Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Fifty Seven: Trump Loses Twice

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Episode Fifty Seven: Trump Loses Twice · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Welcome to episode number fifty seven of the Death of Journalism podcast. My name
0:04
is John Ziggler. I am your host. On today's episode, Donald Trump
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is held libel in a bogus sex abuse and defamation lawsuit. Tucker Carlson may
0:14
have just killed the future of cable news, and we speak to my friend
0:18
Steve Cortez about why he has officially flipped from being a close Trump advisor to
0:25
now being part of Team De Santis. I'm known as the Dutch Digital marketing
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Man dot com. And hey, thanks for sponsoring the show. Yet another
1:07
jam packed episode of the Death of Journalism for you today. Folks, we
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begin with the big news involving Donald Trump, who was held libel in a
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civil lawsuit that was brought against him by E Gene Carroll, for which it
1:23
led to rape, sex abuse, and defamation, where the sex abuse and
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defamation allegations were essentially approved unanimously by the jury in New York, and that
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Trump was ordered to pay E Gene Carroll five million dollars. Now, whether
1:44
that that'll ever actually happen is yet to be seen. It's for sure going
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to be appealed. I'm sure this will be delayed as much as it possibly
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can. Trump doesn't ever pay his bills to begin with, and he's certainly
1:55
not going to pay this one voluntarily because he believes, and I think understandably
2:00
so, that he was railroaded into a situation that was not just Now,
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if you've ever listened to this podcast before, you know that I am as
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ardent a Trump critic as any real conservative, maybe more so than any real
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conservative in the entire country. But I truly do believe that I have been
2:19
very fair and objective about Donald Trump throughout the last eight years, and when
2:25
it has been appropriate, I have defended him, and sometimes I have defended
2:30
him with great passion. I gotta tell you, this is one of those
2:34
times where I am obligated to basically take his side. Now, he made
2:38
a lot of mistakes here. In fact, he made mistakes which made it
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a lot easier for the jury to do what it did. But this case
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should never have gotten this far, and it is a bogus allegation. Now,
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that does not mean, I want to make this clear, that does
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not mean that there's no chance that this actually happened as Aegene Carol claimed it
3:00
did sometime in the mid nineteen nineties. It is possible that something close to
3:07
what she claims actually did occur. However, I don't believe the evidence in
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this case, nor the nature of this case, comes even close. Even
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in a civil case where the only need a preponderance of the evidence as opposed
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to a reasonable doubt standard of proof, I don't think it comes even close,
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especially when you consider the obvious political agenda that is at work here among
3:34
everybody who was behind this lawsuit, including Eejene Carroll, who is a wackadoo
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liberal, and frankly, she's a bit crazy to begin with. I mean,
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I know you're not allowed to say that, but even Anderson Cooper,
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in an interview that he did with her after she made her allocation, was
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a bit stunned by how cuckoo and wacky she seems to be, and some
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of the statements that she made about the story were incongrutous with the idea that
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she was somehow raped in an unknown date, in an unknown year in a
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department store in New York City. But before I get to the ramifications of
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all this, I mean, I just want to I didn't do this in
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episode fifty six because I didn't want to get sidetracked. But now that there's
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an actual verdict in the case, I think it's important to point out why
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I believe that this case is bogus. I mean, and there's so many
4:23
different layers. The first is, and the most obvious, is that the
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statute limitations is there for a reason. There's a reason why there's a statute
4:32
limitations, and that seemingly has been lost in this entire realm of sex abuse
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claims, especially in the post Me Too era. We are so concerned and
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I always go back to the pendulum theory, where the pendulum always swings,
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and when it swings, it's usually, especially in this era, swings far
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too much in correction of whatever past ills there were. And so there's always
4:57
been this perception, and it probably was based in some reality that it was
5:00
too difficult, too difficult to prove allegations of sex abuse or rapes. And
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now we've done everything we possibly can to make it easier to prove or to
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have a jury come back and say that they believe an allegation of sex abuse
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or rape. Well, the statue of limitations is not just a technical especially
5:23
in this area, is not just a technical situation. Wow, well,
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you got to do this in a certain amount of time, otherwise you're not
5:30
allowed to bring a claim. The biggest reason why it's important in a sex
5:34
abuse claim is that over time, you're inherently making it much more difficult to
5:41
defend yourself. It is far more difficult for Donald Trump to be able to
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especially when there's no date given. I mean, that's another thing that ought
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to be a prerequisite for any allegation of sex abuse. You ought to have
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a date, You at least ought to have a fricking year. But when
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you cannot prove that you aren't there, then it's almost impossible. In this
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day and age, especially if you're a good target like Trump obviously, is
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to defend yourself properly, especially in a jurisdiction that hates your guts like New
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York City, and with a standard to prove that's so low, like a
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civil case is. And so the statue limitations was just dropped. Was just
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dropped here because New York State decided basically this was last call for all allegations
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of sex abuse. This was basically the full employment act for plaintiff's attorneys in
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New York where they just dropped the statue limitations for a full year and anybody
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who wanted to bring a case from the distant past could do so by way
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as an aside. And I'm the only person even remotely connected to the news
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media that will even ever connect this or mentioned this. And it's important you
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know who hasn't been sued or wasn't sued during this one year free for all
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who should have been if the media wasn't lying about them. My good friend,
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former NBC Today's Show host Matt Lower. Matt Lower should have been one
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of the first people to have been sued under this ridiculousness dropping the statute of
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limitations if he was even close to what the media portrayed him to be.
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But he's not. He never raped anybody, never abused anybody, never harassed
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anybody, and that's why he's never been sued inside or outside the statue of
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limitations. But the statue limitations matters here, and that was just dropped,
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and it matters, particularly in this case where aging Carol doesn't even know what
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the year is that this happened. We think sometime around nineteen ninety six.
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To me, I mean, it should be way better than just the year.
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I mean, I'm big into dates, because if this really happened as
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the way it was described, it would be very memorable. And she did
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have contemporary witnesses, but those can't be reliable almost thirty years later. You
8:05
can't put everything on that, especially when somebody like Trump is the target,
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where everybody has not just a financial but a potential political agenda at work to
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go at them. Now, does that mean they're lying, No, But
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that's not the way this system is supposed to work. You're supposed to have
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to prove your allegation. And I get again, I'm understanding the different threshold
8:28
in a civil case, but fifty one percent is still a pretty significant threshold
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for proof a preponderance of the evidence. And inherently I am suspicious, or
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anybody should be suspicious of allegations against somebody who is rich and as politically toxic
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as Donald Trump is. So she doesn't know when this happened when she should,
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the statue of limitations gets dropped. There's a law in Order television episode
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that is exactly her allegation, which occurs in between the time period that this
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actually supposedly happened, where we don't know the year, and the time period
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that she actually makes her allegation, which is way later, way after all
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sorts of other similar allegations have come forward against Trump, after of course he
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is a major presidential contender and then the president of the United States, which
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ought to change everything, right. I mean, every allegation at that point
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is inherently intrinsically fundamentally suspect, especially when it's ancient. Why are you coming
9:39
forward now? Again, doesn't mean it didn't happen, but this can't be
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the standard of proof here. And then that gets me to the Access Hollywood
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tape, and Trump's lawyers have been making the same argument that I'm about to
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make and I've made this on Twitter previously, it's absolutely assinine that the Access
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Hollywood tape, which clearly had a major impact on the jury's view of this
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case, was even allowed into evidence. Why. Well, because one,
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Trump wasn't talking about her. There's no evidence he was talking about her.
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He was talking about this decades after this alleged episode occurred. Again, where
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we don't have a date, a month or a year. And most importantly,
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Carol's public public allegation against Trump comes well after the Access Hollywood tape is
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made public, which and you could, I guess as a lawyer, you
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could argue, well, that goes to how the jury should interpret the evidence,
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not whether or not the evidence should be put in front of them.
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But to me, it was far too prejudicial for a situation that easily could
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have been Carol hearing about the Access Hollywood tape as everyone did, and then
10:52
creating her allegation to fit with what Trump was bragging about to Billy Bush.
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I mean, that makes perfect sense. Now, I'm sure that the Trump
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lawyers must have made that argument. They didn't put any witnesses on, they
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didn't have Trump testify, but I'm sure in their argument they had to unless
11:13
they're complete idiots. Although I'm going to get to Trump's main lawyer in a
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minute. He might be at least an overrated lawyer of not an idiot.
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But the reality is, at the very least they ought to make that argument.
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Now they're saying that that's an appeal issue as well, that because the
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access Hollywood tape was brought in that they think an appellet court manned up tossing
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out this entire verdict. And I'm not an expert enough to know if that's
11:39
likely, but it makes a lot of sense to me that tape should not
11:45
have been part of this trial. And so there are all sorts of problems
11:50
with this case, I mean, from top to bottom, and so I
11:54
disagree with the verdict. And by the way, the verdict, if you
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think about it, doesn't even to make a lot of sense in and of
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its in its own internal logic. Because they rejected the rape claim, right,
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they accepted the abuse claim. So I guess in their minds and maybe
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in the law, her allegation maybe didn't fit the strict definition of rape,
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but it did fit sex abuse. Okay, fine, But then that gets
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you to the defamation. How do you defame somebody just as Trump was found
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liable for doing when the same jury is acknowledging that there's no evidence to back
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up the claim that Trump was allegedly defaming her about which was the rape charge.
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Now, I guess they may have said, well, he was defaming
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her about both a rape and an abuse, and so therefore because he even
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though he is obviously a public figure, he would have known what he was
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saying was untrue, and that therefore he is potentially libel for damages when it
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comes to his statements about her. But so even that part of this is
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troubling, problematic, and confusing to me. But let's go through why this
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probably happened all right now, the jury nine people, six men and three
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women. Of course, let me go back to the pendulum theory. In
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the old days, right when white men controlled the world, a jury with
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six men and three women would have been far less likely to come to a
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libel verdict in a case as dubious as this. I think it's now the
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opposite, as everything is changed upside down, where women are far more likely
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to be able to stand up and say, wait a minute, this allegation
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doesn't make any damn sense or there's no evidence to support it. So I'm
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not going to find Trump libel, but men, especially liberal men in New
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York City, or virtue of svirtue signaling that's in their blood and their DNA.
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Now there's apparently one alleged Trump supporter on this jury out of nine,
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but to me, one doesn't really count. Even though the verdict didn't have
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to be unanimous. That's important to point out. So one doesn't have that
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much power. But also too one person is going to cave far, far,
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far more easily in the culture of a jury than if you have two
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or three that are holding hands together. But I think that having six men,
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you know, from New York City, it was not favorable to Donald
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Trump in this particular case. I'm sure that at least seven or eight of
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the nine were very liberal and have animus against Trump from the beginning, and
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so they were looking, they were looking for a way to find Trump libel,
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and Trump, as he is, so wont to do. This is
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the way he operates, and he you know, for some reason it doesn't
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hurt him politically. He gave them enough, I mean to figuratively hang him
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in this civil trial, and we went through this in episode fifty six,
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but I think it's worth revisiting quickly here because there's two clips of his deposition.
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Again, remember, he did not testify a trial. He did not
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show up to the trial. His defense did not put on any witnesses.
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So there's an issue of the jury just being pissed off that he's not taking
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this seriously, which shouldn't matter, but jurors are human beings and so it
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does matter, and in this case, I think it mattered a lot.
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I've been through a civil case of depth depth of defamation where I ended up
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winning unanimously, which I've talked about previously, and it was absolute torture,
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but a lot of it was It just really came down to did they think
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I deserved to be punished or not. Did they hate me more than they
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distrusted the person who was making the allegation against me? And I was on
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the facts, I was writing a law, and I think we ended up
16:02
winning essentially the pr battle because I took it very, very seriously, and
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I testified and I was there. I came from Los Angeles to Louisville,
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Kentucky, and the jury ivan cried on the stand over issues that weren't even
16:18
directly related to the allegations. I mean, so it was clear to the
16:22
jury that I was taking this very seriously and that I was willing to answer
16:27
any and all questions about this. Trump did not do that, and instead
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the jury saw this deposition, which was a flat out disaster from Trump's standpoint.
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Now, Trump, I'm sure he's thinking in his mind that he knows
16:45
that this deposition is going to be made public at some point, so he
16:48
wants to show what an alpha male he is and how unaffected he is by
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this whole situation, and that he's got nothing to fear, and he's gonna
16:57
play to his audience, which is basically showing, you know, how much
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he just doesn't care about norms or the rules don't apply to him, and
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he's the alpha male. And he way overdid it. And there were two
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moments I think that really ended up causing him great damage here. The first
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one was I don't know what was really going through his mind here, but
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this was a massive blunder. This is the photograph situation, and it's important
17:29
to point out that he had claimed he had never met Eejene Carol, which
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I have no problem with him not remembering having met her, but he did
17:36
meet her, because there's a photograph of them meeting. There's a photograph of
17:40
Eegen Carrol right in front of Trump's face, where his first wife, Ivana
17:44
Trump is directly to Trump's right, and Trump has shown a photograph during the
17:49
deposition. And Trump makes a massive, massive blunder because he had also said
17:56
that part of the reason why he knew he didn't do this to each Carrol's
18:00
that she wasn't his type, which is almost code for she wasn't pretty enough
18:04
or hot enough for me to have assaulted her in a dressing room at a
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high class New York City department store, so which is also completely inappropriate,
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and I'm sure didn't help with the jury at all because he did essentially say
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to one of the lawyers in the in the case, I wouldn't do this
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to you either, because you're not very good looking. Again paraphrasing, but
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that's essentially what he said. Well, with that as the context, here's
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what happened during the deposition where he misidentifies Gene Carroll as actually being his first
18:37
wife or her second wife. Hard to keep track of all this his second
18:40
wife, Marla Maples, who he somehow is thinking he's in a photograph with
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his first wife, Yvon which doesn't even make sense if your brain is even
18:49
functioning. Not to mention, he's effectively destroying his own testimony by saying that
18:56
e Gene Carroll was not his type when he's misidentify buying her as his second
19:02
wife, Marla Maples. And of course then he tries to claim, you
19:07
know, very lamely, that the photograph is blurry and he couldn't tell.
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But that's not the case. The photograph is clear cut. And here's what
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the deposition sounded like when Trump made this massive blunder. I don't even know
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who the woman. Let's say, I don't know who. It's Marla.
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You're saying Marla's in the photo. That's Marla. Yeah, that's that's my
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wife. Which one woman are you pointing to? Other? Now here?
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And the person of the woman on the right is your wife? I don't
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know this was the picture. I assumed that's John Johnson. Is that because
19:48
it's very blurry? Now to me, that's not getting enough attention publicly,
19:52
because I mean, as blunders go, that's about as big as it gets,
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and it goes right to the heart of Trump's you know, narrative really
20:03
that he's somehow this alpha male superhero, and that kind of a blunder also
20:10
kind of goes to his age, right, I mean, that's can you
20:11
imagine Joe Biden making a blunder like that. I mean, if it ever
20:15
happened to the Santis even though the Santist isn't, you know, remotely being
20:18
accused of being old and decrepid, I mean, that's consistent with a narrative
20:26
of a guy who's starting to lose it, right, I mean if Biden,
20:29
if it happened to Biden, it would absolutely be proof on the right
20:32
that dementia. Joe has completely lost it and shouldn't be president when you're mistaking
20:37
your rape accuser for your second wife and not even realizing it and then lying
20:44
about the photograph being blurry. But I don't think that that's well, I
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think that was important to this verdict. I think that what really did it
20:55
was Trump's response to and the Access Hollywood tape itself, because I think they
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latched onto this as somehow an admission of his modus operandi, that this is
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his m that Trump goes up to women he sees that are pretty and he
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just attacks them because he can't control himself, and because he's a star,
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they let him do it. Now, in the last episode, I took
21:25
great umbrage to that phrasing because Trump is somehow morphed that into that means consent,
21:32
and that's not consent, and it's not just a post ME two era
21:37
definition of consent, which is nebulous at best, but that's an forever and
21:42
ever standard of consent. What he's really saying in the Access Hollywood take to
21:47
Billy Bush is they let me get away with it because I'm a star.
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I can grab him by the pussy if I want to. And that was
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the essence of Carol's allegation. So again I don't even think this should have
22:00
been allowed in the trial. But what he says here in trying to be
22:06
the alpha male and you know, in basque, in the fact that women
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just love him so much that they let him do this because he's he's rich
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and he's famous. It sounds almost like a confession that this is something that
22:21
if he didn't do, at least he would do. And here's what the
22:25
deposition sounded like, and you say it again. This has become very famous
22:30
in this video. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet,
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just kiss I don't even wait. And when you were a starred they let
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you do it. You can do anything, grab them by the pussy,
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you could do anything. That's what you said. Correct. Well, historically
22:44
that's true with stars. It's true with stars that they can grab women by
22:48
the pussy. Well, that's what that's if you look over the last million
22:52
years, I guess that's been largely true, not always, but largely true.
22:56
Unfortunately or fortunately now, who knows for sure why a jury does anything,
23:03
And I'm sure there's always going to be complex reasons for a verdict like
23:07
this, But as far as what they the story they told themselves, that
23:11
is the narrative that makes the most sense to me that this jury said.
23:15
Well, you know, we've got Trump basically admitting bragging that this is the
23:21
way he did things, certainly at least back then. And we've got a
23:25
situation where he's lied about whether or not Egene Carol was his type because he's
23:30
misidentifying her and mistaking her for his second wife, Marla Maples, in a
23:36
situation it makes no damn sense. And we've got Carol's story, which you
23:41
know, we don't have anything directly contradicting it because Trump didn't testify. I
23:45
mean, he says it didn't happen, she says it did. She has
23:48
corroborating witnesses that she said back at the time that this occurred, although again
23:53
we don't have a date, a month of the year. So even as
23:56
I'm trying to make the jury's argument, I still don't believe this comes even
23:59
close to a preponderance of the evidence. But in trying to come to the
24:03
verdict that they wanted to, they clearly wanted to find trump bible for something
24:10
that this gave them just enough. This gave them just enough cover to be
24:14
able to say, well, you know, he's admitting to this, this
24:17
is his behavior, and so why shouldn't we believe Egene Carol's story. Now,
24:21
I think there's all sorts of reasons not to believe Egene Carol's story,
24:26
But I think that the politics of this situation overcame rationality, and I don't
24:30
think that's good for our justice system. I don't think it's good for our
24:33
culture. I don't think it's good for our politics. As far as Trump's
24:37
reaction to the verdict, it was as unhinged as you might expect. Trump
24:41
put out a post on true social saying in capital letters because you know it's
24:45
important whenever Trump but does the capital letters thing, and you know he must
24:49
be telling the truth, right because he never lies when he uses capital letters.
24:53
He posted, I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. This
24:59
verdict is a grace, a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time
25:04
exclamation point. And that's exactly how a lot of his supporters are going to
25:11
see this, if not all of his supporters are going to see this.
25:14
And I can understand it, because this is garbage. This is garbage from
25:18
A to Z, this verdict, The fact that this even happened, and
25:22
the fact that this verdict came down the way that it did in a city
25:26
that obviously is very much politically dead set against Donald Trump, that you know
25:33
where the media coverage of this thing has been very pro aging, Carol.
25:37
They barely ever talk about all the problems with her case. There's been almost
25:41
zero discussion of the statue limitations, absurdity, and the fact that you know,
25:48
it's a free for all Now with all these old allegations with inherently suspect
25:53
proof being brought against prominent people or people with means or both, and in
25:59
this case, you know, it's basically on steroids, because not only is
26:02
Trump an alleged billionaire, but he's somebody that every liberal, including Ejeene Carroll,
26:07
who has made many very derogatory statements about him in the past that seemingly
26:12
not only prove animous, but some of them also are inconsistent with the idea
26:17
that she was once raped by Donald Trump. That show a motivation for why
26:21
someone would bring a false allegation again for the fourth or fifth time, doesn't
26:26
mean it didn't happen. I would not go to my maker if I have
26:32
one. If the question was did Eejeene Carroll tell the truth about Donald Trump?
26:36
I would not be able to say with any confidence that she did not
26:41
tell the truth. But that's not the standard, especially for a situation that's
26:45
this old. That cannot be the standard. If it is, we're gonna
26:48
have complete chaos and the whole system is going to break down and there's going
26:52
to be massive injustices. So from a purely legal standpoint, this is a
26:57
very bad case. And a I believe an unjust verdict. In the end,
27:03
I mentioned that Trump's lawyer, who's his main lawyer in this case,
27:07
a guy my name of Joe Takapina. Joe Takapina is basically a walking cliche.
27:14
You know, he looks like a classic mob lawyer. Trump hired him,
27:18
I'm sure because he's on TV a lot, and you know that's how
27:22
Trump does things. If you if you look good and sound good on TV.
27:26
He finds that to be very impressive. And I had an interesting experience
27:30
with Takapina's being Trump's lawyer because back when Trump got indicted on the hush money
27:42
to Stormy Daniel's case, I mean, it's you know, it going to
27:45
get tough to to remember all the cases against Donald Trump, even just coming
27:51
out of New York. But when when that happened, when he was arraigned,
27:55
I got a call from my buddy who I've already referenced in this episode,
27:59
Matt Lower, former host of the NBC Today Show, and he wanted
28:03
to basically tell me that he thinks that the Trump's goose is cooked in all
28:07
these cases because of his own experience with Joe Tacopina I said, what are
28:12
you talking about? He said, well, I couldn't believe it. This
28:17
is low we're talking to me. I couldn't believe it when I saw Tacopina
28:19
sitting next to Trump, because I had an extraordinary experience with him many years
28:25
ago on the Alex Rodriguez case. Now, if you're not a baseball fan,
28:30
Alex Rodriguez was caught up in a big steroid scandal many years ago.
28:34
He sends somehow recovered from a pr standpoint. But the point is that that
28:41
Tacapino was claiming to the Today Show that he couldn't answer any questions about this
28:48
because there was some sort of gag order. And I don't want to get
28:51
into all the details, but basically what Matt did was that he got a
28:56
letter from Major League Baseball without Tacopina knowing about this before an interview on The
29:00
Today Show that relieved him of any sort of gag order or any restrictions and
29:06
talking about his client and this issue, and Matt said he hit Tacapino with
29:12
this live on the air on the Today Show, and that Tacopino basically crapped
29:17
his pants and it was a completely panic stricken situation. Now. He and
29:22
I both looked for this clip and have been unable to actually find it.
29:26
Hopefully one day I will. But when I think it was. The New
29:32
York Times recently did a pretty fluff profile of Tacapino. He is quoted as
29:37
saying, I don't have the fear gene, you know, because he's he's
29:42
the tough guy, the mob lawyer. He's taken on all the all the
29:47
allegations against Donald Trump. And you know, this is the persona that Trump
29:51
likes. And and I think Matt texted me and said doesn't have the fear
29:55
gene. He certainly had it when I interviewed him about Alex Rodriguez. That's
29:59
where sure. So I gotta give credit to bat Lauer for calling it that
30:03
the Joe Tacopina might be not be the best representation for Donald Trump in these
30:07
situations. At least here he's a big oh for one. And you know,
30:11
who knows what's going to happen on appeal. And I don't know whether
30:14
not Tacopino is going to be still involved in these other cases, but Trump
30:17
can't be particularly happy with him now as far as the political impact of all
30:21
this, you know, It's really difficult to know at this point. It
30:26
is the pro indictment rally around the flag sentiment already baked into the current Republican
30:33
polling because of what happened a couple of months ago with regard to the indictment
30:37
involving the hush money to Stormy Daniels. Probably, I mean, can it
30:42
get much worse than it already has? I would like to believe that it
30:48
won't. It's not going to hurt Trump, that's for damn sure. It
30:52
might, you know, continue this phenomenon of Trump being able to portray himself
30:59
as the target of the left and that the reason why they want him taken
31:03
out is that he's so dangerous and he's the anti establishment guy, and anybody
31:07
that the left hates this much you must want to have as your Republican nominee.
31:12
And that, you know, And then there's the whole Tucker Carlson Glenn
31:15
Beck narrative that drove me crazy, which is we have to nominate Trump in
31:19
order to prove to the left that they can't do this kind of stuff to
31:23
us and get away with it. So I'm basically, I think, what's
31:26
going to happen My prediction is that this is going to elongate the indictment bump
31:34
or surge that Trump has already experienced. Is it gonna make it worse?
31:40
I would like to believe not. However, I do think it's going to
31:44
have an impact in general election polls. I do think that they're going to
31:49
be you know how many, I don't know, but there's going to be
31:52
some people, probably independent suburban moms are just gonna think, you know what,
31:56
I just can't do this anymore. And I would think that Trump's numbers
32:02
against Biden in the coming weeks are going to go down as the news of
32:07
this becomes well known to the entire population. That's just my guest limit at
32:13
this point. Now, Interestingly, you know this podcast is released on a
32:16
Thursday. If there's one weakness in our timing of the twice a week podcast
32:22
that we do anything that happens on a Wednesday evening, we're basically screwed.
32:27
Because we tape on Wednesday morning, we release on Thursday morning for our second
32:32
episode of any particular week, and this particular week, Trump, at least
32:37
as of this taping, is scheduled to do a live town hall on CNN
32:42
and by the way my suspicions were correct. In episode fifty six, I
32:45
said, this is being reported as it's being on just the streaming service for
32:51
CNN. That doesn't make any sense. Well, I now know that it
32:53
is in fact going to be on both streaming as well as live television on
32:59
CNN, and it was as you're listening to this on the previous Wednesday evening.
33:05
So I don't know what impact the civil verdict is going to have on
33:08
that CNN town hall. It's probably going to increase viewership for CNN, that's
33:14
for sure. They've already gotten before this, ever, happens a lot of
33:17
criticism on the left for even having the audacity to give Trump a platform.
33:22
And this is an honestly, a very difficult situation because you know, obviously,
33:30
under normal rules, Trump and CNN want to do a town hall.
33:35
That's perfectly fine as long as they ask him legitimate questions. That should be
33:39
he's the Republican front runner. That should be completely and totally appropriate. However,
33:45
my issue here is, Okay, well, wait a minute. You
33:47
told us that Trump is a completely different animal, that he's a grave threat
33:52
to democracy, and that he ought to be treated completely differently. Because of
33:55
that that this is a truly unique situation, and I'm open to that idea,
34:00
but it doesn't seem as if anybody's actually acting based upon that premise.
34:06
And so the news media and the mainstream news media is acting basically the same
34:09
way that they did in twenty fifteen with regard to Trump, even though now
34:15
he's a twice impeached former president. And so that is confusing and problematic and
34:23
disturbing to me because of the hypocrisy issue. So which is it, Is
34:28
he a grave threat to democracy who ought to be treated completely differently in a
34:31
unique fashion because this is such a bizarre situation, or is this totally normal?
34:38
And I don't know that the news media, I know they haven't picked
34:42
a lane. I'm not sure they even know which lane they want. So
34:45
they basically just use this whenever it suits their purposes, and in this particular
34:49
situation, it suits CNN's purpose to do it because they're going to get a
34:52
big number. Now are they going to get so much criticism on the left
34:55
that it in the long run it doesn't help them because it's a one night
35:00
bump in the ratings, but then they lose. It's even more of their
35:05
most loyal base customers because they're so pissed off that Trump was given this platform.
35:10
I guess it kind of depends on how it goes. So in a
35:15
weird way, both CNN and Trump might be invested in the idea that CNN
35:20
attacks Trump in a very upfront way, because that's when Trump's at his best,
35:27
especially now, you know, after this the civil trial verdict. And
35:30
my guess is that CNN will probably be forced to overplay their hand and Trump
35:35
will get into a combative situation that his fans will love, and he'll probably
35:40
attack the santis. And but who knows, because you're already listening to this,
35:44
it's already happened, and I haven't seen it, so I'm not gonna
35:46
try to make any more predictions about it other than to acknowledge that that has
35:51
happened. But I can't comment on it because I haven't seen it as of
35:54
yet. In our next episode, I'm sure I'll have some thoughts about whatever
35:59
happened the Trump CNN town hall meeting. I just want to say one of
36:04
the things about the cultural impact of this Trump allegation. And look, I
36:08
have been outspoken in many different ways about how we have gone crazy in the
36:14
post met world. I referenced my friend Matt Lauer, who I know was
36:19
railroaded because of a me too situation. I'm sure that there are many me
36:22
too situations that were based in reality. I think there were many that were
36:25
not based in reality. I think that whenever you have a moral panic,
36:30
you have a situation where you're going to have injustice, especially with the modern
36:34
media the way that it is, And I think that there has been a
36:37
massive cultural impact on the entire me to movement. I think we're starting to
36:44
see now where men and this is only a small part of the reason why,
36:49
but I think we're seeing men now who at all ages are basically dropping
36:54
out of the dating game, the mating game, the marriage game because the
37:01
entire system feels rigged against them. And it's not just fear of me too
37:07
situations. But I've seen anecdotally, you know, videos on TikTok to get
37:12
hundreds of thousands of views. If women complaining about how men won't make the
37:15
first move or won't ask them out anymore don't seem to be interested, well,
37:20
no, no shit, Sherlock. I mean, if you're going to
37:23
change the rules of dating and mating to the point where a guy can have
37:29
his entire life destroyed if if he makes a wrong move, or doesn't even
37:31
make a wrong move and miscalculates or picks the wrong person, or you,
37:36
for some reason get an incentive, whether real or perceived, to destroy his
37:42
life. What's the point of that. And we've got free pornography wherever you
37:46
want it, whenever you want it. You've priced yourselves out of the marketplace.
37:52
Women. I mean, that's that's what a lot of men are now
37:54
perceiving. Not to mention that the marriage contract is completely designed now on behalf
38:00
of most women, not all, but most women against men, especially if
38:04
children are involved. So I think we're seeing massive cultural change, most much
38:08
of which the news media doesn't want to even acknowledge exists, partially because they'd
38:14
had to take some blame for it, and partially because it's sticky and controversial
38:17
and might get them in trouble if they actually told the truth. But there
38:21
is there is a cultural change happening when it comes to the battle of the
38:25
sexes or the genders, if you will. And that's even you know,
38:29
putting aside the entire transgender issue, which has overtaken the whole country over the
38:34
last couple of years. So I do think that there is from a cultural
38:37
standpoint, this is only going to deepen the divide. Conservatives are going to
38:42
be even more convinced that the entire system is rigged against men, especially powerful
38:46
men, especially conservative men, rich men, you know, who are targets
38:52
of the left, who want to destroy, you know, in their minds,
38:55
real men, as if Donald Trump is the beacon of all real alpha
39:00
males, which I don't agree with, but that's their perception of him.
39:04
Within this subject, I have to at least mention that there was yet another
39:08
exoneration of someone whose life was destroyed over what now appears to have been a
39:14
false allegation. The Buffalo Bills had a punter last year who became an internet
39:20
sensation. His name is Matt Razia, who became an internet sensation because of
39:27
the insane hang time on his punts. He even got nicknamed the punt God.
39:32
And it looked as if he was going to make the team, and
39:36
you know, this was a great feel good story, and then all of
39:39
a sudden he got accused of being part of a gang rape and he got
39:45
he lost everything, he got immediately cut by the Buffalo Bills, and no
39:50
one would, you know, I'm sure, even consider signing him and his
39:54
entire He went from an overnight sensation to an it's an overnight, complete and
39:59
told catastrophe. Well, it now turns out that the authorities have acknowledged that
40:05
the evidence is clear he wasn't even there when this gang rape alleged league took
40:09
place and they have completely vindicated him. Now what happens from here, I
40:16
don't know. You would like to think that he at least gets another shot
40:21
at the NFL here, but this is a very very small window that someone
40:25
like this has to make a career. And we live in such a sensitive
40:30
society. Now you can see a world where, even after he's been exonerated
40:36
and vindicated, that people are still too terrified even take a chance on him
40:40
because it's just not worth it. He's just a freaking punter who may or
40:44
may not be the best punter you can have on your team. Is it
40:46
really worth the risk of pissing off or creating a media sensation because you've decided
40:53
to sign this punter. And this is why allegations are incredibly damaging and can
41:01
sometimes be totally false. I mean, this happens more and more, especially
41:07
in this media, social media, aged media. Firestorm stuff gets out there,
41:10
media and narratives get created, there's a moral panic, and a life
41:15
gets destroyed. And then later on we find out, you know what,
41:19
guess what, this wasn't real. Oops, too bad. And this is
41:22
happening constantly. It's happening a lot with regard to allegations of sexual abuse and
41:29
rape. It also happens in race all the time. There was a woman
41:32
who went to the University of Virginia. Reason magazine did a great expos on
41:37
this who was recently vindicated by them in an extensive investigation of a situation where
41:44
she was accused by a black female of racism during a protest at the University
41:51
of Virginia. Well turned out those allegations were totally false, but her life
41:57
was destroyed in numerous ways based upon these allegations that obviously had a very very
42:05
clear political motivation behind them. And we're not based in truth or fact,
42:09
in which the media helped perpetrate a fraud and then there's no effort to correct
42:15
it. And this is just another example of the death of journalism and the
42:20
impact of the death of journalism, which is profound in so many areas of
42:23
life. All Right, So, maybe the biggest thing that's happened in the
42:30
media world in the last couple of days since our last episode is that Tucker
42:36
Carlson, obviously relieved of his show a couple of weeks ago on Fox News
42:39
Channel, though technically I guess not yet fired. He's under contract, which
42:45
would theoretically prevent him from going to another news outlet to continue his TV show.
42:52
Made a dramatic announcement on Twitter, which is that he is essentially going
42:58
to start doing his show. It sounds like on Twitter as opposed to on
43:05
Fox News Channel. And he released a very brief statement that I'll play for
43:10
you here partially because it has news value, but also partially because you're going
43:15
to recognize a lot, a lot of the themes in this statement that they
43:21
sound very much like stuff you might hear on the death of journalism. But
43:24
here was what Tucker Carlson put out on Twitter announcing his plans for what comes
43:30
next with regard to his show. Hey, it's Tucker Carlson. You often
43:35
hear people say the news is full of lies, but most of the time
43:38
that's not exactly right. Much of what you see on television or read the
43:42
New York Times is in fact true in the literal sense. It could pass
43:45
one of the media's own fact checks. Lawyers would be willing to sign off
43:50
on it. In fact, they may have, but that doesn't make it
43:52
true. It's not true. At the most basic level. The news you
43:55
consume is a lie, a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind.
44:00
Facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are
44:06
being manipulated. How does that work? Let's see, if I tell you
44:09
that a man has been unjustly arrested for armed robbery, that is not,
44:14
strictly speaking a lie. He may have been framed. At this point there's
44:17
been no trial, so no one can really say. But if I don't
44:21
mention the fact that the same man has been arrested for the same crime six
44:24
times before, am I really informing you? No? I'm not. I'm
44:30
misleading you. And that's what the news media are doing in every story that
44:34
matters, every day of the week, every week of the year. What's
44:37
it like to work in a system like that? After more than thirty years
44:42
in the middle of it, we could tell you stories. The best you
44:45
can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell
44:47
the fullest truth that you can. But there are always limits, and you
44:52
know that if you bump up against those limits often enough, you will be
44:55
fired for it. That's not a guess, it's guaranteed. Every person who
45:00
works in English language media understands that the rule of what you can't say defines
45:07
everything. It's filthy, really, and it's utterly corrupting. You can't have
45:13
a free society if people aren't allowed to say what they think is true.
45:15
Speech is the fundamental prrequisite for democracy. That's why it's enshrined in the first
45:22
of our constitutional amendments. Amazingly as a tonight, there aren't many platforms left
45:27
that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world. The
45:31
only one is Twitter where we are now. Twitter has long served as the
45:37
place where our national conversation incubates and develops. Twitter is not a partisan site.
45:43
Everybody's allowed here, and we think that's a good thing. And yet,
45:46
for the most part, the news that you see analyzed on Twitter comes
45:50
for media organizations that are themselves thinly disguised propaganda outlets, you see it on
45:55
cable news, you talk about it on Twitter. The result may I feel
46:00
I could debate, but actually the gatekeepers are still in charge. We think
46:05
that's a bad system. We know exactly how it works, and we're sick
46:08
of it. Starting soon, will be bringing a new version of the show
46:13
we've been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter. We
46:15
bring some other things too, which we'll tell you about, but for now,
46:19
we're just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that
46:22
you have. Without it, you have no others. See you sooner.
46:30
When I watched that, I was like, Gee, Tucker Carlson really ought
46:35
to take over the Death of Journalism podcast. I mean, he's perfect for
46:38
this. I'm sure our producer, Mike get Gavino, would be happy to
46:42
make him a very sweet deal, probably double or triple my salary at least
46:46
for him to take over this podcast, because he clearly understands the basic fundamental
46:52
realities of the news media. And I would agree with almost every word that
46:57
Tucker Carlson said there with regard to the news media. My frustration with Tucker
47:00
Cross and that he has gotten to be a conspiracy nut and he believes almost
47:07
any conspiracy. And I'm not one hundred percent sure why Tucker has become so
47:15
enthralled with conspiracies, But I mean, I'm talking about every single conspiracy that
47:21
has any traction at all Tucker has jumped on. I mean UFOs, jfk
47:27
assassination, Jeffrey Epstein nine to eleven, obviously January sixth, I mean all
47:35
sorts of conspiracies, and none of which I think have any real validity,
47:40
in all of which I think are below his level of intellect. It's almost
47:45
to me like something has happened with Tucker where there's a hole in his thinking.
47:51
And I think part of it might be that because he's gotten so big,
47:57
and he's so rich and famous and powerful, does that's a mind fuck
48:00
for a lot of people. Most people can't handle that, And I think
48:05
that impacts you're thinking inherently when that happens to you. But I also think
48:10
that when that happens, you start to overrate dramatically what people are telling you
48:20
because you think, well, gee, I'm special. I'm Tucker Carlson.
48:23
If someone's telling me this, I am privy to special information because I'm special,
48:31
So therefore information that I'm being given is inherently special. So my sources
48:37
are really good, and I think plays a small but significant role in why
48:44
someone like Tucker would overvalue things that he's being told. Like, for instance,
48:49
he casually said a few months ago on a show that John Kennedy was
48:53
assassinated by the CIA because someone anonymously told him this. Who would know?
49:00
So one person who he's not gonna name, tells him this, and Tucker
49:06
decides, Oh, the CIA killed our president within the lifetimes of a lot
49:10
of people that are still alive. I mean, it's just it's with no
49:14
evidence, no one ever, no one ever telling the secret before they died.
49:19
I mean, it's just insane. But this is this is who Tucker
49:22
has become, and it made him His firing has become the universal martyrdom for
49:29
all conspiracy theories. He's basically, you know, the patron saint of conspiracy
49:34
theories. I think the date of his quote unquote firing and Fox News Channel
49:37
is going to be a religious holiday for many of these conspiracy theories because they
49:42
all think that that's the reason why he got fired. Well, now apparently
49:45
Tucker even believes a conspiracy theory of why he got fired, which came out
49:52
in the midst of this Twitter posting which I'll get back to momentarily, because
49:59
his lawy years are claiming, you know, the Fox News channel committed fraud
50:04
here, which of course is their attempt to get out of the contract in
50:07
some way, shape or form. But also that apparently, according to news
50:10
reports, Tucker is claiming and it sounds to me just like the CIA killed
50:15
Kennedy thing. Maybe it's slightly more meat on the bone that a Fox board
50:21
member told him that he was part his firing was part of the Dominion voting
50:28
Systems lawsuits settlement, not a result as a result of the disclosure and what
50:37
was redacted and not redacted in the discovery. No, no, no,
50:42
no, no no. This was a situation that was very, very different.
50:45
This was a situation of that was a prerequisite for the settlement itself.
50:51
This is an extraordinary thing that Tucker now apparently believes, and I believe it's
50:54
totally false. Now I'm going to give Tucker the benefit of the doubt that
51:00
Tucker really believes this. So here's what I think happened. This is,
51:04
this isn't keeping with my analysis of what's happened to Tucker's thinking and how conspiratorial
51:08
he's gotten. So you've got a Fox board member again, I'm pretending that
51:14
this story happened at some level, and they, you know, they like
51:17
Tucker, They want to curry favorite with Tucker. They you know, everyone
51:22
likes to be part of a story this big, and so they tell Tucker
51:25
you know, you know, Tucker, Um, you know you're you're firing
51:30
was was clearly as a result of the Dominion Voting System's lawsuit. And they
51:37
might have even said something like the timing of it was that you were not
51:44
going to be fired until that settlement was done. Right, that would make
51:47
sense. That's something that a Fox board member might either know or have good
51:53
speculation about. And that would make sense because you're not going to fire Tucker
52:00
Carlson before that settlement is done because it would diminish First of all, it
52:05
would create all sorts of questions that would not be helpful at the time,
52:08
but it would destroy your bargaining position. That part of what you're trying to
52:15
do at Fox News Channel is to avoid a trial. That's part of what
52:20
you're paying for and part of why you're trying to avoid the trial is because
52:23
it's going to be embarrassing on a number of levels, and so I continue
52:29
to believe it would really happen. Here is the discovery indicated that Tucker Carlson
52:32
had called his boss the C word and he wanted that known to the public,
52:37
and that that is a fireball offense. And there were other factors that
52:40
did not prevent him from being fired, including the fact that he was becoming
52:44
too difficult to handle and his show wasn't really making that much money. Blah
52:47
blah blah. There's always a lot of reasons for this, but the primary
52:51
thing was the discovery in that lawsuit was very, very damaging to Tucker.
52:57
So what I think happens here is that this foxboard member says, you know,
53:00
you weren't going to be fired until that settlement was made, and then
53:05
in Tucker's mind that somehow becomes his firing was part of the settlement. And
53:13
that makes absolutely no sense. It makes no sense on numerous levels. Number
53:17
One, Tucker had very little to do with the actual issues related to the
53:22
dominion voting system's lawsuit. That's what's so ironic about this. This whole thing
53:27
begins with Donald Trump's lie that Fox has to clean up and end up paying
53:31
eight hundred million dollars over and the guy who supported it among the opinion hosts
53:36
at Fox News Channel, the guy who supported the lie the least by far,
53:40
in fact pushed back against it on air, was Tucker Carlson. So
53:45
it makes no sense from a substance standpoint. It also makes no sense that
53:49
the dominion. Why would dominion see if a settlement negotiations all a given take,
53:55
what is it that one party values and what is it the other party
53:58
values, and then they come to a negotiated settlement, Well, that would
54:02
be a massive, massive carrot or ask on Dominion's part. That would that
54:10
would have reduced the settlement number significantly. So why would Dominion care? Tucker
54:21
didn't say anything bad about Dominion or who the hell knows politically whether or not
54:25
they would hate him or not, but there would be no value for Dominion
54:30
in saying. And by the way, part of our settlement is you got
54:32
a fire, Tucker Carlson, what's in it for them? Nothing? And
54:38
I can maybe understand from Fox's perspective, Well, we're going to give that
54:43
chip to Dominion. In this fantasy world where this is something that they value,
54:47
But then the settlement number would have been a hell of a lot less.
54:51
I mean, they have already gave them half of what they were asking
54:53
for, and what they were asking for was already insane, way, way,
54:58
way more than the value of the entire company, with no real evidence
55:02
of damage is done. And then there's the issue, Okay, well,
55:07
if they if Dominion wanted Tucker gone, why didn't they want some of the
55:10
other hosts that were way way worse on the dominion issue gone, who are
55:16
still at Fox News Channel, who would have been far easier for Fox News
55:21
Channel to get rid of and there would have been far less damaging. So
55:23
that it makes no sense and there's no evidence for it. And given Tucker's
55:30
I believe whole in his thinking and very conspiratorial ways that he has picked up,
55:37
that's my theory of what really happened. That's assuming, by the way,
55:40
the Tucker just didn't make this up. I don't think Tucker would make
55:44
it up. I just think he completely and you know, maybe even at
55:46
some level purposely misunderstood what was being told to him because he now sees everything
55:53
through the prism of conspiracy, and let's face it, I mean, this
55:58
thing has gotten so much publicity. He's way bigger than he ever was when
56:01
he was at Fox News Channel. That you know, when that happens,
56:06
you'll you'll start to believe anything about yourself that is consistent with you being that
56:13
big of a deal that you're firing was a prerequisite for the sign of the
56:19
dominion voting system's lawsuit. I just I do not buy it. And I
56:22
think it's I'm troubled by, um, by the way that Tucker is prone
56:29
to believing these things now and um, and so you know, it's a
56:32
shame because I really like Tucker. I think he's very talented. I think
56:37
he's super smart. I think he's the best that's ever done what he does
56:40
on television, and I think that what he's planning to do on Twitter has
56:45
great potential and it could really be the end of cable news as we know
56:52
it now. It's important to point out because I think a lot of people,
56:54
including myself, assumed that since he had recently interviewed Elon Musk and they
57:00
clearly agree in a lot of things, that somehow Musk was already involved in
57:07
this Twitter venture. And Musk put out a statement saying no, that he
57:12
has no involvement, at least not directly, and that there's been no contract
57:15
signed with Tucker Carlson, and that everyone is free to do exactly what Tucker
57:22
Carlson is going to do with regard to putting his show on Twitter. Of
57:24
course, when Tucker Carlson put out this video was only a minute long,
57:30
it got tens and tens of millions of views in less than a day,
57:35
which is way more views than his primetime show on Fox News Channel ever got.
57:40
So there's something really bizarre going on where way more than just the hardcore
57:45
Fox News Channel audience is deeply interested and invested in anything that Tucker Carlson is
57:51
doing. And I'm sure that at least for the short run, whatever Tucker
57:55
does, assuming it's anywhere close to the normal quality of his old Fox News
58:00
Channel show, it's going to get an enormous audience on Twitter. But it's
58:07
not apparently going to be part of quote unquote a Twitter program. But it
58:10
certainly sounds as if, if this is as successful as it could be,
58:15
that Elon Musk may decide that, you know what, maybe that's what Twitter
58:20
becomes. Maybe Twitter becomes essentially a replacement for cable news. And that's why
58:25
I think the cable news world ought to be so incredibly concerned. They are
58:32
already have lots of reasons to be concerned, but one of them it clearly
58:37
just got exacerbated by this move by Tucker Carlson. Now, you know,
58:42
part of this could be a way to get around his contract, and maybe
58:45
this is a loophole where you know, he's allowed to post on Twitter.
58:49
So that's really all he's gonna do is he's going to post content on Twitter,
58:52
and he has enough money to be able to produce it at a high
58:55
level. It doesn't cost that much money to do the show that Tucker did,
59:00
and you know, so he can have his cake and eat it too,
59:04
and probably get a bigger audience than ever. And if that's successful,
59:07
and then other people decide to do the same thing, and Elon Musk decides,
59:12
Hey, you know, I way overpaid for Twitter, but maybe I
59:15
just bought the replacement for cable news. Then I could see that as a
59:21
business model that could work. And the really great benefit of this from a
59:27
consumer standpoint is the free speech that Tucker Carlson will experience on Twitter is far
59:34
greater than he had even at Fox News Channel, which gave him a wide
59:38
leash and probably felt as if they gave him too much of a wide leash
59:42
towards the end, and that's what ended up effectively metaphorically hanging him or hanging
59:46
himself in a lot of ways, which we've gotten into previously. But the
59:52
reality here is that he's gonna have way more free speech than he had in
59:55
the corporate media Fox News Channel and might make him even more popular, especially
1:00:01
if he's now able to go after Fox, which is I'm sure part of
1:00:06
what he's gonna do. I don't think he's gonna have much hesitation, at
1:00:08
least indirectly of going after Fox, based upon the video that we just played
1:00:15
for you a few minutes ago. I mean, he's clearly targeting the media
1:00:17
in general, and so he's got a lot going for him. He's got
1:00:21
a lot of people supporting him. He's got even Brett Farve calling for a
1:00:25
boycott NFL Hall of Famer quarterback Brett Farve calling for a boycott of Fox News
1:00:30
channeunless they let him out of his contract. Megan Kelly has been on a
1:00:35
rampage on behalf of Tuger Carlson, and I gotta say something that no one
1:00:40
else that I've seen mentioned, and it's so obvious, but it bothers me
1:00:46
from a conflict of interest standpoint. Conflict of interest used to matter, and
1:00:51
they used to be mentioned as a prerequisite in any situation where they were relevant.
1:00:55
But Megan Kelly has two massive conflict of interest when it comes to the
1:01:00
Tucker Carlson issue. The number one, which is so obvious and yet I
1:01:05
don't think people are fully appreciating it, is that she hates Fox News Channel
1:01:09
because you know, she left there and went to NBC, and you know,
1:01:13
frankly, I think she is the one that ought to take over for
1:01:15
Tucker, but politically has never gonna happen, especially now because she's been raging
1:01:20
against Fox News Channel in a very big way. So she's kind of got
1:01:22
the ex employee animus towards Fox News Channel. And obviously the whole back to
1:01:30
the Roger Ales sexual harassment situation, which she was involved in, and they
1:01:34
made a movie about her and she was one of the main characters, and
1:01:37
I think she was played by Charlie Starron, which is you know, boy
1:01:40
that that's a compliment. But I digress. The point is that she clearly
1:01:46
has animus towards Fox News Channel, but she also has something else that ought
1:01:51
to be known far more than it is, and that is that she and
1:01:55
Tucker Carlson have the same lawyer. God my name of Brian Freeman, who
1:02:00
I know. I've actually had lunch with Brian Freeman on a completely different matter.
1:02:05
Smart guy. I'm not sold on him, but I mean, you
1:02:08
know, he clearly knows what he's doing, very high powered lawyer. But
1:02:14
he and with Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly sharing a lawyer, obviously, Freeman
1:02:20
is Megan Kelly's source on the stuff that she's been reporting, which is fine,
1:02:25
that's appropriate, but that you ought to be disclosing that on a constant
1:02:29
basis that we share the same lawyer, and that I might be effectively doing
1:02:35
the bidding publicly to put pressure on Fox to let Tucker Carlson out of his
1:02:40
contract, or to you know, be able to do so in a in
1:02:44
an expeditious and efficient fashion. I mean, that's my theory, but it's
1:02:47
not. It doesn't take a you know, the proverbial rocket scientist to figure
1:02:52
out what the connections are here. That's what's happening, and that's a conflict
1:02:55
of interest that ought to be disclosed. One other thing about the whole Tucker
1:03:00
Carlson situation, The reaction in the left wing media to Tucker's announcement has been
1:03:06
flat out hilarious, and most emblematic of that was former CNN media host Ryan
1:03:14
Stelter, who's a complete hack and a fraud. He went on NBC.
1:03:20
Now, I don't think this was actually aired on NBC television. That seemed
1:03:23
to be more of a streaming situation, but he did an interview with NBC
1:03:29
and they were in a complete hissy fit over what this meant about the issue
1:03:36
of Oh my god, is someone going to be able to police Tucker now
1:03:38
that he's on Twitter? This is going to be chaos. Oh my gosh.
1:03:43
And Twitter's a right wing media outlet. Now that's the takeaway from NBC
1:03:47
in this interview with Brian Stelter, And here's the hilarity that was that interaction.
1:03:53
Okay, well, listen, Twitter was already under fire from misinformation,
1:03:58
disinformation, all outlies ti semitism, racism before Elon Musk took over, and
1:04:03
now it's gotten kind of crazy, right, seemingly unmoored if you will,
1:04:08
will anybody be able to police what Carlson says? More? Is this the
1:04:13
point it's just a free for all. I think this is the point.
1:04:15
It is a free fall. That's what Elon Musk wants to provide. This
1:04:17
move by Tucker may cement the idea of Twitter as a right wing website.
1:04:23
It's incredible how quickly the world changes, right. I mean, it was
1:04:27
not even six months ago that Twitter was effectively a socialist media outlet, Marxist
1:04:33
media outlet was one of the major purveyors of censorship and the maintenance of left
1:04:41
wing Marxist socialist COVID insanity narratives. And now under Elon Musk, they're calling
1:04:49
it a right wing outlet, which is absurd and by the way, it
1:04:54
should be pointed out, this was an interview that was done well after Elon
1:04:58
Musk made his statement that there was no contract with Tucker Carlson. So it's
1:05:01
not as if this is going to be Twitter sponsored or you know, produced
1:05:06
by Twitter. This is just Tucker Carlson using his Twitter account to put on
1:05:12
a show. Any left winger could do exactly the same thing, except they
1:05:16
won't. You know why, because their numbers will be seen by the whole
1:05:19
world, and they won't do anything close to what Tucker will be able to
1:05:24
do on Twitter. And so I my guess is no liberal star is going
1:05:30
to do this because it's going to be embarrassing. That's the reality of this.
1:05:33
So you know they don't believe in free speech. Right there, they
1:05:38
just prove to you they don't really believe in free speech. And never ever,
1:05:42
ever, ever let them deceive you again into thinking that they do.
1:05:46
The left wing elites they want to be able to control the narrative. They
1:05:51
don't care about the truth, and they do not care about free speech.
1:05:58
But I do think the much bigger issue here is we could be seeing the
1:06:00
beginning of the end of cable news. We really could be seeing that,
1:06:04
for better for worse, and there's a lot of reasons for that. But
1:06:08
Tucker, I think, may have just started assuming this as a successful as
1:06:12
successful as it could or should be. May have just started this slippery slope
1:06:16
where the whole thing falls apart. And so this is something that I think
1:06:24
everyone should be watching very very carefully. And there's some good potentially in this
1:06:29
from a free speech standpoint, but there's also some bad because I really despise
1:06:34
fragmentation. I hated fragmentation. I wrote a book in two thousand and five
1:06:40
called The Death of Free Speech, which doesn't sound like it's about media fragmentation,
1:06:44
but it's at least as much about media fragmentation and how that was going
1:06:48
to divide America and destroy the media and news as it is where we stood
1:06:56
on the issue of free speech. And I think that I've been vindicated extreme
1:07:00
extraordinarily since two thousand and five in that book that nobody bothered to buy for
1:07:04
understandable reasons. But the point of this is that fragmentation has all sorts of
1:07:10
negative impacts, and we've seen it with regard to the Balkanization of people and
1:07:15
choosing the quote unquote news and information that they get. It creates more and
1:07:20
more extreme opinions trying to get attention, but it also cuts down on the
1:07:27
communal experience of news, everyone being on remotely the same page. I mean,
1:07:33
we don't have to agree what's on that page, but I think it's
1:07:35
important that we all it's least degree what is on the page. We can
1:07:40
interpret what is on the page differently. Heck, we don't even read from
1:07:43
the same books anymore. I mean, every every news outlet is basically has
1:07:47
its own reality. I mean, the reality of what's on Newsmax and the
1:07:53
reality of what's on MSNBC are two completely different countries. And while opinion is
1:08:00
good, I think when we're that fragmented, I think that it's almost impossible
1:08:05
to ever become unified. And the end of cable news and a further fragmentation
1:08:12
of cable news is not going to be a positive thing from that standpoint.
1:08:16
So yes, maybe it's good from a free speech perspective and killing the corporate
1:08:20
media, but if we're going to just fragment into a thousand different pieces,
1:08:26
I don't think that's healthy in the long run. But obviously, you know,
1:08:30
a lot of this is still yet to be known, because we don't
1:08:32
know exactly what Tucker is going to do, what it's going to look like,
1:08:34
how successful it will be, will be a financial success or just a
1:08:40
viewership success, because those can be two very very different things. Whether the
1:08:44
business model will work, a lot of it is yet to be seen,
1:08:45
and obviously we will continue to talk about it as it evolves. But right
1:08:50
now I want to bring in our guests because I'm really excited about our guest
1:08:56
for today. He is a really good friend of mine, even though we've
1:09:00
never met, and that's an interesting part of this story. So I think
1:09:03
you're about to hear an interview that is going to be truly unique on a
1:09:10
lot of different levels. That relates to somebody who has now decided that he's
1:09:15
no longer going to be on Team Trump and instead he's going to be an
1:09:20
official part of Team De Santis. And I have referred to my friend Steve
1:09:26
Cortez on a number of occasions previously, and he's going to join us now
1:09:30
officially for the first time, which I'm really excited about. And he is
1:09:34
a former top Trump campaign advisor, former Newsmax TV host to announce this week
1:09:40
that he is endorsing Ron De Santis for president and joining the pro de Santis
1:09:45
political Action Committee. Never backed down, Steve Cortez. Welcome to the Death
1:09:49
of Journalism podcast, John, Thank you for having me. I am one
1:09:55
of your most loyal listeners. I listened to every single podcast, so I'm
1:09:59
a big fan of your work in general, but the podcast in particular,
1:10:01
So I'm glad to be a guest. Finally, Well, Let's give a
1:10:05
little bit of the full disclosure here, because this is one of those interviews
1:10:10
that's going to work or not work on multiple levels because we have a rather
1:10:15
unusual relationship. We've never met, but I consider you to be a very
1:10:19
good friend. We have a lot in common. We both went to Georgetown
1:10:23
University, where you were a football player. I was a golfer. We
1:10:27
didn't know each other at Georgetown, but we have a few people that we
1:10:30
know in common. And you became a listener, not to this podcast originally
1:10:36
but with the benefit of hindsight, and that's how we actually connected. You
1:10:42
want to give us a little bit more insight on that. So I'm a
1:10:46
college football nut, just generally, and I was always a tremendous admirer of
1:10:51
Joe Paternell, even though I was never a Panted State fan like you,
1:10:55
Notre Dame fan. Growing up as a Chicago Catholic, that was a natural
1:10:58
for me. But regard I just you know, from afar so admired Joe
1:11:01
Paterno and it just smelled wrong, you know, as things were going down
1:11:05
regarding that scandal. But I didn't look into it enough to know any better
1:11:09
than what corporate media was preaching to me well at the same time that I'm
1:11:13
a massive Cops football fan, and that I, you know, just had
1:11:15
this bias in favor of Joe Paterno. As I got involved in corporate media.
1:11:18
As my career in media started taking off over the last fifteen years,
1:11:23
and I've been a contributor broadcaster for all of the major cable news networks,
1:11:27
I think I'm one of the few people who can say that as I've learned
1:11:30
just how corrupt corporate media is in general. I somehow I don't recall how
1:11:35
exactly I came across your podcast and to me like you married all of this
1:11:39
together with an absolute mountain of evidence, and I went into it thinking that,
1:11:44
Okay, you're gonna exonerate Paterno. That's going to be important. I
1:11:46
had no idea that you were going to blow up with convincing evidence the entire
1:11:50
case, and you got me, frankly, you know, incredibly invested in
1:11:55
it. I listened to every single minute of that incredible saga. I mean,
1:12:00
because it's dozens and dozens of hours, incredibly well done, and I
1:12:02
think there's a lot of lessons to be taken away from it. Though for
1:12:05
politics, for life, for sports that aren't paternal specific or Penn State specific.
1:12:12
So that turned me into a fan of yours, and that's how we
1:12:14
started connecting online. I did not agree at that time with your anti Trump
1:12:18
stances, and we still won't agree, I'm sure, on a lot of
1:12:20
things looking backward. But the point is, even when I don't agree with
1:12:24
you, I respect your views, and you and I are in the same
1:12:27
place now in terms of both of us advocating you, you know, sort
1:12:30
of as a fan and for me now as an actual participant in Team Ron
1:12:34
advocating for Ron to Santas to be the Republican nominee. All right, well,
1:12:39
that was a perfect way to come full circle and to give the background
1:12:42
here of our relationship. And you and I have had many many conversations about
1:12:46
this Trump versus the Santis situation, and I think I would probably surprise a
1:12:53
lot of people by them knowing what my stance on your transition and has been,
1:13:00
because this has been a very very difficult decision for you to go from
1:13:05
being a top Trump aide to now being officially part of team de Santis.
1:13:11
I want to take you through that evolution here on this interview, because I'm
1:13:15
not sure people fully understand how close you have been to Trump over the last
1:13:21
eight years or so from a political standpoint, Can you what can you tell
1:13:26
us about your relationship with Donald Trump that maybe we don't know already. Well.
1:13:33
Listen, President Trump and I had a very close working relationship for a
1:13:38
couple of reasons. One is that, to his discredit, he cycles through
1:13:43
a lot of people, right, so there just aren't that many people who
1:13:45
really lasted from his first election through his first term into the second election and
1:13:50
beyond. I'm one of the people who did, and so almost by default
1:13:55
that that, you know, you rise in stature and sort of seniority and
1:13:59
proximity to in Trump because of that. But then I think the second aspect
1:14:01
is that President Trump is a TV creature, right, I mean, he
1:14:05
made most of his fame, of course, not really so much in the
1:14:09
business world, but in TV largely talking about the business world. He absolutely
1:14:14
loves cable news, I think to an unhealthy degree. But that for me
1:14:17
happened to be very beneficial because that's the world that I lived in, and
1:14:20
that's how I came to know him, It's how I came to work for
1:14:25
him, and so because I was on TV constantly advocating for him, for
1:14:30
the movement, defending him, you know, you rise very quickly in stature.
1:14:33
So because of that, he and I got to be quite close,
1:14:35
talked on the phone, very very often, visited in person reasonable amount of
1:14:40
time, and we had a close working relationship. And I still believe to
1:14:44
this day that he was the disruptor we needed in twenty sixteen. I know
1:14:48
you and I are not at all in the same page on that, but
1:14:50
I have also come to realize I think when the facts change, your opinion
1:14:55
should change, and that is the case with me. I had come to
1:14:58
realize that Number One, I think in Ron de Santis. On the positive
1:15:00
side, in Ron de Santis, I think we just had this incredible political
1:15:04
rising star, So regardless of what was happening with Trump, I think that
1:15:08
Ron de Santis is just such an an inspiring and dynamic leader, was such
1:15:12
a proven track record of results that I think I would back him anyway.
1:15:15
But on the more sort of negative side against Trump, I came to the
1:15:20
realization at the twenty twenty two mid terms, after three consecutive significant election losses
1:15:27
in eighteen twenty and twenty two. In the case of twenty two, at
1:15:30
least relative to expectations, I had to do an honest self assessment and look
1:15:34
and word and say, look, if I want what is best for this
1:15:36
country, if I want his best for this movement, is being attached to
1:15:41
Donald Trump for me the right strategy, And I just determined it absolutely is
1:15:45
not. So the first sort of step for me was separating myself from Trump,
1:15:48
which I did not do publicly. I did tell him and I was
1:15:53
just really sort of private about that. And you were excellent in terms of
1:15:56
giving me good counsel and advice during that process. But I was then a
1:16:00
very additional step for me to move over, not just to go to sort
1:16:02
of neutral, but to then move over to a team to Sandus, where
1:16:05
of course now am and you know, listen, really excited to be there.
1:16:09
And I believe this is you know, and unbelieved. Everybody says it's
1:16:13
about elections, right, that it's the most important. Ever, this truly
1:16:15
is, John, because I think we're losing our country. We really are.
1:16:18
We have a day facto open southern border. For example, we have
1:16:23
children being taught in schools that they should be ashamed of the body they were
1:16:26
born in that there was a mistake. We're in a terrible place as a
1:16:29
country, and the polling certainly shows that in terms of national mood and confidence
1:16:32
in all of that, I think we are quickly the window is quickly quickly
1:16:36
closing where we can save our country and if it is savable, and I
1:16:40
believe it is, the clock is ticking on that possibility. And I think
1:16:45
it's just absolutely crucial that we elect Ron to Sandus as president. I think
1:16:48
he has by far the best chance of any credible Republican out there to beat
1:16:53
Biden and to win this election. And before we talk specifically about why to
1:16:58
Sandis, I still want to make sure we nail down this remarkable transition.
1:17:03
I mean, this is an amazing thing that you're doing here. I think
1:17:05
people need to understand sure how connected you were to Trump, both personally as
1:17:13
well as from public persona. You know, being not just a political advisor,
1:17:16
being a host on Newsmax. I mean, you're you are maga through
1:17:20
and through. You've been on Steve Bannon's show on an almost daily basis.
1:17:28
No one's more maga than Steve Bannon from a personal standpoint, I know,
1:17:32
and I hope that you can articulate for us how difficult this transition has been
1:17:39
for you, and therefore how passionately you must feel about the Santis being the
1:17:45
better option for you to take the enormous personal and professional risk that you are
1:17:51
taking in order to blow up being in Trump world. And we all know
1:17:57
you blow up being in Trump world. There's no going back, basically and
1:18:01
for you to do for you. So why did Steve Cortez make this decision
1:18:05
when even people like me, we're telling you, you're sure you want to
1:18:09
do this steam because I'm not sure this is a great idea. So how
1:18:12
did that happen? Yeah? Yes, well listen, you know, and
1:18:17
to that point, and many people were telling me people I respect like you,
1:18:20
like, hey, be careful with this, right, playing with fire.
1:18:24
You know, my own wife said, you know you basically, in
1:18:26
all these years of advocating for Trump, roughly half of America can't stand you.
1:18:31
Now if you go to De Santis and oppost Trump, half of the
1:18:34
half can't stand you, right, So you're really winnowing down your support based
1:18:39
or potential audience. And that's true. Listen, And I'm not trying to
1:18:42
sound sanctimonious or you know, holier than now. I did it because of
1:18:45
patriotism. I got involved in politics as a middle aged guy. I had
1:18:49
a great Wall Street career, a happy family. I was doing TV,
1:18:53
but on the Wall Street side, not controversial. Nobody hated me, John
1:18:57
Okay, I had a good life. I got into politics because I thought
1:19:00
back in twenty sixteen, we were losing our country. I think much more
1:19:03
so now. And I saw at that time something really encouraging in Donald Trump
1:19:09
and took a bit of a personal flyer on that gamble that you know,
1:19:13
for me at least paid off though, because he won, and I was
1:19:15
extremely close with the President of United States, and that got me a whole
1:19:18
lot of media stature. I was already a TV personality, but it sent
1:19:21
me into a very different and frankly you know, hire arena. Because of
1:19:26
that, I now am taking somewhat of a similar risk, right and just
1:19:30
saying, while life was pretty comfortable for me and from a media perspective,
1:19:33
from a financial perspective, all of that with Team Trump, it's no longer
1:19:39
tenable. I can't live with myself. I can't believe I'm doing the best
1:19:42
patriotic duty for my country if I continue along that path, and for me
1:19:45
in terms of I can explain to the audience in terms of break points,
1:19:49
there were really two for me. The first was and I was on team
1:19:54
Trump all the way into the twenty twenty two midterms. So you know,
1:19:57
from late twenty fifteen all the way into twenty two, had every intention of
1:20:00
trying to help Donald Trump win election. In twenty four a couple of things
1:20:04
happen, and the first is on the Saturday before the mid term this previous
1:20:09
November, President Trump, in a rally in Ohio, really went after Rohnd
1:20:15
De Santis. Now I had already become from a far didn't know Governor de
1:20:17
Sants, but I become a huge fan of his, particularly during COVID,
1:20:20
and you and I are exactly. We are a lock step when it comes
1:20:24
to all things COVID, all things Fauci. To me, the greatest failing
1:20:28
by far of the Trump presidency was effectively handing the keys to the kingdom over
1:20:32
to Fauci. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that RHN De Santis
1:20:35
saved the country through his courageous leadership of Florida, showing the nation, how
1:20:41
we can be reasonable and scientific about the virus. So, given that mindset
1:20:47
that I had of Rhonda Santis okay again, I didn't know. I had
1:20:50
no plans to work for. When Donald Trump steps up to the podium and
1:20:54
tears into this incredible governor, the best governor in America, who is going
1:20:58
to be on the ballot in three days. This was the Saturday of election
1:21:01
Tuesday. I thought it was absolutely outrageous. And of course at that time
1:21:05
we had no idea that ron de Santist was going to just soar to reelection
1:21:09
it would be as easy as it was. And I talked to the President
1:21:13
about the President Trump and we had a very difficult conversation. I won't sare
1:21:15
all the details, but you could probably imagine how that went. That was
1:21:19
the first instance. That's where I really mentally checked out and said I can't
1:21:24
be on this team anymore. And then the second thing for me, which
1:21:26
happened shortly thereafter, was another these NFT trading cards, which I think in
1:21:31
ex President of the United States for personal financial gain selling superhero themed trading cards.
1:21:38
I think it's beneath the office. I think it's inappropriate, and I
1:21:42
think it's it's indicative of somebody who can't rise to the moment that we're in
1:21:46
in America. And that's when I then firmly decided, Okay, I'm off.
1:21:51
I'm off. Team Trump had not at that point though yet decided to
1:21:55
jump in the team to Santists. But I. But I then weeks months
1:21:58
later, made that decision, and as I said, I'm thrilled to be
1:22:00
there. It's not without risk, it's not without aggravation. You know,
1:22:04
quite frankly, the vitriol against me online particularly, and I try to not
1:22:11
pay too much attention, but you know, you have to notice some of
1:22:13
it, and you're not human. The vitriol against me from making my announcement
1:22:16
has been intense, and you know, it's not fun for anybody. Everybody
1:22:21
to some degree wants to be liked, and but look for reasons of patriotism.
1:22:28
I really believe that God has given me abilities, and one of my
1:22:31
abilities is to communicate in writing and broadcasting and radio podcasts, all of it.
1:22:35
And I want to use that ability. I used to use it just
1:22:39
for financial gain and sort of to help rich head shub managers get richer.
1:22:42
And there's nothing wrong with that but it wasn't a calling, right. I
1:22:45
view this much more as a calling of I'm trying to save my country.
1:22:47
I'm trying to save it from my kids and someday their kids, and I
1:22:49
think it's really important and it's worth taking personal risk, in my view,
1:22:55
and I respect the hell out of that, and I'm thrilled that you're doing
1:22:58
what you're doing, although I'm a little concerned for you as my friend,
1:23:01
and just to be clear about there were a number of reasons why I was
1:23:08
hesitant, very hesitant and supporting you transitioning from Trump to the sand this,
1:23:13
even though obviously I am a huge Trump critic and a huge fan of Ron
1:23:17
de Santis. The first was that I perceived you, Steve, as one
1:23:23
of the very few people with the willingness and the ability to tell Trump that
1:23:29
he's wrong about certain things from time to time. And considering the fact that
1:23:33
he is and I still believe was always going to be the heavy favorite,
1:23:39
doesn't mean he's gonna win, but the heavy favorite to be the nominee,
1:23:43
I thought that you provided value in him, there being some semblance of rationality
1:23:49
and someone who's willing to tell the emperor that he has no clothes from time
1:23:53
to time because my perception is that Trump doesn't have anybody like that near him.
1:23:59
Is am I accurate in that assessment that there is nobody like you in
1:24:04
his orbit? And did you understand why I found that to be a value
1:24:10
and why I thought you should think about sticking with Trump and not going on
1:24:14
team to Santis. No, totally. And by the way, yeah,
1:24:16
yeah, I think you did that both as a friend to me, but
1:24:18
more importantly as a patriot. And you know, you're certainly somebody who has
1:24:21
never been afraid to take enormous personal risk to uncover the truth, you know,
1:24:27
or to promote your view of the world, and so you know clearly
1:24:30
you know all about this far more than I do. But yes, to
1:24:34
answer your question though, regarding that, I worry a lot about Team Trump.
1:24:39
Look, it's my intention. Fully, I'm on team Ron now.
1:24:42
It is my intention to beat him and to win the nomination and to win
1:24:45
the presidency. But we have to acknowledge reality. Reality right now is that
1:24:48
is that Trump is the odds on favor to be the Republican nominee. And
1:24:51
I am extremely worried as a conservative, as somebody who despises what Biden is
1:24:57
doing to this country. I'm extremely worried that Trump does not. He has
1:25:00
a team of sycophants and yes men around him, and I think I was
1:25:05
one of the only remaining people left who had his ear, who was willing
1:25:10
to stand up to him. And I'm very concerned that there is really no
1:25:14
one in that camp. But I'm also concerned. You've made this point very
1:25:16
eloquently. If he were to somehow win the presidency, which I think is
1:25:20
almost an impossibility if he's the nominee. But let's say he does, say
1:25:24
you and I are wrong, I don't know who he is going to get
1:25:27
to staff and administration. I can't imagine that people of consequence, people of
1:25:30
gravitas are going to say, yes, I want to know, I want
1:25:33
to hop in After seeing what happened the last time, after seeing what President
1:25:38
Trump has constantly done to his former employees, to his top staff members,
1:25:44
the way that he rails against them and castigates them, the very people he
1:25:47
selected, that that would be a massive problem. Now again, let's solve
1:25:51
these problems by working really, really hard and persuasively for Ron de Santis.
1:25:57
Look, I get the the danger this country's in and I can get I
1:26:01
can be as cynical as anybody you know regarding that, but I also insist
1:26:04
on being optimistic, and I'm trying to point the way out, and I
1:26:08
think we have the way out. I think we have a path with rond
1:26:11
to Santis. Not that one man or one president solves everything, but it
1:26:14
is sure would be an amazing start to reclaiming our republic, which I think
1:26:17
we've lost in many ways. One last thing on Trump specifically, what do
1:26:25
you think You've already referenced the negative reaction you've gotten online from trumps supporters,
1:26:30
which was not surprising. What do you think Trump's reaction? Obviously he had
1:26:33
a big day the day that you announced because he was found libel in the
1:26:38
in the civil case, But what do you think Trump's reaction to you are
1:26:42
transitioned to team to Santis? Has been and has Steve Bannon, You're a
1:26:46
very good friend, basically the ultimate Trump surrogate. Has he communicated to you
1:26:51
at all after the announcement that you have transitioned from Trump to de Santis?
1:26:58
Yeah, Well, I want to talk about the private communications, but anybody
1:27:01
who watches Bannon show or pays attention to him, knows that he was just
1:27:04
scathing in his criticism of me. He actually called me judas you know,
1:27:10
which is number one, just an absurdity. Right, I'm loyal to the
1:27:13
country. I'm not loyal to any politician, at least not irrevocably, right,
1:27:17
um and uh. And also the at least implication there that I guess
1:27:21
Trump is Jesus, or that Steve Bannon is Jesus. That's pretty absurd and
1:27:25
insulting, really, especially to anybody who claims to be a Christian. So
1:27:28
U and regarding President Trump, you know, I've been told things. I
1:27:30
don't know that they're true. I did not speak to him, but I've
1:27:33
been told that, you know, he blew up. And my guess is
1:27:36
he probably would have come after me immediately if not for the for the verdict
1:27:41
in that in that case, in that case I think is a complete sham,
1:27:43
by the way, but that's beside the point. He may still what
1:27:46
I was told is, and this is very typical of Trump, is the
1:27:49
whole how dare Steve? I made him? You know, right? And
1:27:54
that's sort of the typical line, which of course you know is not true.
1:27:57
I mean, he absolutely, his candidacy and his see absolutely elevating me
1:28:00
in the political TV world. But I already had a very significant career in
1:28:06
the business TV world. But you know, regardless, again, he loves
1:28:11
to talk about loyalty to Trump. Loyalty is a one way street of fealty.
1:28:15
Okay, that's the reality. But the second thing is regarding loyalty again,
1:28:18
I am not loyal to any politician, uh, you know, in
1:28:23
a permanent way. I think that that's an absurdity in a Republican As a
1:28:27
matter of fact, it really should work the opposite way. In other words,
1:28:29
we should we as citizens, should force politicians to be loyal to us
1:28:32
rather than joining any cult of personality or you know, or promising some blood
1:28:36
oath. I mean, that is the kind of tribalism which I hope we
1:28:41
on the right will resist, even though it unfortunately exists in a really intense
1:28:45
way right now in a certain corner of the MAGA world. But I was
1:28:48
so point out I think that's truly a corner. You know, it's very
1:28:53
loud on social media, and if you only pay attention there, you might
1:28:56
think that this is a huge segment of society. I really don't believe if
1:29:00
it is. I think America, and I make this point in my op
1:29:01
ed about why I chose to Santas America is a center right country. Okay,
1:29:05
it's not as far right as I am, I wish, probably not
1:29:08
quite as far right as you, but it's center right country. And I
1:29:11
think Poland and evidence shows us that. But we have been governed in recent
1:29:15
years as if the entire country is the Bay Area of California or Manhattan from
1:29:19
New York City. Why because we keep losing these elections that are eminently winnable.
1:29:26
And I don't think it's because our philosophy is wrong, our agenda is
1:29:29
wrong. I believe it's because the tactics and the leaders have been wrong.
1:29:33
And so if we fix that, I think we win elections and we can
1:29:36
then start to fix America. One thing on the since we mentioned the Trump
1:29:43
civil suit verdict in the Aegean Carol case, and I completely agree with you
1:29:47
in earlier in this episode, I blasted the case as being completely farcical and
1:29:51
absurd. But I'm curious you put on your political analysts add we saw the
1:29:58
massive surge that Trump got after the indictment and the hush money just Stormy Daniel's
1:30:03
case. Do you have any assessment of what you think the impact of this
1:30:08
is going to be with regard to the politics. Yeah, here's my honest
1:30:13
take, And you know I'm always honest with you, even though I'm now
1:30:15
obviously working very hard for Ron to sand As. My guess is, it's
1:30:17
a small net positive in the Republican primary for Donald Trump. And the reason
1:30:21
I say that is I think the case is so absurd, so just unfair,
1:30:27
such a kangaroo court that I think it probably rallies a certain amount of
1:30:30
people to President Trump's side. One thing I've heard, which is very interesting.
1:30:34
It's just anecdotal, but I wouldn't be surprised who it's a bigger trend.
1:30:36
I heard from several different women that the idea that they could do this
1:30:40
to my husband or my son, right that somebody can say, well,
1:30:44
twenty five years ago, roughly, you know, I was attacked and he
1:30:47
needs to pay me five million dollars. You know. I think that understandably
1:30:50
upsets particularly sort of conservative leaning women. But I would also say, like
1:30:56
so many things right now, in terms of the political agenda and regarding Trump,
1:31:00
it may be a small nut positive for him in the primary, but
1:31:02
I think it could be brutal in the general election. And the reason I
1:31:05
say that it's not because there's any validity to case. There's not. But
1:31:09
that deposition that Trump gave and some of the answers that he gave, I
1:31:13
think can be cut into really effective general election commercials where they will really tick
1:31:18
off suburban women in particular, who are already a massive problem for Republicans generally
1:31:25
and for Trump specifically. So a lot of these factors lately are things might
1:31:30
help him in the primary really going to hurt him in the general, which
1:31:32
means really hurt America. Ultimately. I'm right there with you on that,
1:31:38
and I'm glad to hear you say that about the deposition, which I know
1:31:41
you and I had gotten into a little bit of a tiff on regarding some
1:31:45
text messages we had about that, and then you apologize, which further rose
1:31:48
you in my esteem. So that's why I have so much admiration for what
1:31:53
you're doing. And you're a very honest guy, and I really appreciate that.
1:31:58
And so let's as we train before we go to to Ron. One
1:32:01
of the things though, because it directly relates to how the primary season is
1:32:05
likely to go. You and I have talked, obviously off fair until now
1:32:11
about the issue of all of these legal situations that Trump is involved with.
1:32:15
And yes, the Stormy Daniels and yes, the Egene Carroll situations clearly worked
1:32:24
his benefit in a primary. But you have posited the theory that over time
1:32:30
that should there be more cases like for instance, the one out of Georgia
1:32:34
with the election interference, that you think that there could eventually be an attrition
1:32:40
phenomenon, and just basically the situation where some Republican voters get tired and say,
1:32:45
you know what, I've had enough. There's another there's a viable option
1:32:49
here, and his name is Ron de Santis. Can you outline for us
1:32:54
what your belief is on that. Yes, I do believe that there if
1:32:58
the indictments continue, I think they will. I think there will be a
1:33:01
tipping point where Yes, at first, in terms of your a graphic,
1:33:05
right, Trump is rallied, he is rising in the Republican primary because of
1:33:10
the indictments. But we then crest and start to turn over and not just
1:33:14
lose the rise, but I think go significantly below you know where Trump started.
1:33:17
And I'll tell you the reason. I think that the cumulative effect of
1:33:21
two and three and four indictments, you know, on top of a civil
1:33:26
suit, even though I think it's nonsense, but those indictments, those courtroom
1:33:30
losses start to build. And it seems to me that the cases at least
1:33:33
as outlined. We don't know because he hasn't been charged yet, but the
1:33:36
cases are getting more serious and a bit more consequential in terms of the Georgia
1:33:42
case and in terms of the potential Marilago documents case. And I do believe
1:33:45
that when you stack these indictments on top of each other, to use your
1:33:49
term, I think it's correct. It's the exhaustion factor where people throw up
1:33:54
their hands and say, well, wait a second. In ron De Santis
1:33:57
we get essentially the same political philosophy, or at least the philosophy to Trump
1:34:01
posits. I don't think Trump follows through all on that philosophy, but the
1:34:05
the patriotic, populist, right wing philosophy agenda of Donald Trump, but with
1:34:12
none of the baggage. I mean. In Ronda Santis you get you know,
1:34:15
look, I don't want to say perfect, but in political terms,
1:34:17
you get almost a perfect person in that regard, meaning an absolutely sterling resume,
1:34:24
an inspiring life story, a military veteran, a college athlete, a
1:34:29
gorgeous family, a young man who's a rising star. There's just there's so
1:34:33
much to admire and to rally toward. There When you stack that up with
1:34:38
roughly the same political agenda against a three or four times indicted near eighty year
1:34:45
old man, I think that contrast is going to become significant and that may
1:34:49
take months. Okay, that might not happen next week. But it's also
1:34:51
one of the reasons why I'm not freaking out. You know. Look,
1:34:55
I think it's we need to acknowledge we in Team Ron. We're the under
1:34:58
dogs clearly. Now we're clearly in second place too. It's not like we're
1:35:02
underdogs, you know, mixed among you know, ten other candidates who matter.
1:35:06
I think we're the only other candidacy then matters. We're underdogs, but
1:35:10
I believe we're going to climb number one on the positive side because of telling
1:35:14
the Rond to Santa story to America who doesn't really know it yet. But
1:35:16
number two, I do think there's definite potential and likelihood that cumulative Trump problems,
1:35:23
building problems in addition to what he already has, will send voters Ron's
1:35:29
way. Obviously, I would love for you to be correct about that.
1:35:32
The Devil's advocate position is where I'm at on that right now. Where I
1:35:36
think that the weakest case is going first goes to Trump's advantage, because I
1:35:44
think it creates the narrative that this is all bullcrap and that the more so
1:35:49
all you're gonna do is just pull it, put on more layers of bullcrap,
1:35:54
and that there will be an even greater resolve among especially his ardent supporters,
1:36:00
that we, you know, we must fight this, and the whole
1:36:03
Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck narrative that we must even nominate him to prove that
1:36:09
the left can't get away with this, I think resonates with a lot of
1:36:13
people. And so I think there's another aspect of this that you might be
1:36:17
discounting, Steve, and that is every single time this happens, Rond de
1:36:23
Santis is forced to take a position on the case, and he is in
1:36:28
a no win situation there right. You know better than anybody that he in
1:36:33
a primary, he can't come out in favor in any way, shape or
1:36:39
form of any of these prosecutions or allegations or whatever they are. And in
1:36:45
a weird way, I actually think this hurts the Santis more than it hurts
1:36:48
Trump. You see where I'm coming from. Sure, no, you're making
1:36:53
listen, you're making important points. You know. I still believe that I'm
1:36:57
going to be correct, but I may be too optimistic. And those are
1:37:00
the points you're making are very very important, and you're right, Ronda santists
1:37:05
to some degree, is put in a really difficult position because when you have
1:37:10
a sham civil case like just happened to Donald Trump, when you have the
1:37:14
Alvin Bragg, you know, just prosecutorial abuse, we as honest citizens,
1:37:18
as honest political actors, have to call that out, even if it's against
1:37:21
the opponent that we're facing in a primary. But I guess I would also
1:37:25
say this, Here's how I would try. And my advice to team to
1:37:28
Santis will be to appeal to voters just to say, listen. Too many
1:37:32
folks on the right in recent years have been sort of content to be righteously
1:37:40
abused. And what I mean by that is to lose elections, Okay,
1:37:43
to have the left use its power to inflict abuse upon us, and we've
1:37:47
been content to sort of get online and scream from our couches about it.
1:37:51
And my point is, enough of that nonsense. It is time for us
1:37:56
to win elections. Okay, It's time for us to control the levers of
1:38:00
power to protect ourselves and to create the kind of society that we want in
1:38:04
the United States. So, but there's a tendency there that we have to
1:38:09
fight. I really believe that, John, There's there's a certain segment of
1:38:12
the right that I think almost wants to lose. They'll never admit that,
1:38:15
but almost wants to lose and wants to be the aggrieved outsiders. And I'm
1:38:20
trying to persuade people in the signal to people, and I hope the governor
1:38:24
to Santas joins me in that in saying enough of that nonsense, like we're
1:38:28
better than this. You know again, America is a center right country.
1:38:30
Let's start acting like it. Let's start winning like it, and and voting
1:38:35
for Trump only because you want to show up those prosecutors means you're going to
1:38:40
spend more years screaming from your couch rather than having real power in America.
1:38:45
But doesn't the right wing media one exactly that situation of course, of course.
1:38:54
Yeah, no, and therein lies a blat of the rub right.
1:38:56
I mean, yes, yes, absolutely, of course. You know,
1:38:59
look most Am Radio, which you and I both have done before as hosts
1:39:03
a lot of conservative podcast World TV World. Yes, absolutely for their business
1:39:09
model, right, you know, the angry conservative out of power getting abused,
1:39:13
swinging from his couch. That works for their business model. Yeah.
1:39:15
And so that's a big challenge for us to try to overcome. But I
1:39:20
hope and I believe that we can make that case. I think people have
1:39:24
so had it, and I think the left has so overplayed its hand.
1:39:28
I guess here's where I would be optimistic to John, and you make great
1:39:30
arguments, and listen, you make very rational arguments, and you could be
1:39:33
right. But the left has so overplayed its hand regarding things like chemically castrating
1:39:40
and surgically transitioning kids. Okay, it has so overplayed its hand that I
1:39:45
think a lot of people who are either conservative or lean slightly to the right
1:39:49
are finally going to say it's not enough to just be angry on the sidelines,
1:39:55
like we have got to control things. And my hope is the left
1:39:59
or playing its hand, and my expectation is will lead to a correct political
1:40:03
backlash of the pendulum swinging back and people say no, no, we need
1:40:06
to actually win, and Rohnda Santas can win. And once he wins,
1:40:10
this is also as important. Nothing matters if you don't win in terms of
1:40:13
your agenda. But once he wins, he can actually implement the agenda.
1:40:16
And he's shown it. I mean, we don't guess about it. He
1:40:18
has shown us that he's done it in Florida. I'm assuming correct me if
1:40:25
I'm wrong. I think I know this pretty well from our conversations that have
1:40:28
been extensive on this topic, that you would not have left Team Trump if
1:40:32
you did not feel so strongly about Rohn De Santis. And in the process
1:40:39
of your transition, as I refer to it, transitions asolutely different connotation in
1:40:45
the last year or so. But your transition from Trump to De Santis,
1:40:48
you went down to Florida and you met with Governor De Santis effectively one on
1:40:54
one for a very long period of time, and you and I spoke before
1:40:58
and after that meeting. So tell us what were you expecting from governor to
1:41:03
Sanders, who you had never met before, and how did what happen compare
1:41:09
with those expectations. Yeah, my honest expectation, particularly knowing how insanely busy
1:41:15
he is lately. This was, you know, after his book launch,
1:41:17
and he was touring the country extensively, and of course running a major state
1:41:21
in the United States. In the middle of a super busy legislative session in
1:41:26
Tallahassee, you know, I think probably one of the most successful legislative sessions,
1:41:30
not just in Florida history, but probably American history of states. So
1:41:33
what I expected, quite honestly, was him to be very cordial, to
1:41:36
have sort of a photo op and you know, okay, we'd love to
1:41:38
have get a team to buy. What I got was far more substantive and
1:41:42
involved than that. And I don't want to get into all of our private
1:41:45
conversations, but I will tell you that I asked him very tough, very
1:41:48
pointed questions because I was going to be very careful. Again, by this
1:41:51
point, I'd already separated myself from Team Trump privately, but I had not
1:41:56
at all decided to joint team to Santas And given the risks that that involved,
1:42:00
you know, I wanted to be very sure that he was who I
1:42:03
think he is, you know, from the outside. And number one,
1:42:06
he gave me an enormous amount of time, which of course I appreciated,
1:42:12
but most importantly to almost every question. If I could have scripted his answer,
1:42:16
that's the answer he gave me. Just you know, as as a
1:42:19
conservative, as a right winger, as a messaging guy. Um, he
1:42:24
just you know, hit every mark as I was hoping he would, but
1:42:28
didn't know. Quite frankly, he also just you know, uh. He
1:42:31
impressed me as truly and and I don't say it this easily, as truly
1:42:35
one of the smartest people that I've ever met. Um in terms of his
1:42:39
his grasp of details of policy, of statistics of people of his state of
1:42:45
Florida. I mean, it was it was very impressive. Not that he
1:42:48
was trying to show off. It was you know, it was us.
1:42:50
There's no no cameras, none of that. It was very I think when
1:42:54
you meet people like this, it's rare. When you meet people who just
1:42:57
have a brain that operates at a different higher level, it's incredibly impressive.
1:43:02
I've only found that with a few people in my life, and he is
1:43:05
absolutely one of them. When you combine that kind of of intellect with his
1:43:11
character and with his temperament. I think all of that is what has made
1:43:15
him disincredibly successful governor and I believe can make him a truly transformative president.
1:43:21
But we've got to get him the nomination first. Hold on a second,
1:43:27
are you saying that Rond de Santis is intellect and his temperament and his character
1:43:32
are better than Donald Trump's. Am I hearing that right, Steve? On
1:43:39
all three counts, yes, yes. By the way, On a more
1:43:45
serious note, the thing that impressed me most in your description of your conversation
1:43:50
with Ron de Santis, which really was extraordinary. I'm glad that you made
1:43:55
that point that you know, he's the busiest guy in America and he gave
1:43:59
you extensive amount of one on one time. But the part that I was
1:44:03
most concerned by and was most impressed by, was from your telling of it.
1:44:10
He understands the stakes here, and what's motivating him is what I would
1:44:16
perceive to be the correct motivation. It's not about ego or it's my turn
1:44:24
or whatever. That he understands he may lose this, he's not expecting to
1:44:30
lose. But that's you know, he's taking a risk here, but that
1:44:33
this risk must be taken for the good of the country. Is that a
1:44:36
fair assessment of what you found? Oh? You know, John, one
1:44:41
of the things I've really learned from your work is to always analyze people's incentives,
1:44:45
right, And you did this so well in the Penn State case,
1:44:47
and to show how perversely incentives were for so many people. And it really
1:44:50
involved this just awful perfect storm in case of in the case of rond de
1:44:56
Santis, and we look at his incentives, right, he is a beloved,
1:45:00
just reelected governor of the third biggest state in America, maybe the most
1:45:03
important state in America in very many ways, the place that it has become
1:45:06
the beacon for the country by far, the highest domestic migration rate of any
1:45:12
state in America, the second highest, second fastest growing economy in the country.
1:45:18
He's got a wonderful family, lives in the governor's mansion, riding out
1:45:23
the rest of his term. He's forty four years old, makes total personal
1:45:27
sense for him, and the world is his oyster after that, right,
1:45:30
I mean, the options are practically unlimited, including the White House at some
1:45:34
point where he would clearly be a front runner in twenty twenty eight or thereafter.
1:45:40
Given his age, he could be a front runner for decades potentially.
1:45:44
The fact that he is taking this risk now when he doesn't need to,
1:45:47
when it's not necessarily in his self interest to do so, I think,
1:45:51
is unbelievably impressive, And in my conversations with him, it was he was
1:45:56
totally aware of the situation of the risks and opportunities that he faced, and
1:46:01
he was doing it for exactly the right reasons, for reasons of patriotism.
1:46:04
But listen, this is a guy who graduated from Harvard Law School, right,
1:46:10
the best or second or third best law school in America, depending on
1:46:13
how you rank it. Right, Yale undergrad via baseball. Blue collar kid
1:46:15
who's great at baseball and smart, gets himself to Yale to play sports,
1:46:18
does great there, both on the field and in the classroom, gets himself
1:46:21
to Harvard Law School. Graduates Harvard Law could have gone to a big New
1:46:25
York law firm, made a fortune, right, what does he do instead?
1:46:29
He joins the Navy. He becomes a naval officer and joins the jag
1:46:31
Car Court and gets deployed overseas with the Navy Seals to Iraq, and that
1:46:40
says a lot about the character of this man, the patriotism of this man.
1:46:44
And I think that same mindset that motivated him then as a very young
1:46:48
man he's still young, motivates him now. And yeah, it was super
1:46:54
impressive to me, and I hope it will be impressive to the country that,
1:46:57
yeah, he doesn't need this, it's not necessary his career self interest
1:47:01
to do so, but he feels called to do it, and he's he's
1:47:04
a patriot who knows how important this moment is, what time it is in
1:47:09
America now. When you made your announcement, you did so via multiple media
1:47:15
platforms earlier this week, and one of the things you did was you wrote
1:47:19
a column for Newsweek in which you outline the reasons for you now supporting de
1:47:26
Santis after having been a close Trump aid, And you outlined a bit of
1:47:30
not just the reasoning behind it, but also the strategy moving forward. And
1:47:35
I have to say that some of it sounded awfully familiar, some of the
1:47:40
phrase yes, yeah, no, let me please. I want to give
1:47:45
you full credit on that, and I want to do so publicly because you
1:47:49
know, I give the three main reasons, and I also lead with this
1:47:53
on Stuart Varney Show, The idea of America is better than a rematch of
1:47:57
Biden versus Trump. That we have seen this movie before and almost no one
1:48:01
likes it, and we know the ending and we don't want to see it
1:48:04
again. That idea came to me from John Zigler, and I want to
1:48:10
give complete and total credit to you. I think I added a couple of
1:48:14
recals to it, but it is your idea, and it was your idea,
1:48:16
and I think very correctly so of saying, look, right now,
1:48:19
Donald Trump is dominating the news cycle. He is leading in the polls.
1:48:24
I don't think it's insurmountable lead, but it's a league, big league.
1:48:27
How do we flip the script? And you know, how do we change
1:48:30
the conversation? You can't only be about DeSantis is more electable, about DeSantis
1:48:36
has an incredible record of Florida. Those are important components. But you were
1:48:40
the one who suggested to me, and I have now suggested it, joined
1:48:43
you and suggesting it to the world and including to all of Team de Santis
1:48:46
that you know in politics, you always look for these issues that are seventy
1:48:50
thirty eighty twenty right where you sort of can't lose on it if you can
1:48:54
put your opponent on the other side. It's a lot of what I've done
1:48:56
for Donald Trump, frankly and other candidates in the recent years. Well,
1:48:59
this is one of those issues. By polling, as I point out in
1:49:01
my article, by polling, we know that at least seventy percent, a
1:49:04
supermajority of the American people do not want the two of them running again.
1:49:10
On NBC polling, it's exactly that number. Seventy percent don't want Biden running
1:49:14
APE polling, seventy percent don't want Trump running again. So how do we
1:49:18
change that? We're a country, we're the greatest republic in the world,
1:49:21
three or thirty million people. You're telling me we can't come up with a
1:49:25
better option than these two. I believe we can. How do we break
1:49:28
the log jam? It's Ron de Santis. But I absolutely shamelessly borrowed and
1:49:33
lifted that wonderful idea from John Ziegler, and I thank you for it,
1:49:38
and I hope it's going to be effective. Steve, I couldn't be more
1:49:41
thrilled that you did that, and you did it very, very effectively.
1:49:45
And for those who are somehow missed what I'm referring to. If you go
1:49:48
back to episodes fifty four and fifty five, I go into extensive detail into
1:49:54
my theory which I shared with Steve at the time, about how the as
1:49:59
you say and as I said, the script can be flipped here and um
1:50:03
and and just to further flesh out this strategy, because it's more than just
1:50:09
America is better than this, and it's more than you even reference which I
1:50:13
was thrilled about. You referenced the the Biden Trump establishment to me the key
1:50:17
to this strategy, and you know this better than anybody on the planet,
1:50:20
which is why I thought you might see the value in the strategy that Trump's
1:50:28
entire essence, his superpower, if you will, is being anti establishment.
1:50:34
That he is he is the you know, the the chaos creator. But
1:50:40
if you look at this, you can really make a very strong argument that
1:50:45
he is the establishment. Now that he is, he and Biden are incredibly
1:50:50
similar and even agree on a lot of very important issues. And so you
1:50:56
know, take us through a little bit from what you see politically as to
1:51:00
the potential and how devastating that could be if done effectively to Trump's entire persona
1:51:09
you're really were The idea here is to go after his strength, not his
1:51:15
weakness. If you go right directly at his heart, that that might be
1:51:18
the only way to do this. So so give us Why did that idea
1:51:23
appeal to you so much? Ste No, very much, And listen,
1:51:27
Trump is now the establishment on the Republican side, and I think that needs
1:51:30
to be reconciled. It's amazing to me, as somebody who is with Trump
1:51:33
so long, how different things are now versus twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen,
1:51:39
when we were truly the outsiders, when you couldn't find an elected official,
1:51:43
you couldn't find a city council member who was willing to speak in favor of
1:51:45
Trump. Now you have every congressman getting in line almost like sheep dogs,
1:51:50
right, just or like she not sheep dogs, like sheep getting in line
1:51:55
too quickly and obediently endorse President Trump for office's time. So it's completely different
1:52:01
in that regard. And I think you're correct that the establishment of Washington,
1:52:06
DC, on both sides wants us to be a coronation. Right. There
1:52:10
was just a big coordination over in London that I didn't care much about,
1:52:13
but a lot of Americans. Did they do coronations there, We're not supposed
1:52:15
to do them here. The idea of a coordination of Biden on the den
1:52:18
side and Trump on the Republican side is not only is it contrary to what
1:52:23
the American people want, but I think it doesn't. It presents a bit
1:52:26
of a false choice because to your point, unfortunately, the reality is these
1:52:30
two agree, these two camps, these two individuals, they agree on too
1:52:34
much on more than I think a lot of folks on the right would like
1:52:38
to admit. And what I would point to in terms of recent news,
1:52:41
and a recent example is Disney. Is you know that I mentioned previously the
1:52:44
fact that Granda Stantas was willing to take on the biggest, most powerful company
1:52:48
in his state. You know, in America maybe, but I mean certainly
1:52:51
in his state. He was willing to take them on. Why because they
1:52:54
were trying to impose their will upon the people of Florida. The people of
1:52:57
Florida decided, via election, via their legislatures in Ron de Sante's that they
1:53:01
don't want children taught with sexualized indoctrination at a very young age. Okay,
1:53:06
the people Florida decided that Disney injected itself into the conversation, into the debate
1:53:13
and tried to flex its corporate muscle. Ron de santa Is punched back hard
1:53:16
at this corporate behemoth and who defended Disney. Donald Trump on the record via
1:53:24
his social media post defended Disney in this situation, meaning he is totally aligned
1:53:29
with the legacy corporate media, with Joe Biden, with the rest of big
1:53:32
business. I think Biden and Trump are very much aligned when it comes to
1:53:36
many things related to the virus, particularly as it pertains to Fauci, very
1:53:42
much aligned on that. Another area, and I think you're the one who
1:53:44
first brought this to my attention. Where they're both aligned is in actually disparaging
1:53:49
Florida versus California. In other words, elevating Gavin Newsom, someone who Donald
1:53:56
Trump weirdly, almost unbelievably pray is right, while Donald Trump, Florida resident,
1:54:02
disparages the success of Florida, and by any metric you can choose,
1:54:10
Florida is soaring over California. And yet Biden and Trump seems would find full
1:54:16
agreement at least by their you know stated interesting where Trump chooses to live in
1:54:21
California, but in terms of their public statements they find agreement there. So
1:54:26
yes, you know, I think, uh, you're you're right that and
1:54:29
it's important I hope for those of us in Team to Santists to communicate to
1:54:31
the American people that we are the outsiders now, you know. Uh,
1:54:35
And and Trump is the establishment, and as the establishment, he pretends,
1:54:40
for example, that he doesn't need to participate in debates. Well, he's
1:54:43
not an incumbent, okay, And if he chooses to skip those debates,
1:54:47
I think that's really problematic for the country, could be a problem frankly for
1:54:50
the Santis campaign. But we'll have to see how we approach that if and
1:54:53
when it happens. M But but that is the that is reflective of somebody
1:54:58
who is the establishment, who doesn't believe that he needs to earn your vote,
1:55:00
who doesn't believe that he's an outsider any longer. Who else would say,
1:55:03
I'm not debating Steve Team to Santis understand, And you and I have
1:55:12
talked about this as well. The urgency of the situation where we could be,
1:55:17
you know, a few weeks away from both to Santists announcing and if
1:55:21
there's not a dramatic movement in the polls at that moment, Trump deciding that
1:55:27
he's officially bailing on these debates and effectively calling for a coronation and shutting down
1:55:32
the process. Do you is there as much urgency and team to Santis as
1:55:39
I have expressed to you on that particular issue. You know, My honest
1:55:43
answer there is, I don't know yet. I've not had enough of a
1:55:45
chance yet to communicate specifically on that issue. We've talked about it generally,
1:55:48
but I'll be digging in more. You have to realize, I'm I'm about
1:55:51
forty eight hours into this with team, so I don't know. I don't
1:55:55
give you my view, which is yeah, absolutely, I think this is
1:55:58
of the utmost urgency right to try as much as possible to force Trump into
1:56:04
the debate that he does not want to participate in, and if he chooses
1:56:08
not to, which I think, you know, again, only reveals who
1:56:11
he is more and more as the establishment candidate. You know, what are
1:56:15
the best tactics for us to expose him for that cowardice politically? And I'm
1:56:19
not sure that I've arrived yet and what those tactics are. But big,
1:56:24
big issue and an issue which you know we're going to know about pretty soon,
1:56:27
right, I mean, because first debate. I believe it is August
1:56:29
first or thereabouts. So I mean, this is not far off, right,
1:56:31
And I agree with you certainly, and I hope the rest of team
1:56:34
to Santas does that this is a front and center issue. Well, I
1:56:38
mean, you and I usually agree on these types of things, But just
1:56:41
to put a final point on that, I mean, I believe that this
1:56:45
is a lethal situation and the only way around it is to make the announcement
1:56:50
as successful as possible so that there is enough of a bump and polling where
1:56:56
Trump can no longer plausibly make the argument. Hey, I'm in the same
1:57:00
position Biden is in. He's not doing debates. Why are you going to
1:57:03
put me through debates? So there must be there must be a closing of
1:57:09
the gap. And that's partially why I have posited my theory on strategy that
1:57:15
part of the way you close that gap is that you flip the way people
1:57:18
think about the race and you make Trump into the Biden Trump establishment cabal,
1:57:25
and you make the announcements as successful as possible. You know, there are
1:57:30
a lot of the SANDUS people who are very very much counting on an announcement
1:57:35
bounce. What is your political analysis of that? Because I am I'm a
1:57:42
little bit more I usually am a little more skeptical of what we can expect
1:57:46
on just by virtue of it. Say it's a normal announcement. Hey,
1:57:50
yep, everybody has to expected I'm in the race. I don't think that.
1:57:54
I don't think that's going to hack it. I think it needs to
1:57:56
be absolutely dynamic, dramatic, powerful, and get people to change the way
1:58:01
they think about the race. But what what do you What is your assessment
1:58:05
of those on the descantist side. And I see this online all the time,
1:58:10
who say, well, none of this polling matters, he's not officially
1:58:13
in the race yet. What is your take on that? Yeah, no,
1:58:15
listen, I join you, you know, in disagreeing with that complacency.
1:58:19
And in other words, what I'm saying is we shouldn't be in any
1:58:23
way pulling our hair out right or giving up. I mean, there is
1:58:27
a lot of time, and there absolutely is a path. But at the
1:58:29
same time, it's important for us to recognize that Trump right now is clearly
1:58:34
the front runner and credible polling. There's some bad pulling out there but credible
1:58:39
polling shows us that we are clearly the underdog as well as the outsider on
1:58:45
Team DeSantis. And there needs to be a sense of immediacy and urgency.
1:58:48
And I guess to your point, yeah, listen, just a perfunctory announcement
1:58:53
I don't think is going to produce any kind of lasting bounce. No,
1:58:56
it needs to be more creative and more powerful than the regular scenario, because
1:59:00
everything is irregular about this election, you know, again getting back to incentives.
1:59:04
For example, everyone is incentivized right now to attack Ronda Santis. If
1:59:09
you notice, all of the other candidates are not attacking the front runner.
1:59:13
If they're attacking Ronda Santis, right, all of them. So Trump,
1:59:15
Haley, everybody in corporate media, almost everybody is incentivized to attack of Santis,
1:59:20
and particularly regarding the legacy corporate media which is so biased and left lean.
1:59:25
They they love Trump for two reasons. Number one, he's great for
1:59:29
ratings, right, there's lots of chaos, there's lots of headlines. Number
1:59:30
Two, they don't believe he can win. And I have probably the only
1:59:33
thing I agree with them on, so they sort of get the best of
1:59:35
both worlds. So the incentives are lined up very much right now against ronis
1:59:41
heats now again, I think he can change that. And your point is
1:59:43
correct too. The best way to make Trump debate, of course, you
1:59:45
know, nothing succeeds like success is to rise into polling. Right, So
1:59:48
then he just doesn't have that argument anymore. If we have credible polling,
1:59:53
particularly state by state, where we can show, okay, Ronda Santis is
1:59:56
down ten in Ireland, which is clearly striking distance. We can show these
2:00:00
down fifteen in New Hampshire, you know, something like that, and closing,
2:00:03
then it would be almost impossible, I think for for even somebody who
2:00:09
was good at excuse making, like Donald Trump, it would be almost impossible
2:00:12
for him to avoid participating in the initial debates. So yeah, listen,
2:00:15
I get that, and I'm more optimistic than you are, but I totally
2:00:20
get and recognize the risks, you know, as you lay them out.
2:00:25
And I do think among the Santa's supporters there's a bit too much complacency out
2:00:29
there, and yeah, we should disabuse them of that complacency. Well said.
2:00:32
Now, one of my biggest concerns is an area where we both have
2:00:38
very literal expertise and that's in the conservative right wing media. And there's a
2:00:45
bit of a catch twenty two chicken or the egg type of situation here as
2:00:48
I'm trying to gain plan scenarios where De Santis pulls this off, and it's
2:00:55
really hard for me to imagine a scenario where Trump doesn't win in the nomination,
2:01:00
especially from the lead that he currently has, and unless and until the
2:01:05
right wing media at some level at least pushes back a little bit against Trump.
2:01:14
And I don't understand from an incentive structure, how that ever happens,
2:01:17
because as long as he's the front runner, the meat the right wing media
2:01:23
ain't ever And you know it's Steve, you were a Newsmax TV host.
2:01:27
There's no way, there's no one, anyone, any of your old friends
2:01:30
at Newsmax are ever going to attack Donald Trump while he's the front runner because
2:01:34
that's their meal ticket. That's too much of the core audience. So as
2:01:41
long as he's even close to the front runner, none of these media outlets
2:01:45
are going to be are going to be remotely fair to the Santis. They're
2:01:48
never going to attack Trump. And as long as the right wing media continues
2:01:53
to be on Team Trump, how does that ever get flipped. I mean,
2:01:58
that's that's the biggest part of this equation that it's really hard for me
2:02:02
to understand how it happens, and you understand it better than anybody. So
2:02:06
give me an answer to how that's going to be. Yeah, No,
2:02:11
it is absolutely a challenge. You're exactly correct, it's already happening. Look
2:02:15
at how media, including conservative media, is holding Ronda Santis to a totally
2:02:19
different standard than Donald Trump. And let me be specific. Let me give
2:02:23
you the example of Social Security, and Trump keeps trying to attack Ronda Santis
2:02:27
on his issue of Social Security and Medicare you know, are these entitilements effectively
2:02:30
on the table for budget cuts? Now? Ronda Santis has made it very
2:02:33
clear that he believes in the present environment they are not. Okay. He
2:02:38
has made it incredibly clear. He has some votes from his congressional pass where
2:02:42
he voted with the entire Republican majority or almost the entire Republican majority. He
2:02:45
has some votes in the past where there were some very minor adjustments that were
2:02:49
proposed never enacted to social Security. Okay, So he has changed his position.
2:02:56
I would say he has shifted it it's not a reversal, but he
2:02:58
has shifted his position over time. Yet Donald Trump gets no scrutiny on that
2:03:03
exact same issue, winning his very own book. Okay, there's nothing new
2:03:08
off the bout it. It's in black and white from years past. He
2:03:12
says social security is a Ponzi scheme, and then it needs to be completely
2:03:15
privatized. And yet he uses that avenue of attack on Rhonda Santis of having
2:03:20
a policy shift when he himself had a complete reversal on it. And that
2:03:25
scrutiny is only applied even by right wing media to Ronda Santas. So that's
2:03:29
a very real world example of this exact difference in bias that you're talking about.
2:03:32
Now, what do we do about it? Okay, we recognize me
2:03:35
it's one thing, right, what do we do about it? This isn't
2:03:38
the best answer, John, And look, I'm open to suggestions from you,
2:03:41
from others. The biggest thing we can do, of course, is
2:03:44
win, right or come dang close. Right, So do really well in
2:03:47
Iowa, do really well in New Hampshire. Win one of them, win
2:03:50
both of them. Now again, I realize it's chicken and egg. It's
2:03:54
not easy to win without at least reasonable treatment from the media right in terms
2:03:59
of earned media. But I guess I would tell you two things. I
2:04:01
really believe that that Ronda Santas is going to do far better in those locations,
2:04:06
those early states than he is doing now nationally. He's already doing better
2:04:11
in terms of the polling in those places. I think once he announces,
2:04:14
once we start to tell the story, he'll do even better from there.
2:04:15
The other thing I would suggest to you is money alone does not win elections,
2:04:18
but it can help. And so far Ronda Santas already has a very
2:04:24
significant money lead over Donald Trump. And with money, what can you do?
2:04:28
You can get your story told even if the corporate media earned media isn't
2:04:32
being reasonable and isn't giving you a fair shake. To a degree, I'm
2:04:36
not saying again money alone doesn't do it, but to a degree you can
2:04:39
bypass them and you can effectively pay to tell your story. And so that
2:04:45
is also, you know, another another factor that I think will matter here.
2:04:48
But once we win, and I believe we will, once we win
2:04:55
one or two of those early states, then I think that dynamic shifts incredible
2:05:00
quickly too. As far as the the even conservative media in terms of how
2:05:03
they start holding Trump to the same accountability standards that they use for DeSantis,
2:05:08
or perhaps even invert and go slightly the other way. Not that I'm saying
2:05:11
they should, but they probably would at that point. So we'll see.
2:05:15
Hey, listen, a lot of wood to chop. I'm also a big
2:05:16
believer, and it is so it's hard to tell what the future holds for
2:05:19
you, you know, politically in a month, like, let's just do
2:05:21
everything we can control here and now, right like, let's do it.
2:05:25
Let's do everything we can possibly do. Let's have the most effective announcement possible.
2:05:30
Let's have those early campaign events and interviews be outstanding, you know,
2:05:33
mainly for the candidate, but also for people like me. And you know,
2:05:38
once we do that, let's build momentum. Let's get people excited,
2:05:40
Let's get donations, pooring, and even more, let's make that money advantage
2:05:44
even bigger. You know, so block and tackle. You know, you
2:05:47
know it's trite, but you and I, both of coach high school football.
2:05:50
Football coaches always say that you know, only the only Friday in front
2:05:55
of you right, worry about this game. Then we worry about the next
2:05:58
game. We never ever talked about playoffs until we get to the playoffs.
2:06:00
Same kind of mentality, I guess is what I am taking and I think
2:06:03
we should take in this race. Well, I get it, and it
2:06:08
is a tough challenge. I mean, this is part of why I am
2:06:12
in the camp of this has to be about going up against the Biden Trump
2:06:15
establishment cabal, because I think is a narrative that not just appeals to the
2:06:19
Republican base, but that might even appeal to some conservative media members if they
2:06:24
if they start to look at the race in that sort of way. But
2:06:28
I just think that this is a fundamental and maybe unsolvable problem. And I
2:06:33
go, I go back to the Democratic race of two thousand and eight,
2:06:39
which a lot of the Santa supporters have pointed to as that's the model.
2:06:44
Right, We're Obama going up against the Hillary, who was the person that
2:06:49
was presumed to be the winner, and you know, she's even though she
2:06:53
wasn't president, she was effectively, you know, obviously a former first Lady.
2:06:56
And there are some some surface parallel between Clinton being Trump and Obama being
2:07:02
de Sandists. And if we lived in a world with fair media, the
2:07:06
standists should get the Obama treatment because he actually has done something to warrant incredible
2:07:13
media coverage, especially during the COVID pandemic. But you and I both know
2:07:16
it's exactly the opposite that de Sandists from a national standpoint, in a mainstream
2:07:21
media perspective, is going to get the opposite coverage of what Obama got in
2:07:26
two thousand and eight. And so in the left wing media, they left
2:07:32
Hillary in a way that the right wing media is never gonna leave Trump.
2:07:36
Why because a black candidate became viable and that was a story that they fell
2:07:44
in love with. And when that happened, then the black vote flipped,
2:07:48
and all of a sudden, the Poland came from Hillary dominating to Obama winning.
2:07:54
That changed everything. None of that dynamic can occur in this race because
2:08:00
obviously there is no monolithic voting group within the Republican Party like there is with
2:08:05
the black vote with the Democratic Party. The mainstream media isn't gonna embrace the
2:08:09
Santists and or close to what they did with Obama, and the right wing
2:08:13
media ain't gonna leave Trump like the left wing media left Clinton, because there's
2:08:18
not no incentive for them to do so. I mean, I realize I've
2:08:24
always seen as mister pessimism here. But but but how do you break that
2:08:30
that that scenario. I don't I don't have an answer for it, Steve,
2:08:35
and I don't think you do either. But I think the first thing
2:08:37
that has to be understood is that's a problem. That's a big freaking problem.
2:08:43
Sure, no, realistic pessimism has a really important place right in life
2:08:52
and certainly in politics, and you're right, this is absolutely challenge. Now
2:08:58
Again, I I see paths. I don't see an easy paths. So
2:09:01
they're wide right or they're totally flat. No, they're uphill and they're narrow.
2:09:03
But there are there are paths we're going and I believe we're going to
2:09:07
get there, and I think we're also going to get some help from problems
2:09:09
on the other side, from problems on the Trump side. Um. But
2:09:13
having said that, yeah, I recognize totally and agree with you in the
2:09:16
challenges you're sighting, and I also do believe that, Yeah, there are
2:09:20
a lot of reasons that the Santis can and will win, but comparison to
2:09:24
two thousand and eight is not one of them. And I've seen that quite
2:09:26
a lot, you know, online and you're for the reasons exactly you site.
2:09:28
This is in no way analogous to that situation. This is a totally
2:09:33
totally different dynamic. But regardless, I think the result can still be similarly
2:09:39
that the establishment candidate who is now Donald Trump, um goes down to the
2:09:43
to the rising star, to the upstart, young dynamic candidate who is who
2:09:48
is around to Santus. But no other than that aspect, they're not.
2:09:50
They're not similar situations. But you know, again, I think some of
2:09:56
the ways around it are obviously if we can, if we can win in
2:10:00
early, you know, we must draw blood early. I know that's something
2:10:01
you've talked about quite a bit, and I totally agree with you. Um.
2:10:07
You know, the earlier the better. And it's not just better,
2:10:09
it's an imperative in fact um for the de Santis campaign. And though also
2:10:13
if we build excitement close those polls Trump has to debate, we continue to
2:10:18
massively out fund raised Trump. You know, there's a confluence of factors there
2:10:22
then um that that could, that could and I think will result in Rhonda
2:10:26
Santis ultimately prevailed. And believe me, if I didn't think he could win,
2:10:30
I wouldn't be I wouldn't be doing this. I wouldn't be taking this
2:10:33
risk. As much as I admire him, i'd be happy to admire from
2:10:35
the sidelines if I didn't think that he had a legitimate shot. And again
2:10:39
it's were the underdog. But we can do this last thing, Steve,
2:10:46
and you've been generous through your time. I appreciate it. You are working
2:10:48
for the Political Action Committee Never back Down, which is not the campaign.
2:10:54
I'm not sure that people fully understand that there are both legal as well as
2:10:58
uh, you know, just job function differences between what the Political Action Committee
2:11:03
can and does do as opposed to the campaign. What would you say is
2:11:09
Never back Down's philosophy and role in this situation. Yes, And by the
2:11:16
way, I did the exact same thing for President Trump. I started working
2:11:20
for his pack and that actually moved over to the campaign, which you can
2:11:24
do. And so the realm of superpacks, political action committees, and a
2:11:28
lot of this comes out of Citizens United case, which I know you were
2:11:31
very involved in. The different ways, is that packs cannot coordinate with the
2:11:35
candidate, they cannot be controlled by the candidate, but they can do everything
2:11:41
independently on behalf of the candidate from buying TV ads to field organizing and you
2:11:45
know all of that. The reason they cannot coordinate with the candidate is that
2:11:48
they can raise unlimited funds and whereas the candidate is bound by campaign finance limitations
2:11:56
which are you know, relatively low at least for bigger owners on the campaign
2:12:01
side. But the benefit of the campaign is it is literally run by the
2:12:03
candidate himself or herself. He can direct and does direct everything. So in
2:12:09
terms of this specific race that generally campaigns and packs without you know, agreeing
2:12:15
upon this head to different parts of the campaign. One will spend much more
2:12:20
heavily on buying advertising, one you know, much more on field organizing.
2:12:24
In this case, the philosophy of never backed down is going to be much
2:12:28
more focused on field organizing organizing which is not really the norm, but is
2:12:31
going to leave more of the airwave tasks to the campaign side. At least
2:12:35
that is the initial plan. And we're assembling, I think, a very
2:12:41
very good team. It's a startup. I mean, we're you know,
2:12:43
we are very new and very much growing. Adam Laxalt is the chairman of
2:12:46
it, who people might know ran for Senate very narrowly lost in Nevada,
2:12:50
somebody I worked for and endorsed. When I say worked for him, and
2:12:52
I was volunteer, but you know, worked on his behalf and former Attorney
2:12:56
General of the State of Nevada, grandson of the a senator from the VATA.
2:13:01
Also happens to be Georgetown like you and I. I think he's double
2:13:03
Georgetown. I believe he was under grad and law and was a roommate of
2:13:07
Ron De santis Is in the Navy, so that's where they got to be
2:13:11
incredibly close friends and just lifelong pals and now political allies. And Adam black
2:13:16
Shall brings I think a lot of expertise and excitement to this organization so aggressively
2:13:24
fundraising, aggressively setting up. Right now, I'm sort of the first big
2:13:28
media hire for the pack. I suspect there'll be others, but I don't
2:13:31
have any news to break on that regard, and we'll see. But yeah,
2:13:35
and I know, to the regular folks out there who aren't particularly political,
2:13:37
it may seem like a distinction without a difference between the Pack of the
2:13:41
campaign, and to some degree that's the reality. But that's how our system
2:13:43
operates. Well, Steve, thanks so much for doing this. I appreciate
2:13:48
it more than I've probably even expressed to you privately. For you to take
2:13:52
this risk, to break from Team Trump to join team to Sanders, when
2:13:58
you know well that this is far from a done a certain deal, that
2:14:03
this could end up not turning out the way that you want, and that
2:14:07
you're taking that risk, and you're doing so for the purpose of the country
2:14:11
as a patriot, I think is worthy of admiration. You certainly have my
2:14:16
admiration for doing that. I hope that people will understand what you're doing,
2:14:18
and I hope that obviously that I very much hope that you'll be successful in
2:14:24
this crusade, in this quest, because I do think that the future of
2:14:26
the country depends on it. So thank you much, Steve for what you're
2:14:30
doing. John, thank you. We're we're gonna keep fighting. We're gonna
2:14:33
say this country, thank you, my friend. All Right, Steve Cortez.
2:14:37
Now, I've never backed down the Rhonda Santis Political Action Committee. Always
2:14:41
great to talk to him, and I'm sure we'll talk to him again as
2:14:43
the campaign moves along. That'll do it for this episode of the Death of
2:14:48
Journalism. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review this episode. Share
2:14:50
it on social media. If you tag me, I'll be happy to share
2:14:52
it as well. Until next time. This has been episode number fifty seven
2:14:56
to the Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Ziegler.