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Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of the check podcast. I.

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Speaker 1: As you may see, I don't have my normal set

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Speaker 1: behind me. I am traveling this week. I'm all over

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Speaker 1: the state of Florida for a variety of work related issues.

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Speaker 1: But obviously it's like I said, it's work, it's not play.

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Speaker 1: So I've been other than still recovering still, I think

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Speaker 1: my middle aged back is recovering from the snow shoveling

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Speaker 1: and shall we say, trying to participate in the transportation

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Speaker 1: system in America after a big snowstorm is never the

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Speaker 1: easiest thing to do. But I have made it to

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Speaker 1: where I need to get in getting through as many

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Speaker 1: friendly skies as I can get through. But look, we

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Speaker 1: begin today with what was clearly what Tuesday turned into

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Speaker 1: for President Trump. You know, in the grand scheme of things,

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Speaker 1: Tuesday was supposed to be the day that Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: started to turn the page on this crazy, chaotic January

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Speaker 1: that's been into. They set up this big event in

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Speaker 1: Iowa to focus on affordability and affordability, and the White

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Speaker 1: House focusing on affordability feels like we are reliving what

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Speaker 1: happened in the first term with in every week. This

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Speaker 1: was was going to be the week they focused on infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: Every week is the week that the White House is

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Speaker 1: going to turn its attention to affordability. And whether it's

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Speaker 1: the President stepping on that message himself for a variety

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Speaker 1: of reasons, or events that like what's happening in Minneapolis

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Speaker 1: essentially start to consume the President. And it's pretty clear,

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Speaker 1: as I sort of telegraphed for you on Monday, the

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Speaker 1: walk back was coming and certainly, Tuesday was a lot

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Speaker 1: of walk back. And let me just quote the President

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Speaker 1: in one of his interviews, including this one, was on

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Speaker 1: Fox when he was talking about getting rid of Greg.

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Speaker 1: Greg Bovino is the guy that wears the long leather

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Speaker 1: coat that for whatever reason, is excited that people will

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Speaker 1: mistaken him for some nineteen thirties European thug. The first

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Speaker 1: move the President made was essentially getting rid of Bovino,

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Speaker 1: pulling him out of Minneapolis. Greg Bovino, who was and

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Speaker 1: I'll quote him as he said, well, I don't think

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Speaker 1: it's a pullback. I think it's a change. You know,

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Speaker 1: Bovino's very good, but he's a pretty out there kind

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Speaker 1: of guy, and in some cases that's good. Maybe it

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Speaker 1: wasn't good here. And that was sort of the president

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Speaker 1: all day on Tuesday. He was trying, on one hand

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Speaker 1: to show some empathy to the situation, very awkwardly at best.

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Speaker 1: He continues this weird during the interview, He's asked about

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Speaker 1: Renee Good. We have Alex Pretty who died and Renee

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Speaker 1: Good who died. That's about Renee Good. And he kept

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Speaker 1: bringing up the fact that Renee his parents were Trump supporters,

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Speaker 1: and he seems to seem to imply that he has

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Speaker 1: a bit more empathy. It came across as if he

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Speaker 1: was basically saying, well, I have more empathy for Renee

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Speaker 1: Good because her parents voted for me, and I think

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Speaker 1: we have an idea of what happened on this one, right.

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Speaker 1: Somebody was telling him this in a desperate attempt to

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Speaker 1: make sure he didn't trash her the way Christine Homan

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Speaker 1: others trashed her in his administration. And what does he do.

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Speaker 1: He sort of turns it into a callous thing anyway.

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Speaker 1: That so, no, he's not trashing her, but he's making

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Speaker 1: everybody uncomfortable by this advice, essentially implying that his empathy

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Speaker 1: only extends to her because her parents supported him. But

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Speaker 1: he clearly got the message that his own party. And

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Speaker 1: this was sort of the question, why did he send

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Speaker 1: Tom Homan r Tom Hommes. And it's not somebody who's

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Speaker 1: going to reassure Tim Wallas or reassure Democrats, though plenty

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Speaker 1: of Democrats have a good relationship with Tom Holman. He's

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Speaker 1: a veteran of DHS and of Border Patrol, somebody that's

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Speaker 1: worked with Jay Johnson and Ali may orcis the last

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Speaker 1: two Democratic heads of the Department of Homeland Security. So

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Speaker 1: he was somebody that's seen as sort of a professional.

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Speaker 1: Certainly he has his political leaning, but he was a

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Speaker 1: professional first, not like this Bovino character, or certainly not

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Speaker 1: the way Christy Nome or Stephen Miller have been behaving.

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Speaker 1: But what Homan was there to reassure Republicans who had

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Speaker 1: completely lost confidence? And how do we know that Republicans

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Speaker 1: clearly over the weekend had completely lost confidence because they

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Speaker 1: all finally said something today after the President sent Tom Holman,

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Speaker 1: after the President pulled Bovino, and after essentially the President

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Speaker 1: gave a public permission slip to say what people wanted

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Speaker 1: to say. And so what did you have? You had

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Speaker 1: a parade of Republicans who have been wanting to speak

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Speaker 1: out clearly we're afraid to get to do it before

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Speaker 1: they knew what the White House was going to do.

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Speaker 1: And then suddenly you had it right, you had I

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Speaker 1: want to share a few share a few of these

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Speaker 1: quotes here Thun going on the Senate floor. You wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have You didn't see this with Renee Good, but you

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Speaker 1: saw it with Alex pretty and where John Thune is

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Speaker 1: saying the death of Alex Pretty was a tragedy and

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Speaker 1: there should be a full and impartial investigation into his shooting.

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Speaker 1: And then he adds, I am glad that the President

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Speaker 1: has sent Tom Homan to Minnesota, and I hope his

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Speaker 1: arrival will help turn down the temperature and restore order.

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Speaker 1: And then you had it sort of seemed to almost

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Speaker 1: open the floodgates for more and more Republicans to feel

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Speaker 1: comfortable criticizing the situation. Ran Paul, calling for hearings, said

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Speaker 1: that Christy Noam had accepted to come. You even had

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Speaker 1: Tom Tillis calling for Christy Nome to be five, Lisa

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Speaker 1: Rakowski joining him right after. So, yes, Tillis is retiring.

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Speaker 1: Murkowski's not running in twenty six. So you know this

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Speaker 1: is not I wouldn't call this a break just yet,

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Speaker 1: but you see the direction this is going. And while

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Speaker 1: the President had a simple one word answer whether she

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Speaker 1: was still going to be there, referring to Christy Nomy

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Speaker 1: said if she was going to be out of a job,

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Speaker 1: he said no, but he's known to change his mind

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Speaker 1: on those things, and I wouldn't I wouldn't assume anything

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Speaker 1: is done, but I do think reading Tillis's statement matters

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Speaker 1: because Tillis really put out a tough statement here. And

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Speaker 1: look the backstory in Tom Tillis. You know he was

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Speaker 1: going to run for reelection. He was focused on running

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Speaker 1: for reelection. He was sort of you know, if Bill

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Speaker 1: Cassidy was supposed to be the Republican that was either

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Speaker 1: going to make or break RFK Junior, Tom Tillis was

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Speaker 1: going to be JOONI Earns were going to be the

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Speaker 1: Republicans that were going to make or break hag Seth.

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Speaker 1: They both sort of blinked and they both end up retiring.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's an accident. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: put words in Tom Tillis's mouth. He's never said this,

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Speaker 1: but I can just tell you there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: resentment amongst some Senate Republicans at haig Seth, at Christino,

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Speaker 1: at RFK Junior, at Tulca Cavern. And so these are

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Speaker 1: probably the least popular of the cabinet secretaries from the

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Speaker 1: very beginning, and suddenly you're seeing those that feel like

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Speaker 1: they can speak out are jumping on it. And I'll

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Speaker 1: just quote Tom Tillis. She's proven that she doesn't know

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Speaker 1: how to lead, how to de escalate. She's exposing ICE

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Speaker 1: officers to dangerous situations, she's exposing US citizens to deadly

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Speaker 1: situations again, Republican Senator Tom Tillis. And instead of actually

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Speaker 1: stepping back and being calm, she tells the President, as

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Speaker 1: did Stephen Miller, shortly after the shooting, before anybody could

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Speaker 1: have gotten any unseen information that he was a terrorist.

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Speaker 1: What sort of judgment is that for somebody who's running

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Speaker 1: a very constant, quential, important organization. I haven't even talked

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Speaker 1: about the C and D in failing grades that she's

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Speaker 1: getting on Helene response referring to FEMA and the response

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Speaker 1: for that storm last fall. So the knives are out

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Speaker 1: there for Christino. And you know, look, Corey Lewandowski, her

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Speaker 1: chief political advisor, who is a special government assistant at

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Speaker 1: a DHS, has knows how to knife fight. And it's

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Speaker 1: not surprising to me that you start to see DHS

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Speaker 1: put out word that it was Stephen Miller who essentially

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Speaker 1: instructed Gnome to say what she said about Alex pretty

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Speaker 1: after the after the after the killing. Uh. And then

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Speaker 1: you have Stephen Miller immediately calling up Axios and saying, well,

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Speaker 1: the protocol we gave them, they violated the protocol. So

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Speaker 1: the point is, though you're you're you're seeing some public

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Speaker 1: in fighting and this can get contagious, and there's nothing

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Speaker 1: that Trump administration, And weirdly, we know the president doesn't

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Speaker 1: even mind it at times if people behind him are infighting.

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Speaker 1: But it's bad politics. It doesn't help things, but it'll

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Speaker 1: be interesting. I don't think anything shakes the President from

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Speaker 1: trusting Stephen Miller. I think he views Stephen Miller as

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Speaker 1: a loyalist of loyalists, so he will not dump him.

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Speaker 1: I don't think he feels that same attachment to Christino.

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Speaker 1: And the fact that you now have Republican senators speaking out, Yes,

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Speaker 1: they're the ones retiring, and one's probably going to retire

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Speaker 1: before the next time she runs for reelection referring to

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Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski. It's likely they're speaking for others who would

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Speaker 1: like to see that happen too, but they're not ready

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Speaker 1: to say that, right, They're not ready to go that far.

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Speaker 1: But the point is is that clearly the president has

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Speaker 1: gotten the political message. Does it change policy? Do we

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Speaker 1: see any real changes in Minnesota? Do we see a

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Speaker 1: quiet sort of retreat? Right there's you know, it's interesting.

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Speaker 1: Walls was a bit more diplomatic about his conversations with

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Speaker 1: the President and with Homan, the mayor. Certainly it was diplomatic,

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Speaker 1: but let's shall we say less so, and wasn't ready

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Speaker 1: to be very cooperative at all. Certainly was diplomatic in tone,

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Speaker 1: but things aren't you you're You're. I think I think

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Speaker 1: they sort of are now seeing the writing on the wall.

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Speaker 1: I think you throw in the fact that a Republican

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Speaker 1: guberatorial candidate decided to drop out because he was embarrassed

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Speaker 1: to be associated with the party because of what was

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Speaker 1: happening in the in the killing of these two American citizens.

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Speaker 1: So the the I think we now we see the

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Speaker 1: President was trying to play clean up. I think he

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Speaker 1: did about a C plus job, if you want to

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Speaker 1: know the truth, I think the faster cleanup is firing

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Speaker 1: Nome and turning the page. The fact that he can't

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Speaker 1: bring himself to do that is going to drag this out.

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Speaker 1: We now have the report that it was two different

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Speaker 1: ice officers decided to shoot Freddy right, they had him subdued,

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Speaker 1: they beat him up, and then two of them decided

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Speaker 1: to shoot him. You had to assume it was since

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Speaker 1: there were ten shots that it was likely more than

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Speaker 1: one person shot him, but that's so that reports out there.

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Speaker 1: It is one of those things. If Christy Nome's not

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Speaker 1: fired in the next twenty four hours, then she's probably

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Speaker 1: not going to get fired, because this is one of

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Speaker 1: those things. If you're going to rip the band aid off,

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Speaker 1: you rip the band aid off, and you do it now.

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Speaker 1: And it's clear a whole bunch of people are trying

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Speaker 1: to get to him to do this. So I do

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Speaker 1: think the next twenty four to thirty six hours are

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Speaker 1: pretty probably means the way Trump world works, there are

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Speaker 1: those that are going to try to find a million

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Speaker 1: different ways to get to know. By the way, if

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Speaker 1: you tell me that the reason we all know about

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Speaker 1: Tom Homan and his bag of cash is because Lewandowski

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Speaker 1: was trying to knife him, it would shock nobody in

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Speaker 1: how this world works. The point being is it's going

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Speaker 1: to be a messy thirty six hours in no world politically,

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Speaker 1: and we know the president has been not wanting but

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Speaker 1: at this point he's made it more than a year

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Speaker 1: and he's only fired a national security advisor, right, so

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Speaker 1: at this point, look, will I think it's a giant

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Speaker 1: political gift to the Democrats if he doesn't fire her,

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Speaker 1: her very presence, there, her everything. She has zero credibility.

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Speaker 1: Republican senators are now saying she has zero ability. I

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Speaker 1: says zero credibility right now, it doesn't make sense to

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Speaker 1: keep her. And so, you know, like I said, I

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Speaker 1: I think I think this is uh. I think that

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Speaker 1: that her tenure is going to be measured in hours

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Speaker 1: not days. But if it's not, it might be quite

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Speaker 1: the gift, uh to Democrats. And but but what did this?

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Speaker 1: You know, if you think about how the month of

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Speaker 1: January is gone, if you're an elected Republican that's going

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Speaker 1: to be on the ballot twenty six and you're just

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Speaker 1: exhausted from all of this essentially chaos and instability that

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Speaker 1: the president continues to introduce. Whether it's you know, we

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Speaker 1: still have no path at democracy in Venezuela. That's starting

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Speaker 1: to get weird and odd are we We're just using

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Speaker 1: it as as as some sort of oil depot. The

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Speaker 1: break with Canada. By the way, the Europeans and the

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Speaker 1: Indians just did a massive trade deal. So the president's

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Speaker 1: trade policy is creating all sorts of of economic partnerships

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Speaker 1: that do not include the United States that all of

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Speaker 1: us are going to regret at some point, probably sooner

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Speaker 1: rather than later. But this incident might be the permission

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Speaker 1: slip that a lot of Republicans are going to use

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Speaker 1: to start to distance themselves from the from from the

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Speaker 1: more unpopular things of the Trump administration, especially if he's

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Speaker 1: going to be completely sort of if he's going to

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Speaker 1: be completely oblivious to the reality on the ground on

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Speaker 1: the economy. Because I do want to not lose sight

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Speaker 1: of why he went to Iowa, right he was there

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Speaker 1: to focus on affordability. I have to tell you he

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Speaker 1: couldn't have picked a worst state to try to highlight

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Speaker 1: his economic policies because Iowa has probably been at the

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Speaker 1: has been the punching bag to Trump's crazy tariff regime.

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Speaker 1: Iowa is now fiftieth. I was doing some research earlier

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Speaker 1: this week on this i was fiftieth in the nation

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Speaker 1: among fifty states in GDP growth in the last year.

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Speaker 1: It normally was sitting in the middle. And why is that?

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Speaker 1: slash chuck. So now I want to pivot to where

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Speaker 1: the President was trying to pivot today. Right today was

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Speaker 1: not supposed to be all about his ice operations in Minneapolis.

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Speaker 1: Today was the day he was supposed to pivot to

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Speaker 1: focusing on the economy, touting his economic record and essentially

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Speaker 1: asking for patients. And he chose the state of Iowa,

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Speaker 1: which was a curious choice. On one hand, he should

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Speaker 1: be there. He's got some work to do in Iowa.

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Speaker 1: He's got a lot of unhappy farmers. Iowa's economy not

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Speaker 1: in good shape at all, and at this very moment,

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Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons, and I want to get

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Speaker 1: into that. But here he is going to Iowa today

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Speaker 1: to try to focus on affordability, and on the day

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Speaker 1: he leaves, this being Tuesday, and obviously you guys are

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Speaker 1: listening to this air. On Wednesday, we got some important

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Speaker 1: new information about consumers. And let's just say, consumers already

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Speaker 1: or behaving, are acting as if we're already in recession.

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Speaker 1: So we had some January numbers that showed us. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: there are two different surveys that came out on consumer confidence.

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Speaker 1: One factor's employment prospects into it and one does it right.

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Speaker 1: So on one side, yet the University of Michigan survey

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Speaker 1: that focuses more on pocketbook issues like gas prices and inflation.

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Speaker 1: And on the other one that came out today it

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Speaker 1: was the Conference Board Index, which is much more sensitive

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Speaker 1: to the labor market and jobs, and one showed basically

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Speaker 1: stagnation with a tiny bit of relief. The Michigan survey

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Speaker 1: already those super low, but the Conference Board numbers that

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Speaker 1: fell through the floor. So let me start with that one.

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Speaker 1: The Conference Sports Consumer Confidence Index just cub lapsed in January.

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Speaker 1: Top line number fell to eighty four point five, which

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Speaker 1: is down from ninety four point two in December. These

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Speaker 1: are their marks here. That doesn't mean it was a

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Speaker 1: bad month. This is the lowest reading on this measurement

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Speaker 1: on this scale since May of twenty fourteen, so it's lower.

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Speaker 1: This confidence number is lower than during any moment during

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, any moment during the pandemic. And even more

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Speaker 1: concerning is the expectations index in this measurement, which plungs

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Speaker 1: is sixty five point one. What does that mean? What's

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Speaker 1: the expectations that things are not going to be good

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Speaker 1: in this labor market? Economists generally treat any number below

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Speaker 1: eighty as a warning sign that a recession is likely

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Speaker 1: within the next year. Well, this, this number was sixty five,

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Speaker 1: so this isn't theoretical fear. There's already labor market and anxiety.

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Speaker 1: This is what the public is feeling. This is not

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Speaker 1: about any measurement numbers. This is just public sentiment and

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Speaker 1: obviously our economy and consumer confidence these things matter. So

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Speaker 1: the share of consumers who say jobs are plentiful fell

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Speaker 1: to under twenty five percent, while those saying that jobs

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Speaker 1: are hard to get right now rose to twenty one percent.

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Speaker 1: So that gap that is closing fast, and when that closes.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I means you're seeing more just as many

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Speaker 1: people say jobs are plentiful as they are hard to get.

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Speaker 1: One number is going down and one number is going up.

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Speaker 1: So consumers are now starting to worry about their job security.

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Speaker 1: If they have one. Confidence doesn't bounce back quickly based

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Speaker 1: on that. No tax refund is going to make you

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Speaker 1: feel better about jobs. Because what's helping to underline this

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Speaker 1: issue of jobs, Well, there's all sorts of reasons. Right

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Speaker 1: when they asked respondents, they pointed to tariffs and trade policy,

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Speaker 1: which is and I'm going to get to eye well

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Speaker 1: here in a minute, creates a lot of uncertainty, especially

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Speaker 1: if you're in if you're at all in the agricultural space,

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Speaker 1: a ton of any of the rising cost of health

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Speaker 1: insurance that is leading to more anxiety. And then of

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Speaker 1: course there's ai job displacement fears. Now, the other survey

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Speaker 1: at the University of Michigan survey showed modest improvement, but okay,

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Speaker 1: we're talking a January reading of fifty six point four,

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Speaker 1: which is terrible, up from fifty two point nine in December,

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Speaker 1: which was awful. Right, it's still twenty points lower than

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Speaker 1: it was a year ago. Consumer confidence was better at

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Speaker 1: the start of Trump's presidency than it is essentially now

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Speaker 1: one year in, and it is barely above historic lows.

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Speaker 1: So while you can say, hey, it ticked up, if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to really spin and lie to people, you

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Speaker 1: could say the consumer confidence survey at the University of

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Speaker 1: Michigan ticked up from December to January. But what they

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Speaker 1: don't tell you is that it's near historic lows. So

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Speaker 1: inflation expectations for the year I head have eased a

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Speaker 1: little bit to four percent, but that's still above the

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Speaker 1: two percent expectation. The longer term expectations ticked up to

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Speaker 1: three point three percent. Again not good. It's a sign

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Speaker 1: that Americans don't fully trust the trajectory of inflation, even

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Speaker 1: though the President claimed on Tuesday they've already solved it.

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Speaker 1: No more inflation, Inflation's over. That's not what the public

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Speaker 1: is feeling, and that's not what's actually happening. So and

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Speaker 1: guests who what's interesting here on this front, by the way,

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Speaker 1: is that gen Z was actually the most optimistic about

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Speaker 1: finding a job than anybody older than that, and gen

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Speaker 1: Z's pretty pessimistic about everything else. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: that's cause for comfort. But I want to focus on

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Speaker 1: the Iowa story because you know what's unique of what's

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Speaker 1: interesting about this is one of the first states George W.

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Speaker 1: Bush would go to to tout the economy when he

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Speaker 1: was beginning his reelection was Iowa. One of the first

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Speaker 1: states that Barack Obama went to would be Iowa. And

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Speaker 1: here's Donald Trump, essentially his first foray in the campaign season.

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Speaker 1: He goes to Iowa. You might argue, how Iowa goes

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Speaker 1: or how Iowa perceives the economy, so goes the perception

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Speaker 1: of America on this one. So let's go back to

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Speaker 1: Iowa because the confidence gap explains the disconnect that we're

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Speaker 1: seeing on the ground there. So the presidents in clive

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Speaker 1: Iowa talking about affordability and saying economy's great prices are

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Speaker 1: coming way down, that isn't what the data is showing.

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Speaker 1: According to the Philadelphia Fed State Index, Iowa now ranks

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Speaker 1: fiftieth in the nation for economic growth dead frickin last

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Speaker 1: That hasn't happened since the farm crisis of the eighties.

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Speaker 1: Iowa was not just lagging, it is anchoring national growth.

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Speaker 1: It is pulling us back. And you know what the

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Speaker 1: you know what the reason is tars. It is teriffs.

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Speaker 1: So when you combine collapsing labor confidence nationally with Iowa's

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Speaker 1: local economic stress, now you see the messaging problem this

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Speaker 1: White House has. On the farm front, Iowa corn is

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Speaker 1: still trading roughly forty four cents below the cost of production.

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Speaker 1: So even though the administration is throwing twelve million dollars

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Speaker 1: in this bridge assistance program, it's not fixing it. It's

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Speaker 1: simply going to put off the financial reckoning that these

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Speaker 1: farmers are facing. And as the Farmers Union put it,

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Speaker 1: using terraffs to fix trade is like quote, trying to

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Speaker 1: change a light bulb with a hammer. It doesn't work.

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Speaker 1: Then there's manufacturing, which also is not a great story

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Speaker 1: in the state of idle plants across the Cedar Rapids

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Speaker 1: Waterloo Corridor. Waterloo's where my dad grew up, so I

428
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: always care about Waterloo a lot. They're stuck in low higher,

429
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: low fire holding pattern. Right, all of these there's some

430
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: issues with manufacturing that a they're trying to wait for

431
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: some stability on the terraff front and anything you import

432
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: to manufacture things, And of course the other is AI.

433
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: What is AI going to replace and so you don't

434
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: have a lot of people filling heads on this. But

435
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: the tariffs on specialized machinery have pushed costs up ten

436
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: to fifty percent, depending on the machinery you have to import,

437
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 1: and so that kills any return on investment if you're

438
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: trying to expand your manufacturing. So, while the White House

439
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: wants to talk affordability, Iowa businesses are in a defensive crouch.

440
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: They're just waiting for this storm to pass. They're not growing.

441
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: So why is he there? Well, we know why he's there.

442
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: Iowa is home to three competitive house races, a competitive

443
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,160
Speaker 1: governor's race, and a competitive center race. It is it's basically,

444
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: if Iowa goes blue, the Democrats are going to win

445
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: the House and the Senate. Right, and it's possible. You've

446
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: got a strong gubernatorial candidate. I'm saying, you've got an

447
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: open Senate. See, and you've now got one open House

448
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: seat and two three of the four are already super competitive.

449
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,400
Speaker 1: You have two open house seats total because the Randy

450
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: Fiinstra is running for governor. So on the one hand,

451
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 1: Iowa is a place that needs a lot of help

452
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: if you're a Republican. On the other hand, Trump's messaging

453
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 1: is all over the map and it isn't working. And

454
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: on the economy, particularly on the farm economy, Trump's economic

455
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: policies have damaged, have hurt the average Iowa more than

456
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: in other places, and so it's a curious place for

457
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 1: them to go. Like I said, on one hand, it's necessary.

458
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, I'm not sure his

459
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: personal popularity is going to overcome this economic angst that

460
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: is gripping Iowa and a lot of folks on this front.

461
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: So look, I think he's trying to fix his trying

462
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: to do some damage control on Ice. I don't know

463
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: if he's moved fast enough, but it's clear a whole

464
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: bunch of people are getting in his ear and trying

465
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: to get him a fire. No, but the bigger problem

466
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: might be and the bigger issue is the fact that

467
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: their economic message is just not resonating, because how people

468
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: are actually feeling in this economy versus what they're saying

469
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: are two different things. And you see it, people do

470
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: not feel good about this economy. And ultimately, yes, I

471
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: think Ice and Greenland and all these foreign policy excapades,

472
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: they're all adding to the feel of instability and I

473
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 1: think ultimately it's that instability that's gonna that could really

474
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: do sort of have sort of dual motivating factors. Right

475
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: one will demotivate his base vote who don't feel very

476
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,239
Speaker 1: good about they don't know what they're fighting for at

477
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 1: this point, and it really will motivate those that want

478
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: to see a check on Donald Trump. One other point, boy,

479
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: has Donald Trump messed up his gun politics? Now? Do

480
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: I think that you're going to have suddenly the NRA

481
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: spending money on behalf of Democrats? Know? In fact, it's

482
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: been funny to watch the NRA. The NRA is the

483
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:29,240
Speaker 1: only gun rights group that hasn't condemned the president's remarks

484
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: from earlier on Tuesday where he said that Alex Prenny

485
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 1: shouldn't have brought a gun there. What was he doing

486
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: bringing a gun there? And it was like, I mean,

487
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: he was using what gun rights groups would say, was,

488
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: you know, was not sort of accepting the premise that

489
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: a constitutional right is a right and that you don't

490
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: get to be seen as suspicious just because you choose

491
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 1: to exercise a constitutional right. It's been funny to watch

492
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: gun right supporters just sort of panic about this. But

493
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: there's you know, this is a lesson for everybody that

494
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: signed up with Trump. Trump evenged Trump eventually will let

495
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: you down. He lets every one of his supporters on

496
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: something down eventually. And this was what his primary opponents

497
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen were going bonkers about and complaining about

498
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: and frustrated about. Right the Ted Cruz. They were all like,

499
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: going to these specific interest groups, including the NRA. You

500
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: can't trust him on guns, you can't do this yet.

501
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: You can't trust him on any of these things. You

502
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: can't trust him on abortion, you know. And certainly he's

503
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: appointed judges that have made the NRA and the right

504
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: to life community very happy. But Donald Trump's never with anybody.

505
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's with one person, himself, and he will throw

506
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: any supportive anybody he supports, or anybody that supports him,

507
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: he will throw them under the bus to protect himself

508
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: from whatever he's got to protect himself. And what are

509
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: gun right supporters learning this week that he does not

510
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: really care about their issue, because if he did, he

511
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been saying what he's been saying about the

512
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: circumstances with Alex Brading. All right, So I want to

513
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: sneak in a break. But when we come back my

514
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: conversation with Heather Ann Thompson, she's author of a new book.

515
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: She's an atorian, and she's author of a new book

516
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: that sort of essentially re explores Bernie Gets. For those

517
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: of you of a certain age, you'll know Bernie Gets

518
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: as the infamous or famous depending on your point of view,

519
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: subway New York City subway vigilante of the eighties. And

520
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: what Heather Ann does is sort of trace that incident

521
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: and just say, you know, in many ways, this was

522
00:32:53,920 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: an early harbinger of what would animate parts of the

523
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: MAGA movement and Donald Trump. And it's obviously an important

524
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: incident that happens while Donald Trump, a young Donald Trump,

525
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: is trying to become the King of New York and

526
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: in many ways, what he absorbs from Bernie Getz, you know,

527
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: is what motivates him to jump the gun on the

528
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: Central Park five. And some of the conversations that took place,

529
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: of those that supported Bernie Gets and those that didn't

530
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 1: are going to feel quite familiar with today's politics. But

531
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: what's really fascinating about the work that Heather End did

532
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: is how she went about it. She went back to

533
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: all sorts of source material. She did not go She

534
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: did not interview people today about their memory of that time.

535
00:33:54,320 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: She instead went back and essentially recreated the situation, you know,

536
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: dug into the first person accounts of what happened first

537
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: find out, you know, and it's not just what the

538
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: mainstream press did and what the New York Posts and

539
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:14,879
Speaker 1: the New York Times did, but also what the black

540
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 1: press did, what the Latino press did, what some of

541
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: the alternative press did, and she but she does it

542
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: all again without interviewing anybody who, including gets or any

543
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: of the victims' families today, and instead went back and

544
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: sort of essentially trying to paint the picture from scratch,

545
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 1: if you will. I thought it was quite effective. And look,

546
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,839
Speaker 1: this is this is an historical event that still has

547
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 1: echoes in our politics today. So we'll speak in that

548
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 1: break when we come back, a deep dive into the

549
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: one of the more infamous incidents in New York City history,

550
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 1: which of course turned into American an American political an

551
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 1: American political dust uff as well. So it's Heather and Thompson.

552
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 1: I'm burn Gates. Having good life insurance is incredibly important.

553
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555
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581
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582
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583
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Speaker 1: So as we try to figure out right, it's a

584
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: question I get all the time about sort of the

585
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: Trump era, how did we get here?

586
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 2: Right?

587
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: And sometimes we begin with the financial crisis in nine

588
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: and sometimes some people say, well, it's the ball, you know,

589
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: I've made a case about the fall of the Berlin

590
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 1: Wall and sort of the end of the Cold War

591
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: that sort of certainly helped respark the rise of the

592
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: sort of the political bases in both parties. But there's

593
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: always been another part of Trump that people, you know,

594
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: why did Trump? You know, how did Trump form the

595
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: ideology that he formed? Right? And understanding New York City

596
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties, which shaped Trump's mind for

597
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:44,799
Speaker 1: better or for worse, and the characters of that are

598
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: extraordinarily important. There's a new book, Fear and Fury by

599
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: Heather and Thompson that focuses on a specific incident in

600
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: the early eighties that became a massive national story and

601
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:02,399
Speaker 1: put the word vigil lante ism sort of front and center.

602
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: I was twelve or thirteen at the time of this incident,

603
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: but I remember it very clearly and how big of

604
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: a deal it was. And of course now I understand

605
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: it why it was a big deal because of all,

606
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: our media is based in New York City, so of

607
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: course we were the entire country we's going to know

608
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 1: about this. But Heather An Thompson joins me now, author

609
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 1: of Fear and Fury, who takes basically is making an

610
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,840
Speaker 1: argument that the Bernie Getz was sort of the first

611
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:33,759
Speaker 1: sign of this sort of white rage that would incubate

612
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: and certainly help, I think, form much of Trump's ideology

613
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 1: over time, and it metastasized into something that we now

614
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: see nationally. So it's a fascinating argument. It's a terrific book.

615
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,360
Speaker 1: Look New York City in the seventies and eighties is

616
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:55,760
Speaker 1: an incredible landscape. To be thinking about, if you're an author,

617
00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:01,839
Speaker 1: a screenplay writer, you name it. Let's get started, Heather,

618
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast.

619
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 2: So glad to be here.

620
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: So let me just start with. Look, you've done other

621
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: books that sort of explored sort of what's happened in

622
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: urban America urban decay. How long have you been thinking

623
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:15,919
Speaker 1: about doing a Bernie Getz book.

624
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 2: Well, in some respects for a very long time, because

625
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 2: I remember the event and it always struck me as

626
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 2: such jarring thing to happen in the middle.

627
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about what the event is. Let's remind

628
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: people with the event Bernie gets is on a subway,

629
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: take it away.

630
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 2: So it's nineteen eighty four in New York City, and

631
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 2: New York City, if anyone was around or anyone remembers it,

632
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 2: it was a pretty grim place to be in the

633
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 2: mid eighties. It was suffering greatly financially. If you were

634
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 2: to take this upway on a regular basis, which everyone did,

635
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 2: it was graffiti smeared, it was the streets were trash filled,

636
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 2: and homelessness was on rise, and it felt very much

637
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,239
Speaker 2: like a city in crisis. And on this one day,

638
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 2: three days before Christmas, kind of a loner white guy

639
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 2: named Bernie Getz gets on the train, and on that

640
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 2: train are already four young teenagers from the South Bronx,

641
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 2: another place that had really been been decimated by the

642
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 2: economics of this period, and they end up in a

643
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 2: very very brief conversation a hello. One of the kids

644
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,879
Speaker 2: asks him if he has five dollars, which, of course,

645
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 2: in this time period of panhandling and everyone's asking everyone

646
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 2: for some money, it's not particularly unusual. But what is

647
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 2: unusual is this guy stands up as if he's going

648
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 2: to get some money and turns around, immediately assumes a

649
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 2: combat stance and guns down these teenagers. One he shoots

650
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 2: straight in the chest, the other in the back as

651
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 2: he's running away, the third also trying to run away,

652
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,760
Speaker 2: in the in the arm, and the fourth, who he misses.

653
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 2: What was most staggering about this event, as he gets up,

654
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 2: walks over to him, stands over him and says, you

655
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 2: look all right, here's another and shoots him at point

656
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:26,240
Speaker 2: blank range, severing his final calmn. So it was this incredible,

657
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 2: especially as you might imagine for the passengers on that train,

658
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:35,359
Speaker 2: really a horrific event that happens. The story I tell though,

659
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 2: is really about the thereafter, the fallout from this, which

660
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 2: is as stunning in many ways as the event itself.

661
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:47,680
Speaker 1: You know, think about though, you know, what's interesting is

662
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: you put together I think a very you really provided

663
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: some visuals that you did a terrific job just now

664
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: describing it. But we ought to remind folks there were

665
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:01,720
Speaker 1: no cameras. That's right, right, this is all all putting together,

666
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: all of the eyewitness accounts right in sort of sort

667
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 1: of consensus accounts, and this is the this is the

668
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,840
Speaker 1: account I can only imagine, right, this is pre social

669
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: media and pre cameras everywhere. Right, something like this happens now,

670
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: we would see the footage and every American would be

671
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: making up their mind on their own. In this case,

672
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: we basically had the New York Post and the national

673
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: media right shaping the events, and it took a while

674
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: for people to know everything that happened on that what

675
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:37,280
Speaker 1: you just said was not the first reports.

676
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,839
Speaker 2: Well, that's actually that's so true. And what was really

677
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 2: remarkable is that after he shoots these, because he then

678
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 2: disappears into the subway tunnels, he is on the run.

679
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 2: He's on the lamb for nine days and before so

680
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 2: many New Yorkers even know his name. They are celebrating him.

681
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 2: He is the death Wish visual. He has taken out

682
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 2: these thugs, these animals. What is really amazing about this

683
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 2: story is that nobody, nobody knows what's happened, but so

684
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 2: many New Yorkers, I have to say, particularly overwhelmingly white

685
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 2: New Yorkers, have decided that they understand exactly what's happened.

686
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 2: As this story unfolds. Yeah, yeah, exactly, and so in

687
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:26,040
Speaker 2: so many respects, this story is ground zero, not just

688
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 2: for where we end up today with this unleashing of

689
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 2: kind of rage and violence and how it's vindicated in

690
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 2: the courts, but also this moment we're in where up

691
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 2: is down and down is up and even if you

692
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 2: see the video, you're kind of told, well, that's that's

693
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 2: not what happened. In this case. He actually will confess

694
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:52,760
Speaker 2: on a lengthy video taped confession where he says exactly

695
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 2: what he did, and even then it's not going to matter,

696
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 2: which is why this is such an interesting moment to

697
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 2: re visit. An unpack.

698
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: You spent some time with one of the survivors of

699
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: the shooting.

700
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 2: No, I did not, So what is interesting. No, no, no,

701
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 2: So this is the interesting story here. I am a historian,

702
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:16,280
Speaker 2: so I usually I just start back in the beginning.

703
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 2: I'm doing the recovering everything that was written at the time,

704
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 2: every confession. But the reason why I was not talking

705
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 2: to any of the present day survivors is because I

706
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,879
Speaker 2: had to make a decision. Bernie gets the shooter. He's

707
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:36,359
Speaker 2: still around, he's still talking very loudly about what he did.

708
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 2: But when I realized I could not also talk to

709
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 2: his victims, I couldn't rescue their stories in the same way,

710
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 2: I stepped away from that and I said, let me

711
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 2: just start from the beginning. Let me reconstruct this story,

712
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 2: because the most amazing thing to me was the way

713
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 2: in which the victims were completely erased from this story,

714
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 2: written out of it didn't matter. And so my journey

715
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 2: was really trying to reconstruct who were they?

716
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:06,359
Speaker 1: How did you do it without talking to them?

717
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 2: You know, the one thing about being a historian is

718
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 2: we are pretty good detectives. We have to go back

719
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,320
Speaker 2: to the beginning. I was looking at everything. I was

720
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 2: looking at every newspaper, counters, looking at original you know,

721
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 2: the probation report of Bernie Getz himself, I was the details.

722
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 2: They are depositions, court transcripts, and from one of the

723
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 2: really interesting pieces of information that gave me a lot

724
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:37,399
Speaker 2: was these young men had applied for compensation, a few

725
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 2: of them from something that New York has, which is

726
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:43,880
Speaker 2: called the Crime Victim's Board. And if you're a victim

727
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 2: of crime in New York City, especially in the eighties,

728
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 2: there was this provision you could apply for some funding

729
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:52,240
Speaker 2: because of course people were you know, disabled or injured

730
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 2: from these horrific crimes. And when they try to do that,

731
00:45:56,719 --> 00:46:00,760
Speaker 2: they are denied. They are decided to not be the victims.

732
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 2: It was they that deserved what they got. And so

733
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 2: from there it was just kind of like whoa, we

734
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 2: got to start at the beginning, How is it? How

735
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 2: is it that this all happened? And so I take

736
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 2: you into their lives, into the cell.

737
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:17,879
Speaker 1: So I want to go back to because I see

738
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: what I see the distinction you're trying to draw here,

739
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 1: which is you're trying in some ways not to pollute

740
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: the moment with what could be what these folks could

741
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: believe they're telling you is truthful. But you know, the

742
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 1: brain misremembers right for some of it. By for survival reasons,

743
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And so do you feel like you

744
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 1: had a more pure sense of perhaps who they are

745
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: if you didn't talk to them in the present day?

746
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 2: I mean, I think so, I hope so. I mean,

747
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 2: it's not that I would not have talked to everybody.

748
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 2: Perhaps it is that, you know, I realized, Look, I

749
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 2: mean two one of the victims ends up killing himself

750
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 2: on the anniversary of the event. Another dies very young.

751
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 2: I mean, he's completely drug addicted after this. His life

752
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 2: is so much in shambles. One of them is who's

753
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 2: still alive, is paralyzed brain damage from this event. So

754
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 2: when I sort of realized that part of this story

755
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 2: was about the erasing of the costs of this unleashing

756
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 2: of vigilante violence, then I just wanted to say, look,

757
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 2: let me, let me, let me go back, let me

758
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 2: reconstruct this. And you know, that is what I did

759
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 2: in my first book on the Attica Uprising. It's what

760
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 2: I did in this one. It's a journey, I will convince,

761
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 2: but it is one that I feel like I'm able,

762
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 2: I hope, anyway, to take take readers there in that

763
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:52,439
Speaker 2: moment on that subway train or in that project where

764
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 2: the teenagers lived or in Greenwich Village where Bernie Getz lived,

765
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 2: and was what he was experiencing.

766
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: So, you know, I I've been thinking about after reading

767
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:04,439
Speaker 1: your book, I've been thinking about what did I think,

768
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 1: what was shaped? How was Bernie get shaped? For me?

769
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 2: Right?

770
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: And I vigilanteism? Right, And it was sort of this

771
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: idea that that New York was under policed, under protected.

772
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 1: You know, I would go two years later, I would

773
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: go to the one hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty.

774
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:27,439
Speaker 1: I had an aunt that lived there and I wanted

775
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: to see all of that, and there was you know,

776
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 1: you had to be careful when you went on the subway,

777
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 1: and there was all these you know. So this was

778
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 1: a city where even the residents, it's not that they

779
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: lived in fear, they themselves were vigilant, constantly, right, There

780
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:45,240
Speaker 1: was this feeling.

781
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: And so.

782
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that Bernie gets was portrayed

783
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: as a hero in sort of the my memory, but

784
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: it was more of like he had been pushed to

785
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: the like it was a he was the presentative of

786
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: a city that had been pushed to the brink.

787
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right. And what was interesting to

788
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 2: me was unpacking, not why people felt like that, as

789
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 2: if it were somehow illegitimate. I remember it as you say,

790
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 2: people were vichelant.

791
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: Look I went to that. I was a young staffer

792
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two for a news publication and we

793
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: were covering the Democratic Convention and that was at Madison

794
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 1: Square Garden and my job at four point thirty in

795
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: the morning was to go to a newspaper sort of

796
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: a place that got all the newspapers from the East Coast.

797
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 1: And it was in Times Square, right off the Times Square.

798
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: And the cab driver said he wouldn't wait. This is

799
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:51,800
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, you know, And you know this was

800
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: people that was like the turnaround in New York really

801
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,279
Speaker 1: didn't begin until the mid nineties, and so the early

802
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 1: nineties really were more like eighties New York. And it's like,

803
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 1: you know, that was the mindset. Cab drivers were afraid

804
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 1: of certain parts of Manhattan. You know, we're not talking

805
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:08,839
Speaker 1: about the Bronx or Queens. I'm talking about Manhattan. Yeah.

806
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 2: And what was so interesting to me to kind of

807
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 2: reconstruct and I keep using that word because that's what

808
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:18,239
Speaker 2: it felt like. It felt like kind of going back

809
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:21,280
Speaker 2: to the beginning piecing it together was how did that happen?

810
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 2: How does New York City come to feel so under siege,

811
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:29,720
Speaker 2: so abandoned, like everything is falling apart? And what people

812
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 2: remember and even what they were being told every time

813
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 2: they picked up the New York Post, every time they

814
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 2: picked up any kind of tabloid media was crime is

815
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 2: out of control, and there's a certain kind of predator

816
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:46,839
Speaker 2: out there. It was not subtle. They were young, they

817
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 2: were black, they were poor, and you always had to

818
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:52,360
Speaker 2: be on the lookout for that kind of a threat.

819
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 2: But what was really interesting when I sort of went

820
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 2: back was the realization that there had been kind of

821
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 2: this political story behind this. One of the things that's

822
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 2: happening here is that it is the eighties and we

823
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 2: have had the election of a new president. This president

824
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 2: is Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan was determined to do

825
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,759
Speaker 2: something that frankly, a lot of wealthy people had wanted

826
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:19,839
Speaker 2: to do before they had not really been successful, which

827
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:24,280
Speaker 2: was to dismantle the New Deal kind of liberal welfare

828
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 2: state in America. And so he sets about doing this

829
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 2: really effectively. So by the time we get to eighty four,

830
00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:36,280
Speaker 2: the trash is piling up. The areas are feeling under police,

831
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 2: they are feeling under siege. People have lost their jobs.

832
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:45,080
Speaker 2: The public sector is being decimated. There is the public schools,

833
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 2: the public hospitals. Meanwhile, an AIDS crisis is developing that

834
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 2: is getting no care. And so in this context, it

835
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 2: was a possibility, right that people would say, wait a minute,

836
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 2: what's going on here? We don't actually want all these

837
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 2: resources taken away. But their attention is almost by kind

838
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:09,359
Speaker 2: of you know, remarkably effectively directed towards people worse offt

839
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 2: than that. No, the wrong with New York City is

840
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 2: not that we don't have funding anymore for you know,

841
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 2: the public sector, for the social safety net for people.

842
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 2: The problem is those people. It's a moral problem. It's

843
00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 2: a problem of the underclass that kind of working that

844
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,320
Speaker 2: out and seeing it in real time and actually seeing

845
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 2: how the media Rupert Murdoch's media that will become Fox News.

846
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 2: I mean, he is a right hand guy in the

847
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 2: Reagan administration. They understand that he's promoting a message, a

848
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,840
Speaker 2: kind of a conservative sensationaliste message that they want promoted.

849
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:48,920
Speaker 2: And so the book kind of, I mean, it lays

850
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 2: this bear, I think, and we get a different understanding,

851
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 2: not that people weren't legitimately fearful, but that it was

852
00:52:56,760 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 2: kind of tragically misdirected, and consequences of that were vast.

853
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: For So, do you did you did you feel like

854
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: you had to then go back to sort of you know,

855
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 1: how did we go from let's just it's New York City.

856
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:17,279
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you go back. I remember the

857
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 1: great tabloid headline that's like President Ford to New York

858
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: City dropped dead, right, which was over a funding funding dispute.

859
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:29,799
Speaker 1: But you know, to me, the the eighties New York

860
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:34,759
Speaker 1: really was built in the seventies, right, Well, so that's also.

861
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 2: Kind of a it was a surprise to me. I

862
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 2: think it'll be a surprise to some of the readers. Yes,

863
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 2: and no, the forties, the fifties, the sixties, this is

864
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:47,800
Speaker 2: the prosperous time in America. This is when the American

865
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,800
Speaker 2: middle class is built on so much of that social

866
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 2: funding that we came to depend on. The sixties become

867
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 2: very tumultuous, to be sure, as the discriminatory aspects of

868
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 2: this arch challenge. But the seventies will experience an economic

869
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 2: downturn that is actually global. It's a fiscal crisis. It's global.

870
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:09,880
Speaker 1: Everywhere.

871
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,880
Speaker 2: That's all right, but it recovers, and it would have

872
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:17,800
Speaker 2: recovered it we recovered around the globe. It actually recovered.

873
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:22,920
Speaker 2: But into this really interesting moment steps an opportunity, or

874
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 2: is an opportunity, i should say, for again for folks

875
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:29,320
Speaker 2: who had long wanted to kind of dismantle attack structure

876
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 2: that felt burden some to wealthy people, and they actually

877
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 2: will take that kind of already very much struggling civic

878
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 2: infrastructure that you know, again was on the mend elsewhere,

879
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 2: and will double down on this austerity. It happens here,

880
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 2: it happens in the UK under Thatcher, and it's a

881
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 2: moment that we've kind of forgotten, and it is a

882
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:56,720
Speaker 2: moment that every subsequent president will actually contribute to, including

883
00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:00,239
Speaker 2: Clinton and everybody else, will continue to kind of road

884
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 2: at that social safety Now.

885
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 1: Okay, but so how would you explain because you know,

886
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:15,360
Speaker 1: if you look at it right in the eighties, it

887
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:19,279
Speaker 1: was the cities can't be helped, right, that was kind

888
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:22,720
Speaker 1: of the mindset. It's too late for the cities. Everything

889
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 1: was moving to the burbs, right, malls all, you know,

890
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,760
Speaker 1: all the e commerce was moving out of the cities

891
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:35,000
Speaker 1: left and right, you know, including basketball arenas and stadiums right.

892
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 1: Everything was going and then at some point in the

893
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:41,720
Speaker 1: mid nineties we figured out, hey, that's a bad idea.

894
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:45,319
Speaker 1: We should invest in our cities again, which of course

895
00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:48,919
Speaker 1: gave us this sort of renaissance for a period of time. Yeah,

896
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: that feels like we're in retreat again, you know, that.

897
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:57,520
Speaker 2: Renaissance that what they would call at the time is

898
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:01,520
Speaker 2: I know you remember, right, the Giuliani recle that happens

899
00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:02,839
Speaker 2: in a saying area.

900
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 1: But is it I mean, every city experience You're right,

901
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:07,880
Speaker 1: downtowns every pretty much every city except the other one

902
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 1: you wrote about Detroit, right, Detroit, And in fact, I've

903
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:12,839
Speaker 1: got a request. I'd like you to do Saint Louis next.

904
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 1: But that's a that's a that's a separate because it's

905
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 1: very it's fascinating to me that Detroit is recovering in

906
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: Saint Louis isn't. Yeah, which is which is? But I

907
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 1: don't want to distract this here from New York. But

908
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: you're right, like there's this you know, the broken windows mindset, right,

909
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 1: that that's a part of scene as a part of it,

910
00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 1: and yet you know it wouldn't have mattered who was mayor.

911
00:56:34,719 --> 00:56:38,399
Speaker 1: Every city recovered was recovering by the turn of the Center.

912
00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:41,399
Speaker 2: But one of the things that I think that you'll

913
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 2: see is that this is all connected to what we

914
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:47,319
Speaker 2: were just talking about. So once we start to free

915
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:50,760
Speaker 2: up taxes and we start to have this very popular

916
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 2: message that the problem is with people, the problem is

917
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:57,760
Speaker 2: with the undeserving, the problem was with the criminal element.

918
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,800
Speaker 2: People like Giuliani are very savvy, right, He's part of

919
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 2: the Skeets story too, and they're very savvy. They understand

920
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 2: that this is a message that sells. But also when

921
00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 2: you free up monies at the top, you can invite

922
00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:14,759
Speaker 2: businesses in, you can invite that kind of redevelopment, and

923
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 2: you touch off this kind of moment of gentrification, and

924
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 2: all of that feels really good when you're coming into

925
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:26,800
Speaker 2: a city. Times Square, right, goes from feeling undersieged to

926
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 2: feeling a bit like Disneyland, and it does feel like

927
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:34,480
Speaker 2: an economic miracle. But there is the other side of that, right,

928
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 2: which is the explosion and incarceration in New York City

929
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,840
Speaker 2: and in New York and around the country, the hyper

930
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 2: policing that goes on that leads in New York City

931
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 2: to stop and frisk, tons of people being pulled over

932
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:53,000
Speaker 2: with no criminal charges, and it leads to a pushing

933
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 2: out of that poverty into other boroughs, other neighborhoods. This happens,

934
00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 2: of course, across the country. And so I think we're

935
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:03,400
Speaker 2: seeing now, which is super interesting in a place like

936
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 2: New York is it's wearing thin. What's wearing thin is

937
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 2: this idea that the private sector can save everybody that

938
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 2: cutting taxes at the top, Well, it makes everything glitzy

939
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:18,760
Speaker 2: and brings Gucci to your downtown, and it doesn't actually

940
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 2: make people more prosperous. Income inequality is more severe now

941
00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:27,720
Speaker 2: than it has been since the Gilded Age, and that's

942
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:31,080
Speaker 2: kind of the story we tell. But also this is

943
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:35,360
Speaker 2: Trump's story, and Trump is kind of always ever president

944
00:58:35,480 --> 00:58:40,920
Speaker 2: here benefiting from this, navigating this and ultimately writing to

945
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 2: the White House as a beneficiary of this.

946
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny. One of the jokes that

947
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,360
Speaker 1: many of my political reporter friends and I always make this, like,

948
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 1: you know, Trump's been stuck in the eighties, right, that

949
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:54,160
Speaker 1: he never got out of the eighties. And part of

950
00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:57,680
Speaker 1: that is, you know, if you actually any elderly person, Right,

951
00:58:57,760 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 1: any older person you talk with them, they'll always spend

952
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:08,120
Speaker 1: more time in the era that was best for them, right. So,

953
00:59:08,640 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump in the eighties was popular. Donald

954
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: Trump in the eighties was interesting to people. Donald Trump

955
00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:17,920
Speaker 1: in the eighties was fun to watch on David Letterman, right,

956
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: like he was. So I think, in a weird way,

957
00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:23,120
Speaker 1: his obsession with the eighties is because it was the

958
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,440
Speaker 1: last time he was liked, right, Like, he really has been, weirdly,

959
00:59:27,280 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 1: you know, always searching for this. I think he's always

960
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:33,919
Speaker 1: been in search of in his own life, heyday, Yes,

961
00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: trying to bring the eighties back, right, first, you know,

962
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 1: in his own way in the nineties in the ox

963
00:59:38,720 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 1: and then obviously make America great. Really, in his own

964
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 1: head is about just making America the way it was

965
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:49,040
Speaker 1: when I was interesting and popular to people. And so

966
00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:53,600
Speaker 1: talk about what Trump's experiencing in this moment.

967
00:59:53,960 --> 00:59:57,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he is ground zero in the story as well.

968
00:59:57,480 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 2: The eighties is on the one hand, completely falling apart

969
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 2: for so many, but he is navigating it. He is

970
01:00:05,440 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 2: part of this kind of group of very wealthy New

971
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 2: Yorkers that see this as an opportunity to get wealthier,

972
01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:19,760
Speaker 2: to build a real estate empire, really, but also to

973
01:00:20,600 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 2: understand the importance of the media, the flashy media, the

974
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 2: New York Post is his friend. And ultimately, by the way,

975
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:35,720
Speaker 2: recognizing very savvily how powerful the fear mongering is, how

976
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 2: powerful the race baiting is, and really watching this so carefully,

977
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:48,000
Speaker 2: watching and benefiting from the Giuliani political experience in New

978
01:00:48,080 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 2: York and Trump himself. He tries to court the Reagan

979
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 2: White House. He's happy courting the Clinton White House. He

980
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:57,760
Speaker 2: doesn't really care so much initially about what party he

981
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:02,200
Speaker 2: wants to have power, and as this story unfolds, he

982
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:08,480
Speaker 2: understands the formula he will once Rubert Mardach creates the

983
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:14,000
Speaker 2: Fox News, he will make that his platform deliberately again

984
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:18,520
Speaker 2: having watched the New York story, but also right he

985
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 2: goes on The Apprentice, and he goes on Worldwide Wrestling

986
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 2: and things like that, because he is selling what the

987
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 2: Reagan Revolutions sold, which is we're going to stay this

988
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 2: country with businessmen and the people who are going to

989
01:01:33,840 --> 01:01:36,400
Speaker 2: put us in office to do it, or working class

990
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:41,000
Speaker 2: white guys. So he's really masterful.

991
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 1: Actually, you know, if Bernie gets doesn't happen, does he

992
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:50,240
Speaker 1: insert himself into the Central Park five. Right, it's an

993
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:54,240
Speaker 1: unknowable but you know, you can't help but wonder watching

994
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:58,160
Speaker 1: the Bernie Gets story. Yeah, does that sort of why

995
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:00,480
Speaker 1: he dabbles even more into some thing like that?

996
01:02:00,880 --> 01:02:03,440
Speaker 2: I think so. I think so. And actually, you know,

997
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:07,160
Speaker 2: turning the question slightly differently, I mean, you know, would

998
01:02:07,240 --> 01:02:12,440
Speaker 2: the Central part five have been quite the media inflammatory

999
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 2: episode that it was without the Guest story and without Trump?

1000
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:19,120
Speaker 2: I mean, it is it's so interesting that this happens

1001
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:22,440
Speaker 2: quite a few years later, but it is. It is.

1002
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:27,200
Speaker 2: It is absolutely unleashed on them in a way that

1003
01:02:27,320 --> 01:02:29,680
Speaker 2: had just been building since eighty four, by the way,

1004
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 2: as did the mob of killings in Howard Beach, you know,

1005
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 2: in benson Hurst. Because the thing about the Guests case,

1006
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:41,320
Speaker 2: and if you're if you're reading it, you're it's you know,

1007
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:43,680
Speaker 2: day by day you're in the courtroom, you see that

1008
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 2: there is a bloodthirst that is kind of being nurtured

1009
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:53,640
Speaker 2: and stoked. And when he is and this is the key,

1010
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:58,280
Speaker 2: when he is vindicated in the courts, uh, it sends

1011
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:01,200
Speaker 2: a message. Uh. It sends a message to the NRA,

1012
01:03:01,600 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 2: for example, who has funded his his legal defense to

1013
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:09,160
Speaker 2: come to New York guns are no longer about gun

1014
01:03:09,560 --> 01:03:13,680
Speaker 2: you know, sportsmanship and hunting. They're about protecting your domain

1015
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 2: from their stems so much. And I hope I connect

1016
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 2: the dots for people.

1017
01:03:19,640 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 1: You really do see that is it's interesting the NRA

1018
01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:27,320
Speaker 1: aspect to this, that it transforms the NRA from a

1019
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:30,439
Speaker 1: sportsman club to to what it became. Yeah.

1020
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:35,760
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And by the way the media is transformed by

1021
01:03:35,800 --> 01:03:38,160
Speaker 2: this moment, we've kind of begun at the end of

1022
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:41,920
Speaker 2: the story, which is that there is this tabloid sensationalist media.

1023
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:44,320
Speaker 2: But but what we don't really understand is that that

1024
01:03:44,680 --> 01:03:49,600
Speaker 2: media becoming mainstream. This is the moment when that kind

1025
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 2: of starts to happen. So that even papers of the record,

1026
01:03:53,320 --> 01:03:56,440
Speaker 2: like the New York Times, which is you know, initially

1027
01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:00,360
Speaker 2: a little sober in the reporting on this is and.

1028
01:04:00,440 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 1: Typical Times fashion if I'm I mean, I'm sure this

1029
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: must have frustrated you, you know, buried on the local section, right,

1030
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:09,200
Speaker 1: probably never made it to the front section until it

1031
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:11,720
Speaker 1: became a thing versus the New York Post, which was

1032
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 1: always front paging it every day.

1033
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 2: Right, Absolutely, And then the repeating of the misinformation about

1034
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 2: this story is so effective that it it is also

1035
01:04:22,800 --> 01:04:24,920
Speaker 2: sending a message to the mainstream media. You want to

1036
01:04:24,960 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 2: sell papers, you want to get an audience, you too

1037
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:28,439
Speaker 2: have to sell crime.

1038
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:31,320
Speaker 1: And we're in the earlier stages of talk radio at

1039
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:31,800
Speaker 1: this point too.

1040
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:36,240
Speaker 2: Oh yes, ab WABC in New York City. Curtis Leewa

1041
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:40,680
Speaker 2: who will of course recently tried to be the mayor.

1042
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:43,320
Speaker 2: He is, he's ground zero of this case as well.

1043
01:04:43,520 --> 01:04:46,760
Speaker 1: He the Guardian Angel. Had he started like the timing

1044
01:04:46,840 --> 01:04:48,960
Speaker 1: of Guardian Angels started yet or not yet?

1045
01:04:49,080 --> 01:04:53,080
Speaker 2: Oh yes, and they they will go on the the

1046
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 2: muscle to raise as much money for Bernie Yetz as

1047
01:04:56,680 --> 01:05:01,880
Speaker 2: they can. And Curtis Lee was talk radio show which

1048
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:06,080
Speaker 2: was increasingly conservative and again kind of just really a

1049
01:05:06,200 --> 01:05:09,600
Speaker 2: side of misinformation just takes off as a result of

1050
01:05:09,720 --> 01:05:11,920
Speaker 2: the Bernie Guests case. So you know, it's kind of funny.

1051
01:05:11,960 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 2: We don't want to put it all on one case.

1052
01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:17,160
Speaker 2: But I was myself, I'm rarely surprised. I was a

1053
01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 2: little surprised by how it all came together, you know.

1054
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:23,760
Speaker 1: Just to put this in context, how often were there

1055
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 1: subway shootings?

1056
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:29,479
Speaker 2: I mean just didn't you know, rarely, That's what I thought.

1057
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:33,720
Speaker 1: This was not This was a really unusual thing. Yeah,

1058
01:05:33,800 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 1: and it just you know, obviously was stuff people feared.

1059
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:40,080
Speaker 1: But then you know here it was. This wasn't common

1060
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:41,600
Speaker 1: subway shootings.

1061
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:43,560
Speaker 2: That's right. And if you've ever been on a subway,

1062
01:05:44,280 --> 01:05:48,240
Speaker 2: you know how tight that is, how confined it is, sure,

1063
01:05:48,600 --> 01:05:51,440
Speaker 2: And so for this to have happened, I mean, imagine

1064
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:56,400
Speaker 2: being that passenger while this is going down. People are running,

1065
01:05:56,560 --> 01:05:59,120
Speaker 2: you know, they're trying to get off this train, and

1066
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:03,120
Speaker 2: it is a it is a shock, even even in

1067
01:06:03,200 --> 01:06:06,320
Speaker 2: an era of people feeling very unsafe.

1068
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:09,040
Speaker 1: So let's peel back the public policy aspect of this.

1069
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:13,200
Speaker 1: If one thing, if you could have changed one thing

1070
01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:17,480
Speaker 1: on the public policy front in nineteen eighty one, right,

1071
01:06:20,920 --> 01:06:23,120
Speaker 1: what has the biggest impact in the positive for New

1072
01:06:23,200 --> 01:06:23,600
Speaker 1: York City?

1073
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:31,760
Speaker 2: Well, I think what was most consequential on the ground

1074
01:06:32,280 --> 01:06:38,400
Speaker 2: was the stripping away of resources that people desperately needed,

1075
01:06:38,520 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 2: which in turn led to, for example, people turning to

1076
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:47,840
Speaker 2: the illegal drug trade at a whole record level to

1077
01:06:48,080 --> 01:06:53,320
Speaker 2: support themselves their families, which in turn also contributed to

1078
01:06:53,720 --> 01:06:57,200
Speaker 2: the AIDS crisis, which in turn could not get the

1079
01:06:57,280 --> 01:07:01,440
Speaker 2: care and attention it needed without the public resources it needed.

1080
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 2: So if we are to really look at a kind

1081
01:07:03,840 --> 01:07:07,240
Speaker 2: of a ground zero moment. The Reagan tax cuts starting

1082
01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:10,440
Speaker 2: in eighty one actually and then getting doubled down on

1083
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:14,840
Speaker 2: in eighty three are monumentally important in a place like

1084
01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:18,480
Speaker 2: South Bronx. Think about it. Most African Americans in places

1085
01:07:18,560 --> 01:07:22,960
Speaker 2: like the South Bronx are dependent on public sector jobs.

1086
01:07:23,160 --> 01:07:26,320
Speaker 2: Right working for the city, working for the state. They

1087
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:31,320
Speaker 2: are eviscerated. Teenagers got summer employment through something called SEDA

1088
01:07:31,840 --> 01:07:37,440
Speaker 2: ceda jobs. Reagan eliminates them. Mentally ill people relied on

1089
01:07:38,080 --> 01:07:41,720
Speaker 2: general assistance. It is gutted. And of course again it's

1090
01:07:41,800 --> 01:07:45,560
Speaker 2: not just Reagan. It is a long Reagan revolution because

1091
01:07:45,600 --> 01:07:47,840
Speaker 2: it will actually be Clinton. As I you know, am

1092
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 2: not shied appointed.

1093
01:07:49,640 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 1: Shifted right on these issues. Yes, right, that's right.

1094
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:56,840
Speaker 2: So the ground zero changing moment is really an economic

1095
01:07:56,960 --> 01:08:02,320
Speaker 2: one from which the cultural, the racial, all of it

1096
01:08:02,560 --> 01:08:08,160
Speaker 2: will get much tenser, much more exacerbated. But you know,

1097
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:10,040
Speaker 2: but the flip side of that, and I just want

1098
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:13,320
Speaker 2: to go back to your point about Times Square, about

1099
01:08:13,480 --> 01:08:16,720
Speaker 2: the Giuliani moment. The flip side of that is, if

1100
01:08:16,800 --> 01:08:19,679
Speaker 2: you had means in this country, if you were wealthy,

1101
01:08:20,400 --> 01:08:24,200
Speaker 2: the tax burden just shifted dramatically for you in a

1102
01:08:24,360 --> 01:08:28,560
Speaker 2: really wonderful way that we've also been doubling down on.

1103
01:08:28,760 --> 01:08:32,360
Speaker 2: So when Trump is elected, where our eyeballs are focused

1104
01:08:32,439 --> 01:08:37,680
Speaker 2: on Denmark or we're focused on Minneapolis, But meanwhile, the

1105
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 2: economic story of what's going on is just stunning. We

1106
01:08:44,160 --> 01:08:47,160
Speaker 2: have concentrated wealth at the top in a way that

1107
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:49,360
Speaker 2: few have really paid attention to.

1108
01:08:49,960 --> 01:08:53,479
Speaker 1: No. I mean, it feels, you know, I've been obsessed

1109
01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:56,880
Speaker 1: with the first twenty five years of the twentieth century

1110
01:08:56,920 --> 01:08:59,880
Speaker 1: because it feels it feels like we're in a similar

1111
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:04,880
Speaker 1: moment where we're having this massive change in nightmare shifting

1112
01:09:04,920 --> 01:09:11,200
Speaker 1: from a grarian too industrial and the industrialists basically think

1113
01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:15,520
Speaker 1: they're such geniuses they should be in charge of everything,

1114
01:09:15,680 --> 01:09:19,120
Speaker 1: not just their little corner of what they've invented or

1115
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:22,880
Speaker 1: what they're profiting from. And then you see this, you know,

1116
01:09:23,120 --> 01:09:25,599
Speaker 1: massive gap, and then the people fight back, Right that's

1117
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:28,240
Speaker 1: when we get the direct We pass an income tax

1118
01:09:28,600 --> 01:09:31,519
Speaker 1: constitution constitutional amendment to allow for an income tax, and

1119
01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:34,120
Speaker 1: you know, which was at the time just designed because

1120
01:09:34,120 --> 01:09:36,400
Speaker 1: people were fed up with the super rich, and the

1121
01:09:36,479 --> 01:09:38,479
Speaker 1: only people actually got got taxed back then we're the

1122
01:09:38,560 --> 01:09:43,720
Speaker 1: super rich, and so it does feel like we're we're

1123
01:09:43,760 --> 01:09:46,040
Speaker 1: sort of stumbling back into that moment. It's a different

1124
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:49,080
Speaker 1: set of robber barons this time. They're all in Silicon

1125
01:09:49,200 --> 01:09:53,800
Speaker 1: Valley and so and here we are in this an

1126
01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:56,280
Speaker 1: economy that that right now, if you if you have

1127
01:09:56,800 --> 01:09:59,800
Speaker 1: money Europe, you're you're okay. But if you don't, it's

1128
01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:00,639
Speaker 1: times worse.

1129
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:03,720
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's it's the new Gilded Age. And

1130
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:06,360
Speaker 2: on the racial front, and on the kind of racial

1131
01:10:06,439 --> 01:10:10,040
Speaker 2: violence front, it's the new Jim Crow. And so we

1132
01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:12,880
Speaker 2: we are, I think, in a changing moment. But this

1133
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:17,320
Speaker 2: is where the misinformation media and that story told that

1134
01:10:17,479 --> 01:10:21,000
Speaker 2: really locates in the eighties is so important because unlike

1135
01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:26,320
Speaker 2: other moments, you know, we as a citizenry, we're just stabilized.

1136
01:10:26,439 --> 01:10:29,439
Speaker 2: What is the truth? What you know, up is down,

1137
01:10:29,600 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 2: down is up? And so I kind of wanted to

1138
01:10:33,120 --> 01:10:37,080
Speaker 2: really elevate that as important to this story because yeah,

1139
01:10:37,320 --> 01:10:39,680
Speaker 2: we are in a terrible crisis right now and it

1140
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:40,799
Speaker 2: could go in any direction.

1141
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:43,640
Speaker 1: But well, this is a great you're you're myth busting too,

1142
01:10:43,680 --> 01:10:46,840
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, back then there were actually

1143
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:51,240
Speaker 1: fewer media outlets, Yeah, and the ease to create misinformation

1144
01:10:51,520 --> 01:10:55,160
Speaker 1: was actually easier right there, wasn't alternative. You know, maybe

1145
01:10:55,200 --> 01:10:57,880
Speaker 1: you had a village voice. The New York Daily News

1146
01:10:58,000 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 1: wasn't nearly what it was. Was sort of a different

1147
01:11:00,280 --> 01:11:07,120
Speaker 1: vibe back then, for sure. It is, you know, I

1148
01:11:07,200 --> 01:11:09,080
Speaker 1: think the when people talk about the good old days

1149
01:11:09,080 --> 01:11:10,799
Speaker 1: of the media, I'm like, well, you have no idea,

1150
01:11:11,040 --> 01:11:15,439
Speaker 1: actually how poor those journalists were back then, and how

1151
01:11:17,720 --> 01:11:22,160
Speaker 1: mona monoculture. The journalism was right, it only and it

1152
01:11:22,360 --> 01:11:25,599
Speaker 1: was more group think you than you realize. In fact,

1153
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:28,200
Speaker 1: the criticism of group think today is actually to me

1154
01:11:28,760 --> 01:11:31,800
Speaker 1: more of a legacy issue. There was a ton of

1155
01:11:31,840 --> 01:11:35,040
Speaker 1: group think in the eighties, which I feel like in

1156
01:11:35,160 --> 01:11:37,880
Speaker 1: some ways that's what you're surfacing here. There was just

1157
01:11:38,080 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 1: just massive mainstream media group think, which is why Bernie

1158
01:11:42,240 --> 01:11:43,240
Speaker 1: gets gets off right.

1159
01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And one of the startling things is the way

1160
01:11:49,360 --> 01:11:55,080
Speaker 2: in which this at that time was absolutely about race,

1161
01:11:55,320 --> 01:11:59,120
Speaker 2: but it was racially coded in the way that today

1162
01:11:59,320 --> 01:12:02,439
Speaker 2: is not. So it's not so much that, as you

1163
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:05,240
Speaker 2: say that the kind of group think is so different,

1164
01:12:05,640 --> 01:12:08,120
Speaker 2: It is that it has now been kind of unveiled

1165
01:12:08,280 --> 01:12:12,080
Speaker 2: in a different way. And so in the eighties people

1166
01:12:12,200 --> 01:12:15,000
Speaker 2: were not making always saying race has nothing to do

1167
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:16,960
Speaker 2: with this. Race has nothing to do with this. Even

1168
01:12:17,120 --> 01:12:20,439
Speaker 2: while you know, Reagan is talking about the welfare queen

1169
01:12:20,600 --> 01:12:24,040
Speaker 2: and this, and he's racializing all of it. One of

1170
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:26,880
Speaker 2: the things that happens is the Guests case kind of

1171
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:29,680
Speaker 2: allows for it, just peeling back. We don't need to

1172
01:12:29,720 --> 01:12:33,680
Speaker 2: pretend anymore. You know, these guys deserved it. They were

1173
01:12:33,800 --> 01:12:38,360
Speaker 2: black thugs, they were. And of course the civil rights

1174
01:12:38,439 --> 01:12:41,280
Speaker 2: movement is still around. They're pushing back. They're saying, look

1175
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:44,719
Speaker 2: the hypocrisy here. If a black guy would have gotten

1176
01:12:44,760 --> 01:12:48,200
Speaker 2: on that subway and shot down for a white teenagers.

1177
01:12:47,720 --> 01:12:50,880
Speaker 1: They they gotten the death penalty then.

1178
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 2: But no one's hearing it, right, No one's hearing it

1179
01:12:53,520 --> 01:12:55,840
Speaker 2: because there's this a denial that it has anything to

1180
01:12:55,880 --> 01:13:02,640
Speaker 2: do that. I think that is different today. The decorum

1181
01:13:02,960 --> 01:13:07,400
Speaker 2: of the decorum, maybe even of double speak, is we're

1182
01:13:07,439 --> 01:13:07,720
Speaker 2: not there.

1183
01:13:07,800 --> 01:13:09,560
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you say, you call it decorum. I

1184
01:13:09,640 --> 01:13:13,240
Speaker 1: I've always said, you know, and I have confessed to this,

1185
01:13:13,560 --> 01:13:17,960
Speaker 1: meaning you sometimes when you're reporting for these big media companies,

1186
01:13:19,280 --> 01:13:22,280
Speaker 1: you round the edges. Yeah, yeah, I do that so

1187
01:13:22,960 --> 01:13:25,280
Speaker 1: because you don't want to upset, you don't want to

1188
01:13:25,360 --> 01:13:29,400
Speaker 1: create extra controversy in the coverage itself. Right, in the

1189
01:13:29,520 --> 01:13:33,960
Speaker 1: goal of being dispassionate in your reporting and detached from

1190
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:40,400
Speaker 1: the story personally, you end up putting a more too

1191
01:13:40,560 --> 01:13:44,160
Speaker 1: sanitized of a version of events on the air, even

1192
01:13:44,200 --> 01:13:45,400
Speaker 1: though that wasn't the intent.

1193
01:13:45,560 --> 01:13:45,760
Speaker 2: It was.

1194
01:13:45,920 --> 01:13:50,240
Speaker 1: The intent actually was to just sort of not insert

1195
01:13:50,400 --> 01:13:54,639
Speaker 1: the media organization into the debate, right, And and that's

1196
01:13:55,680 --> 01:13:57,600
Speaker 1: that's my guess of how the how the how the

1197
01:13:57,920 --> 01:14:00,920
Speaker 1: major networks covered it versus how the media covered it.

1198
01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:03,479
Speaker 2: I think that's right. And so what is so striking

1199
01:14:03,720 --> 01:14:07,080
Speaker 2: is the way in which the success actually of the

1200
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:10,760
Speaker 2: tabloids in this time period, the success of that more conservative,

1201
01:14:10,800 --> 01:14:15,719
Speaker 2: sensational and media is we've underestimated it actually as making

1202
01:14:15,840 --> 01:14:21,000
Speaker 2: its imprint on journalism in general, I think, and you know,

1203
01:14:21,200 --> 01:14:23,840
Speaker 2: this is not to throw all mainstream journalism under the

1204
01:14:23,840 --> 01:14:25,840
Speaker 2: bus by any means, but it is to say that

1205
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:30,759
Speaker 2: the culture shift that happens over the last fifty years

1206
01:14:32,040 --> 01:14:35,560
Speaker 2: may be driven by politics and driven by the economic

1207
01:14:35,640 --> 01:14:39,920
Speaker 2: agenda of you know, certain segments of the population, but

1208
01:14:40,080 --> 01:14:42,880
Speaker 2: ultimately it has to be translated, and ultimately it has

1209
01:14:42,960 --> 01:14:47,840
Speaker 2: to be either legitimated or seen as outrageous. And there's

1210
01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:51,439
Speaker 2: something about this moment when again we first see that

1211
01:14:52,040 --> 01:14:54,519
Speaker 2: up is down, down is up kind of moment that

1212
01:14:54,640 --> 01:14:58,080
Speaker 2: we're in today, and no one set of hands is

1213
01:14:58,280 --> 01:15:02,160
Speaker 2: dirtier than another. It's just more it's an ecosystem that

1214
01:15:02,320 --> 01:15:06,480
Speaker 2: starts to get developed, which I personally just found fascinating,

1215
01:15:06,760 --> 01:15:10,439
Speaker 2: and you know, share a confession with you like I found. I,

1216
01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:13,439
Speaker 2: you know, try my hardest to kind of be well

1217
01:15:13,520 --> 01:15:16,400
Speaker 2: informed and read and know what's going on in my world.

1218
01:15:16,760 --> 01:15:19,519
Speaker 2: And when I started this book, I was embarrassed to

1219
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:23,000
Speaker 2: admit internally, like I knew who Bernie Gets was, but

1220
01:15:23,160 --> 01:15:26,840
Speaker 2: I had no idea the names of the people who

1221
01:15:28,200 --> 01:15:28,800
Speaker 2: he had shot.

1222
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:32,519
Speaker 1: I mean, what was the alternative media landscape back then?

1223
01:15:32,560 --> 01:15:35,160
Speaker 1: In New York? You had the Village Voice about.

1224
01:15:35,680 --> 01:15:39,480
Speaker 2: News, Amsterdam News, Yeah, newspaper.

1225
01:15:39,600 --> 01:15:40,920
Speaker 1: How did they cover this story?

1226
01:15:41,240 --> 01:15:47,639
Speaker 2: Very differently, very differently? You know, of course, you knew

1227
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:50,800
Speaker 2: who those victims were, you knew what had happened to them,

1228
01:15:51,640 --> 01:15:53,400
Speaker 2: you knew the context.

1229
01:15:53,760 --> 01:15:56,600
Speaker 1: From Is that where you got most of the information

1230
01:15:56,800 --> 01:15:59,640
Speaker 1: trying to fill out the paint the portrait of the

1231
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:03,320
Speaker 1: victory of the Gets victims. You got to get it

1232
01:16:03,360 --> 01:16:04,360
Speaker 1: from the alternative press.

1233
01:16:04,680 --> 01:16:06,880
Speaker 2: I got a lot of it from there, and I

1234
01:16:07,040 --> 01:16:10,320
Speaker 2: also got a lot of it because ultimately one of

1235
01:16:10,400 --> 01:16:13,280
Speaker 2: the most severely injured victims. His mother is this kind

1236
01:16:13,280 --> 01:16:16,920
Speaker 2: of diehard advocate on behalf of her son, Darryl kab

1237
01:16:17,280 --> 01:16:20,120
Speaker 2: And there will be a civil case against Burnie Getz

1238
01:16:20,360 --> 01:16:25,559
Speaker 2: where a jury will award him forty three million dollars.

1239
01:16:26,600 --> 01:16:29,640
Speaker 2: This is how kind of how obvious to them it

1240
01:16:29,800 --> 01:16:33,479
Speaker 2: is the damage a bronx jury and that deposition that

1241
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:37,080
Speaker 2: trial trans so much came out and there that I

1242
01:16:37,200 --> 01:16:41,720
Speaker 2: think was really blurred over in the criminal trial. I mean,

1243
01:16:41,760 --> 01:16:46,000
Speaker 2: you know, keats is he is unapologetic, and it doesn't

1244
01:16:46,080 --> 01:16:49,320
Speaker 2: he's he says, you know, in this one of these moments,

1245
01:16:50,040 --> 01:16:52,599
Speaker 2: you know that surely KB Deryl's mother should have had

1246
01:16:52,640 --> 01:16:56,160
Speaker 2: an abortion, she he should never have been born. He

1247
01:16:56,360 --> 01:17:00,360
Speaker 2: ends up deposing the young man that he at actually

1248
01:17:00,479 --> 01:17:02,960
Speaker 2: paralyzed in this civil case. I mean, it's just just

1249
01:17:03,080 --> 01:17:06,519
Speaker 2: it's an unhinch story that you just kind of can't

1250
01:17:06,600 --> 01:17:10,400
Speaker 2: believe until you walk yourself through it. And here we

1251
01:17:10,560 --> 01:17:15,040
Speaker 2: sit today, and you know, even today, you know, Bertie

1252
01:17:15,080 --> 01:17:17,479
Speaker 2: gets his still giving interviews on what he did, and

1253
01:17:17,640 --> 01:17:21,040
Speaker 2: people still don't know who he did it to. And

1254
01:17:21,200 --> 01:17:25,000
Speaker 2: so I'm hoping this is kind of shiny new light

1255
01:17:25,160 --> 01:17:28,439
Speaker 2: on it, if nothing else, we take us through a

1256
01:17:29,120 --> 01:17:33,719
Speaker 2: criminal trial with Barry Slotnick. Barry Slotnick is his lawyer.

1257
01:17:33,960 --> 01:17:36,760
Speaker 2: He is a you know, he's John Gottie's lawyer. So

1258
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:41,839
Speaker 2: you can imagine this trial is theater from start to finish.

1259
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:46,080
Speaker 2: So it's a mix of taking you back there, but

1260
01:17:46,200 --> 01:17:50,320
Speaker 2: also I hope kind of showing us I ouch, ouch,

1261
01:17:50,520 --> 01:17:52,240
Speaker 2: you know, this is how we ended up here.

1262
01:17:59,200 --> 01:18:00,720
Speaker 1: You know, what I was reading kinded of and reading

1263
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:04,400
Speaker 1: this book is how much this incident sort of clearly

1264
01:18:04,600 --> 01:18:08,040
Speaker 1: was the inspiration for Bonfire the Vanities with Tumble right

1265
01:18:08,200 --> 01:18:11,840
Speaker 1: like it's like obvious right that you know, which was

1266
01:18:12,000 --> 01:18:15,080
Speaker 1: such you know, an early book that I you know,

1267
01:18:15,760 --> 01:18:19,360
Speaker 1: devoured back in the early nineties, the movie The Paper,

1268
01:18:19,560 --> 01:18:24,000
Speaker 1: which is my I think nobody captures a newsroom better

1269
01:18:24,080 --> 01:18:27,360
Speaker 1: than that movie. It's one of to this day, I

1270
01:18:27,400 --> 01:18:30,440
Speaker 1: think it holds it holds up in the in understanding

1271
01:18:30,520 --> 01:18:33,559
Speaker 1: how journalists interact with each other really well. But people

1272
01:18:33,680 --> 01:18:36,120
Speaker 1: forget that sort of the the backdrop of the of

1273
01:18:36,320 --> 01:18:41,240
Speaker 1: the of that story is sort of a a fictionalized

1274
01:18:41,360 --> 01:18:46,080
Speaker 1: version of of a racialized incident.

1275
01:18:46,200 --> 01:18:49,639
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it is sort of Bike Lee, Spike Lee's

1276
01:18:49,840 --> 01:18:50,040
Speaker 2: you know.

1277
01:18:50,240 --> 01:18:52,360
Speaker 1: Do the right thing, right, all of this in some

1278
01:18:52,520 --> 01:18:56,600
Speaker 1: ways that it goes back right, gats is the and

1279
01:18:57,120 --> 01:18:59,559
Speaker 1: and this is what I you know, love about historical fiction.

1280
01:18:59,720 --> 01:19:05,120
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's an actual moment that actually helps shape the

1281
01:19:05,360 --> 01:19:08,280
Speaker 1: historical fiction, that helps tell the story of America and

1282
01:19:08,360 --> 01:19:12,000
Speaker 1: tell the story of New York City. I'm curious it

1283
01:19:12,120 --> 01:19:15,240
Speaker 1: is so obvious now reading this book and watching the

1284
01:19:15,800 --> 01:19:19,920
Speaker 1: divide over the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis and

1285
01:19:20,040 --> 01:19:24,080
Speaker 1: the dividing the political dividing lines that immediately shaped I mean,

1286
01:19:24,120 --> 01:19:26,400
Speaker 1: I'm sure you watched this and thought this is my book,

1287
01:19:27,680 --> 01:19:27,960
Speaker 1: you know.

1288
01:19:28,200 --> 01:19:32,600
Speaker 2: Sadly tragically that's right. You know, it plays out on

1289
01:19:32,760 --> 01:19:35,360
Speaker 2: film as we begin the difference.

1290
01:19:35,439 --> 01:19:36,320
Speaker 1: That's the big distinction.

1291
01:19:37,680 --> 01:19:43,960
Speaker 2: But it doesn't matter at some level, right because because

1292
01:19:44,000 --> 01:19:46,240
Speaker 2: it is a story, it's going to be a story

1293
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:49,000
Speaker 2: or it's trying to be a story of the self

1294
01:19:49,080 --> 01:19:53,600
Speaker 2: defense of the shooter. And that is the ground that

1295
01:19:53,760 --> 01:19:56,200
Speaker 2: is the ground zero of this book. I mean, as

1296
01:19:56,360 --> 01:19:59,000
Speaker 2: is stuff that might surprise us. You know, back in

1297
01:19:59,080 --> 01:20:02,760
Speaker 2: the day, you know, people watch the glitzy media shows, uh,

1298
01:20:02,960 --> 01:20:06,120
Speaker 2: television shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and

1299
01:20:06,800 --> 01:20:10,439
Speaker 2: and you know, Dallas and Dynasty and got swept away

1300
01:20:10,720 --> 01:20:15,280
Speaker 2: by the magic of being wealthy. But but of course,

1301
01:20:15,720 --> 01:20:18,800
Speaker 2: meanwhile they're being kind of told that, you know, there

1302
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:21,640
Speaker 2: they should be Charles Bronson to protect themselves on the

1303
01:20:21,720 --> 01:20:25,360
Speaker 2: real streets. Dirty Harry, Dirty Harry. And I feel like

1304
01:20:25,439 --> 01:20:27,880
Speaker 2: we're in that moment again, right we we are. We

1305
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:33,200
Speaker 2: are meant to admire on social media the wealthy, the elite,

1306
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:37,160
Speaker 2: But meanwhile we are meant to you know, arm ourselves

1307
01:20:37,360 --> 01:20:40,800
Speaker 2: and and walk with severe suspicion on our city street.

1308
01:20:40,920 --> 01:20:45,759
Speaker 2: So it's it's alarming, you know, we uh, we can't

1309
01:20:45,920 --> 01:20:48,879
Speaker 2: look at Minneapolis right now, I think and not feel alarmed.

1310
01:20:51,360 --> 01:20:53,479
Speaker 1: I want to pull back a little bit in your

1311
01:20:53,600 --> 01:20:58,439
Speaker 1: journey here. You've done You've done these urban stories in

1312
01:20:58,520 --> 01:21:02,160
Speaker 1: the past on Attica and then you did Detroit. You know,

1313
01:21:02,760 --> 01:21:06,679
Speaker 1: what's the thread that always seems to, you know, serve

1314
01:21:06,720 --> 01:21:08,680
Speaker 1: as a magnet for you when you see something like

1315
01:21:08,720 --> 01:21:10,920
Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta, I want to tell that story.

1316
01:21:11,439 --> 01:21:15,960
Speaker 2: You know, Usually it is there's something about the way

1317
01:21:16,240 --> 01:21:19,280
Speaker 2: that I learned it, or it continues to be told

1318
01:21:19,439 --> 01:21:23,760
Speaker 2: that just doesn't strike me as the full story. It

1319
01:21:24,120 --> 01:21:30,599
Speaker 2: just doesn't bear the smell test. I'm always gravitating towards

1320
01:21:30,680 --> 01:21:34,479
Speaker 2: these really powerful events that I know, or I suspect

1321
01:21:34,720 --> 01:21:38,840
Speaker 2: very strongly have kind of shaped where we went, impacted

1322
01:21:39,160 --> 01:21:43,640
Speaker 2: the direction the country took. But I'm also very persuaded

1323
01:21:43,760 --> 01:21:46,720
Speaker 2: that we've only heard one side of it, usually the

1324
01:21:46,840 --> 01:21:49,599
Speaker 2: side of the people with the most power in that story.

1325
01:21:50,200 --> 01:21:53,200
Speaker 2: So I'm always intrigued to kind of go back and

1326
01:21:53,439 --> 01:21:57,960
Speaker 2: tell all of the stories and try to humanize the

1327
01:21:58,040 --> 01:22:00,599
Speaker 2: experience of how it all all unfold it at the time.

1328
01:22:01,160 --> 01:22:04,120
Speaker 2: At Attica, for example, you know, we were told that

1329
01:22:04,280 --> 01:22:08,599
Speaker 2: all these brutal, violent prisoners had killed hostages at Attica,

1330
01:22:08,680 --> 01:22:11,480
Speaker 2: and it kind of became this excuse for mass incarceration

1331
01:22:11,960 --> 01:22:15,519
Speaker 2: and not caring about conditions behind bars, and lo and behold,

1332
01:22:15,560 --> 01:22:18,320
Speaker 2: I dig in and that's not at all what happened.

1333
01:22:18,400 --> 01:22:21,040
Speaker 2: And in fact, there's a massive cover up at Attica,

1334
01:22:21,160 --> 01:22:24,880
Speaker 2: which we don't say that word cover up lightly as

1335
01:22:25,000 --> 01:22:26,800
Speaker 2: historians are as journalists, I mean, you have to have

1336
01:22:26,920 --> 01:22:30,200
Speaker 2: real evidence to say that. And and this was a

1337
01:22:30,560 --> 01:22:33,760
Speaker 2: slightly different approach in this book because I wasn't looking

1338
01:22:33,840 --> 01:22:35,880
Speaker 2: for cover up, or I wasn't looking for you know,

1339
01:22:35,960 --> 01:22:38,559
Speaker 2: smoking gun. I was just looking to understand, like, how

1340
01:22:38,680 --> 01:22:40,920
Speaker 2: did we end up here?

1341
01:22:41,200 --> 01:22:43,920
Speaker 1: Where you know, our.

1342
01:22:43,840 --> 01:22:47,479
Speaker 2: Eyes aren't to be believed, and decorum is out the window,

1343
01:22:47,600 --> 01:22:50,800
Speaker 2: and and and it feels like our democracy is in

1344
01:22:50,920 --> 01:22:53,320
Speaker 2: real danger. And I wanted to understand how that could

1345
01:22:53,360 --> 01:22:55,320
Speaker 2: have happened in such a short period of time.

1346
01:22:55,400 --> 01:22:57,560
Speaker 1: Really, are you convinced if it wasn't Bernie Getz it

1347
01:22:57,640 --> 01:23:01,120
Speaker 1: had been another incident? I think just that this was

1348
01:23:01,200 --> 01:23:03,160
Speaker 1: a moment that was going to it was inevitable, it

1349
01:23:03,280 --> 01:23:06,519
Speaker 1: was going to happen. That they were just looking for

1350
01:23:06,640 --> 01:23:07,760
Speaker 1: the star for their show.

1351
01:23:08,240 --> 01:23:10,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't think the

1352
01:23:10,960 --> 01:23:13,360
Speaker 2: world would have looked differently had Bernie Getz not lived

1353
01:23:13,360 --> 01:23:16,920
Speaker 2: in New York City in nineteen eighty four. But I

1354
01:23:17,040 --> 01:23:21,840
Speaker 2: do think that the way it all comes together was auspicious.

1355
01:23:21,960 --> 01:23:24,880
Speaker 2: It was an opportunity. It was It was a moment

1356
01:23:25,040 --> 01:23:29,120
Speaker 2: that everyone understood the significance of it, as would be

1357
01:23:29,240 --> 01:23:33,680
Speaker 2: the Central Park five and eventually exonerated five, that we

1358
01:23:33,880 --> 01:23:37,799
Speaker 2: now even could understand that better. Right, how that all happened?

1359
01:23:38,360 --> 01:23:40,200
Speaker 1: I want to ask you from the point of view

1360
01:23:40,200 --> 01:23:42,160
Speaker 1: of a story, and I'm going to sort of get

1361
01:23:42,240 --> 01:23:44,080
Speaker 1: you sort of land the plane this way. I had

1362
01:23:44,160 --> 01:23:47,320
Speaker 1: Garrett Grafon, He's written some really good oral histories and

1363
01:23:47,400 --> 01:23:50,920
Speaker 1: he's put together and we were talking about the sweet

1364
01:23:51,000 --> 01:23:55,439
Speaker 1: spot when you're trying to sort of find out what

1365
01:23:55,600 --> 01:24:01,400
Speaker 1: really happened, and that you know, there's this point where,

1366
01:24:02,720 --> 01:24:06,040
Speaker 1: you know, do you want people who are around to

1367
01:24:06,439 --> 01:24:10,560
Speaker 1: help you navigate what happened then? Or because of the

1368
01:24:10,640 --> 01:24:14,320
Speaker 1: way memory works, it could be misleading? And is it

1369
01:24:14,439 --> 01:24:18,160
Speaker 1: easier to get the truth after everybody dies? I'm curious

1370
01:24:18,200 --> 01:24:21,240
Speaker 1: where you are and what does it take you know,

1371
01:24:21,439 --> 01:24:23,920
Speaker 1: when you feel like you can paint a complete picture?

1372
01:24:24,120 --> 01:24:27,720
Speaker 1: Is it fifteen years after an event? Thirty years? Is

1373
01:24:27,840 --> 01:24:29,519
Speaker 1: five years? When is it? And when is it too

1374
01:24:29,680 --> 01:24:31,320
Speaker 1: soon to try to unpack an event?

1375
01:24:31,520 --> 01:24:31,560
Speaker 2: Like?

1376
01:24:32,000 --> 01:24:37,920
Speaker 1: You know, I often wonder, you know, do we need

1377
01:24:38,160 --> 01:24:41,680
Speaker 1: more time to truly understand nine to eleven? I don't know?

1378
01:24:42,000 --> 01:24:44,559
Speaker 1: Right like it because you know it's often How often

1379
01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:47,599
Speaker 1: is it the case that a book written forty years

1380
01:24:47,600 --> 01:24:54,200
Speaker 1: after an event surfaces something that perhaps the popular memory

1381
01:24:54,280 --> 01:24:58,080
Speaker 1: of it had completely erased, So you as in a story,

1382
01:24:58,200 --> 01:25:02,320
Speaker 1: that's what's your general like? When when is it too

1383
01:25:02,439 --> 01:25:05,120
Speaker 1: soon to tackle to try to unpack an historical event

1384
01:25:05,160 --> 01:25:08,559
Speaker 1: in your mind? And when is it too late? Well?

1385
01:25:08,640 --> 01:25:11,880
Speaker 2: I certainly would not want to write I do write

1386
01:25:11,880 --> 01:25:14,000
Speaker 2: about the present day, but always trying to do so

1387
01:25:14,240 --> 01:25:17,560
Speaker 2: with some past context. But I wouldn't want to do

1388
01:25:17,600 --> 01:25:19,280
Speaker 2: a book on that, because I do think you do

1389
01:25:19,439 --> 01:25:21,599
Speaker 2: need time. I think you need a little bit of distance.

1390
01:25:22,160 --> 01:25:24,519
Speaker 2: But what is kind of stunning to me is doesn't

1391
01:25:24,600 --> 01:25:27,640
Speaker 2: matter how much time has passed. If you're only going

1392
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:30,880
Speaker 2: to rely on kind of official sources, if you're only

1393
01:25:30,920 --> 01:25:32,760
Speaker 2: going to rely on the print media to tell you

1394
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:35,759
Speaker 2: what happened, if you're only going to rely on people's

1395
01:25:35,800 --> 01:25:39,320
Speaker 2: recollection of what happened, you're never going to really be

1396
01:25:39,439 --> 01:25:42,400
Speaker 2: able to pull it back together or reconstruct it and

1397
01:25:42,479 --> 01:25:46,000
Speaker 2: pull it back together. So to a pitch for being

1398
01:25:46,040 --> 01:25:49,080
Speaker 2: a historian, believe it or not, you know, we start

1399
01:25:49,200 --> 01:25:52,280
Speaker 2: at the beginning. We have preconceived notions. Everyone does, but

1400
01:25:52,400 --> 01:25:57,599
Speaker 2: we are routinely surprised and routinely, you know, challenged by

1401
01:25:57,720 --> 01:26:01,479
Speaker 2: what we in fact see in in the record. And

1402
01:26:01,640 --> 01:26:05,760
Speaker 2: sometimes that's simple as seeing an original autopsy report, or

1403
01:26:06,240 --> 01:26:10,720
Speaker 2: sometimes it's as simple as actually going and looking at

1404
01:26:11,360 --> 01:26:13,760
Speaker 2: the context that no one ever bothered to look at.

1405
01:26:14,120 --> 01:26:16,439
Speaker 2: So I don't think it's about how much time. I

1406
01:26:16,479 --> 01:26:19,080
Speaker 2: think it's about the sources that we get at and

1407
01:26:19,200 --> 01:26:24,599
Speaker 2: that it's context. Context. Context matters, and frankly, we don't

1408
01:26:24,600 --> 01:26:27,200
Speaker 2: have a lot of patience for context as a society.

1409
01:26:27,560 --> 01:26:27,880
Speaker 1: We don't.

1410
01:26:28,200 --> 01:26:31,679
Speaker 2: Context feels like it's a drag. And so when I write,

1411
01:26:31,800 --> 01:26:34,640
Speaker 2: I always try to like, it's still got to be

1412
01:26:34,720 --> 01:26:36,800
Speaker 2: a narrative, right, we still got to move through it,

1413
01:26:36,920 --> 01:26:39,759
Speaker 2: We still got to put ourselves there. But context matters.

1414
01:26:41,160 --> 01:26:45,960
Speaker 1: How do you check your own bias? Right, like, and

1415
01:26:46,320 --> 01:26:49,160
Speaker 1: your own and what I call present day bias? You know,

1416
01:26:49,280 --> 01:26:55,200
Speaker 1: for instance, right, you know, what can be offensive to you?

1417
01:26:55,320 --> 01:27:00,400
Speaker 1: And I today was mainstream thinking at a certain period

1418
01:27:00,439 --> 01:27:04,800
Speaker 1: of time in our history? And how do you correctly

1419
01:27:05,160 --> 01:27:07,280
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? It's like, how do you

1420
01:27:07,600 --> 01:27:11,920
Speaker 1: weigh that when you're surfacing an historical moment?

1421
01:27:12,439 --> 01:27:15,960
Speaker 2: Well, it interestingly, it goes back to this question of

1422
01:27:16,320 --> 01:27:19,439
Speaker 2: both context but also sources. So the question of what

1423
01:27:19,680 --> 01:27:22,679
Speaker 2: is normal in a given moment. Right, So people would

1424
01:27:22,680 --> 01:27:25,120
Speaker 2: write back in the day about the you know, the

1425
01:27:25,320 --> 01:27:28,320
Speaker 2: end of slavery, and you know how few people were

1426
01:27:28,400 --> 01:27:31,000
Speaker 2: actually standing against slavery was kind of you know, everyone

1427
01:27:31,240 --> 01:27:33,719
Speaker 2: was everyone kind of accepted slavery. But when you actually

1428
01:27:33,760 --> 01:27:35,040
Speaker 2: go back and you look at the record, but it's

1429
01:27:35,080 --> 01:27:38,400
Speaker 2: not true. Actually a lot of people were against slavery.

1430
01:27:38,439 --> 01:27:40,800
Speaker 2: There were there were sides to take even then. There

1431
01:27:40,880 --> 01:27:44,040
Speaker 2: were there were positions to take even then, and so

1432
01:27:44,600 --> 01:27:47,280
Speaker 2: you kind of test yourself always like, well, what would

1433
01:27:47,320 --> 01:27:49,880
Speaker 2: the other side have said? And you try to find

1434
01:27:49,960 --> 01:27:52,519
Speaker 2: that other perspective, and you try to make sure that

1435
01:27:52,680 --> 01:27:55,920
Speaker 2: you are painting an accurate picture of the zeitgeist of

1436
01:27:56,000 --> 01:27:59,320
Speaker 2: that moment by making sure you've heard from everybody. Frankly,

1437
01:27:59,520 --> 01:28:02,799
Speaker 2: like looked at all of the like you mentioned earlier,

1438
01:28:02,920 --> 01:28:05,280
Speaker 2: like there's the black press and there's the white press

1439
01:28:05,360 --> 01:28:07,880
Speaker 2: in New York. Well, we need to look at both

1440
01:28:08,000 --> 01:28:10,040
Speaker 2: if we want to have some sense of how this

1441
01:28:10,280 --> 01:28:13,560
Speaker 2: case was being understood at the time. That's just an example.

1442
01:28:13,920 --> 01:28:16,160
Speaker 2: But I think that you know, you as a as

1443
01:28:16,200 --> 01:28:21,720
Speaker 2: a journalist, myself as historian, we are constantly aware of

1444
01:28:21,840 --> 01:28:23,560
Speaker 2: Oh let me, let me, let me stop, Let me

1445
01:28:23,640 --> 01:28:26,000
Speaker 2: think about that. How am I writing that sentence? How

1446
01:28:26,080 --> 01:28:28,920
Speaker 2: am I? How am I understanding what just happened? Because

1447
01:28:28,920 --> 01:28:32,000
Speaker 2: if we stop doing that, then we're just plumbses, We're

1448
01:28:32,080 --> 01:28:33,080
Speaker 2: just we're just we're.

1449
01:28:32,960 --> 01:28:35,720
Speaker 1: Writing tracks, you know, I mean, it's this whole thing,

1450
01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:38,880
Speaker 1: you know, you want to what people want more than

1451
01:28:38,920 --> 01:28:41,759
Speaker 1: anything I've at least. I think the people that gravitate

1452
01:28:41,840 --> 01:28:43,400
Speaker 1: to what you do and what I'd like to think

1453
01:28:43,439 --> 01:28:46,760
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do is they want clarity. Yeah, that's right,

1454
01:28:46,840 --> 01:28:50,439
Speaker 1: they definitely want clarity. Sometimes it's not there, and I think,

1455
01:28:51,439 --> 01:28:54,080
Speaker 1: you know, and that's the hardest thing to convey, is

1456
01:28:55,240 --> 01:28:57,800
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I wish that were I wish that

1457
01:28:58,040 --> 01:29:01,120
Speaker 1: was an easy step one, two, step three. That's how

1458
01:29:01,160 --> 01:29:03,080
Speaker 1: we got here and that's how we'll get out right.

1459
01:29:03,280 --> 01:29:06,840
Speaker 1: And I think that even when you try to speak

1460
01:29:06,840 --> 01:29:11,320
Speaker 1: with clarity and if you don't include the context, the

1461
01:29:11,439 --> 01:29:12,439
Speaker 1: clarity falls flat.

1462
01:29:12,960 --> 01:29:15,439
Speaker 2: Well, and especially where we're going to go next. So,

1463
01:29:15,960 --> 01:29:19,360
Speaker 2: you know, we can speculate, we can hope, we can fear,

1464
01:29:19,600 --> 01:29:22,040
Speaker 2: but at the end of the day, we only actually

1465
01:29:22,160 --> 01:29:25,400
Speaker 2: have our past as guide, and so yeah, we just

1466
01:29:25,560 --> 01:29:29,719
Speaker 2: kind of cross fingers and through stories and through education

1467
01:29:30,200 --> 01:29:34,599
Speaker 2: of what actually happened, perhaps bring some clarity on the present.

1468
01:29:34,760 --> 01:29:39,120
Speaker 2: But forward is the gamble, right, We can get a

1469
01:29:39,120 --> 01:29:41,439
Speaker 2: whole lot worse before we get better, but we hope

1470
01:29:41,479 --> 01:29:41,920
Speaker 2: we won't.

1471
01:29:42,720 --> 01:29:45,559
Speaker 1: So how many projects are you working on now?

1472
01:29:46,760 --> 01:29:46,920
Speaker 2: Well?

1473
01:29:47,040 --> 01:29:49,880
Speaker 1: I actually was meet Most historians have more than one going.

1474
01:29:50,040 --> 01:29:52,240
Speaker 2: I was knee deep in writing a whole other book

1475
01:29:52,280 --> 01:29:54,479
Speaker 2: which I'm now going to return to, which is on

1476
01:29:55,200 --> 01:29:59,080
Speaker 2: the move bombing in nineteen eighty five in Philadelphia, where

1477
01:30:00,120 --> 01:30:04,960
Speaker 2: Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on an urban black neighborhood

1478
01:30:04,960 --> 01:30:08,920
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia where a black radical group resided and took

1479
01:30:09,000 --> 01:30:13,439
Speaker 2: out incinerated to full city blocks of that city. And

1480
01:30:14,000 --> 01:30:17,320
Speaker 2: it was one of these also dramatic moments that is

1481
01:30:17,400 --> 01:30:20,400
Speaker 2: told very very differently depending on who you were and

1482
01:30:20,520 --> 01:30:22,720
Speaker 2: what you thought about it. It's about the police, it's

1483
01:30:22,760 --> 01:30:25,760
Speaker 2: about the city. It's about race again. So that's where

1484
01:30:25,840 --> 01:30:26,599
Speaker 2: we're going next.

1485
01:30:26,840 --> 01:30:31,160
Speaker 1: Oh if if Philadelphia in some ways was even more

1486
01:30:31,200 --> 01:30:32,360
Speaker 1: divided on race.

1487
01:30:33,000 --> 01:30:36,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, story, this story, I think you'll see, is really

1488
01:30:37,040 --> 01:30:39,800
Speaker 2: ground zero of so much of why that was and

1489
01:30:40,080 --> 01:30:42,000
Speaker 2: also it has scarred the city.

1490
01:30:41,800 --> 01:30:44,200
Speaker 1: To this day. It's interesting what you just said. I'm

1491
01:30:44,200 --> 01:30:47,679
Speaker 1: going to go back to it. What it was guts

1492
01:30:47,680 --> 01:30:50,759
Speaker 1: always out there or was this sort of a aha

1493
01:30:50,920 --> 01:30:51,800
Speaker 1: moment for you?

1494
01:30:52,080 --> 01:30:55,519
Speaker 2: So guesses, Yeah, that's what we kind of dropped that thread,

1495
01:30:55,840 --> 01:30:58,439
Speaker 2: guess is something that I remembered at the time I

1496
01:30:58,640 --> 01:31:01,120
Speaker 2: was re reminded of it. I was working on Attica

1497
01:31:01,200 --> 01:31:04,479
Speaker 2: because one of the lawyers that will defend one of

1498
01:31:04,520 --> 01:31:07,479
Speaker 2: the boys is Bill Kunstler, who is a key lawyer.

1499
01:31:07,560 --> 01:31:11,360
Speaker 1: Oh my god in the right who you'd start to see.

1500
01:31:12,000 --> 01:31:14,760
Speaker 1: You know, all these lawyers from the eighties became TV

1501
01:31:14,880 --> 01:31:17,519
Speaker 1: pundits during OJ and he was one of them. That's right.

1502
01:31:17,720 --> 01:31:20,160
Speaker 2: So Kunsseler was a lawyer at Attica, but he was

1503
01:31:20,240 --> 01:31:22,200
Speaker 2: also a lawyer at Guests. So I was kind of

1504
01:31:22,280 --> 01:31:25,600
Speaker 2: already reintroduced to Gainst working on the Attica book, and

1505
01:31:25,800 --> 01:31:29,240
Speaker 2: then when Trump was gearing up for to likely win

1506
01:31:29,320 --> 01:31:31,160
Speaker 2: a second term, I was just like, I just need

1507
01:31:31,240 --> 01:31:34,000
Speaker 2: to stop. I need to pivot. I'm really interested in

1508
01:31:34,080 --> 01:31:36,360
Speaker 2: this moment. I just want to go back and work

1509
01:31:36,439 --> 01:31:38,360
Speaker 2: on that. So that's that. That was what happened.

1510
01:31:38,400 --> 01:31:41,840
Speaker 1: Look, I think this is an important piece of the story, right,

1511
01:31:42,000 --> 01:31:44,000
Speaker 1: Like with the trying to understand, I go back to

1512
01:31:44,120 --> 01:31:45,800
Speaker 1: how I introduced you, which is, you know, there's a

1513
01:31:45,880 --> 01:31:47,680
Speaker 1: constant the question I get all the times, how do

1514
01:31:47,720 --> 01:31:50,240
Speaker 1: we get here? And you know, there's a lot of

1515
01:31:50,320 --> 01:31:52,880
Speaker 1: ways we got here. There's no one way we got here.

1516
01:31:53,400 --> 01:31:56,000
Speaker 1: It's been there's a variety of ways that you know,

1517
01:31:56,520 --> 01:31:59,560
Speaker 1: it takes a village. It took a village in the

1518
01:31:59,640 --> 01:32:04,240
Speaker 1: negative sense too. But this is an important cog in

1519
01:32:04,280 --> 01:32:06,640
Speaker 1: the story. I think you've I think you've surfaced an

1520
01:32:06,680 --> 01:32:10,759
Speaker 1: important moment. So when is the when is the scripted

1521
01:32:11,680 --> 01:32:16,519
Speaker 1: mini series come out? Well? These are stories. Look, I'm

1522
01:32:16,520 --> 01:32:18,280
Speaker 1: a big believer in this. I think we need we

1523
01:32:18,360 --> 01:32:20,519
Speaker 1: need to educate people better. And if you want, if

1524
01:32:20,560 --> 01:32:22,400
Speaker 1: people want to watch something more than they want to

1525
01:32:22,439 --> 01:32:24,600
Speaker 1: read something, I don't, as long as they want to

1526
01:32:24,640 --> 01:32:28,960
Speaker 1: inform themselves, let's put it in every platform. Neutral this

1527
01:32:29,439 --> 01:32:31,559
Speaker 1: screams episodic show.

1528
01:32:32,600 --> 01:32:37,479
Speaker 2: Well well, luckily, as with Attica, I am very much

1529
01:32:37,640 --> 01:32:39,840
Speaker 2: need deep trying to get all of this out there

1530
01:32:39,920 --> 01:32:42,640
Speaker 2: in a different platform like a television series. And so

1531
01:32:43,080 --> 01:32:47,120
Speaker 2: you know, fingers crossed and and stay posted and but

1532
01:32:47,400 --> 01:32:49,000
Speaker 2: you know, thank you so much for allowing me to

1533
01:32:49,040 --> 01:32:51,720
Speaker 2: share this story with people. If nothing else, I think

1534
01:32:51,760 --> 01:32:55,160
Speaker 2: it's you know, I hope it is going to get

1535
01:32:55,320 --> 01:32:58,560
Speaker 2: people thinking and also and just treat intrigued by the

1536
01:32:58,960 --> 01:33:00,639
Speaker 2: human beings that the of the story.

1537
01:33:00,840 --> 01:33:02,680
Speaker 1: So, I mean it's almost like a whole series. You

1538
01:33:02,720 --> 01:33:05,000
Speaker 1: could read, right, the Bronx is burning, you read your

1539
01:33:05,040 --> 01:33:11,479
Speaker 1: Bernie Gets book, maybe throwing a Roy Cone right, the

1540
01:33:12,840 --> 01:33:17,639
Speaker 1: one about I forget Zion is it? I can't remember

1541
01:33:17,680 --> 01:33:19,879
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote it. You know, it was supposed

1542
01:33:19,880 --> 01:33:21,640
Speaker 1: to be an autobiography and it turned into kind of

1543
01:33:21,720 --> 01:33:26,400
Speaker 1: an antagonistic thing. Bonfire the vanities, right, you sort of

1544
01:33:26,520 --> 01:33:27,920
Speaker 1: you get to you get New York City in the

1545
01:33:27,960 --> 01:33:28,679
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties.

1546
01:33:28,760 --> 01:33:31,559
Speaker 2: Huh, that's right, that's right there. And I think there's

1547
01:33:31,600 --> 01:33:33,479
Speaker 2: a reason we're going back to the eighties. I will

1548
01:33:33,640 --> 01:33:35,680
Speaker 2: just leave us with that thought. I mean, I think

1549
01:33:35,720 --> 01:33:38,839
Speaker 2: that was a decade that we either remember so fondly

1550
01:33:39,000 --> 01:33:41,280
Speaker 2: as you know, it was Madonna, it was Neon and

1551
01:33:41,400 --> 01:33:43,880
Speaker 2: it was it was great fun, or we remember it

1552
01:33:43,960 --> 01:33:46,320
Speaker 2: as oh, that was a scary time. But either way,

1553
01:33:46,920 --> 01:33:48,040
Speaker 2: we got it, we got it.

1554
01:33:48,240 --> 01:33:50,360
Speaker 1: It depends on it depends who you were, right, by

1555
01:33:50,360 --> 01:33:53,360
Speaker 1: the way, nineteen fifties have the same vibe to it. Yeah.

1556
01:33:53,479 --> 01:33:56,240
Speaker 1: For some people, the fifties were this amazing moment in

1557
01:33:56,320 --> 01:34:02,439
Speaker 1: American history and the advancement of the you know, Superman America, YadA, YadA, YadA. Yeah.

1558
01:34:03,040 --> 01:34:05,240
Speaker 1: And that's if you were white, right, if you were

1559
01:34:05,400 --> 01:34:08,640
Speaker 1: black in America in the nineteen fifties, year not, they

1560
01:34:08,720 --> 01:34:11,880
Speaker 1: weren't happy days. Yeah. To borrow a to borrow a

1561
01:34:11,920 --> 01:34:12,639
Speaker 1: TV show.

1562
01:34:12,439 --> 01:34:13,920
Speaker 2: Phrase, Yeah, absolutely.

1563
01:34:14,560 --> 01:34:17,920
Speaker 1: Anyway, heyther and this is great, and congrats on the book.

1564
01:34:18,320 --> 01:34:19,640
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on.

1565
01:34:26,520 --> 01:34:30,679
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you enjoyed that history lesson on Bernie Getz.

1566
01:34:30,800 --> 01:34:33,600
Speaker 1: I guess I feel like I've become a bit of

1567
01:34:33,640 --> 01:34:39,080
Speaker 1: an accidental history feed these days, and I that was

1568
01:34:39,160 --> 01:34:40,960
Speaker 1: always the goal of what I wanted to do, is

1569
01:34:41,560 --> 01:34:45,320
Speaker 1: can bring more context to many of the stories we're

1570
01:34:45,360 --> 01:34:50,360
Speaker 1: covering every day. It's coverage that I would have loved

1571
01:34:50,400 --> 01:34:53,840
Speaker 1: to have done in some of my previous stops, but

1572
01:34:54,080 --> 01:34:56,640
Speaker 1: you know, you didn't have the time, didn't have the

1573
01:34:57,760 --> 01:35:01,280
Speaker 1: bandwidth per se to do it. And that's the beauty

1574
01:35:01,320 --> 01:35:03,320
Speaker 1: of this format. And that's the beauty of doing this

1575
01:35:03,560 --> 01:35:07,799
Speaker 1: is it essentially we're weaving in current events in history

1576
01:35:07,880 --> 01:35:09,400
Speaker 1: all at the same time, so that you can have

1577
01:35:09,479 --> 01:35:13,040
Speaker 1: the full picture, the full context, the full nuance. All Right,

1578
01:35:13,120 --> 01:35:15,720
Speaker 1: it is Wednesday, which means I've got a new top

1579
01:35:15,840 --> 01:35:16,599
Speaker 1: five list.

1580
01:35:16,960 --> 01:35:20,560
Speaker 2: To top five top.

1581
01:35:24,560 --> 01:35:29,960
Speaker 1: And while I am tempted to stick to sports themes again,

1582
01:35:30,120 --> 01:35:32,440
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. It's back to politics.

1583
01:35:32,920 --> 01:35:36,160
Speaker 1: So the top five list I owe you for this

1584
01:35:36,240 --> 01:35:40,160
Speaker 1: week is Governor's and updating my Governor's list, And look,

1585
01:35:40,240 --> 01:35:42,800
Speaker 1: this isn't going to budge all that month throughout the year.

1586
01:35:43,479 --> 01:35:46,479
Speaker 1: But if it does, because basically I think there are

1587
01:35:46,640 --> 01:35:51,640
Speaker 1: five governor's races that are really likely to flip, and

1588
01:35:51,800 --> 01:35:53,880
Speaker 1: then there are another four or five that are going

1589
01:35:53,920 --> 01:35:56,680
Speaker 1: to be really interesting but probably won't flip. And as

1590
01:35:56,720 --> 01:35:59,960
Speaker 1: you know, my rankings are most likely to change party.

1591
01:36:00,800 --> 01:36:03,760
Speaker 1: That's what number one means. And if you know I

1592
01:36:03,840 --> 01:36:05,559
Speaker 1: were ranking all the way to thirty six, there's thirty

1593
01:36:05,560 --> 01:36:08,840
Speaker 1: six SCUBERNATORI elections. Thirty six would be least likely to

1594
01:36:09,000 --> 01:36:11,519
Speaker 1: change parties. So I guess that would be Idaho right

1595
01:36:12,280 --> 01:36:14,880
Speaker 1: is where you put that. Maybe you'd put Vermont right

1596
01:36:15,200 --> 01:36:18,479
Speaker 1: right above Idaho. But this top five list, it is

1597
01:36:18,600 --> 01:36:21,920
Speaker 1: interesting in the governor's front that you basically have five

1598
01:36:22,040 --> 01:36:27,280
Speaker 1: that you know for sure are either already going to flip. Right,

1599
01:36:27,400 --> 01:36:29,519
Speaker 1: my number one, and it's been number one the last

1600
01:36:29,560 --> 01:36:33,759
Speaker 1: couple of months that I've done this. The governor's seat

1601
01:36:33,920 --> 01:36:37,639
Speaker 1: most likely to flip continues for me to be Kansas.

1602
01:36:37,920 --> 01:36:41,240
Speaker 1: Kansas is this is a red state that has just

1603
01:36:41,800 --> 01:36:45,120
Speaker 1: wrapping up two terms of a democratic governor. Kansas has been,

1604
01:36:45,240 --> 01:36:46,600
Speaker 1: as I like to say, it's been a bit of

1605
01:36:46,600 --> 01:36:50,000
Speaker 1: a windshield wiper when it comes to it's governors eight

1606
01:36:50,080 --> 01:36:52,719
Speaker 1: years with one party, eight years with the next party,

1607
01:36:52,840 --> 01:36:54,640
Speaker 1: eight years with the other. That's kind of what the

1608
01:36:54,720 --> 01:36:58,720
Speaker 1: twenty first century has been about for Kansas, and well

1609
01:36:59,000 --> 01:37:04,799
Speaker 1: it's what will be interesting here is that this moment

1610
01:37:05,000 --> 01:37:08,280
Speaker 1: comes when it looks like the national environment and the

1611
01:37:08,360 --> 01:37:10,080
Speaker 1: wind is going to be blowing in the direction of

1612
01:37:10,120 --> 01:37:14,760
Speaker 1: the Democrats. Does that give Democrats a better shot? When

1613
01:37:15,000 --> 01:37:19,519
Speaker 1: I it's been a to get a third straight term,

1614
01:37:19,720 --> 01:37:22,200
Speaker 1: that's been very difficult then to get so. But I

1615
01:37:22,320 --> 01:37:25,800
Speaker 1: have to put just just playing the numbers game, most

1616
01:37:25,960 --> 01:37:28,000
Speaker 1: likely seat to change parties at this point in the

1617
01:37:28,040 --> 01:37:33,840
Speaker 1: governor's is Kansas at one. Number two you know I'm

1618
01:37:33,840 --> 01:37:39,559
Speaker 1: going to continue is open seats are always more easier

1619
01:37:39,600 --> 01:37:44,559
Speaker 1: to flip than incumbents. It's very rare. Single hardest thing

1620
01:37:44,600 --> 01:37:47,680
Speaker 1: to do in politics is to oust and and comb

1621
01:37:47,720 --> 01:37:49,760
Speaker 1: and president. And the second hardest thing to do is

1622
01:37:49,800 --> 01:37:53,639
Speaker 1: to oust an incumbent governor. They very rarely get ousted.

1623
01:37:55,000 --> 01:37:58,240
Speaker 1: Voters usually if it's four year terms, want to give

1624
01:37:58,280 --> 01:38:02,880
Speaker 1: at least you know, governors have to be just absolutely

1625
01:38:03,600 --> 01:38:07,680
Speaker 1: debacles or in terrible political environments to not get a

1626
01:38:07,760 --> 01:38:10,519
Speaker 1: second term. But in my top five list, I have

1627
01:38:10,560 --> 01:38:12,640
Speaker 1: two incombent governors who I'm putting in there because these

1628
01:38:12,680 --> 01:38:14,599
Speaker 1: are going to be coin flip races, but neither one

1629
01:38:14,600 --> 01:38:16,479
Speaker 1: of them are in the second slot. In the second

1630
01:38:16,560 --> 01:38:22,519
Speaker 1: slot is the state I profiled earlier. I'm putting Iowa

1631
01:38:22,520 --> 01:38:26,320
Speaker 1: on that second slot after going through that economic and

1632
01:38:26,439 --> 01:38:32,240
Speaker 1: I even went deeper. The good news for Iowa state

1633
01:38:32,320 --> 01:38:35,280
Speaker 1: government is that they have a rainy day fund and

1634
01:38:35,400 --> 01:38:38,280
Speaker 1: they've had a budget surplus. The bad news is it's

1635
01:38:38,360 --> 01:38:41,559
Speaker 1: going to have to be depleted big time. Vouchers has

1636
01:38:41,600 --> 01:38:43,800
Speaker 1: been costing the budget money. They are going to be

1637
01:38:43,880 --> 01:38:46,760
Speaker 1: running a deficit this year. Vouchers is costing them money.

1638
01:38:48,240 --> 01:38:50,920
Speaker 1: The lack of these tariffs are costing them money because

1639
01:38:50,920 --> 01:38:56,000
Speaker 1: they're just getting They're exporting less corn, exporting less soybean,

1640
01:38:56,640 --> 01:38:59,559
Speaker 1: so all of that is hurting the budget a little bit.

1641
01:38:59,640 --> 01:39:02,360
Speaker 1: They're going to have to do any cuts, but they're

1642
01:39:02,360 --> 01:39:04,640
Speaker 1: going to have to tap in to this rainey day

1643
01:39:04,680 --> 01:39:07,719
Speaker 1: fund and there they have voucherized their public school system

1644
01:39:08,520 --> 01:39:12,040
Speaker 1: that has added costs to the system as well. So

1645
01:39:14,479 --> 01:39:17,360
Speaker 1: I think the environment is is just in a really

1646
01:39:17,400 --> 01:39:22,160
Speaker 1: bad place. The only thing going for Iowa Republicans as demographics,

1647
01:39:22,960 --> 01:39:27,680
Speaker 1: but the economic environment in the state. The perception of

1648
01:39:27,720 --> 01:39:31,560
Speaker 1: the schools in the state is all of it is

1649
01:39:31,680 --> 01:39:34,800
Speaker 1: in a bad place for Republicans, and they're the party

1650
01:39:34,880 --> 01:39:36,800
Speaker 1: in power in the state. Right, They've kind of had

1651
01:39:37,280 --> 01:39:41,280
Speaker 1: a recent juggernaut. This is a former swing state in

1652
01:39:41,320 --> 01:39:44,639
Speaker 1: the frankly, most of my adult life it's i always

1653
01:39:44,680 --> 01:39:47,960
Speaker 1: been the swing state. Since Donald Trump came on the scene,

1654
01:39:48,040 --> 01:39:51,280
Speaker 1: he's been a more it's been more red than purple.

1655
01:39:53,880 --> 01:39:57,320
Speaker 1: Like I said, I think this situation is and the

1656
01:39:57,400 --> 01:40:00,639
Speaker 1: more I dug into it, Democrats have a very good

1657
01:40:00,720 --> 01:40:03,240
Speaker 1: candidate here, one that's going to be very hard to

1658
01:40:03,400 --> 01:40:08,160
Speaker 1: link to the far left. Rob saying I've said this before.

1659
01:40:08,439 --> 01:40:11,720
Speaker 1: He's been on this podcast, you know, he he I

1660
01:40:11,800 --> 01:40:13,400
Speaker 1: think I can quote him as saying, the only reason

1661
01:40:13,439 --> 01:40:15,519
Speaker 1: he's running as a Democrat is there was no he

1662
01:40:15,560 --> 01:40:18,160
Speaker 1: didn't view another viable way to be on the ballot.

1663
01:40:19,600 --> 01:40:23,360
Speaker 1: So he is running a very sort of independent minded campaign.

1664
01:40:23,439 --> 01:40:26,439
Speaker 1: But he hasn't been He hasn't been shy about being

1665
01:40:26,479 --> 01:40:31,000
Speaker 1: a partisan on this front. So with him leading the ticket,

1666
01:40:31,280 --> 01:40:35,519
Speaker 1: it's it's uh and the current economic conditions of the state,

1667
01:40:36,840 --> 01:40:40,400
Speaker 1: never mind the national climate. That's why I have Iowa

1668
01:40:40,720 --> 01:40:43,879
Speaker 1: right now in the second slot, Number three is Michigan.

1669
01:40:44,760 --> 01:40:49,519
Speaker 1: Obviously the three way race, it's still there's been flying

1670
01:40:49,560 --> 01:40:53,080
Speaker 1: a little bit under the radar, but polling consistently seems

1671
01:40:53,120 --> 01:40:55,640
Speaker 1: to show and this is one where I mean that

1672
01:40:55,800 --> 01:40:58,920
Speaker 1: the if there, I think the Republicans would have a

1673
01:40:58,960 --> 01:41:01,880
Speaker 1: hard time winning this with out Mike Duggan running as

1674
01:41:01,880 --> 01:41:06,960
Speaker 1: an independent. He's in the low twenties, which puts him

1675
01:41:06,960 --> 01:41:10,519
Speaker 1: in third place. He continues to perform very well in

1676
01:41:10,600 --> 01:41:13,720
Speaker 1: and around Detroit, much less well in the rest of

1677
01:41:13,760 --> 01:41:16,080
Speaker 1: the state, while both the Republican and the dem likely

1678
01:41:16,160 --> 01:41:19,960
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee John James and Jocelyn Benson both do better

1679
01:41:20,040 --> 01:41:23,160
Speaker 1: outside of Detroit, which is why their neck and neck.

1680
01:41:23,240 --> 01:41:25,400
Speaker 1: But the fact is their neck and neck because Dougan

1681
01:41:25,560 --> 01:41:29,519
Speaker 1: is pulling from both parties. He is not just pulling

1682
01:41:29,600 --> 01:41:33,360
Speaker 1: from the Democrats. But obviously if he can be in

1683
01:41:33,600 --> 01:41:37,040
Speaker 1: if he's in the mid twenties, that's a big chunk

1684
01:41:37,040 --> 01:41:40,080
Speaker 1: of Democratic vote coming out of Wayne County that's going

1685
01:41:40,120 --> 01:41:43,080
Speaker 1: to Duggan. That puts Benson in a tough spot. So

1686
01:41:43,200 --> 01:41:46,439
Speaker 1: you have to put Michigan in the in this very

1687
01:41:46,560 --> 01:41:49,560
Speaker 1: turbulent top five. So I sit him at three, and

1688
01:41:49,560 --> 01:41:52,000
Speaker 1: then at four and five, and you can interchange them.

1689
01:41:52,080 --> 01:41:55,760
Speaker 1: It's the two Southwest governors in the Swing States, Katie

1690
01:41:55,840 --> 01:42:00,679
Speaker 1: Hodge Democrat Joe Lombardo Republican in Nevada Katie High in Arizona.

1691
01:42:02,040 --> 01:42:09,000
Speaker 1: Both narrowly one in twenty two. Both are already in

1692
01:42:09,080 --> 01:42:14,040
Speaker 1: neck and neck races. Now. I think Lombardo, if I

1693
01:42:14,120 --> 01:42:17,439
Speaker 1: were to, I probably put Hobbs as slightly more vulnerable

1694
01:42:17,520 --> 01:42:20,720
Speaker 1: losing in Arizona than Lombardo and Nevada. I feel like

1695
01:42:20,800 --> 01:42:25,040
Speaker 1: he's a slightly better political athlete. But the political climate right,

1696
01:42:25,120 --> 01:42:27,600
Speaker 1: You'd rather be a Democrat in this climate than a

1697
01:42:27,680 --> 01:42:31,200
Speaker 1: Republican in this climate. And we know Nevada is super

1698
01:42:31,320 --> 01:42:35,719
Speaker 1: sensitive to the economy. And as this consumer economy continues

1699
01:42:35,760 --> 01:42:38,680
Speaker 1: to crash. And oh, by the way, a lot of

1700
01:42:38,760 --> 01:42:44,320
Speaker 1: Canadians had been traveling to Las Vegas. There's been a

1701
01:42:44,640 --> 01:42:50,439
Speaker 1: noticeable downturn in visitors to Las Vegas. Fewer international vitors

1702
01:42:50,840 --> 01:42:55,640
Speaker 1: excuse me, visitors to Las Vegas becomes it can be

1703
01:42:55,840 --> 01:43:02,160
Speaker 1: directly attributed to Donald Trump and his policies. I just

1704
01:43:02,280 --> 01:43:06,360
Speaker 1: think this is this is like Iowa. I think Joe

1705
01:43:06,400 --> 01:43:10,160
Speaker 1: Lombardo is trying to walk the line and he knows

1706
01:43:10,240 --> 01:43:13,160
Speaker 1: he governs the state that that is, that's pretty purple.

1707
01:43:13,880 --> 01:43:15,839
Speaker 1: It's probably as swingy as you get in the country.

1708
01:43:18,800 --> 01:43:22,960
Speaker 1: There may be forces here that that make it very tough,

1709
01:43:23,040 --> 01:43:26,680
Speaker 1: and he's going to face the sitting a g all

1710
01:43:26,760 --> 01:43:28,320
Speaker 1: the polling shows is gonna be one point race, is

1711
01:43:28,360 --> 01:43:33,760
Speaker 1: gonna be really expensive race too, But there's no But

1712
01:43:33,880 --> 01:43:40,479
Speaker 1: the point is those five Kansas, Iowa, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada.

1713
01:43:41,080 --> 01:43:44,479
Speaker 1: I think those are going to be the most likely

1714
01:43:44,600 --> 01:43:47,200
Speaker 1: to flip over over and above everyone. The other ones

1715
01:43:47,240 --> 01:43:50,759
Speaker 1: that I'm watching that they could have could get competitive.

1716
01:43:50,800 --> 01:43:54,240
Speaker 1: Georgia could get competitive. I'm very curious to see how

1717
01:43:54,280 --> 01:43:58,000
Speaker 1: that plays out. I just think that the Democratic grace

1718
01:43:58,040 --> 01:44:02,040
Speaker 1: still need both both primaries need time to develop. Wisconsin

1719
01:44:02,200 --> 01:44:09,200
Speaker 1: same thing again. I probably just leaned towards Democrats slightly

1720
01:44:09,280 --> 01:44:12,040
Speaker 1: being favored there just because of the overall political climate.

1721
01:44:12,560 --> 01:44:14,680
Speaker 1: Then there's Ohio and Florida, where I think Republicans are

1722
01:44:14,720 --> 01:44:16,599
Speaker 1: favored in both. But if you told me those races

1723
01:44:16,680 --> 01:44:21,559
Speaker 1: got very competitive come October, those wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise

1724
01:44:21,680 --> 01:44:24,960
Speaker 1: me at all. So I think that's how I'd put it.

1725
01:44:25,000 --> 01:44:27,080
Speaker 1: I think that you have sort of nine to ten

1726
01:44:27,600 --> 01:44:33,160
Speaker 1: truly competitive d versus are races. You know, anything else

1727
01:44:33,240 --> 01:44:37,200
Speaker 1: that pops on the radar, my guess it's because either

1728
01:44:38,280 --> 01:44:41,840
Speaker 1: there's a really bad incumbent you know, scandal or something

1729
01:44:41,920 --> 01:44:44,840
Speaker 1: that that that tags an incumbent or an incumbent party,

1730
01:44:46,640 --> 01:44:49,240
Speaker 1: or just the national climate collapses for one party or

1731
01:44:49,280 --> 01:44:52,200
Speaker 1: the other. But for now, those five that I ranked,

1732
01:44:52,200 --> 01:44:56,599
Speaker 1: there those other four that I mentioned, and that's that's

1733
01:44:57,040 --> 01:44:59,160
Speaker 1: that's the lion's share of how I'm watching governor's races

1734
01:44:59,240 --> 01:45:02,439
Speaker 1: so far for twenty twenty six. All right, Before I

1735
01:45:02,520 --> 01:45:04,599
Speaker 1: take some questions, I do want to spend a few

1736
01:45:04,680 --> 01:45:11,800
Speaker 1: minutes about the about what's about to happen at the

1737
01:45:11,880 --> 01:45:17,320
Speaker 1: Washington Post. Just look, as a Washingtonian the idea that

1738
01:45:17,360 --> 01:45:21,759
Speaker 1: we're about to lose our local newspaper, and I say lose,

1739
01:45:22,400 --> 01:45:29,200
Speaker 1: it's I think we're I think if the cuts that

1740
01:45:29,280 --> 01:45:32,719
Speaker 1: are coming that are rumored to be coming, essentially gutting

1741
01:45:32,800 --> 01:45:36,920
Speaker 1: of sports, gutting of the international desk, gutting of local

1742
01:45:36,960 --> 01:45:39,240
Speaker 1: which we've been watching. At this point, I don't know

1743
01:45:39,320 --> 01:45:42,680
Speaker 1: what the Washington Post is anymore. If this is if

1744
01:45:42,760 --> 01:45:52,839
Speaker 1: this what's happening, but this, I don't know why Bezos

1745
01:45:52,920 --> 01:45:56,200
Speaker 1: has decided to just gut the newspaper. This is still

1746
01:45:56,240 --> 01:46:02,040
Speaker 1: a rounding air for him financially, and I don't even

1747
01:46:02,120 --> 01:46:05,320
Speaker 1: understand what the vision is, right will Lewis, the CEO,

1748
01:46:05,840 --> 01:46:09,120
Speaker 1: keeps describing we're gonna have a fundamental transformation of the paper,

1749
01:46:09,760 --> 01:46:13,200
Speaker 1: But there's never been an articulation of what the transformation

1750
01:46:13,360 --> 01:46:16,920
Speaker 1: means beyond layoffs, and all anybody has gotten out of

1751
01:46:16,960 --> 01:46:20,240
Speaker 1: it is layoffs. Just to put some numbers to this,

1752
01:46:22,680 --> 01:46:25,080
Speaker 1: since will Lewis, since this new you know there already

1753
01:46:25,080 --> 01:46:27,240
Speaker 1: the were two hundred and forty jobs were cut in

1754
01:46:27,360 --> 01:46:30,200
Speaker 1: late twenty twenty three. Then they had another four percent

1755
01:46:30,320 --> 01:46:34,479
Speaker 1: labor force cut in twenty twenty five. Now there's talk

1756
01:46:34,720 --> 01:46:37,920
Speaker 1: of another three hundred staffers at this point. I don't

1757
01:46:37,920 --> 01:46:42,519
Speaker 1: know how many. How many are left, but another ten percent?

1758
01:46:43,720 --> 01:46:51,000
Speaker 1: This is a lot, you know. The it is for

1759
01:46:51,160 --> 01:46:56,160
Speaker 1: those that have followed just sports reporting for decades, the

1760
01:46:56,320 --> 01:46:59,880
Speaker 1: Washington Post has incubated pretty much, I promise you. So,

1761
01:47:00,000 --> 01:47:03,080
Speaker 1: somebody you liked in the national sports scene, the Washington

1762
01:47:03,160 --> 01:47:07,120
Speaker 1: Post likely incubated that person, right, Whether it's Tony Kornheiser,

1763
01:47:07,520 --> 01:47:13,080
Speaker 1: Michael Wilbond, you know it is David Aldridge. I can

1764
01:47:13,240 --> 01:47:15,360
Speaker 1: you know there's I know I'm missing a whole bunch

1765
01:47:15,400 --> 01:47:21,439
Speaker 1: of others. It's it's it's easily been one of the

1766
01:47:22,080 --> 01:47:25,920
Speaker 1: most consequential and best sports pages in the country. And

1767
01:47:26,240 --> 01:47:29,560
Speaker 1: I don't know how you stay a successful local or

1768
01:47:29,600 --> 01:47:32,840
Speaker 1: regional paper if you don't want to cover the community

1769
01:47:33,640 --> 01:47:37,519
Speaker 1: in addition to sort of covering the hard news. And

1770
01:47:38,120 --> 01:47:42,040
Speaker 1: but that's apparently the decision that Bezos wants to make.

1771
01:47:42,080 --> 01:47:45,439
Speaker 1: I mean that they're if you're not going to let

1772
01:47:45,520 --> 01:47:48,320
Speaker 1: Beat writers go to spring training to cover the Nationals

1773
01:47:48,600 --> 01:47:50,880
Speaker 1: right or to do their job, You're not letting Beat

1774
01:47:50,920 --> 01:47:53,439
Speaker 1: writers go to away games, Well, they're not going to

1775
01:47:53,439 --> 01:47:55,479
Speaker 1: be able to cover the team. I can cover the

1776
01:47:55,560 --> 01:47:58,120
Speaker 1: team watching them on TV. Anybody can cover the team

1777
01:47:58,120 --> 01:48:01,439
Speaker 1: watching them on TV. That is an how journalism works.

1778
01:48:02,080 --> 01:48:04,240
Speaker 1: You've got to be there. You've got to be at

1779
01:48:04,280 --> 01:48:06,400
Speaker 1: the hotels, you've got to be on the planes. When

1780
01:48:06,400 --> 01:48:09,000
Speaker 1: you can get there, it's the same thing you can

1781
01:48:09,479 --> 01:48:11,519
Speaker 1: you can do. You can cover eighty percent of what

1782
01:48:12,360 --> 01:48:15,080
Speaker 1: Trump does in a given day just watching a c

1783
01:48:15,240 --> 01:48:18,639
Speaker 1: Span feed or watching various TV feeds or social media feeds.

1784
01:48:19,400 --> 01:48:21,800
Speaker 1: But if you're not in the building, you're not getting

1785
01:48:21,880 --> 01:48:26,120
Speaker 1: the nuance. You're not getting the asides. That's how these reporting,

1786
01:48:26,320 --> 01:48:30,320
Speaker 1: that's how real reporting happens. But here's the weird. So

1787
01:48:30,439 --> 01:48:32,640
Speaker 1: all this is happening, and you have social media has

1788
01:48:32,680 --> 01:48:38,160
Speaker 1: been filled. You have various reporters directly addressing Jeff Bezos

1789
01:48:38,240 --> 01:48:41,400
Speaker 1: on Twitter begging him, please don't do this, Please don't

1790
01:48:41,439 --> 01:48:45,000
Speaker 1: cut foreign, please don't cut sports, please don't cut local.

1791
01:48:47,320 --> 01:48:51,719
Speaker 1: And so what's what's Jeff Bezos doing right now? Somebody

1792
01:48:51,760 --> 01:48:55,120
Speaker 1: put some math together here? Okay, because while the Post

1793
01:48:55,240 --> 01:48:58,600
Speaker 1: is reportedly losing one hundred million dollars a year and

1794
01:48:58,720 --> 01:49:02,679
Speaker 1: cutting deeply into the must full of its newsroom, Jeff

1795
01:49:02,720 --> 01:49:05,800
Speaker 1: Bezos doesn't mind flushing money down the toilet with some

1796
01:49:05,880 --> 01:49:09,639
Speaker 1: of his other's adventures. Let me just pick one random

1797
01:49:09,640 --> 01:49:13,680
Speaker 1: amount of thin air. The Amazon MGM Studios, which of

1798
01:49:13,760 --> 01:49:19,240
Speaker 1: course mister Bezos controls, just approved a forty million dollar

1799
01:49:19,320 --> 01:49:23,439
Speaker 1: deal to acquire a documentary about Millennia Trump. That's just

1800
01:49:23,520 --> 01:49:27,120
Speaker 1: the licensing fee. On top of that, Amazon has committed

1801
01:49:27,120 --> 01:49:31,080
Speaker 1: and estimated thirty million dollars for a global marketing push.

1802
01:49:31,800 --> 01:49:37,080
Speaker 1: This is just fallen flat. There's already reports that nobody's

1803
01:49:37,160 --> 01:49:42,000
Speaker 1: going few people are buying tickets This is not something

1804
01:49:42,080 --> 01:49:45,040
Speaker 1: that interests many people. He's very unpopular right now, so

1805
01:49:45,160 --> 01:49:49,400
Speaker 1: nobody really cares about the Trump's at the moment. Right

1806
01:49:49,520 --> 01:49:51,280
Speaker 1: this is not the best time to launch a movie

1807
01:49:51,320 --> 01:49:55,880
Speaker 1: about about the first Lady when right now everybody's mad

1808
01:49:55,920 --> 01:49:58,880
Speaker 1: at the president. These are the worst numbers he's had ever,

1809
01:50:01,600 --> 01:50:05,000
Speaker 1: So forty million plus thirty five million, right seventy's that's

1810
01:50:05,080 --> 01:50:08,439
Speaker 1: just seventy five million. He's lighting that on fire. That's

1811
01:50:08,479 --> 01:50:13,080
Speaker 1: seventy five million dollars just to genuflect for Trump. But

1812
01:50:13,200 --> 01:50:23,719
Speaker 1: he's gonna gut the Washington Post forever because it's losing,

1813
01:50:24,240 --> 01:50:26,679
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's losing money. He doesn't mind losing

1814
01:50:26,760 --> 01:50:31,240
Speaker 1: money to make sure he gets his space contracts for

1815
01:50:31,400 --> 01:50:36,599
Speaker 1: his space hobby, and I guess that's what he sees

1816
01:50:36,680 --> 01:50:40,880
Speaker 1: that money as an investment for. But he's basically pissing away,

1817
01:50:41,560 --> 01:50:45,800
Speaker 1: just throwing away seventy five million dollars for this millennium movie,

1818
01:50:48,920 --> 01:50:51,080
Speaker 1: which would be almost the same amount of money that

1819
01:50:51,120 --> 01:50:55,479
Speaker 1: would wipe out The Post's entire annual deficit. The point

1820
01:50:55,520 --> 01:50:58,040
Speaker 1: is is that Jeff Bezos is making a choice. If

1821
01:50:58,080 --> 01:51:00,840
Speaker 1: he wanted The Washington Post to succeed, he could have

1822
01:51:00,920 --> 01:51:04,200
Speaker 1: invested in it, and in fact, for a while he did.

1823
01:51:04,680 --> 01:51:06,800
Speaker 1: And the Post Nate Silver did a pretty good piece

1824
01:51:06,840 --> 01:51:08,960
Speaker 1: showing that, like, you know, when it came to sort

1825
01:51:09,000 --> 01:51:12,360
Speaker 1: of relevance and how often they were cited and all

1826
01:51:12,400 --> 01:51:14,320
Speaker 1: of this stuff, the Post and the Times were just

1827
01:51:14,400 --> 01:51:19,000
Speaker 1: sort of neck and neck and so and the Times

1828
01:51:19,080 --> 01:51:23,360
Speaker 1: decided that, okay, we've got more traffic, let's add more offerings.

1829
01:51:23,400 --> 01:51:26,080
Speaker 1: And so they went crazy with the bundles right with

1830
01:51:26,200 --> 01:51:28,840
Speaker 1: the games, and they bought the Athletic. They decided to

1831
01:51:29,120 --> 01:51:30,760
Speaker 1: you know, yes, people were upset that they got rid

1832
01:51:30,760 --> 01:51:33,479
Speaker 1: of the Times sports bureau, but they bought the best

1833
01:51:34,400 --> 01:51:38,120
Speaker 1: sports news organization that was out there in the Athletic.

1834
01:51:39,280 --> 01:51:43,680
Speaker 1: They've expanded their offerings, they've expanded their aperture, they've expanded

1835
01:51:43,760 --> 01:51:48,200
Speaker 1: their bandwidth. Washington Post cut cut cut, got cut cut cut,

1836
01:51:49,280 --> 01:51:53,439
Speaker 1: and their traffic is collapsing. And outside of it right now,

1837
01:51:53,479 --> 01:51:58,120
Speaker 1: their congressional team is still They have not, thankfully, they

1838
01:51:58,200 --> 01:52:01,479
Speaker 1: have not gotten rid of their congressional team. It's an

1839
01:52:01,560 --> 01:52:04,479
Speaker 1: A plus team, A man Paul Kaine and that crew.

1840
01:52:04,560 --> 01:52:06,840
Speaker 1: It's just an A plus team. Thank goodness. They haven't

1841
01:52:06,880 --> 01:52:10,040
Speaker 1: wrecked that. But everything else they've wrecked. I mean, if

1842
01:52:10,080 --> 01:52:12,560
Speaker 1: you're if you want to read the best of the

1843
01:52:12,680 --> 01:52:16,800
Speaker 1: Washington Post, you subscribe to The Atlantic right now, because

1844
01:52:16,840 --> 01:52:19,719
Speaker 1: they've got some of the or the Wall Street Journal.

1845
01:52:20,520 --> 01:52:24,599
Speaker 1: Both of them have have hired quite a few folks,

1846
01:52:25,360 --> 01:52:30,879
Speaker 1: So it is it's been sad to see the basically

1847
01:52:32,080 --> 01:52:35,439
Speaker 1: people that I've respected and read for years begging Jeff

1848
01:52:35,479 --> 01:52:40,559
Speaker 1: Bezos not to do this. Right Ken Rosenthala, former Post

1849
01:52:40,600 --> 01:52:43,080
Speaker 1: he who's a baseball guy. He put it pretty buntly.

1850
01:52:44,120 --> 01:52:46,800
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos's destruction of a great newspaper will be part

1851
01:52:46,840 --> 01:52:50,559
Speaker 1: of his legacy. Another former Post sports reporter, Rachel Nichols,

1852
01:52:51,520 --> 01:52:54,400
Speaker 1: defended the sports desk. They thinking about gutting the sports desk,

1853
01:52:54,479 --> 01:52:57,040
Speaker 1: which was which was an engine to that newsroom, as

1854
01:52:57,160 --> 01:52:59,240
Speaker 1: she called it, one of one of the best damn

1855
01:52:59,280 --> 01:53:04,240
Speaker 1: reporting and right groups on the planet. Anyway, I wish

1856
01:53:04,400 --> 01:53:11,720
Speaker 1: if he doesn't want the focus, if he doesn't want

1857
01:53:11,720 --> 01:53:14,400
Speaker 1: the attention from the President for being an owner of

1858
01:53:14,479 --> 01:53:19,439
Speaker 1: a news organization, don't got the news organization, don't do

1859
01:53:19,600 --> 01:53:23,000
Speaker 1: a catching kill, which is what you're turning this into,

1860
01:53:23,120 --> 01:53:26,800
Speaker 1: mister Bezos, meaning you're going to essentially strangle the Washington

1861
01:53:26,840 --> 01:53:29,400
Speaker 1: Post so it can no longer be a relevant news organization.

1862
01:53:30,280 --> 01:53:34,759
Speaker 1: Sell it to somebody else who doesn't mind practicing journalism

1863
01:53:34,800 --> 01:53:38,400
Speaker 1: without fear of favor, because you clearly don't want journalism

1864
01:53:38,520 --> 01:53:41,599
Speaker 1: practice without fear of favor. You fear Donald Trump. How

1865
01:53:41,640 --> 01:53:44,000
Speaker 1: do we know you spend seventy five million dollars on

1866
01:53:44,120 --> 01:53:47,120
Speaker 1: a bullshit movie about Milaennia. That's how much you fear

1867
01:53:47,200 --> 01:53:51,240
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And you're choking the Washington Post and making

1868
01:53:51,320 --> 01:53:54,720
Speaker 1: sure it's a less relevant organization, and never mind just

1869
01:53:55,320 --> 01:53:58,240
Speaker 1: screwing the business of the Post. Who thinks it's a

1870
01:53:58,320 --> 01:54:01,680
Speaker 1: good idea for the Washington Post to get smaller and

1871
01:54:01,800 --> 01:54:05,840
Speaker 1: to shrink its footprint and to not cover one of

1872
01:54:05,960 --> 01:54:10,639
Speaker 1: the most important communities in America and no longer cover

1873
01:54:10,800 --> 01:54:14,320
Speaker 1: it as a as a member of the community. It's

1874
01:54:14,400 --> 01:54:17,040
Speaker 1: a strange decision. Here's the good news. I've been in

1875
01:54:17,160 --> 01:54:19,720
Speaker 1: this independent space now for about a year or so.

1876
01:54:22,920 --> 01:54:26,320
Speaker 1: There's going to be Here's here's what's said, is in

1877
01:54:26,640 --> 01:54:29,040
Speaker 1: a you know, in about a couple of years, somebody's

1878
01:54:29,080 --> 01:54:31,040
Speaker 1: going to realize what a disaster this was for the

1879
01:54:31,080 --> 01:54:33,280
Speaker 1: Post and they're going to try to bring everything back.

1880
01:54:33,840 --> 01:54:37,720
Speaker 1: And I promise you there'll be some thriving, local independent

1881
01:54:38,160 --> 01:54:42,280
Speaker 1: sports entity, just like Capital Weather Gang, which is really

1882
01:54:42,320 --> 01:54:44,200
Speaker 1: it was its own entity, and then the Post brought

1883
01:54:44,240 --> 01:54:46,440
Speaker 1: it in. You're going to see it there, You're gonna

1884
01:54:46,440 --> 01:54:51,840
Speaker 1: see and and the Washington community will we'll support these things.

1885
01:54:51,920 --> 01:54:56,000
Speaker 1: They want a local community newspaper, and the Washington Post

1886
01:54:56,080 --> 01:55:00,480
Speaker 1: still was that paper. But ever since they brought in

1887
01:55:00,760 --> 01:55:03,720
Speaker 1: this Will Lewis he decided to turn it into some

1888
01:55:04,600 --> 01:55:08,680
Speaker 1: cheap Fleet Street rag. I mean, the editorial page is

1889
01:55:08,840 --> 01:55:12,520
Speaker 1: just a clown show. It is. It is sophomoric type

1890
01:55:12,560 --> 01:55:17,040
Speaker 1: of editorials that are written. They're rarely intellectually challenging. I mean,

1891
01:55:17,480 --> 01:55:20,840
Speaker 1: basically the only people that feel like are left worth

1892
01:55:20,920 --> 01:55:24,920
Speaker 1: reading are Karen Tumblety and George will And it's a

1893
01:55:24,960 --> 01:55:29,040
Speaker 1: bummer because there's a lot of I mean, the Post

1894
01:55:29,200 --> 01:55:34,000
Speaker 1: editorial page was one that wasn't always so predictable, and

1895
01:55:34,160 --> 01:55:37,440
Speaker 1: yet Bezos has gutted it and has gotten some Like

1896
01:55:37,560 --> 01:55:43,560
Speaker 1: I said, it feels like a parody at times, some

1897
01:55:43,680 --> 01:55:46,400
Speaker 1: of the some of the ways that these editorials are written.

1898
01:55:47,160 --> 01:55:52,440
Speaker 1: There's it it's just I don't know how's to put it.

1899
01:55:52,560 --> 01:55:57,200
Speaker 1: It's just it just feels like like a bunch of

1900
01:55:57,640 --> 01:56:01,080
Speaker 1: college Republicans getting high in a dorm and writing editorials

1901
01:56:02,200 --> 01:56:06,480
Speaker 1: rather than you know, rather than having what the editorial

1902
01:56:06,520 --> 01:56:09,040
Speaker 1: board was, which was, you know, yes, it may have

1903
01:56:09,160 --> 01:56:11,800
Speaker 1: leaned left, but it was a pretty diverse editorial board

1904
01:56:12,400 --> 01:56:15,800
Speaker 1: that certainly didn't lean left or right on national security

1905
01:56:15,880 --> 01:56:19,320
Speaker 1: issues or international issues. Domestically, it definitely was politically in

1906
01:56:19,400 --> 01:56:23,280
Speaker 1: one place, but not internationally and certainly not on some

1907
01:56:23,400 --> 01:56:25,840
Speaker 1: of these other things. And it was it was a shame.

1908
01:56:28,960 --> 01:56:30,680
Speaker 1: But to go back to what he's doing to the Post,

1909
01:56:31,120 --> 01:56:33,600
Speaker 1: here's a guy that didn't mind losing money for years

1910
01:56:34,200 --> 01:56:37,560
Speaker 1: on Amazon, knowing it eventually would be a great business.

1911
01:56:38,400 --> 01:56:41,240
Speaker 1: Why he never tackled the information ecosystem the same way

1912
01:56:41,240 --> 01:56:44,240
Speaker 1: as beyond me. I go back to what I said before.

1913
01:56:44,840 --> 01:56:48,280
Speaker 1: He bought the Post as a trophy, and then the

1914
01:56:48,400 --> 01:56:53,960
Speaker 1: trophy became a problem. So then he decided instead of

1915
01:56:54,120 --> 01:56:56,360
Speaker 1: just selling the trophy, he didn't have to own it anymore.

1916
01:56:56,800 --> 01:56:59,120
Speaker 1: There were plenty of people who would buy the Washington Post,

1917
01:57:02,080 --> 01:57:09,800
Speaker 1: but he didn't. He chose to got it. I hope

1918
01:57:09,800 --> 01:57:14,600
Speaker 1: all of these calls to him are heard and maybe

1919
01:57:14,680 --> 01:57:17,840
Speaker 1: he changes, you know, they've relented a little bit. Instead

1920
01:57:17,840 --> 01:57:19,760
Speaker 1: of sending nobody to cover the Olympics. They're going to

1921
01:57:19,800 --> 01:57:25,240
Speaker 1: send four reporters to cover the Olympics. Maybe he relents

1922
01:57:26,560 --> 01:57:31,160
Speaker 1: and it doesn't look like it because something. There's a

1923
01:57:31,200 --> 01:57:37,560
Speaker 1: lot of smoke on this one. So it's sad. I

1924
01:57:37,680 --> 01:57:40,120
Speaker 1: don't know any other way to put it. It's just

1925
01:57:40,320 --> 01:57:45,320
Speaker 1: sad what's happening, and it's painful, and boy, if they

1926
01:57:45,360 --> 01:57:48,720
Speaker 1: got sports and many of you know I'm pretty close

1927
01:57:48,800 --> 01:57:52,640
Speaker 1: to Tony Cornizer, I just can't imagine. I just can't

1928
01:57:52,680 --> 01:57:57,120
Speaker 1: believe they're going to do this. I hope the reporters want.

1929
01:58:06,600 --> 01:58:06,840
Speaker 2: Alight.

1930
01:58:06,920 --> 01:58:13,000
Speaker 1: Let me do a few questions, ask Chuck now right,

1931
01:58:17,120 --> 01:58:20,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to do just three today. Part of its

1932
01:58:20,960 --> 01:58:26,160
Speaker 1: traveling part of it. I don't want to go too

1933
01:58:26,280 --> 01:58:30,440
Speaker 1: long here on this one. So first question comes from, Hey, Chuck,

1934
01:58:30,520 --> 01:58:33,160
Speaker 1: my name is Emily and I am from Oakdale, Minnesota,

1935
01:58:33,200 --> 01:58:36,520
Speaker 1: suburb of Minneapolis Ing. I think Paul, excuse me, Ice

1936
01:58:36,640 --> 01:58:38,440
Speaker 1: is out here too. I have stories that would make

1937
01:58:38,480 --> 01:58:40,880
Speaker 1: your stomach churn and your blood boil. Anyway, I think

1938
01:58:40,880 --> 01:58:42,160
Speaker 1: I have a question that a lot of us have,

1939
01:58:42,680 --> 01:58:45,080
Speaker 1: how long is this going to last? But then it

1940
01:58:45,120 --> 01:58:47,040
Speaker 1: gets me thinking how long have we actually been in

1941
01:58:47,120 --> 01:58:49,440
Speaker 1: this already? When you look back at history, you hear

1942
01:58:49,480 --> 01:58:52,400
Speaker 1: about regimes that lasted for decades or longer. I'm coming

1943
01:58:52,480 --> 01:58:54,960
Speaker 1: to believe this is a great escalation of our freedom

1944
01:58:55,000 --> 01:58:57,400
Speaker 1: slipping away for some time, with the majority of the

1945
01:58:57,440 --> 01:59:00,440
Speaker 1: public myself included at times being the abs in the

1946
01:59:00,480 --> 01:59:04,880
Speaker 1: crab pot. Is this the beginning or the beginning of

1947
01:59:04,960 --> 01:59:09,560
Speaker 1: the end? Well, I'm a little more optimistic. You're in

1948
01:59:09,640 --> 01:59:12,160
Speaker 1: a you're in a dark place, and I get it.

1949
01:59:12,400 --> 01:59:15,000
Speaker 1: I think if I were witnessing what you're witnessing, I

1950
01:59:15,760 --> 01:59:19,880
Speaker 1: might be there. I will just say, in our history,

1951
01:59:20,120 --> 01:59:27,920
Speaker 1: American history, no, no political movement lasts more than about

1952
01:59:27,920 --> 01:59:30,720
Speaker 1: a decade, you know, before it starts to wear thin,

1953
01:59:31,400 --> 01:59:35,080
Speaker 1: voters get exhausted from it, you know whatever. Everyone you know,

1954
01:59:35,120 --> 01:59:37,800
Speaker 1: there's this saying you know, you know, you know, and

1955
01:59:37,960 --> 01:59:42,520
Speaker 1: part of it, you know, the longer a political movement

1956
01:59:42,560 --> 01:59:47,720
Speaker 1: stays in power, the more corruptickets, right, because suddenly people

1957
01:59:47,840 --> 01:59:51,000
Speaker 1: get comfortable then they you know, start grifting. And this

1958
01:59:51,160 --> 01:59:56,840
Speaker 1: has of course been a next level kleptocracy stuff. I mean,

1959
01:59:56,920 --> 02:00:02,680
Speaker 1: it's just blatantly pay to play, right, But I I

1960
02:00:02,960 --> 02:00:05,440
Speaker 1: think we're I think the worm's turning, and I know

1961
02:00:05,600 --> 02:00:08,040
Speaker 1: it's it's sometimes hard to see the closer you are

1962
02:00:08,280 --> 02:00:11,720
Speaker 1: to some of this stuff. But you look, he's got

1963
02:00:11,760 --> 02:00:15,400
Speaker 1: the lowest numbers he's ever had as sitting president. The

1964
02:00:15,520 --> 02:00:18,280
Speaker 1: economy is not in good shape, and people don't feel

1965
02:00:18,320 --> 02:00:21,640
Speaker 1: like it's going to get better. At best, maybe we

1966
02:00:21,760 --> 02:00:24,040
Speaker 1: sort of stumble into status quo, but that doesn't make

1967
02:00:24,080 --> 02:00:26,960
Speaker 1: anybody feel better. You heard me talk about this at

1968
02:00:27,000 --> 02:00:30,040
Speaker 1: the beginning of this podcast. But the confidence people have

1969
02:00:30,200 --> 02:00:36,920
Speaker 1: about jobs being plentiful is cratering. Everything still feels like

1970
02:00:37,000 --> 02:00:40,800
Speaker 1: it's going to cost more. The tariffs create more instability,

1971
02:00:41,280 --> 02:00:45,280
Speaker 1: more instability. So I think this is a krabby electorate

1972
02:00:45,400 --> 02:00:47,800
Speaker 1: to borrow your you know, I think I think you

1973
02:00:47,880 --> 02:00:51,000
Speaker 1: were going for the boiled frog metaphor, but I'm gonna

1974
02:00:51,400 --> 02:00:56,200
Speaker 1: I'm gonna borrow the crab there that you cited. I

1975
02:00:56,280 --> 02:01:00,320
Speaker 1: think the electorate's pretty crabby, and you know, you have

1976
02:01:00,560 --> 02:01:04,240
Speaker 1: a lot of infighting in the president's base. You have

1977
02:01:04,360 --> 02:01:10,520
Speaker 1: a party that's starting to uh, that's starting to question

1978
02:01:10,680 --> 02:01:15,960
Speaker 1: its leader. Right we're seeing more of that. My confidence

1979
02:01:16,000 --> 02:01:18,680
Speaker 1: in the Democrats as a governing entity is not great,

1980
02:01:19,320 --> 02:01:21,480
Speaker 1: but they're not having to run to govern right now.

1981
02:01:22,720 --> 02:01:24,640
Speaker 1: They have the easiest message in the world to run

1982
02:01:24,680 --> 02:01:30,920
Speaker 1: on provide a check on Donald Trump. It's a simple message.

1983
02:01:32,200 --> 02:01:35,400
Speaker 1: And any time, especially there's a whole There have been

1984
02:01:35,480 --> 02:01:37,680
Speaker 1: books written about the so called six year itch, and

1985
02:01:37,760 --> 02:01:40,760
Speaker 1: this is essentially our We're in our six year of

1986
02:01:40,880 --> 02:01:43,600
Speaker 1: Trump in charge, and if you want to you know,

1987
02:01:43,880 --> 02:01:46,200
Speaker 1: and and he's certainly the four years of Biden was there.

1988
02:01:46,320 --> 02:01:50,760
Speaker 1: Trump was was sort of hovering over the entire right,

1989
02:01:51,600 --> 02:01:54,960
Speaker 1: entire president and the entire four years of that presidency.

1990
02:01:57,920 --> 02:02:01,320
Speaker 1: But I think this is an electorate that's I'm somebody

1991
02:02:01,360 --> 02:02:04,880
Speaker 1: who thinks this wave is building and that every month

1992
02:02:05,360 --> 02:02:09,520
Speaker 1: it's going to look more obvious that a lot of

1993
02:02:09,560 --> 02:02:11,680
Speaker 1: Republics are going to get fired this year. And that's

1994
02:02:11,720 --> 02:02:13,400
Speaker 1: the way I'd still put it. I mean, we are

1995
02:02:13,600 --> 02:02:15,840
Speaker 1: we are still in this era of we know what

1996
02:02:15,920 --> 02:02:19,360
Speaker 1: we don't want, so we're going to keep firing, right.

1997
02:02:19,440 --> 02:02:23,880
Speaker 1: We have yet to find what we like. But but

1998
02:02:24,040 --> 02:02:27,600
Speaker 1: I think that this is this is how midterm elections

1999
02:02:27,680 --> 02:02:32,080
Speaker 1: can usually are about that, and this one feels like

2000
02:02:32,200 --> 02:02:34,800
Speaker 1: it's growing into a big time referendum on Trump and

2001
02:02:34,920 --> 02:02:37,800
Speaker 1: that is not going to go very well. The only

2002
02:02:37,920 --> 02:02:41,920
Speaker 1: thing is that that that gives them a boxer's chance.

2003
02:02:43,000 --> 02:02:45,560
Speaker 1: It's two things got that the repub that Trump has

2004
02:02:45,640 --> 02:02:50,160
Speaker 1: gone for him the way these districts are drawn, and

2005
02:02:50,240 --> 02:02:52,560
Speaker 1: Republican's got a small victory in Virginia today. We'll see

2006
02:02:52,560 --> 02:02:56,360
Speaker 1: if that sets back the Virginia attempt to remap. And

2007
02:02:56,640 --> 02:02:58,920
Speaker 1: just this cycle of Senate seats that are up, it's

2008
02:02:59,000 --> 02:03:02,760
Speaker 1: not the easiest map for Democrats to pick up seats,

2009
02:03:02,760 --> 02:03:05,960
Speaker 1: and it's not impossible, but it's not a very easy map.

2010
02:03:07,280 --> 02:03:12,200
Speaker 1: That's it. Because the political environment, this is one of

2011
02:03:12,240 --> 02:03:16,120
Speaker 1: those things it's getting it's getting more ominous by the

2012
02:03:16,280 --> 02:03:19,920
Speaker 1: day for Republicans. We'll see what happens with tax season.

2013
02:03:20,480 --> 02:03:23,880
Speaker 1: A lot of Republicans are betting that tax refund season

2014
02:03:24,040 --> 02:03:28,160
Speaker 1: is going to change enough perceptions about the economy that

2015
02:03:28,440 --> 02:03:31,760
Speaker 1: it's going to give Republicans a fighting chance at getting

2016
02:03:31,800 --> 02:03:35,600
Speaker 1: re elected to their majorities. I'm a bit more skeptical

2017
02:03:35,680 --> 02:03:37,280
Speaker 1: that tax refunds are going to have that kind of

2018
02:03:37,360 --> 02:03:41,600
Speaker 1: impact because they're immediately going to go to rising electricity costs,

2019
02:03:41,840 --> 02:03:45,720
Speaker 1: rising health care costs, and rising food costs. So whatever

2020
02:03:46,080 --> 02:03:49,200
Speaker 1: new money people it's going to go, it's in some

2021
02:03:49,360 --> 02:03:55,320
Speaker 1: ways it could end up bringing more attention to inflation

2022
02:03:55,920 --> 02:03:59,680
Speaker 1: and the rising cost of living because they'll think, oh,

2023
02:03:59,720 --> 02:04:03,120
Speaker 1: I've got this extra money. Wait, it's already gone. Where

2024
02:04:03,160 --> 02:04:08,080
Speaker 1: did it go? Rising electric bills, rising food costs, rising

2025
02:04:08,160 --> 02:04:14,480
Speaker 1: healthcare costs? So there you go. That's so I think

2026
02:04:14,560 --> 02:04:17,120
Speaker 1: we're I don't know if we're at the end of

2027
02:04:17,160 --> 02:04:22,320
Speaker 1: the Trump movement, but I definitely think we're at the end.

2028
02:04:23,080 --> 02:04:28,000
Speaker 1: We're at the end of We're coming. We're winding down

2029
02:04:28,160 --> 02:04:31,480
Speaker 1: the Trump era. That doesn't mean there might not be

2030
02:04:31,560 --> 02:04:34,919
Speaker 1: a dead cat bounce in twenty eight maybe Democrats inviting,

2031
02:04:35,480 --> 02:04:38,560
Speaker 1: you know, hands the presidency to them. But I think

2032
02:04:38,640 --> 02:04:43,080
Speaker 1: we're starting to see a slow rejection of Trump is.

2033
02:04:44,800 --> 02:04:47,680
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Patrick from Waterford, Michigan, and he writes,

2034
02:04:47,960 --> 02:04:50,600
Speaker 1: at what point does a blatant, provable lie from a

2035
02:04:50,640 --> 02:04:54,920
Speaker 1: politician amount to criminal fraud? That's interesting. I know that

2036
02:04:55,000 --> 02:04:56,760
Speaker 1: Congress and the President are immune due to the Speech

2037
02:04:56,800 --> 02:05:00,440
Speaker 1: and Debate Clause and the Presidential Immunity Ruling, respectively. However,

2038
02:05:00,520 --> 02:05:02,920
Speaker 1: this does not cover the vice president, cabinet, governors, and others.

2039
02:05:03,000 --> 02:05:05,800
Speaker 1: Does the First Amendment protect them regardless of the shamelessness

2040
02:05:05,880 --> 02:05:09,120
Speaker 1: of their lives? Best regards? Well, it really does, I mean,

2041
02:05:09,240 --> 02:05:15,920
Speaker 1: you know it in order to make now I mean

2042
02:05:15,960 --> 02:05:17,960
Speaker 1: you could file some lawsuits if you want to try,

2043
02:05:18,080 --> 02:05:22,600
Speaker 1: and they can become nuisance lawsuits. But this is where

2044
02:05:25,600 --> 02:05:27,840
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a political if you're running against

2045
02:05:27,920 --> 02:05:30,600
Speaker 1: these folks, you need to you need to let litigate

2046
02:05:30,760 --> 02:05:34,880
Speaker 1: your case, and you need to say they told you this,

2047
02:05:35,120 --> 02:05:42,080
Speaker 1: they lied to you. And I think that ultimately that's

2048
02:05:43,600 --> 02:05:47,280
Speaker 1: it goes back to something that you got to go

2049
02:05:47,320 --> 02:05:50,280
Speaker 1: win elections and the voters have to do this. The

2050
02:05:50,440 --> 02:05:53,720
Speaker 1: voters have to reject if you try to do this

2051
02:05:53,800 --> 02:05:55,480
Speaker 1: in any other way, if you look for a shortcut

2052
02:05:55,560 --> 02:05:59,760
Speaker 1: bey of the courts, via impeachment, via any other way,

2053
02:06:01,040 --> 02:06:03,800
Speaker 1: it isn't going to solve the larger problem. The voters

2054
02:06:03,880 --> 02:06:06,080
Speaker 1: are the only ones that can solve this larger problem.

2055
02:06:07,400 --> 02:06:12,520
Speaker 1: So make your case to the voters that jd. Vance's lying,

2056
02:06:12,760 --> 02:06:18,560
Speaker 1: or that Christie Noman is lying. You know, make your

2057
02:06:18,600 --> 02:06:21,040
Speaker 1: case to the members of Congress. If they lie, it's

2058
02:06:21,120 --> 02:06:24,480
Speaker 1: up to Congress to hold them accountable. And this Congress

2059
02:06:24,560 --> 02:06:27,520
Speaker 1: has chosen enough to do that. And this is where

2060
02:06:27,560 --> 02:06:30,560
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be an easy you know,

2061
02:06:31,320 --> 02:06:34,160
Speaker 1: a way to talk to voters of all parties is

2062
02:06:34,240 --> 02:06:42,280
Speaker 1: simply say, don't you want to see Congress hold any

2063
02:06:42,360 --> 02:06:47,720
Speaker 1: president accountable if they are violating the constitution, any cabinet

2064
02:06:47,760 --> 02:06:52,240
Speaker 1: secretary if they're violating the constitution. So I just think

2065
02:06:52,320 --> 02:06:58,280
Speaker 1: that I hear what you're saying. But ultimately, there's one

2066
02:06:58,400 --> 02:07:02,520
Speaker 1: jury that matters more than any other, and it's the

2067
02:07:03,920 --> 02:07:08,160
Speaker 1: It's the jury of registered voters. So make your case

2068
02:07:08,200 --> 02:07:13,320
Speaker 1: to them. That last question for the evening is gonna

2069
02:07:13,600 --> 02:07:16,280
Speaker 1: for now. It's going to come from Harvey r. He said,

2070
02:07:16,320 --> 02:07:17,960
Speaker 1: you said in your last podcast that the Georgia Center

2071
02:07:18,040 --> 02:07:20,320
Speaker 1: race is not really a race. I didn't say it

2072
02:07:20,440 --> 02:07:23,320
Speaker 1: that way. I said, I have downgraded it as a

2073
02:07:23,400 --> 02:07:27,040
Speaker 1: top tier race. What's the chance that asaspigwin catapults him

2074
02:07:27,400 --> 02:07:29,520
Speaker 1: to the nomination. I think you mean twenty twenty eight.

2075
02:07:30,600 --> 02:07:34,720
Speaker 1: I just think that that it's pretty clear this is

2076
02:07:34,760 --> 02:07:41,200
Speaker 1: a he's drawn a weaker field. And you know, Brian

2077
02:07:41,320 --> 02:07:45,600
Speaker 1: Kemp was probably the only Republican and maybe even Brad

2078
02:07:45,680 --> 02:07:48,440
Speaker 1: Raethensberger were probably one of the only two Republicans that

2079
02:07:48,480 --> 02:07:51,640
Speaker 1: I think could have been ass off in this political environment.

2080
02:07:51,640 --> 02:07:53,280
Speaker 1: And that's what you have to remember. This is going

2081
02:07:53,320 --> 02:07:57,560
Speaker 1: to be a pretty good political environment for Democrats in

2082
02:07:57,640 --> 02:08:02,920
Speaker 1: this midterm year. So I think, and you know this,

2083
02:08:03,160 --> 02:08:05,200
Speaker 1: none of these candidates stood out. I think I've I

2084
02:08:05,280 --> 02:08:08,280
Speaker 1: said an earlier podcast, I thought Derek Dooley if I

2085
02:08:08,440 --> 02:08:12,320
Speaker 1: were to is if I think they are, He's a

2086
02:08:12,520 --> 02:08:15,880
Speaker 1: potential tougher foe for ASoft than either of the two

2087
02:08:15,920 --> 02:08:19,400
Speaker 1: members of Congress because their first name is Congress, right.

2088
02:08:19,480 --> 02:08:21,440
Speaker 1: I don't think you want to be an outsider. Being

2089
02:08:21,440 --> 02:08:23,480
Speaker 1: a former football coach might be better than being an

2090
02:08:23,520 --> 02:08:28,080
Speaker 1: incumbent member in Washington. But I think when you start

2091
02:08:28,120 --> 02:08:31,040
Speaker 1: to look at the amount of money osof has, how

2092
02:08:32,200 --> 02:08:38,760
Speaker 1: how this primary is not producing a a a great candidate.

2093
02:08:38,840 --> 02:08:41,160
Speaker 1: Yet it still could and there's still plenty of time

2094
02:08:41,200 --> 02:08:46,200
Speaker 1: for that to happen. But I do think both Osoff

2095
02:08:46,240 --> 02:08:48,320
Speaker 1: and Warnock are you know, well, I don't know if

2096
02:08:48,360 --> 02:08:51,760
Speaker 1: Asoff runs for president and I don't know if Warnock runs,

2097
02:08:52,440 --> 02:08:56,040
Speaker 1: but you know, by the way our presidential candidate field

2098
02:08:56,120 --> 02:08:58,200
Speaker 1: keeps getting bigger on the Democratic side, and so Mark,

2099
02:08:58,360 --> 02:09:00,640
Speaker 1: I think Mark Kelly's definitely more likely to run to

2100
02:09:00,720 --> 02:09:04,400
Speaker 1: not run now from Arizona, r'ben Diego wants to run

2101
02:09:04,440 --> 02:09:08,080
Speaker 1: so already. I mean both of Arizona senators flirting with

2102
02:09:08,160 --> 02:09:11,280
Speaker 1: presidential campaigns. Are both Georgia senators going to do this,

2103
02:09:14,360 --> 02:09:16,880
Speaker 1: But I will say this, I think both Warnock and

2104
02:09:17,000 --> 02:09:19,840
Speaker 1: Osof are on the short list for any for any

2105
02:09:19,920 --> 02:09:21,800
Speaker 1: running mate. I mean at this point, I think you're

2106
02:09:21,840 --> 02:09:26,760
Speaker 1: going to see, you know, a very simple running mate

2107
02:09:26,880 --> 02:09:32,880
Speaker 1: selection this time in that just pick a state, look

2108
02:09:32,960 --> 02:09:36,080
Speaker 1: at your map. What do you need double down on

2109
02:09:36,240 --> 02:09:39,360
Speaker 1: one of those states? Right, is that Arizona's I mean

2110
02:09:39,400 --> 02:09:41,240
Speaker 1: one of the two. I mean, I think that could

2111
02:09:41,240 --> 02:09:44,920
Speaker 1: be Arizona, that could be Georgia, that could be North Carolina.

2112
02:09:45,640 --> 02:09:49,280
Speaker 1: But I think that's what you're gonna say is a

2113
02:09:49,880 --> 02:09:53,080
Speaker 1: little more simplified. Just do it the old fashioned way.

2114
02:09:53,920 --> 02:09:56,360
Speaker 1: Just go pick somebody from a state you need to carry,

2115
02:09:57,400 --> 02:10:00,200
Speaker 1: and in that sense, that could definitely put us off

2116
02:10:00,280 --> 02:10:05,280
Speaker 1: and Warnock in the top tier of that. All right,

2117
02:10:05,360 --> 02:10:08,640
Speaker 1: I'm going to put a pin in this episode since

2118
02:10:08,640 --> 02:10:11,400
Speaker 1: we're gonna I'm gonna see it in another twenty four hours,

2119
02:10:14,040 --> 02:10:17,680
Speaker 1: but it's a I will I will admit being a

2120
02:10:17,720 --> 02:10:20,920
Speaker 1: little weary from my own travels and shoveling of snow.

2121
02:10:21,040 --> 02:10:23,160
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go make sure I get a

2122
02:10:23,440 --> 02:10:27,160
Speaker 1: really good night's rest and I will see you on

2123
02:10:27,280 --> 02:10:28,680
Speaker 1: this feed in twenty four hours.