
Speaker 2: is gain people's trust. I think for us in the
Speaker 2: digital world, gaining credibility is such a hard thing today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think I agree with you. But then
Speaker 3: how do you gain credibility. It's just a repetition, day
Speaker 3: after day, just coming to their house and then you
Speaker 3: tell them something, and then the next day then say, okay,
Speaker 3: he was right. He was right, and then happened year
Speaker 3: after year after year. But I think credibility has to
Speaker 3: do with, for me, with two things. One to report
Speaker 3: reality as it is, not as you wish it would be,
Speaker 3: so people would know that you're giving them the facts.
Speaker 3: And then if you make a mistake, and I made
Speaker 3: tons of mistakes, you simply correct them. But the second,
Speaker 3: the second element, has to do with challenging those who
Speaker 3: are in power, questioning those who are in power. Many
Speaker 3: journalists don't do that anymore. And if you don't do that,
Speaker 3: then people don't trust you. And that's why I think
Speaker 3: there's a crisis of credibility many journalists nowadays.
Speaker 2: And I think that's at the heart of today's episode now,
Speaker 2: not only what it means to navigate journalism in this
Speaker 2: digital era, but also what it means to question those
Speaker 2: in power as journalists.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I think we will be
Speaker 2: talking about is what doesn't mean to be a journalist? No,
Speaker 2: how has journalism involved and what does that look like today?
Speaker 3: And how technology is changing absolutely everything, including yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: not reading the newspaper. Coming up after our break, our
Speaker 3: guest is a viral TikTok creator named by Time magazine
Speaker 3: as one of the top one hundred creators to look
Speaker 3: out for in twenty twenty five and considered to be
Speaker 3: one of the main news sources for millennials in gen
Speaker 3: Z in the US.
Speaker 2: So in their bio you'll actually find that they describe
Speaker 2: themselves as both an independent journalist and an advocate, and
Speaker 2: so can both of those terms go together. That's one
Speaker 2: of the questions we'll have for our guests. We'll be
Speaker 2: talking to TikTok creator and influencer VS Spear, host of
Speaker 2: Under the Desk News Coming right up, gay V, Welcome
Speaker 2: to the moment.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us. So I'll tell
Speaker 2: you one of the reasons why you're one of the
Speaker 2: first guests that we wanted to talk to. So, the
Speaker 2: last time I saw UV, you and I were in
Speaker 2: a television studio, right, we were both doing an MSNBC hit,
Speaker 2: and to give listeners a little bit of context, we
Speaker 2: were sitting in a round table with other journalists lights cameras.
Speaker 2: But in that moment, I remember thinking that perhaps you,
Speaker 2: with your voice and your platform and as a single influencer,
Speaker 2: maybe you have more power than an entire news station.
Speaker 2: And I mean this sincerely, right, And so that made
Speaker 2: me think about where your journey starts now Under the Desk. Obviously,
Speaker 2: your program has been incredible. It's really, really, really grown.
Speaker 2: I mean, in the last couple even months, it significantly.
Speaker 2: You have almost four million TikTok four million, almost two
Speaker 2: hundred and forty million likes on TikTok alone. I mean,
Speaker 2: people even consider be an Internet celebrity. I'm jealous.
Speaker 1: That's why we invited you.
Speaker 2: But truly, like when when you think of this journey,
Speaker 2: like how do you get started?
Speaker 5: So at the time when the pandemic hit and I
Speaker 5: started making tiktoks, I was working for the James Beard Foundation,
Speaker 5: and I was doing a lot of our like director
Speaker 5: of impact work. So I was making cooking videos, talking
Speaker 5: about how to apply for the PPP loan, how to
Speaker 5: get the shuttered venue license.
Speaker 4: Like how to do whatever.
Speaker 5: And then it was January sixth and I was working
Speaker 5: with the Tennessee Veterans Association to talk about how we
Speaker 5: were going to get food to vets who were unhoused,
Speaker 5: and just above my computer, I remember perfectly, I saw
Speaker 5: them in the capital on January sixth, and having been
Speaker 5: a caterer in the Capitol, I was like, Oh, you're
Speaker 5: not supposed to be in those hallways, like that's that's
Speaker 5: not right. And that's when I started to realize something
Speaker 5: was wrong that day. So I was dressed that day
Speaker 5: for the VA's appointment, So I had like a suit
Speaker 5: on from the top and I had on like Nike shorts.
Speaker 4: On the bottom.
Speaker 5: So I like dove under my desk just like out
Speaker 5: of nowhere and started explaining the twenty fifth Amendment and
Speaker 5: what it means, because Trump wasn't calling in the National Guard,
Speaker 5: and I was like, Michael Pence, you could be president
Speaker 5: for fourteen days. This could be your one chance to
Speaker 5: be president, and this is what it means. And it
Speaker 5: went super viral and then my friend Randy was like,
Speaker 5: you better get back under that desk and tell them
Speaker 5: what's happening now.
Speaker 4: So we sort of had it go and it's like.
Speaker 5: A bit just between me and my pals that night,
Speaker 5: and then the next day came, and the next day came,
Speaker 5: and then people started calling me under the desk news,
Speaker 5: which was not my name was like v Spear on
Speaker 5: the channel and they were like under the desk news,
Speaker 5: what's happening now?
Speaker 4: And I was like okay.
Speaker 5: So then I just kept doing it, and then it
Speaker 5: got to a point where I was explaining civics and
Speaker 5: like what was going on with the government. That went
Speaker 5: into Joe Biden's first hundred days, and then that was it.
Speaker 5: It even with like here's what it's Monday night and
Speaker 5: here's what happened. That's something that somebody said to me.
Speaker 5: They would write it in the comments. A lot of
Speaker 5: under the desks and came directly from the audience who
Speaker 5: was building it with me. One time, I didn't wear
Speaker 5: my glasses and people are like, where's your glasses? And
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, I guess the glasses are a brand.
Speaker 5: And then they started sending me art of the glasses
Speaker 5: and like ceramics of the glasses, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 5: I guess this is who I am forever. I tried
Speaker 5: to change my hair one time. People did not like
Speaker 5: that absolutely all right, who this is what it is.
Speaker 3: Something really interesting is that I've been a journalist for
Speaker 3: decades and I when I introduced myself b I always say, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm an immigrant and I'm an independent journalist. But I
Speaker 3: can easily say I'm a journalist, even though sometimes now
Speaker 3: I'm giving my point of view, my opinion.
Speaker 1: That's something different.
Speaker 3: But I wonder if you think that what you're doing
Speaker 3: is journalism because I've been doing my homework and sometimes
Speaker 3: you do identify as a journalist and sometimes as an advocate.
Speaker 3: So is there something incomplete about saying that you are
Speaker 3: a journalist.
Speaker 5: I think this is the difference between traditional media and
Speaker 5: new media.
Speaker 4: Is traditional media.
Speaker 5: Used to go in clock in do your job and
Speaker 5: go home, and then everything you did when you weren't
Speaker 5: on television or writing your column was considered your personal time.
Speaker 5: For me, as a public figure, and in this world
Speaker 5: of new media, I am content for people twenty four
Speaker 5: hours a day. Whether I'm doing straight journalism like let's
Speaker 5: say what we do on the subject with original investigative stuff,
Speaker 5: or whether I'm doing the news at seven o'clock saying hey,
Speaker 5: here's what happened today, or whether I'm showing up to
Speaker 5: a no Kings protest, all of that is considered under
Speaker 5: the desk news. There is no separation. There's no clocking
Speaker 5: in or clocking out for a new media figure the
Speaker 5: way that there was for media figures in the past,
Speaker 5: and so I think that can be a little blurring
Speaker 5: of the lines and confusing to people. And it's why
Speaker 5: I've been so upfront about the fact that, like you
Speaker 5: are getting my whole self every night. When I do
Speaker 5: the news, you're just getting the news. But when I'm
Speaker 5: doing something in the daytime, or I'm doing something in
Speaker 5: my personal life, those are all just showing you the
Speaker 5: completeness of me as a whole person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Because I think maybe the discussion that Devid has
Speaker 3: to do all and be with the fact if we
Speaker 3: have to be objective, and the difference between being objective
Speaker 3: and being neutral, do you do you feel the need
Speaker 3: to be neutral or quite the contrary, there are times
Speaker 3: since which you absolutely have to take a stand.
Speaker 5: So the thing about me is I've always presented myself
Speaker 5: as American first, like that is who I am first,
Speaker 5: and I'm very proud to be American in recognizing a
Speaker 5: lot of the flaws that this country has, but also
Speaker 5: recognizing that Americans, the people that I care so much about,
Speaker 5: are in a different situation than we've been in the past.
Speaker 5: So as far as objectivity or neutrality go, that is
Speaker 5: not something that I prioritize because I think in this
Speaker 5: particular political environment there are people who are trying to
Speaker 5: make facts not facts. They are trying to negotiate with you,
Speaker 5: should trans people exist, not what does the actual law say.
Speaker 5: So I think in trying to maintain objectivity or neutrality,
Speaker 5: it tends to favor the oppressor. And at a point
Speaker 5: where the wealth gap is where it is, where the
Speaker 5: opportunity gap is where it is, and where the people
Speaker 5: in authoritative power right now are creating alternative facts and narratives.
Speaker 5: It's very difficult to try and say well and on
Speaker 5: the other side, because there's a lot of bad faith
Speaker 5: people coming into these conversations in ways that don't allow
Speaker 5: me to be objected or neutral.
Speaker 3: We have all these these questions about naturality, so at
Speaker 3: the end, just just to be.
Speaker 1: To be correct. Are you a journalist?
Speaker 5: I think I am now, And I honestly really struggled
Speaker 5: with this for a long time. So originally I used
Speaker 5: to call myself content creator right when I first started,
Speaker 5: and then I called myself a news communicator. And then
Speaker 5: when I started, my line for me was do I
Speaker 5: create original from the ground up journalism, like capital j journalism.
Speaker 5: And in the last year and a half we have
Speaker 5: done that, and that's when I started to consider myself
Speaker 5: a true journalist, sort of like I didn't consider my
Speaker 5: chef myself chef until I ran expo.
Speaker 4: It's like you're a cook until you're a chef.
Speaker 5: You know, but then somebody says to you, you're not chef,
Speaker 5: and you're like, I am JEF. And I think that
Speaker 5: came when I started doing original journalism. But I think
Speaker 5: that's my line for me. I don't know that that's
Speaker 5: the line for everybody to consider themselves a journalist or not.
Speaker 5: I also publish my funding and I also have a
Speaker 5: code of ethics that's published, and I think those things
Speaker 5: are all important to calling yourself a journalist if you
Speaker 5: want to pull in that historic trust and seriousness that
Speaker 5: that industry represents.
Speaker 2: And that was actually just going to flip the question
Speaker 2: back to my dad, right, because I think no, Because
Speaker 2: I think, I mean, I think many people also have
Speaker 2: the question for you. I would even say for me,
Speaker 2: I think particularly when it comes to certain issues and
Speaker 2: we'll get to this in just a second, that are personal.
Speaker 2: Know that you can't really detach yourself from in your
Speaker 2: case in immigrants now you like you said, you're an
Speaker 2: immigrant first, vas an American first. We two are queer people,
Speaker 2: and this leads me v to I think something that
Speaker 2: is personal for both of us as journalists, as people
Speaker 2: in LGBTQ community, which is Gaymary. Now, obviously you posted
Speaker 2: a video that was very important on your socios about
Speaker 2: gay marriage, and just for context for our listeners, if
Speaker 2: you don't know, by now, the Supreme Court is expected
Speaker 2: to consider whether or not no. They will consider a
Speaker 2: case this fall where they are being asked to explicitly
Speaker 2: overturn gay marriage. And so I want to hear this
Speaker 2: video that you posted really quickly, and then i'll take
Speaker 2: your You're taken just a second.
Speaker 4: Let's hear it.
Speaker 5: Yes, the Supreme Court has been officially asked to reconsider
Speaker 5: the legality of Obergefel v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court
Speaker 5: decision that made gay marriage federally legal. You knew this
Speaker 5: was going to happen, and that's why a couple months
Speaker 5: ago I partnered with a lawyer named Angela Giampolo, and
Speaker 5: she goes by at your gay lawyer on TikTok and Instagram,
Speaker 5: and she put together a plan. It's basically the nine
Speaker 5: documents that gay couples need to file to help recreate
Speaker 5: all of the rights inherent to marriage in a partnership document.
Speaker 2: So v this is where I thing no, we as
Speaker 2: journalists inevitably have to blur the lines sometimes, is I'm curious,
Speaker 2: First of all, how did your followers take this information?
Speaker 2: What's their reaction to this?
Speaker 5: So the tricky part about the attack on gay marriage
Speaker 5: is that they've been trying to do this since it
Speaker 5: got passed. I mean, this has been going on since
Speaker 5: twenty fifteen, and as a gay person and as an
Speaker 5: advocate for gay rights, I have been involved in this
Speaker 5: so deeply from the behind the scenes level of what
Speaker 5: are we going to do if they overturn Obergafell for
Speaker 5: literally ten years. So when something comes up that the
Speaker 5: news is reporting, like, oh, the Supreme Court may hear
Speaker 5: Kim Davis's case that seeks to overturn Obergafell, I know
Speaker 5: in my heart and soul that's probably not going to
Speaker 5: be the one that does it. But I also know
Speaker 5: that there have been movements behind the scenes to try
Speaker 5: and requalify what even qualifies as marriage and sort of
Speaker 5: discount gay marriages in that way. And that's the language
Speaker 5: that we hear from the right of marriages only between
Speaker 5: one man and one woman meeting. Marriages between two men
Speaker 5: or two women would no longer meet the burden of
Speaker 5: proof required to be CLASSI marriage and then to have
Speaker 5: those rights. So when this started coming around again, I
Speaker 5: thought to myself, we have to have something for people
Speaker 5: to do. We can't just bring our hands and be
Speaker 5: afraid that it's going to happen.
Speaker 4: What can we do to one.
Speaker 5: Ensure that gay marriage doesn't get overturned, but if it
Speaker 5: does protect people's inherent rights during the gap, because we
Speaker 5: know that we'll win the right back a different way maybe,
Speaker 5: But what do we do during the gap? And that's
Speaker 5: when I worked with this lawyer to come up with
Speaker 5: this thing called the Nine Documents, which has been very
Speaker 5: helpful to people, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: what is marriage. It's a spiritual connection. Sure, you could
Speaker 5: always still have that it's representing love. You will always
Speaker 5: have that. It is a civil contract between partners that
Speaker 5: is filed with the state. And so I was like, okay,
Speaker 5: that's the part that we could not have. Again, what
Speaker 5: are those rights? And it really comes down to a
Speaker 5: state planning child's care and property ownership and stuff. And
Speaker 5: so I was like, all right, can we recreate those documents?
Speaker 2: And she did, Have you taken those steps? Have you
Speaker 2: and your partner?
Speaker 5: We were actually the test case for it, so we
Speaker 5: were one of the first people to go through it
Speaker 5: and make sure that there was enough of it to
Speaker 5: be able to publish this. So I've been working with
Speaker 5: Angela for probably a year and a half now on
Speaker 5: this and that's why we publish it back in June
Speaker 5: before the Supreme Court. Thing with Kim Davis even came up.
Speaker 5: I've gone through the process. We've gone back and forth
Speaker 5: with this lawyer saying there's not enough here, there's not
Speaker 5: enough there.
Speaker 4: You can do.
Speaker 5: The nine documents is what we put out at sort
Speaker 5: of phase one, which is just between two people. Once
Speaker 5: you start to involve children, well then you get into
Speaker 5: sort of like adoption rights and different things. But there
Speaker 5: are two non married adults that can adopt a child,
Speaker 5: so that's not necessarily a marriage right. And it really
Speaker 5: made me feel better. But we have done the documents.
Speaker 2: You're so outspoken, obviously, you're unapologetically yourself, and you are
Speaker 2: literally all over TikTok. I'm thinking of libs of taktok. Now,
Speaker 2: this anti LGBTQ, a extreme right account, and I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: have you ever been threatened by them or anyone? Oh?
Speaker 5: Sure, I've been on it a couple of times. And
Speaker 5: the thing that is interesting is she doesn't get juice
Speaker 5: from me being on her account the way that certain
Speaker 5: other people that she has tried to take out have.
Speaker 5: And I think partly it's because even though I align
Speaker 5: with leftist politics, Let's say there are a lot of
Speaker 5: libertarians that sort of go into the other side of
Speaker 5: the horseshoe her world, who when she will post about me,
Speaker 5: they'll be like, eh.
Speaker 4: I kind of like the I learn a lot.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 5: I mean, so, I think every time I've been over there,
Speaker 5: it's been you know, the typical slurs, but people sort
Speaker 5: of pass it along because I also don't engage back,
Speaker 5: and I think that's what they want, is that fight
Speaker 5: back and forth.
Speaker 4: So I've been over there a couple of times.
Speaker 5: She threatened to sue me for defamation one time because
Speaker 5: I said that right wing you know, lunatics like her
Speaker 5: were responsible for some of the depression that trans and
Speaker 5: LGBTQ youth feel because they're attacking their teachers and it
Speaker 5: just makes the world feel unsafe and whatnot.
Speaker 4: And she's like, I care so much about children.
Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, I would love to go to
Speaker 5: Discovery with you if you really want to take this
Speaker 5: about all the different ways that you've tried to, you know,
Speaker 5: be a stochastic terrorist against the mental health of queer
Speaker 5: people in children. And it went nowhere. But that's that's
Speaker 5: sort of my thing with her. I don't engage, and
Speaker 5: so I think they don't get the juice that they want.
Speaker 3: But I wonder if you're afraid for your life, and also.
Speaker 4: I have been, you are sure, Oh, of course.
Speaker 5: I think everybody in this country is afraid for their life,
Speaker 5: one because of gun violence, two because of the dehumanization
Speaker 5: that the president has put forth when it comes to
Speaker 5: queer and trans people. He's called us on the left
Speaker 5: even demoncrats and evil and the enemy within. So I
Speaker 5: think it goes beyond even like just being a journalist
Speaker 5: and being afraid, and goes right into the fact that
Speaker 5: we are being dehumanized at such a level that people
Speaker 5: are becoming more comfortable with not seeing us as human.
Speaker 3: But as as I do understand, if you're afraid, there
Speaker 3: are different routes that you can actually take. You can
Speaker 3: just say I'm sorry, I'm not going to engage. This
Speaker 3: is way too risky. The other is just to confront it.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing you decided just to go ahead and confront
Speaker 3: everyone who's threatening you.
Speaker 4: So yes and no.
Speaker 5: I think sometimes I've written back to people who have
Speaker 5: threatened me, like in my DMS, and I've been like,
Speaker 5: I'm really sorry you feel that way, Like what made
Speaker 5: you feel that way? And they're like, Oh, I didn't
Speaker 5: even know you were going to see this. I was
Speaker 5: just kind of like blowing off steam, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is like when I yell at the TV Josh Allen, I.
Speaker 4: Wish you were dead. You're killing me with these plays.
Speaker 4: He doesn't.
Speaker 5: I don't actually mean that I'd be or if I'd
Speaker 5: embarrassed if he ever heard me say that. And so
Speaker 5: I think sometimes it's that. Other times, when it's been
Speaker 5: more dangerous, we have had to contact like local police department,
Speaker 5: or I use this program called delete me that monitors
Speaker 5: my online activity. I'm also a spokesperson for them. I'm
Speaker 5: not doing an ad for them right now. I was
Speaker 5: a customer before I got asked to be a spokesperson,
Speaker 5: but there are things that I try to do to
Speaker 5: keep me and my family's information safe. I also think
Speaker 5: it's safe that I don't live in a major city.
Speaker 5: I intentionally live in Rochester, New York, and my friends
Speaker 5: and neighbors are extremely protective of me in general, and
Speaker 5: I think it makes it less likely that someone is
Speaker 5: going to go so far out of their way to
Speaker 5: bother me, the way that they could just catch me
Speaker 5: on the streets of New York or DC. I always
Speaker 5: feel a little less safe as a public figure in
Speaker 5: a public city, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I just want to ask you if you think that
Speaker 3: the country is changing way too fast. I mean, you
Speaker 3: were talking about the nine steps that you're taking about
Speaker 3: being afraid. Is this has to do with politics itself
Speaker 3: or have you noticed a change in the last few years.
Speaker 1: Is it something happening right now?
Speaker 5: I think that the Trump administration and the MAGA movement
Speaker 5: has certainly escalated and made a permission structure for being
Speaker 5: just as cruel as you possibly can, both online and
Speaker 5: in person. But overall, I think it more has to
Speaker 5: do with society in the American experience we're in right now.
Speaker 5: The wealth gap, the lack of affordable housing, the ways
Speaker 5: that people feel threatened that their jobs are going to
Speaker 5: be taken by AI or they can't get the promotions
Speaker 5: that they used to, or going to college isn't enough
Speaker 5: to have a good life. I think all of those things,
Speaker 5: which are you know, systematic of the politics and the
Speaker 5: laws that people have written. Gay people and trans people
Speaker 5: are being scapegoaded as the reason why your life sucks.
Speaker 5: But I think your life sucks because my life sucks
Speaker 5: because of the billionaire class. And so I think in
Speaker 5: many ways, trying to find camaraderie in class consciousness between
Speaker 5: people is what's going to help break down these political
Speaker 5: silos that folks are putting themselves in, and I do
Speaker 5: think that we're getting closer to that than further away.
Speaker 5: I think the last ten years of trump Ism is
Speaker 5: sort of in its death rattle right now. It's in
Speaker 5: like its peak kind of place. There isn't an air
Speaker 5: apparent to this. I think it comes down from here,
Speaker 5: certainly as Trump continues to weaken. I think the movement
Speaker 5: weekends because there's not an air apparent to a cult.
Speaker 5: It's a cult of personality, and there's no one else
Speaker 5: whose personality has created this type of like showman entertainer,
Speaker 5: cult leader thing.
Speaker 3: So we've been discussing about the possibility that democracy might
Speaker 3: just disappear in this country. He's been threatened that Trump
Speaker 3: is accumulating a lot of power, and then suddenly you
Speaker 3: just said Trump continues to weaken. That seems to be
Speaker 3: exactly the other way. Could you explain that a little
Speaker 3: bit more.
Speaker 5: So, I think over the last ten years, we've seen
Speaker 5: a rise, certainly in these attacks on our core freedoms
Speaker 5: and what America is, who is an American? What should
Speaker 5: we expect? But we're at a point now where he
Speaker 5: is back in power for the second time, and people's
Speaker 5: lives didn't get better. Grocery prices didn't go down, they
Speaker 5: didn't get a better job, they didn't get a better life.
Speaker 5: And now they're starting to see things like, you know,
Speaker 5: the support staff in hospitals and agriculture workers and hotel workers.
Speaker 5: Why isn't my room ready at noon anymore? Well, because
Speaker 5: there's no one to clean rooms. Why is it my
Speaker 5: food more expensive because you deported the fruit pickers. Why
Speaker 5: isn't construction available? Well, because you got rid of the
Speaker 5: skilled tradesmen. You deported them to Venezuela or prisons in
Speaker 5: El Salvador. And so I think people are now starting
Speaker 5: to sea leg They are the establishment, you are the mainstream,
Speaker 5: You are the norm, You are the total power, this
Speaker 5: right wing counterculture thing that was building up.
Speaker 4: And I think Trump is older now.
Speaker 5: I think he's not able to swing the power dynamics
Speaker 5: internationally the way that he once was either. And I
Speaker 5: think that his you know, maybe dementia, maybe congestive heart failure,
Speaker 5: whatever's going on with him is certainly physically weakening him,
Speaker 5: if not socially weakening him. There was a time when
Speaker 5: he was hugging the rainbow flag and saying he loves
Speaker 5: gay people and saying once he was president, he be
Speaker 5: a president for all, and he's not anymore. So you've
Speaker 5: got a split country now and he's made half the
Speaker 5: country their enemy.
Speaker 4: That's going to weaken you anyway. So that's where I
Speaker 4: say he's weakening.
Speaker 2: I wonder V like, do Democrats have anything to learn
Speaker 2: from your online strategy? Like what is there to learn
Speaker 2: from you?
Speaker 5: They should learn from me to join the Working Families
Speaker 5: Party because the Democratic establishment brand is completely gone right now.
Speaker 5: I mean if you're looking at it in terms of
Speaker 5: brands or sports teams or franchises, right which is what
Speaker 5: they've treated themselves like. They are no longer platforms of
Speaker 5: values and political like, what will the laws we make?
Speaker 5: Like they are brands and the Democratic brand right now
Speaker 5: is in complete shambles. And I think some of that
Speaker 5: has to do with the gerontocracy people not passing the baton,
Speaker 5: It has to do with not recognizing progressive values, It
Speaker 5: has to do with continuing to try to court the center,
Speaker 5: which has only moved them more right. It continues to
Speaker 5: be an issue of like gentlemanly politics and trying to
Speaker 5: take the high road and be the bigger person. We
Speaker 5: are in the streets trying to fight this now. And
Speaker 5: so what I think is interesting is not necessarily trying
Speaker 5: to improve the capital d democratic establishment, but looking to
Speaker 5: a group like the Working Families Party, which I am
Speaker 5: a registered member of, which operates in twenty eight states.
Speaker 5: It prioritizes progressive candidates in the primaries. Now, once the
Speaker 5: big election comes around, they're going to endorse who's on
Speaker 5: the blue line, because they're certainly not going to endorse
Speaker 5: a third party which continues to split the left vote.
Speaker 2: So what are they scared of? What are democrats scared of?
Speaker 2: In your opinion?
Speaker 5: So sometimes I think they're afraid of facing their own
Speaker 5: mortality and that it's over, that it's not the nineties,
Speaker 5: and that of this the legacy that they built for
Speaker 5: themselves they've lost by holding on to it for too long.
Speaker 5: It's sort of like again, sports players, if you'll get
Speaker 5: Aaron Rodgers, right, incredible quarterback and he just maybe stayed
Speaker 5: a little too long and he got hired and now
Speaker 5: your legacy has tainted a little bit.
Speaker 4: Okay. I think it's a little bit of that going on.
Speaker 5: I think some of it is the Democrats are have
Speaker 5: built themselves on this we are better than everyone, We
Speaker 5: are so righteous and moral, and they're afraid when somebody
Speaker 5: new comes in, maybe they'll be caught out for some
Speaker 5: of that. We've called out their stock trading, We've called
Speaker 5: out the fact that they haven't held the Epstein files accountable.
Speaker 5: The reason why we're seeing the Epstein files get held
Speaker 5: accountable now is because the folks on the oversight committee
Speaker 5: are millennials. None of us are our donors or our
Speaker 5: friends were connected any way to Epstein. So now is
Speaker 5: the only time where they're starting to push a little
Speaker 5: harder to get it out there. And I'm not saying
Speaker 5: the Democrats were connected to him, but we won't know
Speaker 5: right because they were so unwilling to expose that. So
Speaker 5: I think some of it's holding on too long. And
Speaker 5: I think their idea of joining social media as having
Speaker 5: Chuck Schumer right around in Jack Schwassberg's band, which I
Speaker 5: love Jack. Jack's funny to me, but Jackson Kennedy, Okay,
Speaker 5: and we don't think political dynasties if you're going.
Speaker 4: To be a true progressive.
Speaker 3: You know, I've been having this conversation with Paola for
Speaker 3: a long time that in just a few years from now,
Speaker 3: someone is going to ask you what did you do
Speaker 3: during the Trump era? And then there's a moral responsibility
Speaker 3: to answer that question. And it clearly feels that you
Speaker 3: have no trust on politicians. So it is people like
Speaker 3: you who are taking the lead on this. In other words,
Speaker 3: politicians they don't have an answer, Democrats don't have an answer.
Speaker 1: We have to look for something completely different.
Speaker 5: Not completely different. I think we've got to get back
Speaker 5: to our roots, back to the basics here. I think
Speaker 5: politics has become an elite class. It's become a celebrity class.
Speaker 5: I would blame the Tea Party in twenty twelve for
Speaker 5: making it a celebrity thing. But I think it just
Speaker 5: gets back to we just want to see our friends
Speaker 5: and neighbors in these positions of power, from school board
Speaker 5: to president. We do want to feel like it's actual
Speaker 5: people who have a stake in this country, not folks
Speaker 5: who are willing to enter the machine and be that
Speaker 5: cog that keeps the machine going. And I think of
Speaker 5: to come out of New York politics for a minute,
Speaker 5: dre for Iowa.
Speaker 4: This woman was a mom, She was a mom activist.
Speaker 5: She ran for a seat in Iowa that had been
Speaker 5: held by a Republican for thirteen years. They told her
Speaker 5: there was no chance she could win, and she just
Speaker 5: blew them out of the water with her win for
Speaker 5: the special election seat. I think folks, even in my
Speaker 5: own neighborhood, we had conversations during the election about what
Speaker 5: was the neighborhood going to put up signs? Are you
Speaker 5: gonna put Kamala, You're gonna put Trump on your lawn?
Speaker 4: What are you going to do?
Speaker 5: And a lot of people decided they just weren't going
Speaker 5: to because regardless of who people were going to vote for,
Speaker 5: we had lost our neighborhood personality and we did this,
Speaker 5: it was going to become even more divisive. So there
Speaker 5: was a couple people who put up Trump signs. We
Speaker 5: have this one trans kid who lives on our street,
Speaker 5: and my thing to them was like, can you at
Speaker 5: least not face the sign at their house so when
Speaker 5: they come out their house they don't have to see it.
Speaker 5: Can you put it sideways and like instead of facing
Speaker 5: the house and they're like, oh yeah, you know, okay,
Speaker 5: I love that kid. That kid's a great kid. I'm like,
Speaker 5: all the kids are great kids, you just don't know them.
Speaker 5: So my neighborhood I look at because it's a very
Speaker 5: divided Republican and Democrat suburban New York, and I think
Speaker 5: what folks want to feel is community, and what they're
Speaker 5: getting is tribalism, whether that's tribalism for Trump or for
Speaker 5: Kamala at that time, and now we're kind of looking
Speaker 5: at each other like, hey, maybe federal politics has screwing
Speaker 5: us all, and we really got to look at who's
Speaker 5: running for superintendent. We really got to look at who's
Speaker 5: our mayor right now.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it has happened to you, but
Speaker 3: if you go into YouTube or TikTok or many others,
Speaker 3: you can actually see AI generated TikTok accounts hijacking my name,
Speaker 3: my voice, my image, and you know.
Speaker 2: They're pretty good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I've had it done to me. It's
Speaker 4: extremely good.
Speaker 3: Just a few months ago, sometimes what I was saying
Speaker 3: didn't match with my lips, so you might say, okay,
Speaker 3: that's fake.
Speaker 1: But lately it's been incredible and it's not.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about just one, I mean dozens of
Speaker 3: them in which I'm just presenting these incredible medicines for
Speaker 3: diabetes and then asking for people's bank accounts. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's really it's really crazy.
Speaker 2: Can I can I tell you that. I've had some
Speaker 2: of my friends that are like, wait, is your dad
Speaker 2: really selling this like medicine on TikTok? And I had
Speaker 2: to think twice. I was like, I don't think it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, but I know.
Speaker 1: Miracle medicine for diabetes.
Speaker 3: You and then they were saying that I left to
Speaker 3: be because I had diabetes. Fortunately I have no diabetes anyway,
Speaker 3: So what has happened to you? And is there any
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm really worried because in just a few months,
Speaker 3: I'm completely sure, in just a few months, it's going
Speaker 3: to be so perfect that it's going to be impossible
Speaker 3: for me to say to you, no, it's not me,
Speaker 3: because people are going to say, no, I saw it,
Speaker 3: I saw the video with you saying that it.
Speaker 4: Goes both ways.
Speaker 5: The danger of this is that there are things and
Speaker 5: what happened to you happen to me exactly. I was
Speaker 5: selling like face masks or something I was like, no,
Speaker 5: I'm certainly on diet pills things I would never never do,
Speaker 5: and folks are like, that's not the But if you
Speaker 5: don't know THEE and they're copying my cadence and my
Speaker 5: voice and the way that I do things, like other
Speaker 5: people could potentially be influenced and targeted by that. I
Speaker 5: think the problem with AI it goes two ways. One
Speaker 5: these obvious fake, horrible things, and two the ability to
Speaker 5: say that wasn't me, it's a deep fake when it
Speaker 5: actually was you.
Speaker 4: It's you know.
Speaker 5: And I think we've seen that with like elon different
Speaker 5: times saying oh, no, I never said that, that's a fake.
Speaker 4: And it's like, no, it's not you. You did that thing.
Speaker 5: So the way that I see us solving this is
Speaker 5: there are some states and other countries that are considering
Speaker 5: the idea that you at birth right will be copyrighted.
Speaker 5: Your name, your face, your voice will all be IP
Speaker 5: and be protected so that if you were to file hey,
Speaker 5: this this IP is being stolen of mine and you're
Speaker 5: just a regular person even or whatever it is, it
Speaker 5: could be taken down. The problem I have is TikTok
Speaker 5: promises me that they could do that now right and
Speaker 5: if I say, impersonating me and whatever, even with my
Speaker 5: blue check mark, even with all my relationships inside TikTok,
Speaker 5: I still get denied, no violation found. And I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 5: you have to trust me when I tell you that
Speaker 5: somebody's doing.
Speaker 4: A fake of me.
Speaker 5: But the moderation tools are not there yet. They're not
Speaker 5: getting there as quickly as these fakes are. I think
Speaker 5: that is a huge issue, so good luck.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think it's something we need to be focused on
Speaker 5: more than a lot of the other stuff that we
Speaker 5: focus on. I mean, we talk about like data privacy
Speaker 5: and like should kids not be able to have social
Speaker 5: media till sixteen? To me, that's a parental decision. I
Speaker 5: believe you're born with all of your civil rights and
Speaker 5: your parents can kind of like control you a little bit.
Speaker 5: But to say that you don't get freedom of speech
Speaker 5: until you're sixteen is a little dangerous to me. I'd
Speaker 5: rather that we were focusing on allowing people to protect
Speaker 5: their ip as, their face, likeness, voice, all of that.
Speaker 2: Before we wrap up, one of the things I keep
Speaker 2: thinking about is is the way that the language that
Speaker 2: you use when you are informing no, particularly when we're
Speaker 2: talking about LGBTQ folks, trans folks that have been so dehumanized.
Speaker 2: And yet I think every time you inform your public,
Speaker 2: you're very careful with your language. No, because I think
Speaker 2: journalists have this incredible power which is to really condition
Speaker 2: an audience to care or to not care, not to
Speaker 2: humanize or dehumanize. So see immigrants as criminals are not
Speaker 2: and so in this moment in time, talk to me
Speaker 2: about the importance of language right now and what we
Speaker 2: can learn from that.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it's just for sticking up for the whole community
Speaker 5: and not allowing yourself to be the token good one.
Speaker 5: Right Like even my parents live in Florida, Okay, and
Speaker 5: I visit them and I love them, And my dad
Speaker 5: goes golfing with a couple guys that I don't like
Speaker 5: their politics, but they love me. They watch under the desk.
Speaker 5: They tell my dad they're so proud of me when
Speaker 5: they saw me at the White House with Biden and
Speaker 5: all these things. What an incredible thing, Paul, That's amazing.
Speaker 5: So I use that palatable likability that I have as
Speaker 5: a queer person, and I try to remind people you
Speaker 5: just don't know all the other queer people are just
Speaker 5: like me. You just don't know them yet. You love me.
Speaker 5: You don't actually hate the gays. You love me, and
Speaker 5: there's so many more of me you just don't know them.
Speaker 5: I'm actually normal, I'm the regular gaze, and we're all
Speaker 5: regular gay everybody.
Speaker 4: This is very normal.
Speaker 5: I try to make people use the way they feel
Speaker 5: about me and apply it more broadly to folks they
Speaker 5: don't even know, and to try and create this this brand.
Speaker 4: I guess we would call it that.
Speaker 5: We default think of gay and trans people as people
Speaker 5: we like, people, we trust, people we think are fun
Speaker 5: and entertaining, as opposed to people who are others that
Speaker 5: we are afraid of. And so that is what I
Speaker 5: try to do all the time, is not be like,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, I'm different from them. I'm like no, no, no,
Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm middle of the pack gaze. You like me,
Speaker 5: You're gonna like all of us. We're great. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm straight, middle of the pack. And I think that
Speaker 5: that can help an awful lot. And in addition, I
Speaker 5: also try I don't try to push it in certain ways,
Speaker 5: which has been seen as controversial. You know, if I'm
Speaker 5: if I'm talking to a broad audience. Like I was
Speaker 5: talking about IVF the other day, I'm going to say
Speaker 5: when a woman is going through IVF. I don't say
Speaker 5: when a person trying to achieve pregnancy is going through
Speaker 5: IVF because people stop listening.
Speaker 4: They're not there yet. I could get them there, but
Speaker 4: we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 5: Now, when I'm at a conference for the trans in
Speaker 5: queer community talking about, you know, like rainbow families, how
Speaker 5: do we build families that, I'm going to use that
Speaker 5: language because they understand it. But if you alarm someone,
Speaker 5: you know, as a journalist, if you alarm somebody, or
Speaker 5: you make somebody feel not smart, they feel tricked and
Speaker 5: they can't listen to anything else you say. So I've
Speaker 5: taken some heat for not using the most appropriate, up
Speaker 5: to date language, but I try to strike that middle
Speaker 5: ground in terms of, like, what's the most important thing
Speaker 5: people here right now? And that might be a very
Speaker 5: visibly gay and queer person using the language that they
Speaker 5: understand at least right now, so we can sneak in
Speaker 5: a couple months.
Speaker 2: So interesting, and like how you slowly push public opinion, Yeah.
Speaker 5: I instead of pushing, I'm just gently carrying you a lot.
Speaker 4: Like a little angel, I'm just going to bring you
Speaker 4: over here. So that and that's education.
Speaker 5: That's what the education world is, you know, allowing people
Speaker 5: to make mistakes and carrying them through and challenging their
Speaker 5: ideas without confronting their ideas, and getting them to feel
Speaker 5: to get there.
Speaker 4: They'll get there.
Speaker 3: And you've said in the past that your brand safe. No, yeah,
Speaker 3: that company feels pretty safe with you.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 5: So when I and this comes back to the chef life, right,
Speaker 5: like when you make a dish or you make a restaurant,
Speaker 5: you make it anything. You think about what you want
Speaker 5: the experience of the guest tody and not necessarily just
Speaker 5: what you want the food to taste, like the whole
Speaker 5: thing from when you walk in the door, is it warm?
Speaker 5: What's the sound play? Like, what's the bathroom dishe You
Speaker 5: think of everything. So in journalism, I think of everything.
Speaker 5: How do I want people? What's the full experience they're
Speaker 5: going to have for that one minute that they sit
Speaker 5: with me. It's under a desk. We've created a small
Speaker 5: space for us to be in. The vocal tone is
Speaker 5: slow and consistent, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: my promise, my mission to the audience with this was
Speaker 5: to create a space to talk about the day's news
Speaker 5: and events that centers your emotional safety and security and
Speaker 5: makes you feel smart. And so every single day when
Speaker 5: I'm doing that, that is like what's driving me. And
Speaker 5: that means we don't talk about certain things, and it
Speaker 5: means we talk about other things. But the stuff I
Speaker 5: don't talk about, I always try to give you a
Speaker 5: different expert. I don't want to be your everything. I
Speaker 5: want to be one of many things that make up
Speaker 5: your media diet. And I think that's different too. I
Speaker 5: think a lot of the big organizations, they're like, well,
Speaker 5: if you subscribe to the New York Times, you don't
Speaker 5: need anything else. We'll just watch them as ABC all day. Right,
Speaker 5: we got you, we got everything, And I'm not everything.
Speaker 5: And I think that that's important too, to raise up
Speaker 5: the voices of other people in the community who are
Speaker 5: better at talking about different options.
Speaker 3: Before we're finished, I just wanted to tell you and
Speaker 3: when I was growing up, my mom told me that
Speaker 3: if I were to read the editorials in the newspapers,
Speaker 3: that I would know everything in the world. And I
Speaker 3: wonder that's a very similar experience with what happened with
Speaker 3: your mom. You were informing her oh yeah about news events,
Speaker 3: and then eventually we ended up being a journalist.
Speaker 4: My mom is the original citizen journalist to me.
Speaker 1: She used to sit home.
Speaker 5: I was very lucky my mom got to stay at
Speaker 5: home with us when we were kids grow up, and
Speaker 5: she would sit around with her girlfriends, drink coffee and
Speaker 5: listen to the police scanner. And the second I would
Speaker 5: get home from school or my dad get home from work,
Speaker 5: she'd be like, Okay, what happens. And that really informs
Speaker 5: the enthusiasm I have for storytelling the news and events
Speaker 5: of our community.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Thanks you really really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Great conversation.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
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