Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds.
Speaker 2: And a new California oprohibits using AI as a basis
Speaker 2: to deny insurance claims. We have such a great show
Speaker 2: for you today as we start to come back from
Speaker 2: our vacation called me a journalism review Daily newsletter editor
Speaker 2: John also examines how journalism is changing going into twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. But first we have the Lincoln Projects. Rick
Speaker 2: Wilson will join us to discuss what Mike Johnson's rule
Speaker 2: over the House will look like.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Hello, Molly, how are you today?
Speaker 1: I am good. We were on television together last night,
Speaker 1: which was incredibly fun.
Speaker 3: It was fun. That was a good hit.
Speaker 1: It was good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean an incredibly
Speaker 1: weird moment to talk about American politics. Why is this
Speaker 1: such a fucking horrible moment in American politics?
Speaker 3: Because he shouldn't have won and he did, and people
Speaker 3: have yet to figure out how we work that problem.
Speaker 3: It is an unsolvable problem for a lot of Americans
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: You know what I think is the reason why this
Speaker 1: moment is so hard, and the moment and it's that
Speaker 1: weird period between the election and the inauguration, and it
Speaker 1: always is bad because you have a moment where you
Speaker 1: think either I think the enemy of all political discourse
Speaker 1: is hope. Right. Sure, sure for either party where you
Speaker 1: think this is going to be it, they're going to
Speaker 1: get in there. They're going to you know, even like
Speaker 1: I think about the Biden Edman, you know, there certainly
Speaker 1: were things done, legislation that was blockbuster passed, but there
Speaker 1: were many things that a lot of us hoped for,
Speaker 1: especially Democrats, that were either not doable or not done right.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair.
Speaker 3: Look, I mean, I think we've come down to this point,
Speaker 3: and you made this point last night on TV. There
Speaker 3: were a lot of things that Joe Biden accomplished that
Speaker 3: were extraordinarily popular and to the net good of the country.
Speaker 3: They were completely unsold to people. People didn't get it,
Speaker 3: They didn't like a lot of the things they thought
Speaker 3: were happening. They didn't know about the things that they
Speaker 3: should have liked that were happening, and so you know,
Speaker 3: we ended up in this really grim spot where you know, Biden,
Speaker 3: as they said, you know, he couldn't win for losing,
Speaker 3: and Harris had a limited porch to you, a momented
Speaker 3: window of time to sell that stuff, a short porch,
Speaker 3: as they say, to sell those things. And I think
Speaker 3: we also underscored and I think this is also the
Speaker 3: source of some of our misery as a country. We
Speaker 3: underscored the role of celebrity in our society. And as
Speaker 3: much of a shit, tear, horrifying celebrity as Trump is,
Speaker 3: he's still a celebrity, and I think that really messes
Speaker 3: people's heads up.
Speaker 1: Well, he also was not burdened with the truth, right,
Speaker 1: he was able to say things that a lot of
Speaker 1: us knew were undoable, absolutely, And I mean, like this
Speaker 1: is the big, the crux, crux of the problem that
Speaker 1: Trump will likely have if we continue, you know again,
Speaker 1: we'll probably go back to the Trump and Earth one
Speaker 1: and Earth two scenario. Right, So on Earth two, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, on Earth one, groceries will still be you know,
Speaker 1: there will still be inflation. But on Earth too, Trump
Speaker 1: will say, you know, I've done this, I've done that.
Speaker 1: And again he I mean, you couldn't be a politician
Speaker 1: and go on television and say I'm going to make
Speaker 1: things cheaper because there was no path to it except
Speaker 1: price controls, which American corporations hate.
Speaker 3: Right to be honest. As a country, we don't have
Speaker 3: a super record with those working out. Yes over time,
Speaker 3: I mean good in theory, but problematic in execution. I
Speaker 3: also think that, and this is something I've been a
Speaker 3: lot over the holiday, you know, taking some time and
Speaker 3: thinking about, like the whole scope of what's been happening.
Speaker 3: Americans want the good guy to win, and now we
Speaker 3: have the anti hero in charge of everything. And this
Speaker 3: anti hero is is a bad candidate, a bad leader,
Speaker 3: a bad person, a bad American, a bad human being.
Speaker 3: And yet he won, and people are scared he's going
Speaker 3: to abuse the power he's been given. He will. People
Speaker 3: are are also, I think, in a weird way, nervous
Speaker 3: because he reflects something about the country that we've become
Speaker 3: something not great, something dark. We left to look in
Speaker 3: the mirror a who we are as a country. And
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are unhappy about that.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people are like, you know, why
Speaker 3: did evil triumph over good? Why is this guy going
Speaker 3: to be president? It's hard for people to accept that.
Speaker 3: They don't like it, they don't want it. Or like it.
Speaker 3: And man, the more I've thought about it the last
Speaker 3: couple of days, it's like, we feel guilty that this
Speaker 3: guy got elected. I do. I feel guilty he got elected.
Speaker 3: I worked my ass off to not make to make
Speaker 3: sure he wasn't elected, but he got elected. And I
Speaker 3: think there's something in that that is painful for America
Speaker 3: and we don't like it. We're not happy about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I would add that people didn't show
Speaker 1: up for her, right. I mean when you look at
Speaker 1: the numbers at the math like they did. The anti
Speaker 1: Trump coalition that showed up for Joe Biden in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty refused to show up for Harris in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: That's how we.
Speaker 3: Got here exactly. And man, you look at it and
Speaker 3: you're like the defiance of the political gravity that everyone
Speaker 3: looked at, you know, everything from Trump's criminality to January sixth,
Speaker 3: to the fact that he's just an evil piece of
Speaker 3: shit and people people know it. They know looking at
Speaker 3: this guy, he is not ever going to be the
Speaker 3: good guy in the story. He's always going to be
Speaker 3: the villain. He's always going to be the asshole, He's
Speaker 3: always going to be the abusive boyfriend. He's always going
Speaker 3: to be the monster. And they worked hard and they
Speaker 3: and they lost and for whatever set of reasons, we
Speaker 3: lost this fight. We've talked about this a lot. I
Speaker 3: think it really has left people feeling bitter and unhappy
Speaker 3: and distraught and imperiled in a way that we understand
Speaker 3: how bad he can be, we understand the bad things
Speaker 3: he can do, and so people are rightly sort of
Speaker 3: sick to their stomachs that we couldn't get to the
Speaker 3: finish line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, here's a question for you, though, is
Speaker 1: like I also think this was one of the big
Speaker 1: problems with this. I mean, look, there were a number
Speaker 1: of problems, but one of the big problems was voters
Speaker 1: did not truly believe that Trump was going to do
Speaker 1: a lot of the things he said he was going
Speaker 1: to do. Now, I think the reason this moment in
Speaker 1: American life is so profoundly awful is because there is
Speaker 1: a spark of hope that a lot of us have
Speaker 1: that perhaps he won't do the kind of stuff we
Speaker 1: know he will, and it is a very depressed you know. Look,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there are people out there who
Speaker 1: really deeply and I am one of them. I would
Speaker 1: love him to just not do a lot of the
Speaker 1: really scary stuff. I mean, prove me wrong. I would
Speaker 1: love it, I mean, but I don't. Unfortunately, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's how it's going to go. And I think
Speaker 1: that is a very scary you know, I mean, what
Speaker 1: does this mean? We don't know, right, we don't know
Speaker 1: what Trump is going to be able to do, but
Speaker 1: we do know that he has a lot more people
Speaker 1: sort of gaming out ways to do it in a
Speaker 1: way he did in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent, and the absolute loyalty of the people
Speaker 3: this time around. There aren't going to be Gymatisis and
Speaker 3: Gary Codes and Rex Tillerson's out there or even Jared
Speaker 3: and Ivanka's out there in the background saying let's he's
Speaker 3: off on this, boss, let's not do this or that.
Speaker 3: Let's let's let's not you know, do X or Y.
Speaker 3: I think those people are are you know, in short,
Speaker 3: supply the suck up crew is going to be there
Speaker 3: in droves, and I'm worried that that those people. They
Speaker 3: have a perspective now that defying the Great Lord and
Speaker 3: Master is a recipe for political and personal disaster.
Speaker 1: I agree, and disagree. Okay, So I would say Susie
Speaker 1: Wilds is obviously a mitigating force. She may not mitigate
Speaker 1: this the way that Jem Mattis did, but she obviously
Speaker 1: and she may have an ambition that is not the
Speaker 1: same as protecting norms and institutions, which is the ambition
Speaker 1: I would like her to have. But she does in
Speaker 1: her way, and perhaps it's to his benefit. She is
Speaker 1: able to enact some degree of control over Trump, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly we've seen that.
Speaker 3: Look, I would not get your hopes up too high
Speaker 3: on that. I would be very cautious about getting yourself
Speaker 3: in a frame where you think Susie will save us.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think anyone will save us. But I
Speaker 1: also don't think Muller will save us.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, now, I here's that.
Speaker 1: I think more of the question is, clearly there are
Speaker 1: people behind the scenes who for example, here's what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of. On Friday, Donald Trump whipped votes for Mike Johnson. Okay,
Speaker 1: he was calling. He called Nancy Mayce. Nancy Mayce put
Speaker 1: him on the phone with people who weren't going to
Speaker 1: vote for Mike Johnson, and he whipped those votes. That
Speaker 1: does not happen if Donald Trump is left to his
Speaker 1: own devices. That happens if someone who is politically savvy
Speaker 1: is telling Donald Trump what to do.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I do think I do think that Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: We have to recognize that Trump has a feral sense
Speaker 3: of self preservation, and that sense of self preservation kicks
Speaker 3: in sometimes when you look at the options. I mean,
Speaker 3: it should speak to a lot to how bad the
Speaker 3: party is. That Donald Trump recognized that Mike Johnson was
Speaker 3: the best possible.
Speaker 1: Option, right, I mean, yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: The kind of thing that you know, motivated him because
Speaker 3: he recognized that if you have a hard maga freedom
Speaker 3: Caucus person in charge of the House, it will be
Speaker 3: complete chaos at all times, and that Mike Johnson is
Speaker 3: the best of the best of the worst options, right,
Speaker 3: Which really says that Susie is telling Trump and counseling
Speaker 3: Trump like, you need at least a little bit of
Speaker 3: sanity in this picture. And somebody that that you know
Speaker 3: will eventually be a patsy like like Johnson. You know,
Speaker 3: he's not a He's not a sympathetic character by any means.
Speaker 3: He's also not going to be a guy that that
Speaker 3: is as crazy as Marjorie Taylor Green or whomever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I also think even so, I just
Speaker 1: think that it's interesting to watch. Mike Johnson is is
Speaker 1: known to be liked. I think his problem is that
Speaker 1: he cannot with votes, but I think he can't do math.
Speaker 1: But his larger problem, and again this didn't happen on Friday,
Speaker 1: so who knows, is that he has not been able
Speaker 1: to pass any legislation without Democrats. So now he has
Speaker 1: a smaller majority, that's right, And Donald Trump has this
Speaker 1: wildly ambitious legislative agenda. Again, I'm going to use Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and quotes here because obviously Donald Trump legislative agendas
Speaker 1: is a metaphor. But you know, they want to pass
Speaker 1: tax cuts, they want to do it in reconciliation, they
Speaker 1: want to do whatever else it is they want to do.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure that Mike Johnson is your
Speaker 1: man for that. He makes Paul Ryan look like Lincoln.
Speaker 3: The tightness of the Republican majority, the tenuousness of the
Speaker 3: Republican majority, gives you a perspective on the fact that
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson can't win without compromises. He can't rally a
Speaker 3: critical mass of the Freedom Caucus without Donald Trump. On
Speaker 3: the phone, banging their heads in with a baseball of that.
Speaker 3: And if he's not able to have those people immediately
Speaker 3: obedient to him and immediately cooperative with him, you know,
Speaker 3: you end up in a moment where it really is
Speaker 3: it really is more tenuous and more and more dangerous,
Speaker 3: because look, Donald Trump will whip votes when he has to,
Speaker 3: like actually whip votes. He would much rather be on
Speaker 3: the golf course. He would much rather be doing any
Speaker 3: other thing under the sun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now we have this question of shokuanaw Right,
Speaker 1: So Trump is promising shokanaw What do we think that means.
Speaker 3: Well, we think it means a wave of executive orders.
Speaker 3: And that wave of executive orders is going to is
Speaker 3: going to focus in the beginning on I think two
Speaker 3: major areas. One will be the terriff plan, which he
Speaker 3: really believes is an economically viable strategy, which is going
Speaker 3: to be fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's real Herbert Hoover staff, by the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it worked out so well the last time we
Speaker 3: had massive tariffs, and.
Speaker 1: Herbert Hoover really did when you read the history of it,
Speaker 1: Herbert Hoover really did believe that he knew something no
Speaker 1: one else did.
Speaker 3: Uh, huh yes. And the other part of it's going
Speaker 3: to be the mass deportations immigration stuff, and he's going
Speaker 3: to try to, i think, use those executive orders in
Speaker 3: the shock and off as to get the Democrats to
Speaker 3: take the bait. What they want is outrage. What they
Speaker 3: want is Democrats to be screaming in the streets, how
Speaker 3: dare you treat these immigrants this way? They want the
Speaker 3: Democrats to play the role that they that their audience
Speaker 3: expects them to play. I agree on the politically correct
Speaker 3: how dare you you racist? Racist? Racist? They want the
Speaker 3: Democrats to play.
Speaker 1: The take the bait.
Speaker 3: Right the maiden fainting on her fainting couch and screeching
Speaker 3: and losing it. I really think there's an opportunity here
Speaker 3: for the Democrats to not walk into and play the
Speaker 3: role that Trump wants them to play. And that's going
Speaker 3: to be tough, it's going to be non trivial, but
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be something that is an
Speaker 3: opportunity for Democrats to say, all right, Donald, this is
Speaker 3: on you, bro, go for it, do it, get your
Speaker 3: people to pass it. They should take amy work. In
Speaker 3: my in my view, a calmer, steadier, more like you
Speaker 3: want a clown show. It's going to be yours, buddy.
Speaker 3: We're not doing any of this in a bipartisan way.
Speaker 3: You're not getting any help. You're not getting any any
Speaker 3: you know, my honorable colleague, bullshit from us. This is
Speaker 3: all stupid. We're not playing your game. Pass it with
Speaker 3: your own people because they can't well.
Speaker 1: And that, I think is it is what we saw
Speaker 1: earlier with the cr right. We saw Trump wanting Democrats
Speaker 1: to get in there and fight, and in the end,
Speaker 1: you know, it was Republicans who wanted to shut down
Speaker 1: the government and other Republicans who wanted to keep it open.
Speaker 3: Hm, keeping the government open. This is like the four
Speaker 3: thousandth time I've said this to people every single time
Speaker 3: that we look at the party that shuts down the
Speaker 3: government is the party that takes the hit. Republicans know this,
Speaker 3: and yet here we go, they're going to do it again.
Speaker 1: You think they're going to do it?
Speaker 3: I think I think that that narrow majority if you're
Speaker 3: Chip Roy or Thomas Massey or Victoria's Sparts, or if
Speaker 3: you handful these other weirdos.
Speaker 1: I can't think about these people without laughing, because it's
Speaker 1: like there are magots who are like intentionally insane. And
Speaker 1: then there are people like Victorious Sparts is it Sparts
Speaker 1: or spats.
Speaker 3: Sparts spurts spats by I got nothing and.
Speaker 1: She gives these speeches. I mean, this is like in
Speaker 1: beyond continue.
Speaker 3: Oh it's cuckookachew. I mean, these are folks who, no
Speaker 3: matter what you think the silliness and the weirdness is,
Speaker 3: it's one hundred times worse. So every time we have
Speaker 3: a debt ceiling crisis, we're going to have these people
Speaker 3: do this. Every time we have a budget crisis, We're
Speaker 3: going to have these people do this. Every time there's
Speaker 3: a bill up. They're going to throw out as many
Speaker 3: of their red herrings and as many as their crazy statements,
Speaker 3: as many of their ludicrous demands as they can, because
Speaker 3: that's all they've got, right, that's all they've got. They
Speaker 3: know that there's not a majority in the country that
Speaker 3: wants to kill Medicare, Medicaid and social Security, not even close.
Speaker 3: There's not a majority in the country that wants to
Speaker 3: shut down FEMA or or do one hundred percent immigration
Speaker 3: ban or deport the dreamers. They know this. So this
Speaker 3: thin edge of the wedge is going to be in
Speaker 3: a position where they have enormous power over and over again.
Speaker 1: Right, it's interesting to me to see. I mean, the
Speaker 1: other thing about executive orders is they're just not you know,
Speaker 1: there's only so much who can do with them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is. They are bounded to a great degree.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I think also, and we're almost out a time,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to talk about John Soon for
Speaker 1: two seconds. He's the new Mitch McConnell. Trump really wanted
Speaker 1: Rick Scott in there. Rick Scott would have been Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: But there is no Rick Scott in there. So now
Speaker 1: explain to us what the difference is. I think John
Speaker 1: Thune is a big difference.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, let me say this, if I may
Speaker 3: quote the great Lloyd Benson. I knew Mitch McConnell. Mitch
Speaker 3: McConnell was a friend of mine, and Dohn Thune is
Speaker 3: no Mitch McConnell. I'm quoting the Benson thing. I'm not.
Speaker 3: But look, John Thune is a smart guy. He is not,
Speaker 3: traditionally speaking, a hypermaga lunatic.
Speaker 1: No not, Yeah, which is good.
Speaker 3: But I will say he also does not have Mitch
Speaker 3: McConnell's portfolio of legislative superpowers, because whether you all love
Speaker 3: or hate Mitch McConnell, that son of the bit.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah was.
Speaker 3: And as Harry Reid said to me, I've told the
Speaker 3: quoted on the show before. As Harry Reid said to
Speaker 3: me one time shortly before he passed, when we had
Speaker 3: a conversation that there were three Masters of the Senate
Speaker 3: in his lifetime. One of them was Linda Johnson, he
Speaker 3: was the other, and the other was Mitch McConnell. And
Speaker 3: McConnell could be a Master of the Senate even in
Speaker 3: the minority. Yes, as we saw, is a that is
Speaker 3: a singular power that John Thune to date has not demonstrated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, agreed. And Thune has a real majority, he
Speaker 1: can't lose more than three, but he does have an
Speaker 1: opportunity here. I also think he doesn't necessarily have the
Speaker 1: same you know, the Republican Party is not Trump, and
Speaker 1: Trump is not this Republican Party, even they do not
Speaker 1: have the same desires.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's one of the things that's important
Speaker 3: to understand for a long period of time that where
Speaker 3: McConnell was so very, very successful, he had a pretty
Speaker 3: unified caucus. They were largely Reagan Bush Republicans, and they
Speaker 3: were pretty unified. Right now, John Thune has a faction
Speaker 3: in the Senate that are essentially the same kind of
Speaker 3: characters that are in the Freedom Caucus in the House.
Speaker 3: So you've got arguably eight or ten Republican senators who
Speaker 3: are just there to burn shit down. They're just there
Speaker 3: for the chaos. They're there. Yeah, well they're the Ted
Speaker 3: Cruz is there, They're the Cindy Hyde Smith's, They're the
Speaker 3: Tommy Tubberville's. Ted Cruz looks like a statesman compared to
Speaker 3: Tommy Tubberville. So all these people in the House are
Speaker 3: in the Senate are now they now look a lot
Speaker 3: more like the like the people that Mike Johnson has
Speaker 3: to contend within the House. And it's not a pretty.
Speaker 1: Picture for sure. Rick Wilson, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3: As always, my pleasure. Happy New Year, and I will
Speaker 3: see you very soon.
Speaker 2: John also is the editor of the Columbia Journalism Reviewed
Speaker 2: Daily newsletter.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Baz Boldeck's job.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having so.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you about where we are
Speaker 1: right now, coming into Trump second administration. Reporting has sort
Speaker 1: of done amazing things already with Trump's second administration. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you could talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: you've seen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of interesting, right because I think in
Speaker 5: the wake of the election, there was this great, big
Speaker 5: throwing up of hands among many mainstream media people and
Speaker 5: people who consume mainstream media that was like, Oh, we're
Speaker 5: totally irrelevant. No one listens to us, no one takes
Speaker 5: us seriously, we have no influence. It's all about Joe
Speaker 5: Rogan now or the Milk Boys or whoever. I think
Speaker 5: that was always overblown. Personally, I don't want to say
Speaker 5: there aren't real challenges with the media's reach and relevance
Speaker 5: and how people are going to pay for it, and
Speaker 5: the fragmentation of the information environment all the rest of it.
Speaker 5: It's a big problem and something obviously that fine minds need.
Speaker 4: To think about.
Speaker 5: But just on the sort of most basic level of
Speaker 5: are the stories that mainstream news organizations doing having impact.
Speaker 5: We've already seen that that is the case for this
Speaker 5: second Trump administration. Before it's even started. There's been a
Speaker 5: slew of damaging reporting on the people Trump has nominated
Speaker 5: to serve in his top team when he returns to power.
Speaker 4: Matt Gates one example.
Speaker 5: Of course, Pete Hegseth another Gates ended up dropping out
Speaker 5: of the running to be Attorney general forty five minutes,
Speaker 5: I believe, after CNN contacted him for comment on a
Speaker 5: story that was previously unreported about his alleged past sexual misconduct.
Speaker 1: Right, wasn't there a second girl?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I think you'd have to check this. I
Speaker 5: think it was the same person, but a second incident maybe. Anyway,
Speaker 5: it was a news story. And obviously we don't necessarily
Speaker 5: know that that was like, you know, the main thing
Speaker 5: that caused him to drop out, but the timing seems
Speaker 5: pretty clear that it was a factor. You know, it
Speaker 5: was at least the straw that broke the camel's back,
Speaker 5: as it were loads of reporting on Hesuth as well.
Speaker 4: And and so even if journalism, mainstream journalism doesn't.
Speaker 5: Necessarily have like a mass audience anymore, or you know,
Speaker 5: the audience for journalism is contested, it seems like it's
Speaker 5: being paid attention to buy people in DC and by
Speaker 5: Trump itself of course, who love's watching TV as we know,
Speaker 5: and gets annoyed when there are bad stories on TV
Speaker 5: about people he's appointed. So it seems like, you know,
Speaker 5: there is a kind of influence that is that is ongoing.
Speaker 5: And yeah, there's been some there's been some great reporting
Speaker 5: during this period.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: It is funny to me, not funny ha ha, because
Speaker 1: we're all gonna die, but funny ironic that Trump loves, loves,
Speaker 1: loves television and really does love mainstream media in a
Speaker 1: way that that older generation does. And even the administration
Speaker 1: like this is one of the leakiest administrations ever. Right
Speaker 1: there are people right now leaking stories about each other.
Speaker 1: I mean, just talk about the leaking from that.
Speaker 5: I think generally what you're talking about is like the
Speaker 5: big contradiction of Trump, right he has sort of I
Speaker 5: don't want to say he's done it single handedly. I
Speaker 5: think that might be a bit overblown. But you know,
Speaker 5: as ushered in this era of intense threat to press freedom,
Speaker 5: intense rhetorical bashing of the press, he's exacerbated and existing
Speaker 5: problem of media mistrust no end. And yet you know,
Speaker 5: loves to dish to Maggie Haveman, loves to talk to
Speaker 5: people at mar Lago who write books about him, loves
Speaker 5: to be the sort of center of all attention. Actually,
Speaker 5: you know, saying it out loud, I don't really know
Speaker 5: if it is a contradiction, right, I guess it's sort
Speaker 5: of like an intense relationship he has where he doesn't
Speaker 5: like to be spurned by the thing that he spends
Speaker 5: so much of his time consuming in a kind of
Speaker 5: old school way. But get on the leaking front. I mean,
Speaker 5: his first administration, as you rightly I think alluded to,
Speaker 5: is was incredibly leaky.
Speaker 4: You know people would.
Speaker 1: I mean in ways that I mean, we've never seen
Speaker 1: Biden world do.
Speaker 5: Well, No, exactly right. I mean there were stories, weren't there.
Speaker 5: I think a couple that I remember reading in the
Speaker 5: earlier years of the Biden administration, which were like reporters
Speaker 5: off the record saying this is pretty boring, And yeah,
Speaker 5: the Trump administration was leaky like a SIEV. We had
Speaker 5: loads of things to write about, and they were always
Speaker 5: you know, doing it for self interested reasons mostly, but
Speaker 5: they were all stabbing each other in the back in
Speaker 5: public right by our journalists and settling scores in you know,
Speaker 5: the pages of the New York Times or whatever. And
Speaker 5: the Biden folks don't do it, you know, that's not
Speaker 5: how they operate. And so we don't really have much
Speaker 5: to talk about. And I think, you know, a more
Speaker 5: serious manifestation was that, you know, whatever the truth of
Speaker 5: it is, there were not There were some stories, but
Speaker 5: not a ton of, like particularly well sourced insider stories.
Speaker 5: I don't think on the effects of Biden's age, for example,
Speaker 5: you know that prior to that debate, when it when
Speaker 5: that became a huge story because it sort of all
Speaker 5: played out publicly, Right, I don't think something like that
Speaker 5: would have necessarily happened in the Trump administration because I
Speaker 5: think that his advisors we see him every day, would
Speaker 5: have been leaking to reporters. It doesn't seem like the
Speaker 5: Biden folks were doing that, at least not in the
Speaker 5: same kind of chaotic way. So, yeah, no, it's there. Incredibly,
Speaker 5: they seem like an incredibly leaky bunch. I guess it'll
Speaker 5: be interesting this time to see because it is a
Speaker 5: slightly different cast of characters around him, right, whether that
Speaker 5: carries on The indication so far suggests that it might
Speaker 5: well be the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking about leaking, and I'm thinking about the
Speaker 1: transition team was leaking about each other. Right, we saw
Speaker 1: Howard LATINX. Stories leaked out about Howard Lutnik trying to
Speaker 1: pedal influence. If, by the way, if influence pedaling is
Speaker 1: a problem in Trump role, then somebody has really missed,
Speaker 1: has misinterpreted how all this is going to work. They
Speaker 1: do seem to settle scores, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was this incredible story about Boris Epstein as well,
Speaker 5: allegedly asking for money to sort of broker people's introductions
Speaker 5: to Trump right in this transitional period. But I think
Speaker 5: that was based on a legal report that was compiled
Speaker 5: like inside the Trump campaign or sort of inside Trump
Speaker 5: well somewhere. That was a pretty extraordinary story as well
Speaker 5: that obviously played out publicly. I feel like recently I
Speaker 5: saw I can't remember exactly the context, but a quote
Speaker 5: from someone who was, you know, quoted anonymously as being
Speaker 5: like a source close to the transition team that said
Speaker 5: something to the effect of, we can't say this publicly,
Speaker 5: but we're concerned about pteg Seth thought or whatever it was,
Speaker 5: which I don't know, I just thought. I looked at
Speaker 5: it and I was like, no one is making you
Speaker 5: do this, right, you could just quit, Like it's just
Speaker 5: not a situation you've been like bossed into at gunpoint necessarily. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I guess we could expect to see quite a lot
Speaker 5: more of this, which I imagine a number of journalists
Speaker 5: are breathing aside of relief about Yees.
Speaker 1: So no, right, because this is the other problem with
Speaker 1: I think reporting and Trump world is that these people
Speaker 1: legal out of stuff, but some of it's not true.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and a lot of it again is like transparent
Speaker 5: score settling. I mean, I remember a debate that went
Speaker 5: around in the first Trump administration in the final year
Speaker 5: of it, when I.
Speaker 4: Think it was at the Washington Post.
Speaker 5: Could be wrong about that, but there was a story
Speaker 5: basically taking aim at Anthony Fauci in a way that
Speaker 5: was just very explicitly like I'm using anonymity to crapple
Speaker 5: over this guy in public. And like, I'm not one
Speaker 5: of those media critics who thinks that anonymous sources are like,
Speaker 5: you know, inherently evil and that we should have a use.
Speaker 5: Then I think that they are obviously a key part
Speaker 5: of the way journalism works, and if they used to
Speaker 5: get instances of wrongdoing or things that need to be
Speaker 5: scrutinized out to the public, then that's good. But yeah,
Speaker 5: clearly there's another side of it, which is using them
Speaker 5: to settle scores Dodge accountability law, the misinformation, and I
Speaker 5: think that those are all and always have been very
Speaker 5: much par part of the kind of Trump media experience
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a sort of darker thing that's happening
Speaker 1: in Trump world too, which is and this is perhaps
Speaker 1: Trump perhaps more of the Ronda Sanders Heritage Foundation crew,
Speaker 1: but it does feel like they are also targeting journalists.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, And well, I mean, I think what we've
Speaker 5: been discussing, and I should clarify the one I says
Speaker 5: journalists are breathing a sigh of relief. I don't mean
Speaker 5: like about the whole current situation in the incoming administration,
Speaker 5: most definitely not, and I fact, I know that's not
Speaker 5: the case. I just meant very very specifically about having
Speaker 5: sources who will leak them inside of stuff to the
Speaker 5: extent that some reporters mostly trade in that well, that's
Speaker 5: what they care about.
Speaker 4: But no, the sort of broader picture, it's a very
Speaker 4: menacing one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, obviously we don't know exactly what the second
Speaker 5: Trump term is going to look like yet on really
Speaker 5: any count, but you know, from a press freedom perspective
Speaker 5: as well. But you know, we all know that the
Speaker 5: first Trump administration was marked by a kind of rising
Speaker 5: rhetorical fusilaid against the press, which obviously did feed true
Speaker 5: into growing distrust and disapprobation on the part of you know,
Speaker 5: a huge part of the public. That served to sort
Speaker 5: of inoculate people against being told that blatant lies like
Speaker 5: the fact that the twenty twenty election were stolen and
Speaker 5: things like that, you know, where blatant lies that that
Speaker 5: was obviously a very very big problem at the time
Speaker 5: that did you know, occasionally spill over into actual physical
Speaker 5: violence or threats against members of the press, and you know,
Speaker 5: a bit less discussed, but it was revealed during the
Speaker 5: Biden administration that I think Trump's Justice Department subpoenaed the
Speaker 5: phone records purporters at the New York Times and the
Speaker 5: Washington Post and I think at CNN is part of
Speaker 5: a leak investigation, not the actual contents of those messages,
Speaker 5: but you know, the sort of records of who was
Speaker 5: calling who.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And then obviously now you know, you have people being
Speaker 5: nominated or tapped for senior positions in law enforcement and
Speaker 5: judicial sort of roles who are on the record as
Speaker 5: saying they're going to come after journalists they think existing
Speaker 5: sort of legal precedents and protections for journalists are wrong
Speaker 5: and something needs to be done about them. So again,
Speaker 5: we don't know exactly what's going to happen. That these
Speaker 5: threats are incrediblys blicit. People who follow these characters closely
Speaker 5: say they're worth taking seriously, and I think it would
Speaker 5: be foolish not to take them extremely seriously.
Speaker 1: You know, It's funny because it's like, so much of
Speaker 1: Trump is this kind of throwback to Nixon, right, like
Speaker 1: so and George Wallace, and you know, so much of
Speaker 1: George Wallace is it? You know, these are all history rhymes, right.
Speaker 1: But one of the things when Nixons are attacking the
Speaker 1: press was that the press was such a trusted you know,
Speaker 1: Americans had a lot of feelings, but they really trusted
Speaker 1: their media. That is not true anymore. Who do you
Speaker 1: think Americans trust?
Speaker 5: I think it's also worth pointing out, of course, that
Speaker 5: the Nixon era and the so ccumstances of his downfall
Speaker 5: also sort of birth this generational sense of purpose and
Speaker 5: this kind of journalistic imaginary that then was replicated in
Speaker 5: the Hollywood and sort of said the archetype for like
Speaker 5: what journalists are as public figures, I guess, and you're
Speaker 5: right that trust in that sort of brand of journalism
Speaker 5: has just decreased and decreased and decreased. I mean in
Speaker 5: terms of like who Americans do trust. Obviously, there are
Speaker 5: lots of surveys on this kind of thing all the time,
Speaker 5: which I firstly cannot just regurgitate off the top of
Speaker 5: my head and won't try to. And secondly, I think
Speaker 5: some of these, like surveys which say the media is
Speaker 5: incredibly distrusted or is like the lowest rank of all
Speaker 5: the professions, sometimes they like specifically should be taken with
Speaker 5: a little bit of a grain of salt, Like often,
Speaker 5: you know, the media is a category that might include
Speaker 5: Fox News, for example. So if you're a Democrat and
Speaker 5: you don't trust Fox, you might say I don't trust
Speaker 5: the media because that's what you have in mind. I
Speaker 5: think it's it's a bit of a fluid thing. That said,
Speaker 5: as we've discussed, there's no doubt that you know, trust
Speaker 5: in the media in sort of the broad sense in
Speaker 5: which we mean it. You know, trust in fact based
Speaker 5: reporting is going down. And what's it being replaced by. Well,
Speaker 5: I guess it sort of depends on who you are. Right,
Speaker 5: in such a fragmented and divided country, it really depends
Speaker 5: on who you are. People still tends to trust media
Speaker 5: in the very broad sense of that term. That tells
Speaker 5: them what they want to hear. Clearly, lots and lots
Speaker 5: and lots of trub supporters trust him and his acolytes
Speaker 5: when they spin absolutely outrageous the sky is green lies.
Speaker 5: A big part of the problem is there isn't sort
Speaker 5: of one source of authority that is universally trusted and
Speaker 5: that is providing good, credible information.
Speaker 4: Now, I don't want to sort.
Speaker 5: Of suggest through this that there was some glorious golden
Speaker 5: era in the past where everyone trusted institutions and those
Speaker 5: institutions were worthy of that trust. Clearly the picture is
Speaker 5: enormously more complicated. People being skeptical of authority. Yes, including
Speaker 5: the media is good, but you know, and obviously not
Speaker 5: when that leads them to believe while conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4: That's clearly a huge problem.
Speaker 1: Right, And it seems like there are two problems, right,
Speaker 1: Trust is one, and then backs and truth are another.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about America's truth problem.
Speaker 5: How long had you got Well, it's it's you know
Speaker 5: it began with Walter Lippman in nineteen the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 4: No I won, obviously won't go back that far. I mean,
Speaker 4: there is sort of a.
Speaker 5: Good point to be made here, right, that the truth
Speaker 5: is not a simple thing to find out. It's expensive
Speaker 5: to find out, it's difficult, it's contested. It always has been,
Speaker 5: and obviously that's like a key part of what the
Speaker 5: work of journalism is. So to the extent that sort
Speaker 5: of finding out the truth and getting people to believe
Speaker 5: it is complicated, that has always been the case. Now
Speaker 5: I do again want to push back against these kind
Speaker 5: of Falcian conceptions of you know, the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 5: is this wonderful age of everyone watched three networks and
Speaker 5: you know that as people were totally responsible gatekeepers who
Speaker 5: didn't shut out any you know, any sort of perspectives
Speaker 5: that Merritt had being heard, YadA, YadA, YadA. But yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, it is to some extent a new situation
Speaker 5: when shocking numbers of people believe that an election that
Speaker 5: was obviously not stolen was stolen. And I think that
Speaker 5: we're in this really weird moment where because Trump won again,
Speaker 5: people seem to be having a really hard time computing
Speaker 5: how to deal with January sixth and the fallout from it, right,
Speaker 5: And that's really troubling because it did happen. Trump winning
Speaker 5: an election does not just expunge it. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think it remains the sort of most singular incidents
Speaker 5: of the entire Trump era in terms of its consequences,
Speaker 5: but just also in terms of how much of a
Speaker 5: disgrace it was, frankly, and yeah, obviously, when you have,
Speaker 5: when you have, you know, I think I've seen surveys
Speaker 5: in the past suggesting like a majority of the Republican
Speaker 5: Party or people who a self self identify as Republicans
Speaker 5: certainly believe that I still believe that election was stolen.
Speaker 5: I think that being said, though, we shouldn't necessarily interpret
Speaker 5: Trump winning again as like, oh, well, you know, the
Speaker 5: truth is dead. No one cares about the truth and
Speaker 5: majority has spoken and they don't care about the troops.
Speaker 4: It's way more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: No, No, agreed, agreed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, First of all, this was a pretty close election.
Speaker 5: It's some people, especially early on, you know, when the
Speaker 5: results were still coming in and votes were still being counted,
Speaker 5: were referring to it. You know, as if it was
Speaker 5: this giant landslide, which it clearly was not. You know,
Speaker 5: it was very close election, and I think a lot
Speaker 5: of the post election commentary has been sort of very
Speaker 5: definitive and decisive about saying what it means, as if
Speaker 5: it didn't happen in a country which is essentially still
Speaker 5: fifty to fifty, right, it was, this was a couple
Speaker 5: of percentage point side away do not a huge mandate
Speaker 5: or majority make, and yet that those are the terms
Speaker 5: in which we're talking, you know, first of all, Also,
Speaker 5: though you know, it's very clear that like I think
Speaker 5: that most people did not like January sixth, that most
Speaker 5: people do not believe the last election was stolen, and
Speaker 5: that people who who sort of swing voters, if you will,
Speaker 5: or be the sort of irregular voters, many of them
Speaker 5: who put Trump over the top are not crazed ideologues
Speaker 5: who voted him to put Adam Schiff in prison, right
Speaker 5: for example. These are people who voted based on the economy,
Speaker 5: their standard of living, what they believed about that they're
Speaker 5: sort of individual lives. Now, there is a conversation to
Speaker 5: be had as to what it says that a guy
Speaker 5: can behave like they did on January sixth and in
Speaker 5: and around that time and still get re elected in
Speaker 5: terms of what people prioritizing what they care about, right.
Speaker 1: For sure, that is a conversation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it doesn't mean that everyone believes what he
Speaker 5: says about it unchallenged or thinks that he behaves well
Speaker 5: that day, and that, you know, by extension, doesn't mean
Speaker 5: that the people who put Trump over the top in
Speaker 5: the election voted him in to behave like a dictator.
Speaker 5: I think it would be a mistake to think that
Speaker 5: they did.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think it's like the country is lost
Speaker 5: or anything, but I think this election has revealed it
Speaker 5: to be a much more complicated to country than maybe
Speaker 5: many national media types it imagined it to be in
Speaker 5: And obviously working out the ways in which that is
Speaker 5: true is difficult and murky and painful.
Speaker 1: At the moment, it so sucks. Tell me something that
Speaker 1: is working in the mainstream media or the partisan media.
Speaker 1: Just tell me something that's working well.
Speaker 5: As we discussed earlier, just on a basic level, journalists
Speaker 5: are still going out reporting true things about the world.
Speaker 5: I mean, I've been a you know, a critic of
Speaker 5: coverage of Trump for a long time. But the reaction
Speaker 5: to Trump winning again was not on the whole, oh
Speaker 5: my god, we're all going to get sued into oblivion,
Speaker 5: or you know, the dictator is going to bring down
Speaker 5: his cronies on us. We must shut up and you
Speaker 5: know obey. That's not to say that you know, the
Speaker 5: coverage has all been great, or hasn't dealt in sort
Speaker 5: of tropes that I don't like, or you know that
Speaker 5: some people or institutions might not be thinking in those terms.
Speaker 5: I think we've seen evidence of all of those things
Speaker 5: being the case. But the sort of bagship institutions and
Speaker 5: more importantly, the journalists who work within them, have just
Speaker 5: carried on doing what they do right. They've reported on
Speaker 5: the people that Trump has picked to be in his
Speaker 5: top team, and they've done it, I think, pretty aggressively
Speaker 5: and pretty quickly, and they've had an impact in doing it.
Speaker 5: That to me is a good and promising sign, and
Speaker 5: it's to be hoped it continues once this administration comes
Speaker 5: into power. This isn't necessarily within journalism.
Speaker 4: But also America.
Speaker 5: You know, if any country is going to go down
Speaker 5: this kind of authoritarian road in terms of media protections,
Speaker 5: America is very well it's coming from a very good
Speaker 5: starting point, right, It's coming from a starting point with
Speaker 5: excellent libel laws from a journalist's perspective, and those laws
Speaker 5: are almost certainly going to be in the hands of
Speaker 5: a Supreme Court that is dominated by right wingers. But
Speaker 5: I'm not convinced it's dominated by right wingers who want
Speaker 5: to get rid of those libel standards.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's an ongoing conversation and we'll see.
Speaker 5: But there's only a couple of them who have explicitly
Speaker 5: said that they want to sort of take this on.
Speaker 5: And I don't think it would be a you know,
Speaker 5: sure thing if this if this did come up in
Speaker 5: a case and that was kind of then debated by
Speaker 5: the justices. That's again, that's that's sort of an independent
Speaker 5: mechanism to what the incoming government's going to do. You
Speaker 5: have the First Amendment, which is a pretty big deal,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm pertition. I think there are journalists around
Speaker 5: world who would love the First Amendment. There are entrenched
Speaker 5: defenses the journalists will be able to rely on that
Speaker 5: will not make it easy for the most cartoonish we're
Speaker 5: going to come and hunt you down people to succeed.
Speaker 5: I think that is a good institutional sort of place
Speaker 5: to be to be coming from. There are lots of
Speaker 5: bad things, but in the media as well, of course,
Speaker 5: but those are a couple of good ones.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, you were just needed one good thing. Thank you,
Speaker 1: john Thank you so much. Rick Wilson, what is your
Speaker 1: moment of fuckery?
Speaker 3: My moment of fuckery this week was the entire Maga
Speaker 3: media enterprise, from Fox on down to the Jack Psobiac,
Speaker 3: Benny Johnson dipshit types, all of them screeching before there
Speaker 3: was any information in that the American citizen who was
Speaker 3: born in Texas, who was a former US Army member
Speaker 3: who conducted the New Orleans bombing across the border an
Speaker 3: eagle pass, an y illegal immigrant in the open border
Speaker 3: of jew Biden, and it was all a lie. It
Speaker 3: was all bs. This counts as my woman of fuckery
Speaker 3: this week because it's so egregious that their reflex action
Speaker 3: in every single thing is always to try to frame
Speaker 3: it back into the one thing that unifies all the
Speaker 3: Republican Party, and that is this border panic they constantly
Speaker 3: engage in. And I thought it it diminished the seriousness
Speaker 3: of the actual crime that was committed by this guy
Speaker 3: and diminished the idea that we've got to look in
Speaker 3: turn at risks like that, not just imaginary caravans and
Speaker 3: imaginary military men crossing the border.
Speaker 1: I know it works with their base, which is why
Speaker 1: they do it, but it's just so crushingly and it's dangerous.
Speaker 3: This is a dangerous phenomenon that this guy represents. And
Speaker 3: if we treat it like just something so that Fox
Speaker 3: News can do another segment on the caravan or what
Speaker 3: have you, it cheapens it. It takes away from the
Speaker 3: seriousness of it, and it makes us less safe as
Speaker 3: a country because we have to face this kind of thing.
Speaker 3: It's a real problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Rick Wilson, thank you, Molly.
Speaker 3: John Fast thank you as always.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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