Latest / Pod Save America / Fighting with Fox News feat. Jessica Tarlov

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Fighting with Fox News feat. Jessica Tarlov · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. My guest
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: today is a political strategist, upholsterer, TV commentator, a podcast host.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Those are in order of importance.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: You've almost certainly seen her trading barbs, throwing haymakers, cracking jokes.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: You picked the cliche on The Five.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And now she's the author of a new book, I Disagree,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Jessica Tarlow, great to see you again.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me. This is so exciting.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: And in person.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: In person, in LA.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: A West Coast hang.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: A West Coast hang in an important time because the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: midterms are about six weeks out. hopefully the Democratic Party
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is going to do a little bit of a better
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: job of just sprinting through the finish line here.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe like let's not kill each other. Let's just
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: like go towards the goal.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be good. But the minute the midterms
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: are over, blood sport, and it's going to be a
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: huge conversation and a fight over the future of the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party, the style, the substance, the political approach, the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: way to win, which is why I wanted to talk
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: with you today because you are a pollster by training,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a data junkie, someone who understands these argument in sort
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: of the crosstabs, but also like you don't just work
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in a spreadsheet. You're on TV every day, kind of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: where the rubber meets the road, battling it out with
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: various interlocutors and feeling, you know, figuring out what works
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: in real time.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: It is. It's like a political test kitchen.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: You know, it was like, oh, didn't need that nutmeg
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: or like I'm not a great cook as you can
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: tell that I went for nutmeg which is not an
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: essential ingredient anyway but yeah it is fun to test
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: your ideas out and then to also watch them testing
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: their ideas they're like what do we think like how
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: easy is this to pull apart also what is the
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: counter to it right like what do you have hanging
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: in your arsenal that you're like oh you shouldn't have
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: zigged there because my zag is way better.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: On that right there are definitely times on the show
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: where you make a good argument and Greg and Jesse
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: don't say something obnoxious because they know that they are
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: quietly owned.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Yes. The silent L is my favorite. The loud L
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: is the worst.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: You think you're having a normal conversation about the war
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: in Iran and suddenly you get asked, what is a woman?
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: And you think I have one, but I also hate myself.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: And we're talking about this now. Well, thank you, Marshall
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Blackburn forever.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: More of that.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So I'm excited to unpack with you what it's like
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to work at Fox as a Democrat, whether Democrats should
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: go on Fox News. I think we have a little
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: debate about that. If you go on how to be successful,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: what do you do? Messaging strategy, what Democrats are getting
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: wrong and what they're getting right. But in case listeners
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: have not seen you on The Five, first of all,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: they're a loss. But here's a little taste of the
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: vibe and what it could be like. Let's watch. They're
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: not cutting SNAP benefits.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: They're just saying you can't buy Doritos with food stamps.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: That's absolutely not true. It is true. That is not true.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: You can't buy candy with food stamps.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: That's not a cut.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Even second-tier senators like Josh Hawley would tell you that
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: that talking point is invalid. We talk about the useless
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: trade war. What's a woman?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Can you define a woman?
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Why do you ask the woman who gave birth that
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: all the time? You're talking about $ 20 billion in American goods.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: We're going to get a deal, Jessica.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: It's just posturing. Just the way Carney walked out at
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the last second because he didn't want to open up
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: his economy. The president is trying to get a better
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: deal for Americans.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: This is part of the deal. When you have no
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: toilet paper, don't complain to me about your wiping.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I stopped up during the pandemic.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Yes. 40% of Donald Trump's wealth has been accumulated since
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: he became president because of two crypto coins.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: This is not even part of the segment.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: You're talking about a meme coin. No, I'm talking about
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: who's corrupt and who is profiting off the American office.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Did he try to cover that up?
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: You know a lot of Trump supporters. Do we need
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: to be deprogrammed?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Be careful.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: That's why I come to work every day.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: You're very good at this. It's four on one all
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, it is four in one by design. It is
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: funny going down memory lane. I love that you randomly
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: had the what is a woman thing in there. But
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: then the last one, I'm heavily pregnant. So I'm like, oh,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: that's a cute look when I was just taking up
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: the whole side of the desk like that.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I did not notice.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: You can't comment. Of course you didn't.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I did not.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: No, no man would.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I would never.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: 45 extra pounds there. I would never.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It's also fun to know that you are a host
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: of the show. You get to produce the show, presumably
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: with the team.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: The one time I went on with Jesse Waters, it
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: was going to be like, we're going to talk about
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Biden and pardons and this. And I walked out onto
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the set and he just yelled, how many genders are there, Tommy?
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Like five times in my face. And I was like, okay,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: this is how it goes for Jessica every day, I guess.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. On a special day.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Special day.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: But you do, you loosely have the guidelines, right? So
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you have your topics. But it's the same thing as
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: knowing anyone in your life. I kind of, you know,
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: know what everyone's pet subjects are. I know. We're going
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: to do a little trans, a little Hunter Biden, whatever
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: it is. Add that nutmeg and it's going to taste delicious.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Tastes like the five. So let's dig into the job.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So we're about a decade into the Trump political era.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: A lot of people I know who used to read
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: every tweet and watch MS Now every night have tuned
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: out because they're like, I just can't take it anymore.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You have done the opposite, which is you go into
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Fox News every day and do battle. I think most
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: listeners just want to know, What is the experience like? Like,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: how do you prepare for that? Do you have producers
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: kind of doing a, you know, like a moot court
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: with you?
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Or like, how does it go?
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: So we get the rundown every morning at 11 a.m.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: So you have six hours, essentially, to prepare. And I
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: usually record Raging Moderates. My podcast with Scott Galloway around
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: that time, 11, 1130. And a lot of times the
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: topics intersect, which is great because you're doing prep as
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: you go. And then I can also... audition the long
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: form answer because I'm not going to get interrupted. And
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: you just have more time in pop world, obviously. So
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: that's nice. And that there's some carry over there, but
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I do what based upon your tweeting behavior, you're doing too.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: It's just a constant doom scrolling that I'm sure is
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: going to have very bad implications for our future. Right.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: When Elon Musk fully owns all of our brains and
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I have a, a strange algorithm that's very right-brained and left-brained,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: politically speaking, because I prepare for what I'm interested in
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: or what I think I want to advance as my argument.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: And then I also try to prepare for them and
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: where I think they're going to go based on also
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: what sources I know that they find interesting, you know,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: who they might be reading.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: You read the New York Post every morning, I assume. Well, yeah. Yeah,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: as you should be.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, the covers are undefeated. So that
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: is fun.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: But yeah, looking there, looking the Daily Mail will sometimes
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: have stuff that you think is absurd, but then also
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: things that other places aren't covering that end up being
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: a story two days later for more mainstream sources. So
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: it's kind of fun to get the tea leaves direct
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: from the sources that way. And then, yeah, we have
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: three or— Three or four topics that I would say
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: are meatier, and I figure out what the three or
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: four points that I absolutely have to make are. Like,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I'm going to white-knuckle my way through whatever is coming
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: my way to make sure that I can get it out.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: And then the back 20 minutes of the show is
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: really light and easy.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Right, Gunfeld's like, look at this fat bear.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: And then he says, like, is that Joy Behar?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And then— He's like, dude, come on.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Right, fat bears, family photo, you know. Like it's a
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: breezy round table.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: So there is a light side to it. And I
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: think also people miss out. I mean, obviously, if you
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: never saw me like do the job at all and
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: that montage was your first introduction, then you certainly wouldn't
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: know this. But so much of our ecosystem only consumes
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: me through clips. So they don't see what the response
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: was or what even the setup was or those moments
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: where there is connective tissue between castmates. Yeah, which I
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: put a lot of that in the book. quite intentionally,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: because when people say like, how do you do this?
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: And are, you know, how much is your therapy bill?
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Are you on drugs? Are you medicated? I say, actually,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: if you watch the whole thing, it's not as bad
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: as it looks.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to ask you about that. You write
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: about having what people might find to be a surprisingly
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: close friendship with Greg Gutfeld. I was a co-host on
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the show, a comedian, but Greg once called you his muse,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I think, in the New York Times.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: And it was a stunning... It was so nice. And
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: to do it in the Times. I was like, you
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: went into my paper for my people. And you said
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: this lovely thing about me.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: That's nice.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: And then there's Jesse Waters.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Who has not called me his muse.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And like, you know, I've always assumed that on Earth 2,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: there's like a version of me and Jesse that went
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: to the same college. And like, we could be friends
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and never talk about politics, but like make fun of
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the Patriots or the Jets or like whatever team he likes.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Seagulls.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Eagles guy. Okay.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Philly guy.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: We definitely fight it out about that.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: But he seems like he's in on the joke and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: that he's trying to be entertaining and provocative and like, sure. Um,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Dana Perino just seems like a nice person. So I
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: like almost don't raise her. Uh, but then like, even
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: in the book you write about a surprising interaction with
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Roger Ailes of all people. Can you just talk about
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: like the relationships you have inside Fox and what might
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: surprise viewers of, you know, people listening to Pod Save
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: America who, you know, probably don't consume a lot of Fox.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: It's a really good place to work. And it's always
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: ranked as one of the top places to work.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: It is a.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: TV network, and there are lots of liberals working there,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: lots of moderates. I mean, Roger Ailes himself was a
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: John Kasich supporter. So his programming choices, obviously, at times
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: were in more of the extremes, but he was hyper
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: aware of where elections are won and they're won in
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: the middle. So I think that that would surprise people.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: You know, I have Lots of friends. I don't sit
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: alone in a corner. They're nice to you. I feel
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: like there are memes of that, like Jessica in the
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: corner of the cafeteria and no one will talk to me.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: That's not true. Very popular with hair and makeup.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Those folks are great, by the way.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: They're incredible. The hair and makeup folks at Fox are
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: particularly friendly, I found.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Yes. I'm not trying to turn this into some sort
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: of infomercial, but they're also well compensated and there's great
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: healthcare and maternity and paternity leave and all of these things.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: That's why when we get into it, fights about things
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: like vaccines or whatever it is. You just think like,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: we had a vax mandate. Everyone did it. Right. I mean,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: there were a few exemptions for it, which was normal
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: and happened most places, but it is, it is in
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of ways, just a very nice, normal place
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  Speaker 3: to work.
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  Speaker 2: Terms and conditions may apply.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: The fact that you're friends with Greg or Jesse, like,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: that doesn't surprise me because there's human beings you interact
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: with every day.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: If you weren't friends, you would leave.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: The Roger Ailes thing is weird because he is famously
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a creep. He was awful, yes. And a horrible person,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: accused of assault and all sorts of things.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: But your interaction with him, he was, like, surprisingly kind.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: It was just a surprising story.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Well, it was early on in my appearing on Fox.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: So I started doing cable news hits online. On top
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: of my day job, I was working in polling on
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Mike Bloomberg's team, which is the dream job in polling
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: because there's infinite money, and he believes in all of
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: the good things. So he says, go find candidates that
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: believe in gun safety and go find people who are
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: for smart education reforms.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Remember climate change? That was good when people cared about that.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Well, also when there was a consensus that people respected.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Now I don't even know if there is a consensus anymore.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Once Bill Gates went— And said— Backed off.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, the hyperbole that wasn't the world supposed to
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: end in 2028 because of climate change.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Can't deal with that shit.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Anyway, sorry. Now it's 2032. Anyway, Mike Bloomberg is great.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: So I was working for him and started doing TV
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: hits to build my public speaking skills. And my boss
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: at the time, who was Bill Clinton's pollster in the
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: 90s and had been a Fox contributor since the early 2000s,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: said— you should do this. And so I just said
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: yes to everything. And I was doing, remember Cheddar?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Like Yahoo Live.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Was that on at the gas station?
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: No. But they were set up.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Is there a.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I just feel like I used to see their feeds everywhere,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: like on gas pumps, literally.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm making this up.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: No.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Honestly, from doing it, that wouldn't surprise me. But they
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: did have a little desk at the stock exchange. So
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: I started to... learn how to talk about issue areas
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: that weren't necessarily my wheelhouse, which I feel like makes
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: cable news go around where you show up and you're
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: supposed to be talking about something that you should be
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: talking about. And then they're like, we bombed a nuclear
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: enrichment facility in Iran. Could you talk about that too?
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: The first time I did TV, when I left the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: White House, I was a I think it was a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: five-minute hit.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: I think I prepped for eight hours.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. I was calling, like, the former head
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of the NCTC, like, National Counterterrorism Center. I'm, like, digging.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: It was, like, Barack Obama shut off White House tours.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: What do you make of that? I was, like, oh, okay,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: this is a good lesson to just maybe chill out
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a little bit, Tommy.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, though that can also go badly where you're too chill. Well,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: sometimes you sit down from someone, like, across from someone.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: who has taken the exact opposite approach.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I hate that shit.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: People are like, what are we even talking about? It's like,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: you know what?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Like, let's have some respect for the audience and just
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: try to care.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Yes. And that five minutes, it's such a weird amount
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: of time because it's so fast on the one hand,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: but in TV time, if you can say something incredible
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: for 45 seconds, it can be really meaningful and it
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: can stick with you also for the rest of your career. Yeah.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: So not eight hours, but not no minutes in terms
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: of prep. So I had been doing Fox, I would say,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: for about a year or so. And Roger asked an
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: executive to come get me. I had just finished a hit.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: And this guy comes up to me. I didn't have
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: much of a relationship with him. And he said, Roger
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Ailes would like to see you. Are you free now?
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: So like, obviously you clear your schedule. And I went
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: in and I spent an hour with him in his office.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: And he asked about everything, you know, how I grew up,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: what my family was like, what my relationships were like,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: professional career. I had lived abroad in London for six years.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: What was school like, the campaign I did over there.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: And then we started talking about TV. And I brought
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: up that I was aware of the fact that a
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: lot of people who watched didn't love my voice, which
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: has a certain croaking quality to it, as my dad
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: used to put it. And I said, but I started
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: taking voice lessons. And he was like, no, you have
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: to stop. And I said, well, that's strange coming from
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: someone who's so big in TV programming and coaching, you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: the message, you know. And He asked me who had
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the most real estate on the network. So who was
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: on the most hours of the day? And it was
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: this guy, Neil Cavuto, who's not at the network anymore.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: And he said, what does Neil's voice sound like? And
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I said, I knew it was not good. on a
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: comparative melodious basis. And he said, Neil's voice sounds like
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: a truck driving over gravel. But the goal of TV
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: and the goal of programming is that for people who
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: are watching to be able to know it's you, no
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: matter what room they're in, in the house. And so
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: giving up the distinctiveness will hurt you more than you think.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Especially when all of all TV people kind of train
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: themselves to say news at six.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Right. Well, I think it's also anchor versus commentator. Right.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Like he was not offering me that job, right. To do,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: you know, the news from nine to 11 AM.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Fair.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: But it was a, an incredible lesson. And also one
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: of those instances where you can get something so positive
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: from such a horrible human being. Yeah.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Um, speaking of which, I mean, you write about handling
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: kind of the feedback from the Fox audience, uh, especially
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: one particularly nasty viewer who like obsessively consumes Fox. And
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of course talking about Donald Trump, the president of the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: United States. Um, how fun is it having the president
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: kind of grade your performance on social media in real time?
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Well, he has never gotten given me a good grade,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: which to, uh, A type A high achiever, it's pretty brutal.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: It's just, it's so weird. And you know this from
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: working in this world. Why is this man not busier? Yeah, yeah. Why,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: you know, there are better things to do. I understand
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: that I occupy space on his favorite show and we
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: are thankful for the ratings.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Are you the favorite?
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Is the five?
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, number one show for four and a half years.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: No, I just mean that- Oh, of his.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: Of his, personal. Yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Has he announced this? Does he rank you?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Does he put out a list like Obama's playlist?
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: He hasn't done that, of the great Americans and then
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: that horrible liberal shrew that sits there. No, I think
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: that it is, it's a good time slot for him.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: But it has a lot of his favorites on one program.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: So you get to see like Jesse Waters and Greg together.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: And Janine Pirro used to be on the show before
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: she became the U.S. attorney for D.C. Got it.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Got it.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: I think he's gone after Dana before. You know, Dana
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: was Bush's press secretary, so obviously that feels like some
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: kind of betrayal to him.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: But, yeah, I think it's his— he tweets like it's his favorite.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know. There are great Americans on other programs, too.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Maybe— Hannity is like a best friend, but it's a favorite.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And it's fun to be criticized by him on social media,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: both for what you said and how you look doing it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: That's an appropriate, nice, normal thing for the president.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: Totally. If I had a son, I would definitely teach
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: him that when you grow up, you should write about
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: how a woman looks on television and sounds and then
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: call her a big dummy. Yeah.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: We've all gotten so used to it, but it's horrible
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: when you really say it like that.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Well, you also watch how other people who don't, live
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: here and haven't grown accustomed to it, react to it.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Or you see, like, Mark Carney giving a speech.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: And you think, why can't we have nice things?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: I know that feeling, too.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, when he does that, like, I assume that
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Jesse and Greg and all these people can, like, call Trump.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Are they ever like, hey, man, lay off my friend?
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: You're kind of just being a dick?
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: When he called in and said that the show was
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: better without me, I was off that day. Jesse pushed
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: back and was like, we love her. But everyone just
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: got quiet, which is actually the best way to handle
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: him because you don't want to get into a big
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: back and forth. And I've never responded to any of
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: it online. It's just not worth it. And it invites
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: such vitriol. It invites threats. We have kids around the
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: same age. It's a scary world out there. But the
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: reason that I wanted to write about it for the
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: book was because it has— pushed me to really think
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: about how to process criticism and what lessons you can
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: take from it. And I wanted the book to be
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: like that, like actually useful for people. And so by
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: the president coming after me and looking at the content
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: of the criticism, I actually got to a place where
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: I genuinely feel like when people pick on you because
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: of style that you've just done really well on substance.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: And that feels good. The inner monologue feels good. It's
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: still sad and crazy.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: See, if Trump attacked my appearance, I think it would
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: break me. I'd love if he thought my ideas were stupid.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: But if he was like, that dumb blonde has a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: five head and I hate him, I would crumble. One
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: thing that sort of frustrates me about the Trump era
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: is there's all these famous people, like comedians and athletes
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and others, like who kind of intellectually know that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: What he is doing is wrong.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: But had a personal interaction with him at the club, golfing, whatever,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and just sort of like slot him into nice to me. Well,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: he's nice to me. Like I find him great. And
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: it's like on some level that's very human. On another,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it's like politics 101. Every politician ingratiates him or herself
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: with people. And there's value in that. But I think
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: like the delta between Trump's charm and harm is greater
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: than maybe any president in history, right?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: So it's harder here.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And so I wonder if you ever struggle with that
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: same kind of feeling at Fox because there's all these
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: people who are wonderful colleagues, kind to you, nice to
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: your kids. And then you watch them later at night
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and it's like this invective that you know is damaging
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: or like exacerbating all the tensions in our politics that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you hate.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: It's definitely frustrating. And we've had those conversations on air
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: and off air. Greg and I have had a number
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: of back and forths where he said, I just don't
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: understand why you care so much that I like him.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: And I always put it in terms of this is
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: not like your annoying friend that you're bringing to my
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: birthday party, right? This is someone who is deciding the
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: trajectory of our country for 330 million Americans. There are
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: people who are dead now because of policy decisions that
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: he has made. They're here and abroad. You know, when
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: they minimize USAID funding and things like that, you just say, okay, like,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I get it. It doesn't hit as close to home
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: to you. But if there are African kids... that are
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: dead now, that still counts as a negative.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or a school full of Iranian girls that we bombed.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Because we also had, like, Claude had a bad day,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: or whichever. Was it Claude?
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: It was one of their, it was some sort of
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: AI-enabled targeting something.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: That the Pentagon uses.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, so I don't want to, don't sue me. Claude,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: I use Claude. I mean, someone, some program messed up
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: and went on old coordinates.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: They fucked up.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: And 140 girls are dead, and we never talk about it.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: And if a reporter asks about it in the press briefing.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Trump pretends they're still reviewing it or something.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: No, just dismisses it like a how dare you. I mean,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth is definitely not reviewing it. So that is
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: frustrating for me, but it has led me to understand something,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: which I think we all intellectually know about how seriously
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: conservatives take politics versus liberals. We know that there's a
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: big delta between that, that it feels like much more
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: of our identity. than it does to them. I'm not
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: talking about the deep MAGA face. No, I'm not talking
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: about someone who has like Trump tattooed on their face.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about the average Republican who likes Trump fine,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: but in 2016, you know, maybe they like someone else
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: that come around or even liked him from the start,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: but the other things that are going on in their
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: lives matter more. And that has been a big lesson
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: for me to learn intellectually, but also to feel it.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: And I see that in the commercial breaks. You know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: we could be having a really tense debate about something
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: that matters a lot. You know, Dobbs' decision, war, peace,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: you know, big scandal, whatever it is. And it does
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: not carry over for them. So it has become... I
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: feel really up to me to decide what that dynamic
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: is going to look like. And I want those friendships
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: not only because I want to go to work and
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: I want to work in a good environment, but because
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: I also know that if you are going to be
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: able to reach people and connect with them, you have
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: to do it to a large degree on their terms.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: You have to find a way to make, I call
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: it in the book, the truth safe to hear. And
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: so I've really reframed how I think about my job
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: as the liberal voice on those days. And Harold Ford Jr.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: does it half the week as well. So that is
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: part of how my mental health is sort of intact.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Swap in, bring the lefty, bring the righty.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Good luck to you. But if you think about your
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: advocacy or the kinds of arguments that you're making as
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: being focused actually on opening minds versus changing them, you
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: can be a lot more successful. And I think that
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: was something Obama understood too.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: He did.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: How you pick up some of these states that we
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: had no business winning, which maybe we'll win again this
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: time around because Rob Sand knows that that's the case
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: as well. Right?
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, there's definitely, I think people running for office
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: have a whole other level of grace or need to,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to be politically successful.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:15
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  Speaker 2: I have a ton of stuff from Quince.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I have a bunch of their workout shirts. I have
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: regular t-shirts. And the other day, true story, John, I—
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Saw a pair of sneakers. I Googled the brand. And
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: then there was like an ad directed at me that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, if you like that shoe, but you
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: want one that's one sixth the cost, here's one from Quince.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: So I bought that and I love those sneakers.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: I can't believe you even entertained buying any sneakers that
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: weren't Quince.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I wanted to see how much they were. And
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: then I saw the price and I was like, absolutely not.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And it was just way, way.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Less at Quince.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach
• 31:44
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• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: slash crooked. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: dot com slash crooked. You write in the book about
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Judge Jeanine Pirro being a very kind and supportive colleague,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: for example. I'm just wondering what it's like then to
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: watch her get this U.S. attorney job and then go
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: into this new role where she is using the power
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: she was given by the Trump administration to conduct this
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: vindictive prosecution against David Hearn, the Olympian who was accused of.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Well, at least then she undid it.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: At least she undid it. But it's like, I was
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: just wondering if, like, that's been hard for you. Because
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it is just like, there's all these... I mean, we
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: talked about Pete Hexeth. I don't know if you knew him.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: He was a weekend guy, so he probably didn't get
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: to shine you.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: No, I knew Pete. Yeah.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I'm always having a little cocktail on Sunday mornings or whatever.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: But, like.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Watching that clown go from— That.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Is— that' s much tougher for me.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Because I think also— and I imagine your audience has very
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: specific opinions about Janine, and I'm sure that most of
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: them aren't good. But Janine Pirro is actually technically qualified
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: for that job.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: She was a prosecutor.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, prosecutor and legal analyst and— She has a great
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: relationship with Muriel Bowser. That was one of the first
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: things that changed when she got to that office, that
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: she started spending all of this time with her. And
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Mayor Bowser has talked about that. And when you look
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: at how she handled the Jewish couple who were murdered
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: outside of the museum in the anti-Semitic attack, no one
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: would say, oh, that's a TV host who has no
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: business doing this job. And so I'm not defending all
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: of it. You know, the subway guy going after the
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: canoeist in the first place, obviously, you know, attempted prosecutions
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: of Powell, Tish James. I know not all of that
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: was her, but this is how the DOJ is operating
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: now under Trump. I think her story is much more layered.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I think unequivocally that Pete, clearly not. I, I can't
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: believe— I know you guys covered it a lot. We certainly
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: talked about it on Raging Moderates. But I feel like
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Dan Driscoll's resignation should be such a bigger deal.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: The former Army secretary.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Who had to go to Trump directly to tell him
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: that Pete was taking actions that undermined our military readiness
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: and preparation for the future. I mean, when it leaked
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: out that we had gotten rid of that drone unit,
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I thought— okay, that's kind of strange. And we knew
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: the story about how the Ukrainians had come and said,
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: we'll teach you how to do this because you might
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: get into a jam and we'd love to help you out.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: And we apparently shooed them away and said, go home.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: But the drone unit goes and then Dan Driscoll sends
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: up the flare where he says, this guy's firing all
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: of the people who are in charge of the things
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: that we need to become this modern fighting force. That
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: story sticks out to me a lot more.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Pete is a disaster, and he's currently losing the
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: war to Iran. So for as long as I've been
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: in politics, there's been a debate about whether Democrats should
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: go on Fox News. I personally have argued it both ways,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: which means I'm always wrong. I think it would be
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: fun to debate.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: It with you.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Specifically, though, I want to scope it to whether a
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Democrat running for president in 2028, but before they've secured
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the nomination, should go on Fox News. I think after
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the general, it's like, Kind of a no-brainer, right? You
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: have to reach the broadest audience you should. But in
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the primary process before you secure the nomination, do you
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: want to go first or second?
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I'm good either way.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: You choose.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I don't usually get it. I'm used to at work
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: having no choice.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to scream and interrupt you either way. So
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: what's the case for going on Fox News?
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: That's where the eyeballs are. Honestly, I think you would
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: be insane not to do it.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: In a primary?
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in a primary. You can pick your host.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: No one's saying that you have, you can figure out
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: what kind of interview you're going to have with each person.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: And then you decide what you want to do. We
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: could look at Abdul Al-Sayed from a few weeks ago
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: going on with Jesse Waters. That was a selection. They
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: certainly thought about where should we go to do this.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: got 25 minutes of airtime, which is enormously valuable, right? Three,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: four viral clips out of it for each of them.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: That's one thing that is important about doing this medium
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: is that most of the time it's mutually beneficial. And
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: that is how I think the system should work. So
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: if I have a great day on the five, it's
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: completely feasible that Jesse also had a great day. And
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: different algorithms are rejoicing. Oh, I see. Right? Right, right.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: And so, Abdul got to land his punches. He got
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: what he wanted. He had, you know, the fun clip,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: the circumcision clip, but he also had the, why are
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: we not talking about crisis?
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: As all circumcisions are, just a great time.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: That's what I've heard.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was fun.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: I was off the day after, but coming back and
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: getting to say to Jesse that I was sad that
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I missed circumcision day was a really special moment. And
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: you think like, this is why you go get a PhD, right?
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: You can say these things on TV.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Well, Jesse fell in love too with Abdul afterwards. He
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: kept talking about how much, how great he was.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't want to like him, but he did.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: And that's why you go on Fox News. And it's
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: also why you spend time talking to people who feel
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: differently than you, because the little things that you say
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: when they like you seep in. Like, I've been talking
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: about in breaks or just around, you know, in the
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: green room, how John Ossoff is all about constituency work.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Because there were the two big Republican mayors that came
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: out and endorsed him. And the idea is, If you
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: want to talk to John Ossoff, you can get him
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: on the phone. Not just someone in his office. You
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: can literally talk to the senator. And that makes people
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: want to vote for you because all politics is local,
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: et cetera. And then I'm not there one day. It's
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: Harold who's in the liberal seat. And Jesse just says,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: John Ossoff's great at constituency work.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: You incepted him.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: That's good stuff.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I injected it. So there's opportunity for that. So
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: what I do, eyeballs, mutually beneficial, the opportunity to persuade.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: It also, it's a test. Going back to what Greg
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: said about me, that I'm his muse, what he added
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: to that, which I think is important for any sort
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: of political conversation, he's talking about how you want to
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: make sure that your ideas can lift weights, proverbially speaking.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: And too much of media today is does not force
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: us to see if our ideas can lift weights. Like
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: how many times have you thought, oh, I'm going to
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: make this point and it sounds really good, right? You're
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: preparing and you say it out loud and think, oh,
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: that's terrible. That was dumb.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: It's most days of my life, to be honest.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: I have them too. And then I'm like, did 4
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: million people just hear me say that? You're in a
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: bit of a tightrope act, but it pushes you to
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: see What kind of weights your ideas can lift? And
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: the most successful politicians do that either in their constituency
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: work or when they're out campaigning. And then they decide
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: what venue to take those ideas to. It's how someone
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: like an Andy Beshear. who doesn't light the room on fire, right,
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: when he is giving an interview, but he has the
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: data to back it up, which is an enormously important
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: part of, I think, advocacy, especially if you're doing it
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: on the TV medium. But it gives a a layer
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: of strength to your arguments that you can't find in
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: a debate prep room, right? You can have the best
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: people play acting, whoever the other characters are, but it's
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: not the same as sitting down across from, well, sit
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: down with Brett Baer and see where he's going to
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: go with your talking point, right? And what he's thinking about.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Because they're also, they're telling you every day what the
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: agenda is. They're showing the holes in the agenda, which
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: they're trying to plug. In different ways, you know, when
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: you start, one of my least favorite things is when
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: we're talking about something like the war in Iran. And
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: the argument is it's just Democrats, right? And Democrats are,
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: you know, unpatriotic. Democrats are just criticizing us and actually
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: we're winning, et cetera, et cetera. And then I like
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: to use People's own words. And I like to use
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: conservatives because that's how you really make the case. Don't
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: take it from me. Right. I'm a liberal.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I know I'm an idiot.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: And you don't believe a word I say.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Overeducated, limousine liberal, whatever. Like, let's roll the tape. Yeah. Right?
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Of Mike McCall or whoever. I mean, Don Bacon now
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: probably doesn't count to people.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Thomas Massey.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Some Republicans get conservatives.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: No, but even— even non-real ones to them, right? Or
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: you see a conservative host or influence or whatever. Yeah.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: So I just think there's tremendous opportunity to it. And
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: I really, I don't think that 2028 is going to
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: happen in a liberal echo chamber. That was one of
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: the biggest messages from 2024.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: We do love an echo chamber.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try to steel man the counter argument,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and then we can talk about kind of where we
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: both land.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Because I feel like we actually agree.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: We probably do. So I think there is a legitimate
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: argument against it, which is that the hardcore Democratic primary
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: voters who are going to decide the early contests, they
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: are older, more liberal, and they're just not watching Fox News.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: They're probably watching MS Now. And then when you're a candidate,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: like every minute of your life is scheduled. So there
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: is a real opportunity cost of doing one thing as
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: opposed to another. I would also argue that when the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: chips are really down, Fox News is going to take
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a Republican line. I think we saw that in the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Dominion case where the commentary on air about January 6th
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: was very different from what was behind the scenes, right?
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: And I think you have to go in clear-eyed about that.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I also think that Fox is very good at driving
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a narrative that they want to talk about, right? Like
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: you and I, we have Fox on in our office
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: all day long. It has been a month of roadblocked
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Hassan Piker coverage. far more than the war in Iran.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And so they're going to take you in a way
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you want to go.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: It's much easier to win about Hassan than it is
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: to win about what's.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Going on in the Middle East. An unpopular war.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Biden skipped the Fox News town halls in 2020.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: He won the nomination.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: He also skipped a podcast Save America interview.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: So the guy knew something. He was doing something right.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, big picture, I do think Democrats,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: we need to build our own media ecosystem. We don't
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: have a Fox News. We're trying to build one humbly
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: over here. We're way behind you guys.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a different beast.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: It's a different beast.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Now, I do think like ultimately you are getting at
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the dynamic that really, really matters, which is this like
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: clipping economy dynamic. Because in 2028 or 2026, whatever year
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: it is, the full interview doesn't matter. What matters is
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the piece you pluck out and you share and you
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: blast as fast as humanly possible. And so that Abdul interview,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I watched the whole thing. I cheered at a couple punches.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: I cringed at a lot of it.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: I actually didn't love the circumcision thing.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I came away, like, I want to ask
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: you about this because I was like, after the thing
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: was over, I texted some people that worked for him
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know about that. What
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: are you thinking? And they were like, our people just
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: want a fighter. They saw him fight. And then I
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: went to Michigan last week and I went to his
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: event and he mentioned Jesse and this lady in the
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: audience was like, you whooped his ass, you know, and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: you could tell, like, they loved it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: But your poster, it's like, isn't that, That version of like,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: you know, at loggerheads politics, isn't that what the average
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: voter hates?
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Like the partisans love it.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: They say that they do, but the fighter mode is
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: the most important thing. I mean, even the quote unquote
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: dullest on a policy level of Democrats are now fighters, right?
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, I have a podcast called Raging Moderates. So
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: like it is built into how I... see the political moment,
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: which is even if you are an Alyssa Slotkin or
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: a John Ossoff, that you need to be landing punches nonstop.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: Because the last thing that you want is for people
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: to actually think that you're a moderate. I'm like, what
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: is going to happen when they figure out actually that
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: these people would support bipartisan legislation or that they have
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: middle-of-the-road beliefs? And we are in a system that is demanding...
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: viral clips and punches, haymakers.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Attention.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: And yeah, the attention economy. And thinking about the Abdul
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: part again, because I didn't love the circumcision versus castration conversation,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: because that's what Jesse was talking about. He was talking
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: about trans kids. And I think in general, talking about
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: trans issues is a bit of a red herring and
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: it's a way to try to trap us in a
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: culture war issue that doesn't really affect people's lives. And
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: they're only 10 trans athletes on the NCAA level, et cetera.
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: There's been tons of legislation, anti-trans legislation that has been
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: born out of, you know, if you give an inch,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: they take a mile. And I've gotten that criticism because
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: I've said from the jump, there's an obvious biological advantage
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: to someone who went through puberty as a boy and
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: then is competing as a woman later on in life.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Right, and Jesse was trying to like go down that road.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: Was trying to go down that road.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: I think he's trying to ask maybe children getting.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: Well, there's a false narrative that kids can get care
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: without their parents knowing. And then sometimes it just gets
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: reduced to, well, sometimes a teacher will call the kid
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: by the name that they want to be called at
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: school and doesn't tell the parents.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Your point is that Jesse's trying to get this tiny
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: edge case of instances that never happened that he thinks
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: is politically challenging for Abdul.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: And make it about that.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Yes. And Abdul wants to land a line that will
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: live in infamy, which it does. And now we talk
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: about circumcision day for Jesse, and he has to admit
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: that he circumcised on TV. And like, it's a whole thing.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: But I am from the camp and actually talked about
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: this when you guys so generously had me at CrookedCon
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: last year, that I don't believe in the liberal perspective
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: or the Democratic Party perspective. that you don't have to
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: answer questions about that. Because there are going to be
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: some people, not the woman at the town hall who's like,
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: you whooped him or the event that you went to
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: for Abdul. But there are going to be voters that
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: are sitting on the fence. Or if you are running
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: in a red or a purple place, people who genuinely flip-flop,
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: depending on the election, who they like, right? They say,
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: this year, this person's great. Otherwise, and I use Jared
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Golden as the example, you know, you don't win that seat.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: If you just tell people, oh, this has been because
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: you've been brainwashed.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: That's why you're asking about this.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: This is a really important point.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you're bringing this up because there's a lot
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: of like consultants will say, if you get a question
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: about X thing, you don't like pivot to Y thing.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: That's safer territory. This is about gas prices. I'm totally
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: with you. And Barack Obama was very much this way.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Like if people are asking you about a thing, they're
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: concerned about the thing and you need to answer it
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: directly and take it head on. And if they don't
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: like your answer, maybe they'll respect you for giving it honestly.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: Which you did hear, actually, in a lot of the
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: exit polls for people who voted for Kamala Harris, who
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: didn't like her on a lot of issues. But they
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: felt that she had answered questions about them. And they
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: at least knew where she stood. Obviously, it was not
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: enough people to win an election. But I was struck
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: by that because I had felt that she was too
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: evasive on a lot of stuff.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Or just not out enough.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah. Yeah, but out too much sometimes. Like, out
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: too much on The View, but not out enough with
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Bret Baier. The Bret Baier interview was so much better
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: than her interview on The View. Oh, yeah. And that's
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: another in the case for going on Fox News. But
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: we try to spin— or transform politics into something that
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: suits our sensibilities. And we're just not in control anymore.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: We're not the gatekeepers on media. We don't get to
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: decide who's legitimate. This argument of, well, do you want
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: to platform so-and-so? Odds are so-and-so has a bigger platform
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: than you. I know.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I hate that argument so much.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: It kills me. And that doesn't mean that, you know,
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: I'm going to leave this studio and hop on over
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: to Hassan's house and sit on his Twitch stream with him.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: You just don't make choices about where you go. But
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: there is this air of superiority about it or that
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: you're making, you know, this is my moral declaration. And
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: voters just don't operate that way. They're not paying this
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: level of attention, first of all. And they want to
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: see if your ideas can lift weights.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: It's also not about like the views of the person
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: you're talking to. It's about communicating your ideas to the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: audience that listened to that person.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I just think it's like such a category error.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: And people just respect, honestly, the act of showing up. Yeah.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: I hear that all the time out in the wild.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: We love that you're there. Yeah. I think that you're wrong,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: but you come to play every day and you've made
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: me think. differently about a few things. Or I have,
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: you're just like my liberal daughter or granddaughter. And if
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: you become enmeshed in people's lives in that way as
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: a positive force, I think it's a real net positive
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: for us electorally and for yourself personally. Yeah.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: Pod Save America is brought to you by the NPR
• 49:43
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• 49:46
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• 50:36
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• 50:43
  Speaker 3: I want to say, thinking back to the argument that
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: you made, where you said this is where the base
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: for the primaries is going to be watching on an MSNOW.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: South Carolina is going first.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: More conservative, yeah. Yeah.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Who goes on Fox all the time?
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised you didn't mention. Jim Clyburn. In your book,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: you write that the Fox audience is actually like, what
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: is it, like 50% Republicans, like 20% independents.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: 20 Dems and 30 independents.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: So it is a little, it's more, it's not just
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: MAGA watching Fox, which I thought was interesting.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: Definitely not, but it's also, it's too many people for
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: that to be the case. Right. So the five is
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: four million people. You're going to get.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: You don't have to keep bragging about that. You're not.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you do.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Like four XR audience, but like.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: No, it's insane that you have that for a podcast also.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're like YouTube numbers, so you never know
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: what's real anymore.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: Don't say that. Yeah, that algorithm is the bane of
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: my existence where I think, oh my God, we just
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: had the most interesting and thoughtful and serious conversation and
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: there's like an arrow on my face and it says
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: like destroyed and... We.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Laugh about it here.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Like I get in arguments sometimes because we'll do these like,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I do a foreign policy show called Pod Save the World.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: We're talking about like the Houthi rebels and it'll be like,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Trump owned by New Report. I'm like, ah, I hate
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: the clickbait titles, but they work so well.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Right. And then people are happy that they got there. Yeah.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Eventually.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: The Raging Moderates audience loves Canada.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: Loves. I mean, I think everyone, not everyone, but a
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: lot of people are in a Canadian mood. Um, and
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: everyone loves an underdog, but it is, we have a
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: lot of Canadian viewers.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: But then we have a lot of Americans who just
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: want like Mark Carney porn.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: I know you are a Carney stan.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Um, In the limited time. No, I really like Mark Carney.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I think he's great. He's interesting. I mean, who would
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: have thought that, like.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: The neolib banker would be, like, the leader that, you know,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: the non-American world wanted? But he's proven to be that. So, again,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: folks probably know you from TV. In your heart, you're
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: a political hack and a pollster like me. I don't
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: think you're better than me because you're on The Five
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: with four million viewers.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's only three and a half.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you. About the Democratic Party's messaging. Yeah.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: You're seeing the polling. You're doing the focus groups in
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: real time on Fox.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: What are a couple of things the Democrats are doing
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: well right now and what are a couple of things
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: they're doing wrong that you think like they need to
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: course correct on, we need to course correct on to
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: win in 2028?
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: So one thing that I know that you are– on
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: the right side about. And I remember kind of following
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: this discourse online about how much we should be discussing
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: immigration and how far you go to bat for Kilmer
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: Arbrego Garcia, who by all accounts is certainly not who
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: the right is saying he was, but doesn't seem like
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: someone that I'm going to invite over to babysit my
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: kids necessarily. And like, why are, why are we not
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: talking straight up about prices all the time? Why would
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: you go to, you know, El Salvador on trips to,
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: you know, check on prisoners and like what Chris Van
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Hollen was doing. And I saw Elliot Morris posted about this.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Looking at the data now, it's just a complete vindication.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Of the need to talk about immigration.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: Of the idea that you need to talk about these things.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Trump is underwater on immigration in the.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: New York Times poll.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: Seven points.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Crazy.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: Not just underwater. I mean, this has been going on
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: for a while, and my colleagues make fun of me.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: They'll go, oh, do you have another poll for us?
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, as a matter of fact, I do.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Sure, I do.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I always have a number for you. But looking
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: at that and that it is consistent now does prove
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: out that if you are talking about things that build
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: connective tissue with people— Where maybe the first time they
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: hear about it, they push it to the side, right?
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: And they say, well, it's actually your fault, your party's
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: fault that the border was open, right? And that there
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: are hundreds of thousands of people streaming across the border.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: You know, a few people are going to get mixed
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: up in something bad. I hear that all the time,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: even if it's an American, which is interesting because I
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: really don't think that that's the case. I've said to Jesse,
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: you're telling me that if you got hauled to an
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: ICE detention center— because you didn't have your ID on you,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: or you even had your ID, but they didn't care
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: to look at it, even though you're yelling, I have
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: my identification, I have my identification, that you'd be cool
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: with it. Well, he got out. You hear that? Oh,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: he's out within 12 hours, or out in a day.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Much love to Jesse, but we know he's full of shit.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: They're there because Milo Yiannopoulos, like one of the most
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: right-wing kind of pro-Trump guys, was detained by DHS, deported
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: by ICE, and is talked about what a horrific... harrowing
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: experience it was and one that he would wish on
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: no one. And this is a person who like not
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: that long ago, essentially suggested that he was going to
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: have a sexual experience watching someone getting picked up by
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: truly gross person.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: Also, there is continued grossness about him because I know
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: that a lot of this is just to get back
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: on TV and people are giving that to him. And
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: I understand it and it makes for good. We always
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: go back to the clips, but The way that we
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: actually talked about immigration, I think, worked. And that it
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: set up a position where people could live with and understand,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: which is it's a good thing that the border is closed.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: The way that immigration enforcement is taking place in this
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: country is not what they promised. And that this is
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: a Stephen Miller, you know, porn scenario versus— what good
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: immigration enforcement would be.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Close the border, deport criminals. Like, that's what you promised.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Why are we getting rid of this mom who's been
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: in my community for 35 years?
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: By extension, and this never makes me that popular with
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: liberal audiences, but I do think it's important. We're still
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: not landing the plane on how to talk about ICE
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: and enforcement in blue, cities and states, especially sanctuary cities. Okay.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Because those stories about Americans, mostly women who have been
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: murdered by illegals like Sheridan, Gorman, Chicago, or Lake and Riley,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: where we had, it was the 13 Democrats signed onto
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: the Lake and Riley Act, even though it had poison
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: pills in it. But when we just stand up there
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: and say, abolish ICE, which can poll at 50%, you
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: can get 50% of people to say that, but if
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: you unpack it, no one thinks that law enforcement shouldn't
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: be cooperating with ICE to turn over people who are
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: committing crimes on American soil. So that's my one caveat,
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: because depending on the survey, Republicans are still ahead on
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: crime and policing. And that's a feelings issue, right? If
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: you are walking around and you feel unsafe.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: And then we're like, actually, crime is down by 0.24%
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: year over year.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: It's like the low. I live in New York City.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: I think it has been So smart of Mom Donnie
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: that he stands shoulder to shoulder with our police commissioner,
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: Jessica Tisch, whenever he can. We had the lowest level
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: of murders in the city in decades. But you're still
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: telling people a stat about something that they just feel.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: So that's my little caveat there. What we're doing super,
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: super well, and this was also in the New York
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Times-Siena poll and kind of blew my mind, is that
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: now the words that people associate with the Republican Party, corrupt, elitist,
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: and extreme.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: Love that.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: That feels like the sea change to me. I'm used
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: to being plus 24 on health care. They've never had
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: a health care plan except that you shouldn't have health care. Right.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: And that they don't care.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Except Obamacare is bad, yeah.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: Except Obamacare is bad and we have no real solution. Actually,
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: I would love to get inside their minds to understand
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: how they think that that has ever been okay.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's bizarre.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: Though they've gotten away with it in one election since.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: So I guess that's how they think it. But yeah,
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: you know, you go down the list of issues and
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: you say, oh, this feels good. Like, you know, plus
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: up 49 on the economy, you know, inflation, cost of living,
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: foreign wars. Still down on artificial intelligence, which I thought
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: was interesting.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: That was a really weird number. That was the only
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: number that poll that just jumped out. It was within
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: the margin of error.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: But I do wonder if Trump is actually just taking
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: that and trashing it. Because what Americans want is for
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: you to tell them that there will be some sort
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: of regulation.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just do something.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: Just do something. Like, my kid is in love with
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: a chatbot. Do something. Right?
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, and now I am too.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: And I am too. But up to my kid is.
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: Asking Claude or most ChatGPT about how to hurt him
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: or herself.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Or even like, what is my kid going to do
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: for a living when he or she graduates? Because these
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: chatbots are supposedly going to take all the jobs, they're saying.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: Everything, blue collar to white collar. Yeah.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: But to your point though, on the corrupting thing, it
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: jumped out at me too, because I was probably getting
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: the same briefings you were In the first Trump term
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: where there was like DNC polling, they were like, don't
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: make these corruption arguments. Voters don't buy it. They think
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: he's a rich guy who isn't taking a salary. He's
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: already rich.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: He's uncorruptible. Like, don't even touch this.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: And now John Ossoff hammers him every day on a
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: new corruption thing and it goes super viral. And it's
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: like that kind of argument is really penetrated.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing to see it. I think John Ossoff
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: is definitely a part of this. I was just in
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: Fort Worth with Tallarico. He talks about it too. They
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: understood early on that the structure of this election is
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: us versus them. And the them can be people of
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: all political parties, right? That we're running against the machine,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: generally speaking. But I think it's also been just how
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: little President Trump has cared about what's going on for
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: people in their regular lives and that he talks about
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: things like the ballroom so often. So the grift is
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: so obvious, right? And how little he is prioritizing you.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: It is permeating about the kids, the Trump kids. I mean,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: not just hundreds of thousands of dollars for a funfetti
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: cake or whatever from a Russian oligarch.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Russian oligarch funding your wedding is like.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the contracts, you know, the drone companies, the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: crypto scams, all of it. The culture of corruption has
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: finally hit. And that to me felt like what you
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: can really bank in an election.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: And to me, I think that is.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: The message that we need to focus on when we're
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: going against Trump, because, you know, you see like strong
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: men want to be fascists all over the world, get
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: taken down on these sort of corruption narratives.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Even Putin, right? Like the biggest threat to his rule was.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: When Navalny was like flying drones over his mansions and
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: releasing YouTube videos of his billion-dollar house.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Off the Black Sea or whatever it was.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: He solved that.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, couldn't take care of that one the hard way.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: Jessica Tarlov, again, the book is I Disagree, Winning Arguments
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Without Losing Friends. Great to see you. Really, it's a
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: very fun read, and you'll learn some things. It's a
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: fun story, so everyone should check it out.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I would love that, and thanks for having me.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: It was great to be here in Crooked HQ.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: That's it for us for today. We will be back
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: in your feed on Tuesdays. Pod Save America is a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media production.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts,
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• 1:01:59
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• 1:02:02
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