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Covering Trump 2.0 · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. Over the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: past couple of weeks, we have been focused on this
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: messy conversation about problems within the Democratic Party and how
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to fix them. Always a fun topic on Twitter. No
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: one ever gets mad. We're also going to talk about
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: how Democrats should adjust their approach to a second Trump term.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: At the same time, though, there's an equally important discussion
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: going on in the media about how to cover Trump
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: for a second time. And because crooked media sits in
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: both those worlds, that's a discussion we also want to have.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: So joining me today to dig into this media debate
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is someone who is uniquely qualified to help us think
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: through these big changes and how we approach them Eugene
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Daniels is a White House correspondent for Politico, a co-author
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of their enormously influential playbook newsletter, and the president of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the White House Correspondents Association. Eugene, welcome.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Hello. Thanks for having me.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Great to see you. You're also the best dressed man
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in Washington. We'll get to that later.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: But the bar is very low. You know, a lot
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of blue suits happening here.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Buddy, I was the number, I was first in line
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: at the fucking three for one sale at Joseph A.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Banks.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Don't even, I can't suck any shit. But we're going
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to get into all this media stuff, talk about all
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the tough questions about covering Trump, your sort of journey
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to the center of this. But first, let's talk about
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the latest in DC. So it's Wednesday morning, LA time.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: It looks like Pete Hegseth's nomination to be Secretary of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Defense is maybe unsurprisingly in a bit of trouble. Already,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the impression was that senators were concerned about the allegations
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of sexual assault and excessive drinking and had committed to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: having some pretty serious hearings for Hegseth. But this morning,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: there were new reports that Trump and Ron DeSantis have
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: talked about DeSantis getting the nod if Hegseth doesn't make
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it through. This morning, Hegseth is vowing not to back down.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: He's tweeting that the left is smearing him with, quote,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: fake anonymous sources and BS stories, end quote. One of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: those lefty fake sources, his own mother, who, as we
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: discussed on the Tuesday show, wrote that now public, incredibly
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: damning email to Hegseth in 2018, calling him an abuser
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of women. Penny Hegseth, Pete's mom, went on Fox &
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Friends this morning to disavow that sentiment and, surprise, surprise,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: attack the media for reporting her own words. Let's listen.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: I came to take on New York City, to take
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: on the New York Times. to be a mother, a
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: strong mother, a fighter.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: What's your message to the New York Times?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I would say I don't think the way you operate is,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: it feels almost criminal when reporters call you and threaten you.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I don't think a lot of people know that's the
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: way they operate. And they are in it for the commission,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: for the money, and they don't care who they hurt.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Part of today is to discredit the media and how
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: they operate. And when they contact you, I let a
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: few phone calls go, but then they call you and
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: say they threaten you. That's the first thing they do.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: They say, unless you make a statement, we will publish
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: it as is. And I think that's a despicable way
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: to treat anyone.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Eugene, how much is the commission per story? Is that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: part of your salary or like a tip?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: It's a million dollars for every word, actually. It's very high. Yeah,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: that's not how it works at all. Anybody that works
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: in journalism will tell you the vast majority of people,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: especially the folks in print, are not in it for
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: the money.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: It's not like that. It also sounds like what happened
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: there is she got a request for comment. I mean,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: am I wrong?
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what it sounds like. It sounds like she
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: ignored a bunch of calls, right? And so eventually you
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: have to publish the information, especially when you're talking about
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: a nominee for Department of Defense, what could impact whether
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: or not he gets confirmed. And so it sounds like
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the reporters called her a bunch, they finally answered, they said, ma'am,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: you know, we're going to have to publish it if
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: you don't release a statement. And it's not a tit
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: for tat. It's like, we are going to publish it.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: So if you would like to get your side out,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: which is part of our job to let people be
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: heard and to provide that information to folks, it sounds
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: very normal. Everything that happened is very normal. I will
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: say when you're talking to normal people who don't engage
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: with media all the time, It doesn't feel like that's
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: how it operates, but that's mostly the vast majority of people,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: partly our fault in the big media, is like they
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: don't have insight into how this thing works, how we
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: gather information, what we ask for, how long we give
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: people that kind of stuff.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I mean, certainly it's intimidating and a
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: little scary to get a call from The New York Times,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: but ultimately what they were doing was kind of giving
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: her a heads up and asking for a request for
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: a comment.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: It'd be much worse if they published it without her comment.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: If they didn't call her at all, that'd be much worse.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And the comment got in the original story. But
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: it does seem clear that this is a strategy. They're
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: going to attack the media. Not a novel approach. But
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, Penny Hegseth, she doesn't end up on Fox
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: News this morning by accident. She was clearly coached to
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: pivot to an attack on the press from the beginning. J.D.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Vance was on Twitter this morning complaining about the biased
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: coverage of Hegseth. The question is always, will it work?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: You guys had a great quote in Playbook today from
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: an anonymous Republican senator who said when Matt Gaetz dropped
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: out of the AG race, quote, Pete's next. If you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: were a betting man, would you say that's true?
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I think it is based on everybody that we've talked to.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: That it seems like he's going to that that that
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: it's very possible that he's going to get dropped here. Probably.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: And we've been told by another GOP source, like maybe
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: by the end of this week. It's just like too
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: much too fast, I think. And it was very obvious
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: when Gates dropped out, that means that the spotlight has
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: to go elsewhere. He was taking up so much of
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the oxygen in the room for obvious reasons. And the
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Hexa stuff has been drop after drop after drop. And
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: it's impacting the way that senators are viewing him. You
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: look at someone like Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming, who after
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: her meeting was very like, I like him. I think
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: this is, you know, he has my, I have his back.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Now she, she's having, um, She called them side issues,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: but now she's saying that the allegations that have come
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: up are surprise, and he does have to address those.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: That's a different way of talking. It may not seem
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: that much to folks who aren't in D.C., but that
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: kind of language tells you that people are going in
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: the opposite direction of where he and Donald Trump want
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: them to go.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's called leaving yourself an out. I've been trying
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to imagine what a confirmation hearing would look like, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: it does seem really messy. I mean, you're going to
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: get a detailed set of questions about the sexual assault allegation.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: There's all these reports about his drinking. You could see
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: potentially really damning testimony from Pete's colleagues from the nonprofit
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: era about his mismanagement from Fox News people who say
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: he was drunk on set, maybe even his exes or
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: people he was in relationships. And all of this is
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: under oath. And like, I think my instinct thinking that
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: through was like, that is not survivable. But then I
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: thought back to Brett Kavanaugh, who started attacking the press,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: started attacking the senators. and survived the confirmation hearings by
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: being combative. And it does seem like Pete Hegseth was
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: built for that mission to just lash back at the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: liberal media and the Republican senators who are rhinos.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Et cetera.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I'm just wondering, what do we think Trump's tolerance is
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: for bad press on a pick like this?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it wasn't very high for Gates, right?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I think it was like eight days from nomination to drop.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I think it's a lot of what we're hearing is
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the pressure behind the scenes is what's going to change
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the minds here. Trump seems to have a better relationship
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: with the Senate going in than he did in his
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: first term. And I think he kind of wants to
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: keep that because he needs them to get some stuff done.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: And so I think a lot of it's going to
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: be less like how much he can take from this,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: but how much they can and what they're telling him
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: behind closed doors, right? If you get, I don't know, six, seven,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: eight Republican senators saying like, look, I can't do this.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I can't, especially I think people should look at the
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: women senators, right? Lummis is one of them. A lot
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: of them are looking at this kind of stuff. Joni
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Ernst is one who has taken on sexual assault in
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: the Pentagon, in the military apparatus. And so those conversations
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: are the most important ones. And really, for Hexeth, sure,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: he can go in front of all the senators and
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: go back and forth with them, yell, and do kind
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: of the thing that he's done on Fox News. But also,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: do you want that to be part of your legacy?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Because first, you have to get to that moment, whether
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: or not the senators think you can even make it.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: And two, that's a lot. Like, that is a lot
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: of pressure all at once. He has a family. So
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: it's also about the human psychology behind some of these things,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: as you know, right? Like, if people feel like they
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: can survive and it's going to be worth it, then
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: they probably will do it. But at the end of
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: the day, we don't know what's in Donald Trump's head.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Hexeth said he told him to keep fighting. Trump does
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: like a fighter. But some of this seems like too much,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: too fast for a lot of these senators.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a lot of different sort of avenues
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: of attack. But yeah, I mean, like, presidential... transitions before Trump,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: they seem to have, you know, one or two nominees
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: who were deemed out of bounds or who became the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: focus of criticism and the targets who got shot at.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Trump seems to have flooded the zone with controversial picks.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: There's Tulsi Gabbard. There's RFK Jr. There's Dr. Oz. There's
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth. I wonder, though, how much we can expect
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the Senate to show independence on their sort of advise
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and consent function here, or at some point, whether they'll
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: feel like, listen, we can take down one of these guys,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: we can take down two, but four, five, six, like
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: that's a bridge too far for us.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: I think that's probably right, right? I think we've been
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: here before, over and over and over again, as people
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: that cover and watch all of these things. And thinking
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: that Republicans were going to get tough against Donald Trump
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: and put their foot down. And they do it every
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: once in a while, right? At some point, you have
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: to kind of show that you are. a completely separate body.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: But they have also, for a lot of people who
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: are hoping that they wouldn't, let them down, right? They
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: have said they're going to be tough, and then they
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: eventually fold because Donald Trump's pressure is too much. So
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: I think this could go either way, but I think
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: when you get into four picks, it's gonna be really
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: difficult to try to take all those folks down or
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: say that you're not gonna vote for them. Because then,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: now you're talking about Donald Trump himself starting to attack you, right?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: He's not done that publicly, and that's when they start
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: to have, they start to back down really quickly. And
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: this is a test, right? When you look at Senator
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Thune and kind of how the relationship he wants with
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump and also how he wants to operate as
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: the leader of Senate Republicans, and whether or not he
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: is going to put his own foot down. McConnell did
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: this a little bit, right? And kind of sometimes served
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: as a foil. Is Thune going to be able to
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: do those kinds of things? What's his leadership style look like?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And I think lastly, it's also with all of those
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: names you just mentioned, this is kind of what happens
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: when you have a nomination process that is focused on
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: loyalty to the principal, to the president, Donald Trump. And
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: then also in a lot of these people and how
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: they've spoken about the departments they've been nominated to, they
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: have a disdain for the department or they want to
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: flip the table in the department. So that's not all
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the kind of traditional vetting is happening. And some of
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: these things are being missed or looked past.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump didn't want to do FBI background checks
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: on all these people. It's like, hey, that would have
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: actually helped you here. Maybe you could have gotten ahead
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: of some of this stuff and not selected these people.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: The other funny thing is, again, thinking about like pre-Trump world.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: If you had a president where you had the attorney
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: general nominee get pulled, you had the DEA selection get pulled,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: you have the secretary of defense on life support, it
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: seems like the normal narrative would be like administration shoots
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: itself in the foot right out of the gate, you know,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: like administration struggling. But I don't think I see that
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: with Trump. This is just kind of like priced in
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: for him.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I think a lot of
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: this is just, we have seen this before. We expected it, right?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: For years, when he said he was going to run again,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: we all knew based on reporting and our own conversations
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: and kind of just like what Donald Trump was saying
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: was that he was looking for loyalty, right? That that
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: was the thing that he wanted from the folks that
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: were around him, whether it be his chief of staff,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: whether it be the FBI director, right? Those are the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: kinds of things he was demanding, right? And so this
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: is exactly how it was going to end up, that
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: it was going to look different and feel different, I think. And,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a criticism of the media, as people
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: often like to do it, in saying that, you know,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: we have to, like, go at it as if this
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: is a traditional and that the precedent with how other
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: people operate it should apply to Trump. And I think, like,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: that sometimes that's not true. I think this is one
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: of those times. We already told everybody that this was
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: how it was going to work. And you can compare
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: it to others, but He has always operated completely different. And,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: you know, to your question earlier about whether or not he,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: you know, how much he can take, he kind of
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: likes some of the chaos. He likes a little bit
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: of the drama. It feels like a television show, right?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Something that you can see on ABC, CBS, or NBC
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: with a president coming into office and all of the
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: stuff swirling around. But then it works out in the end, right?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: That's kind of how some of this stuff works out.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the chaos was frankly part of the appeal
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to voters. It's what they voted for.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they liked it.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they loved it. And last thing on Hegsath, I mean,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw this report by Brian
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Stalter at CNN about how Fox News is just ignoring
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the Hegsath controversy. It's already just so weird for a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: network to have a weekend anchor plucked out and made
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: up for the Secretary of Defense potentially. But then just
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to ignore one of the biggest stories of the Trump administration,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: that's got to be strange in the newsroom.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, there are
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: definitely people within Fox News who would want them to
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: cover it. I think those people aren't making the decisions
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: to do so. And this is I mean, you know,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Fox News operates a lot differently. I think one, I
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: think any network might have difficulty figuring out how to
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: how to cover this story. But Fox News operates completely
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: differently in some ways. in how they cover their own
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: folks and things that might make them look bad. I
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: will say there's been, at least on X, there's been
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Fox News personalities who've come to Hexeth's defense.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: But because that conversation is not happening on Fox News,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: the people that watch aren't seeing that. But they did
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: see his mom, right? And so that seems to be
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: the way that they've decided to move forward. I will
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: be interested to see after his mom's interview whether or
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: not the defense of Pete Hexseth will be as full-throated
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: on television as it was with her today.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Nothing says badass secretary of defense like calling in mommy.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I would call my mom in too. She's bad.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Listen, man. I remember I got in trouble at school
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: once and the teacher called my mom on a weekend
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and I was like listening from the top of the stairs.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden my mom just started lighting
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: this teacher up on my behalf. And I was like,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: holy shit. That's how it should go.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly what I want.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I was probably a pain in the ass, if I'm
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: being honest. Switching gears to other sort of inter-family conflicts,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: let's talk about Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter, which
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: we covered on Tuesday. There was some speculation on Twitter
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that Biden did this as kind of a final FU
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to the Democratic Party for pushing him out of the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: re-election campaign. I'm not sure that I buy that, but
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you've heard any sort of anything about
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that in your reporting or generally what you made of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the process for how Biden made this decision and the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: timing for when he made it?
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one, the kind of F you to
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, that's not really how he like operates. Right.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And I think like this kind of decision was about
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: his son and not really about anyone else. Right. I
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: think that part of it is very clear.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: But I think what it shows you is that the
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party, especially the ones that are most vocal, are
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: still pissed at him for the election, right? Like his
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: legacy is tarnished based on that. And every other thing
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: is just like icing on the cake for people that
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: want to attack him in those decisions. And I think
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the process of it is kind of exactly how those
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: of us that covered Joe Biden, if you've covered him
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: any period in his life, of how important his family
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: is to him and how much of kind of sometimes
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: an outsized influence they have on the kind of decisions
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: that are much bigger than just the family. And so
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: kind of at the end of his political career, what
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: does he have to lose, I guess, right? Like the
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: respective Democrats, many of them have already lost a lot
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: of respect for him. And I think as he was
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: having these conversations with the First Lady, with other members
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: of the family, it basically just became clear that, one,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: they felt that there was a danger in a Donald
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Trump DOJ coming in and investigating his son with all
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: the conspiracy theories that had been out there about what
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: his son did or didn't do. and that at the
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: end of the day, he had the power to do it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: What I think is really interesting was the statement that
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: he made was leaned way heavily into, oh, this was
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: so hard, this decision tore me up, I care so
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: much about the rule of law, but I think really
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day with the American people,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: and the reason why it landed so poorly, is that
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: the American people will probably, if a president said, I
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: thought my son was gonna get investigated, I worry about
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: whether or not he's going to relapse, I have the
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: power to do it and I have responsibility as a father.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm not happy that I was put in
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: this position, but here it is. And I think that's
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: the real reason. I think probably folks in the Democratic Party, one,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: they clearly, a lot of them have been like, you know, sure,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: do it, whatever, you had the power to do so.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: But I think the American people also appreciate that kind
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: of honesty because it's one, why Donald Trump has been
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: kind of popular when he talks about power, right, and
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: what he's going to do with power. And I think
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Democrats often pretend that they are, that power is not
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: to be wielded kind of however you decide, right? There's
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: no rules about pardon power. You do what you want.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: That's such a good point. Donald Trump goes out to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: events and he was like, I hated electric vehicles, but
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: then Elon gave me a hundred million. And now I
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: got to say, I love him. And the people are like,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: what candor. We love him.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I have a similar reaction on, on the Hunter stuff.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: We don't need to belabor it. But, you know, I
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: understand on a human level, he absolutely has the power
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: to do it. The Supreme Court just reaffirmed it. But
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: if I were his staff and I was sort of
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: cut out of the decision or I was told to
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: lie about it like Kareem Jean-Pierre was or other spokespeople
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party, other surrogates, I would be pissed
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: because it's not just Joe Biden's credibility here. It's the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: entire Democratic Party that we all look like we are
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: full of shit and just typical politicians who say one
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: thing for an election. and then do whatever we want afterwards.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the real damaging part.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I think his staff is probably used to it, right?
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: About him going to Wilmington or going to Nantucket and
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: coming back thinking differently than when he went there. But
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. The kind of danger here is that, one,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Republicans have already seized on this, is that whatever pardon
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump does over the next four years, so what?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: But you know, Democrats don't really have elect to stand on,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and Joe Biden will probably be out of the political arena,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: but people like you and the others who were kind
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: of saying for a while, based on what Biden was saying,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: that he's never going to do this, this is an
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: honorable man, they put their necks out on the line,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: and they will be in the political arena. Karine Jean-Pierre
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: will be around, and she will be asked about this
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: over and over and over again. Other people who defended
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: on whether television or X or whatever in interviews, they
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: also will have to kind of figure out and already
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: have tried to figure out how to defend this decision.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: and defend the decision-making process. When did he make the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: decision versus what he told us in June?
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Right, it does seem like that's where people like Gavin Newsom,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: governor of California, is a little pissed off. Yeah, you're
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: right about these decisions being made at Wilmington or Nantucket.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: If I was the Russian spy service, I would have
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: been wiring that rich guy's house in Nantucket a long
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: time ago. Let's talk about the media, this sort of
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: media moment and how you see it. I'm not going
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to ask you to belabor your biography because anyone listening
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: to a podcast about the media knows who you are,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: knows your work well. But suffice to say, as playbook
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: author and the White House Correspondents Association president, you really
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: are at the center of the political coverage discussion. So
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I want to start with some Politico reporting. A Trump
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: advisor told Politico, that Trump 2.0, the White House briefing room,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: could be one where, quote, Maggie Haberman sits next to
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan. Now, you know, for context, I think it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: worth saying that every administration comes in saying they have
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: grand ambitions to change the briefing room, change the comms process,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and then they often end up doing just the same
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: old shit, including Trump in his first term. But do
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you get the sense that these guys really want to
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: shake things up? Is this bravado and trolling? Like, how
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: should I read it?
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, the people that we speak with, right? Most
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: of those conversations are off the record, but the people
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: that we speak with in kind of talking about, and
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: I mean that in WHCA terms, talking about this, they
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: are not saying the exact same things that you're hearing
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: on these podcasts that people are saying in blind quotes, right?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: And the bravado of, you know, F the legacy media,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: we're going to do whatever we want that's coming from
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of people that are kind of like in
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Trump world and around, but that is not at this
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: point how the team is talking about it, right? And
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: I think that's really important. And people are using language
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: like could, right? Of course, anything could happen. That's true.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? I could grow another neck.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Anything could happen.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: You could do the briefing. Exactly.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: All of these things could happen, but I think it
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: mostly speaks to how people are looking at the narrative
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: and the rhetoric about the media from Trump and Republicans, really,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: and extrapolating from there without knowing every single conversation that's
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: happening behind closed doors. And I think like, you know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: our expectation is that things stay set by the precedent
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: that has been set by members of both parties and
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: presidents of both parties for decades. And I will say,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: you know, Donald Trump, as he bashes the media, he
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: talks about the distrust of the media, but he also.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Has us around, right?
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Like the interviews, like that part of it, if people
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: aren't hearing and seeing the things that he's doing, like,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: did they actually happen, right? That is a big part
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: of this. He understands kind of the theatrics of the
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: presidency in a way that I think, you know, frankly,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden and team don't, right? Like they, you know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump during his first term would bring the pool
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: into the Louisville office, right? And just like basically do
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: his own mini press conference, right? That's not something that
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: other presidents have done. And I don't see those kinds
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: of things changing. And frankly, like, you know, some of
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: these names that are being thrown out about people who
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: should be in the briefing room, like being in the
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: briefing room is not like, it's not just like easy.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: You can't just pop in, right? It's the White House.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: You have to, you also have to come a lot, right?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It is not like a part-time job. It's not something
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: you can do every once in a while. A lot
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: of these people don't even live in DC, so.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, I really, I feel very torn about
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: this briefing room debate because I think there is value
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: in forcing an administration to be on the record and
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: every day about whatever issue you guys want to ask about.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I really, really don't want changes. to the briefing room
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: structure that push reporters off the White House grounds, because
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I think that is damaging. And your ability to just
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: interact with people is very valuable. But I have sat
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: through countless briefings when I worked in the administration. I
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: have watched the briefing in the press secretary role get
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: turned into a clown show by Sean Spicer and others.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: The last election, I think, shows that all of us
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: need to change the way we're communicating with people, or
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: else the news industry is going to struggle. you know,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: politicians won't get their message to voters and they'll just get,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: you know, bad information off of Twitter or whatever. So
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I don't have a great fix for this, but it's just,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: you know, those are the things I kind of stew
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: over when thinking about the problem. And I also just
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: wondered how much say the White House Correspondents Association kind
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: of has in the matter of what gets changed. Yeah.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, the thing of we have always, since Ronald
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Reagan actually kind of set up the seats in the
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: briefing room, for example. But it is the, you know,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: who they pick, who comes into the room even, right?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: For those that haven't been on the White House grounds,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: some of us have hard passes, and then there's kind
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: of a form that you can fill out and come
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: just like randomly. And like, you know, that is something
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: that is completely within the power of the White House
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: and the press secretary. You know, they have said that
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: they want a brief, right? That has been very clear,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: even when Trump nominated Caroline Levitt, he talked about how
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: great she would be behind the podium, right? And so,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: you know, that is never going to change. And I
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: think you're right. You know, sometimes those briefing rooms, people
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: that are watching them are like, what the hell is
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: going on? People are just yelling. You know what I mean?
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: But I think at the end of the day, you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: this is a democracy and it is important for the
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: most powerful people in the country or the people that
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: work for them to have to defend and answer questions
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: that not just we have, but that the American people
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: also have, right? I think what we need to do
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: a better job of as just like the media in
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: general is to talk to more people on the ground
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: to understand the questions, right? And so much of, And
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: there's a, again, theatric nature to some of this. And
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: that doesn't have to be the case, right? It should
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: be about trying to find the information. It should be
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: about holding the press secretary, no matter who they are,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: their feet to the fire about the decisions that are
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: being made. After that, you take that information and then
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: you go and do more reporting, right? There's almost no one.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: who just takes what's in the briefing room and then
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: does report a story, a newsletter off of it. There's
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: so much that goes into it.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Even the White House press staff doesn't trust everything that's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: said in that briefing room. No, but I do. The theatrics,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the theatrics are all, it's all, look, let's be real.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: It's always the TV people. When I was there, there
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: was this awesome CBS guy. I loved him named Bill Plant.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: And you just read a hard copy of the newspaper
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: in the front row. And it was just such a flex. Like,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I don't give a shit what you're saying right now.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask my question. But then, I mean,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: there's worse versions, right? I mean, there are times when
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: it feels like people are posturing or peacocking. There was
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of– I'm not going to name names, but
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: there were some journalists who would always get in these
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: combative fights with Trump in the first administration. And I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: always felt like it played into Trump's hands in a sense.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't think anyone looked good. But I don't know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: do you disagree? Is there any remedy for this dynamic
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: or is it just is what it is?
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: I think we have to, everybody has to do their part, right?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Like we as journalists have to come into that room
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: thinking about getting the information, right? You can be combative,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: you can go back and forth, but at some point
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: it does become clear that one, how can I get
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: your question answered? And sometimes a non-answer is an answer, right?
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Like that's something that I have learned in journalism. This,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: you know, like when I interviewed Vice President Harris, I
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: was talking to her about um, Israel and, and kind
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: of like what she would change. And she wouldn't say any,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: she wouldn't say anything. So it's like, okay, take my answer.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: That means that she, you know, she doesn't want to
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: change anything. And I think people should take that. I
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: think people should go in there. And focus on their
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: job and not, you know, think about, you know, what's
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: going to look good on Twitter X, what's going to,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: you know, what, you know, what's going to help them
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: get a book deal or what's going to, that stuff
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: is not helpful for the job that we have been
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: tasked with, which is getting the information out for the
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: American people, something illuminating so they can live their lives.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaking about getting good information, I mean, I have
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: like 800 text chains with friends in politics. And the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: other day, somebody sent around a tweet from the Epoch
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Times about a Trump personnel thing. I don't even remember
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: what it was. And normally, like this is an outlet.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It's like associated with the Falun Gong. It's kind of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: a right wing weird thing now. Normally, I would just
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: kind of dismiss it as a joke. But then I
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: started to think, I don't know, I've seen a lot
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: of news break in weird places over the last couple
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: of weeks because that's where MAGA world is located and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that's who they're talking to. And in the Biden days,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: we knew he called Tom Friedman all the time. We
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: knew he called Maureen Dowd all the time. We knew
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: he called Morning Joe all the time. And so you
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: can kind of read between the lines of what they
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: said and see Biden's fingerprints on these things. Now I'm
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: back to consuming... Hours and hours of Steve Bannon's podcast
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and feeling like a psychopath. How are you adjusting your
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: media diet to make sure you're not missing stuff now?
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, kind of the same way, right? You
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: have to go where you think the information is going
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: to be. And I think people that want to hear
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: and think about and hear from Donald Trump and the
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: folks around him, they're going to have to get out
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: of their comfort zone, right? Like the people that like,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: you know, no shade to y'all, but it's not coming
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: from crooked media, right? That's not where all that insight
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: is going to come from. And so people are going
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to have to change their media diet a little bit.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And frankly, I mean, you know, Trump 2.0 is, just
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: like Trump 1.0 was exhausting and it was like so
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: much all the time. And so I think it is
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: possible that a lot of voters are just going to like,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: ignore a lot of the things that kind of pop up. We, though,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: in the media have to do the opposite, which is
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: like take as much in as we possibly can. So
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: not only do you have to read you know, the
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: stuff in, in, you know, some of these kind of
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: non-traditional non-legacy, um, right wing, um, websites, you got to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: talk to the people they're talking to.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: And so it's changing my media diet, but also kind
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: of changing the kinds of folks that, that I'm talking
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: to and trying to sift through, um, where that information
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: is because you also, you know, have to, a lot
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: of the, the Trump 1.0 was folks, um, trying to
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: get out ahead of certain leaks that were going to come.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And so you have to like really think, and reporters
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: have to really think about why is this person telling
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: me this thing? So when you read a story, you
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: have to think of the exact same thing. Who wants
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: this out and why? And I think it's going to
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: test all of us in how much information we can
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: take in, but also like what kind of information we're
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: going to spit out to the American people.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the intake will probably be the same.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I think we should all do a little more sifting
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: this time and less lighting ourselves on fire at every tweet. Also,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: you're going to eat those words when I launch a
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: show with Don Jr. I'll come on.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I'll come on your first episode.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Be like double triggered, whatever we're going to call it.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about trust in media for a second. According
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: to Pew, 40% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: have a lot of or some trust in the information
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: they get from national news organizations. That is 30 points
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: lower than in 2016 and basically just above the score
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that Republicans give in terms of trust of information from
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: social media. Meanwhile, Democrats like me, 78 percent of us
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: trust the national news. So what do you think that
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: like 38 point gap in trust in media tells us
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: about how to change the job or what it means
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: for Trump?
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, one, it tells us that for years you've
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: had people attacking the media and attacking people's trust in
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: the media, right? This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum, right?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: People trusted the media at one point, and then that
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: going down so quickly by so much so fast, it
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: tells all of us that the attack in the media
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: did work for a lot of people. But I think
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: it also... For us, it tells us that we have
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: to try to keep getting to people who may be
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: not reading us and don't trust us. And you don't
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: have to sugarcoat stuff. I am very anti-sugarcoating. I think
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: give people their damn Brussels sprouts and call it a day.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not giving you any of no damn chocolate over here.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's an important part of the process. But
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: there is, when we are seen as peacocking, to our
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: earlier conversation, That's when I think a lot of people
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: lose their trust. So if you have a side saying
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you can't trust these people and then you have, you know,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I'll use myself an example. I wouldn't do this, but
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: I'm in, you know, I stand up and yell at
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Caroline in the briefing room so that I can get a,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: you know, a nice little bump on Twitter. why would
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I trust someone who does that, right? And so there's
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: also a kind of like look that we have to
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: do as we're trying to figure out what to cover
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: and how to cover this. And more importantly, gain the
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: trust of the American people back because does it impact us? Yes,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: people are getting, there's less organizations available to do work, right?
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: We're seeing layoffs happening all the time. That's a part
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: of this conversation. Locally, especially, that's what I'm most worried about.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You're seeing like, less local newspapers, and that's where people
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: get most of their information. But it also is bad
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: for democracy. It's bad when people are looking at the
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: institutions and saying that, you know, these people don't believe
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: in us or doing this work for us. So we
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: have to do a better job at explaining that the
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: reasons that we got in this job still exists for
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: many of the people that do it. It's hard as hell. Like,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be easy. It's not going to,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: it may only get worse, right? Based on what we've seen.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: But it can't get worse because we're making it worse, right?
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Like we have to do our part in trying to
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: fix it and have people focus on the information and,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: you know, different organizations are going to do it differently, right?
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think there's going to be, you know, like
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: this Trump bump. So it might give, you know, folks
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to like focus on the impact of some
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: of these things instead of kind of like getting distracted
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: by some of the things we often do.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, we just talked through some of the structural challenges.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: There's a whole set of economic challenges for the news business.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: But then there's a sort of scarier set of challenges,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: which is Kash Patel, who is Trump's pick to lead
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the FBI, has made some explicit threats to go after
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the media. He said on Steve Bannon's podcast, quote, we're
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: going to come after the people in the media who
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Does that make you nervous?
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Me personally?
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: You know, I think I didn't do any of those things.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't say you didn't do shit. You know, you've
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: been good. You've been nice.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't live rigged election because the election wasn't rigged. Right.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: But I think like that's part of this in, you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: talking to other journalists about like what it looks like
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: to cover. You do have people who are like, you know,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: I'm too nervous about like the retribution. Maybe I don't
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: do this.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Like that is a conversation that's happening now. around the country,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: not just in Washington, D.C., with people trying to figure
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: out what that actually looks like. So, of course, we're,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: you know, folks are nervous about that. And I will say,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: you know, White Houses, you know, people in politics, both
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: sides at different times talk shit about the media and
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: like what we don't do right and all of those
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: kinds of things. But it's the actual actions, right? So
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: it's like, what is rhetoric and what actually changes in
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: the way that we're able to do our jobs? And,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: you know, civilly is also something that is nerve wracking, right?
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Because it's, that means you can just be in court forever, right?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: People don't have money to do those, those kinds of things,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: but there are tons of resources. And I think, that's
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: going to become even more available for reporters if these
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: kinds of things actually come to fruition of people that
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: would do a lot of this work pro bono moving forward.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: You can see I've thought about that a lot.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, no, I'm glad you have, and I hope
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that's right. Because someone like Kash Patel, he was also
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: raising money to sue reporters. You know, he wants to
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: change defamation law. He wants to really go after you.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: It is different, right? Like it is a different world
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: that we could be operating in. It could also be rhetoric, right?
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Like these are, you know, Donald Trump talked about changing
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: libel laws and those kinds of things in his first
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: term and after. And so some of this from Cash
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Patel could be rhetoric, and some of it's stuff that
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: he might actually try and do. And so the people
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: that are in the DOJ, not just him himself, but
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: the deputies that are going to be around him and
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the civil servants that are still going to be around them,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Do they slow walk these threats if he comes to them?
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Do they stop them? Or do they just let it go?
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: That moving through the process is going to look, I think,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: a lot different than people anticipate.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, hopefully Patel gets asked about this at his
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: confirmation hearings.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think 100%. Well, I think a lot of
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: them are going to get asked about their, you know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: different podcast pop-ups that they've had.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Over the years. Yeah, they're all podcast habits. All right,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. But before we
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: do that, we just dropped a new episode. Oh, we're
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: plugging my stuff. Look at that. My YouTube series, Liberal Tears,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I do with Brian Tyler Cohen. This week, we ranked
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Trump's cabinet picks. We've done a lot of fun ranking episodes.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: It's a fun, goofy show. You can find it on
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the Pods of America YouTube page. And also, for some reason,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: even though we're both grown adult men we've decided that
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the loser of this silly ranking competition gets a punishment
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: so you can watch brian do horrible things to me
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: like make me eat one of those chips that are
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: so hot that i couldn't move for two days or
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a bite of the smelliest fish in the world again
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: i'm 44 years old i don't know why i'm doing
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: this but it's the life i chose so go to
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the pate of america youtube page while you're there look
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: for liberal tears t-i-e-r-s on the youtube search bar and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: enjoy So let's talk about you in Politico Playbook. I
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: think Playbook is the single most influential news product in
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: all of Washington. It's true. Everyone reads it sometimes multiple
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: times a day. You've got journalists fighting to get their
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: stories included. And just so listeners don't think I'm a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: wimp and a hypocrite, we used to make fun of Politico.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: We used to make fun of Playbook and this thing
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: called Take Appreciators we did years ago.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I remember.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: We made a conscious decision to stop because I was like,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: you know what, guys? We're wrong. It's really good. We're
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: just being giant hypocrites here because they do a great job,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: especially you. Thank you. How does it work? How do
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: you decide what goes in there every day? What's the
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: timeline to get that thing out at what, like 3 a.m.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: your time?
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we start, it's always out at around 6.15. So
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: it's on 3 a.m. your time. Right, right, right. And
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: the process is, you know, the authors, our editors, the producers,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: we're having one conversations, my phone's actually going off right now.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: It's just like over and over and over in our
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: signal chat, just sending stories, different thoughts and thought bubbles
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: and conversations. And then we have a meeting later on
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: in the afternoon where we kind of work through what
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: is that top section? What is that going to look like?
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: And sometimes we make a plan. Like on Sunday, I
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: had a plan to do They're like, this is what
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: the Senate and House have to do. They're coming back.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: It was going to be kind of like one of
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: those like listicle ones that, you know, take some conversations.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. And
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: then it changes, right? Then Joe Biden pardons his son
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: at 730 or whatever. Now it upends everything. And I
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: think that's the part of this when you're thinking about
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: the next four years that might change is do we
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: need to start working at like 4 a.m. or something
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: instead of trying to do a lot of the work
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: at night? And the growth that we, the person that's
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: doing the top kind of goes to bed around 2.30
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: or 3. And then we have another group that comes
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: in and kind of gets a fresh look at it,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: adds the links, adds the stuff that we may have
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: missed that people send in to all of our emails.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Keep sending it in, people, forever. We love you. We
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: appreciate it. And then you just wake up and do
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: it again. You do it again. One, you do it
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: for PM and then you do the whole thing over
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: and over again. And we're very lucky to have, we do.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: And I mean, it's, you know, me and Rachel and
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Ryan get a lot of the attention, but like the
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: kind of background players and really the spine of Playbook
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: are the producers and our editors who are like making
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: sure we get all of the information because there's so
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: much of it that's happening. And I'm always surprised by
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: how well-read the producers are with all of the things
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: that they're taking in all day long and trying to
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: live like normal lives.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Good luck with that normal life part.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, it gets worse and worse.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I buttered you up. The flip side of
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: this is the DC press corps is often criticized for
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: having a herd mentality when it comes to coverage. Do
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you think Playbook might contribute to that because everyone's reading it?
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I've never thought about that. I think that, like,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: we don't think like that. I think, like, we have
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: that kind of driving the day part of it. And
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: we're never trying to jump on the bandwagon. We're trying
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: to be in front of the bandwagon. And, you know,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: whether Playbook does it or not, like, people jump on it.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: We may be leading it in other, you know, different
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: influential newsletters around D.C. may be leading it at different times.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: But it's up to other people to kind of jump
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: on that bandwagon and cover it. I do think What
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: we try to do is focus on the impact of
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: this stuff. There's some of the gossip that's in there,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: but the gossip at times tells you a lot. We
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: always knew that Hexeth was having problems because we were
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: talking to senators and folks on the transition about this
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: for a long time. Same thing with Gates. Those kinds
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: of things were happening. And it sounds like gossip at
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: the time for a lot of people, but then eventually
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: that gossip leads to someone dropping out or having a
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: really hard time having their nomination.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think there's like a lot of things
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: in the DC press that like, we're not perfect, right?
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Like we miss things, we focus on sometimes like the
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: shiny objects a little too much, right? And so when
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: you're thinking about how the next four years within the
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: media goes, my hope is that folks focus on not
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: being distracted and really like focus on the why something
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: is happening, right? Like, I think that is much more, one, interesting,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: And two, important for the American people to understand, right?
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Like if, you know, a politician lies, sure, call it out,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: do the fact check. But also what are they lying for?
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: What is the thing they're trying to hide? So it
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: has to like go deeper than just kind of the
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: bandwagon mentality sometimes does.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: And Trump pretends to hate the mainstream media or legacy media,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: but I assume that his staff are just as obsessed
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: with getting stuff in playbook as everybody else and Republicans generally.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: We have a nice wide swath of people who send
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: us information.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Look at you. What a pro. No sourcing. One big
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: thing the White House Correspondents Association does is the White
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: House Correspondents Dinner. Big fancy gala in the spring. Everyone
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: calls it Nerd Prom. You guys going to book Tony
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Hinchcliffe and do you expect Trump will attend?
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know, actually. I think, you know,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: whether or not he's going to attend. I think at
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, it's up to him and
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: You know, the invitation has always been open for presidents
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: to do so. He didn't during the four years. And
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: that was his choice. And the dinner still happened. People
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: keep asking me, like, are we going to have a dinner?
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm planning it. So somebody better damn show up.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: So that aspect of it is like that part's going
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: to happen. But at the end of the day, for
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: me as president and the person who people don't know
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: this with, like, the dinner is basically like me and
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: the executive director of the association kind of planning and
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: come together and then we get the production team in
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: that does a lot of the physical stuff. But the
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: focus for me and Steve, our executive director, is about
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: the reporters, right? So like whether or not, you know,
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: presidents come, whether or not a vice president comes, whether
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: or not members of Congress come and sit in the,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: you know, in the crowd, that's not my focus. Our
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: focus is like, celebrating good journalism. The Kardashians, Beyonce. But
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: that part of it is the fun part of it.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: And frankly, people could use some levity. This job is
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: very heavy. And so I think that aspect of it
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: is important too. Every once in a while, it's nice
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: to have a little bit of fun when we're dealing
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: with all of this chaos. We'll need it in April,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: I know that's for sure.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no. It's one night of fun. I don't know.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: People over-interpret it.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, give us one night.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: One night of fun. One night.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Well, the Obama people, the meanest shit we ever did
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: to the press was do the bin Laden operation the
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: day after the Correspondents' Dinner. Yeah. Just watching all these
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: people on TV so hungover. They just basically couldn't speak.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Red eyes. So much concealer.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's tough. Yeah. So a lot of people know
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: you from Playbook. They know you as the impeccably dressed
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: reporter on TV. but I was reading up on you
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: for the episode. You played division one college football. I did.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I know the nail polish confuses people now, but I
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: did play defensive end for Colorado state. I did.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: No shit.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: So you played in high school where it was like,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: played in high school in Texas.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It's funny because, so my dad played
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: football at Walker college. And so he, I'm the only
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: son and he really wanted, you know, his son to
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: play football. And, you know, I'm, I was a good kid.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: So I kind of got into it. And I wanted
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: to quit because I was always a larger kid than
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: everyone else. They had me on the offensive line. So
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I called my dad. He was in the Army, so
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: he was overseas. And I was like, I'm quitting. I
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: hate this. But then he was like, give it one
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: more week. They put me on defense. And it just like,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: I had a switch flipped in my head. And so
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I played, you know, little league, middle school, high school, college.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I love football. I think a lot of it was
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: like the camaraderie, the like teamwork of it, which is
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: why I like being on Playbook, same reason. And also
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: like knocking some heads.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: My nickname was Mean Gene. Really? I have it back somewhere.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: My Shoemaker High School letterman jacket is back there that
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: says Mean Gene in huge letters.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Next time wear that.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Please wear it on a TV. I'm going to wear
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: it to the Wilds Correspondents Dinner.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Of course you like playing defense. You play offense, you're
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: the schlub who's getting wrecked.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: And you're just going at people.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: It's so much better. It's so much better. Do you hate.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Deion Sanders and the Colorado team? Were they your big rival?
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Now, Deion, he wasn't there when I was there. Yeah, no, CU,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: I will say this. So CSU and CU have this,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: you know, have always had this rivalry forever.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Those games get nasty.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: They get real nasty. And more importantly, the stuff before
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: it gets nasty, those rivalries. And I didn't, I wasn't
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: from Colorado. I played in Texas. We were military brats.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: So we like bounced around everywhere. So I didn't understand
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: like rivalries that lasted for a long time. So we
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: get up there to Colorado State and we're doing like
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: two a days this summer. And we have all these
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: guys coming and getting us hyped up for the game.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: I'm a freshman. So we're like, none of us are
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: going to play. We're just like, you're going to hate them.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Like you have to hate them. And I'm like, I
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: don't hate them. That's weird. I don't know these people.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: But then we get there and I like see them
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: walking in. And I'm just like filled with this like
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: anger that I had never felt. But to that point,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: I started like yelling at them. I was like, oh,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: now I get the world rivalry. This is bad.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: It's not good.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when harnessed for good, that stuff's fun. When harnessed
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: for bad, it's real bad. But yeah, there's nothing better
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: than like the rivalry week in college football where you watch,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you know, like Minnesota and Wisconsin battling it out over
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: some giant axe or some stupid shit. You're like, do
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you guys really care about this? They're literally fighting over
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: someone planting a flag in the center of the field. Exactly. Anyway.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Let me just ask you about the clothes for a second,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: because again, you're a fashion icon of the DC press corps.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: As I noted at the top, I was more of
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: a Joseph A. Banks, three for one guy. When did
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: this become important to you? What do you think? Is
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: there a meaning behind it? Or just like, it's fun?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is fun, right? I like to
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: play with colors and fabrics and things. But I think
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: part of it is also, if I'm being really honest,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: is like, I am 6'3, I'm black, I'm gay. there's
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: almost no room that I walk in where like eyes
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: aren't looking at me. Even if I had like a
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: blue suit on, I have a big afro. And so
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: part of it is like, you know, I'll give you
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: something to look at. Like if you're going to be staring,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: I might as well just like lean in to what
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: I want and do that. I also think that it is,
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: when I came out at 27 and I kind of
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: like always said, I'm just going to live my life
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: how I want. And that was a part of it.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: And there was like, you know, some nerves the first
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: time when I pinked to the briefing room. where I
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: was like, this is not going to go over well.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: What I found out is like, nobody cared that much.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of people on X that care,
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: but the people like in person, I've never heard anything
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: other than like the same thing you said, right? Like
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: the compliments, which I really appreciate. And I think that
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: when you kind of do what you want without hurting
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: other people and live your truth, as the kids say,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: then you get permission for other people to do it.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: A lot of people in D.C., they're like, I bought
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: a pink tie. I'm like, you go, bro. You get
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: out that comfort zone. You do it. You get out
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: that comfort zone.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: And it's just fun.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I think people... I think I do
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: not believe that the way someone is dressed speaks to
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: their seriousness, right?
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: No, it's ridiculous.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Or their talent level or whether or not they are
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: a real journalist or whatever. And I think like what
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I've learned is a lot of people don't either.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Listen, I dress boring because I'm lazy, but I think
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: DC people, like you don't need an excuse to be
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: interesting or different or be yourself. There's no value in
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: kind of looking like the herd there. It's a town
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: where everyone, I think, could use a hobby or a
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: passion or something other than walking up to people at
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: a bar and being like, what do you do?
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Right. Worst question. And when you get here, you take
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: it on immediately. So you have to stop yourself from
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: asking people what they do. because it's not, like, DC
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: is its own culture. The clothing's a part of that. Like,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: the conversations are a part of that. But, like, DC
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: stare-off when you're having a conversation with someone.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God, the worst.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: And they look past you. I'm always like, you can go.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: You're free. You don't have to.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't have to talk to me. I don't
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: want to talk to you.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: You can go. That's fine. Go hang out with them.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: But I think that it is, you don't have to
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: listen to the world. I think a lot of, in DC,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: that happens, like, on a personal level a lot. It's like, well,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: blue makes me look serious. And it's like, No, it
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: just makes you look like Bob. Like you and Bob
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: just look alike now. You have the same suit as Bob.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong if that's your truth. If Joseph A.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Banks is yours, if Brooks Brothers gets you going, do that.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: But if it doesn't, do something different. The Brothers Brooks.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Well, Eugene, thank you so much for all the work
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: you're doing. Thanks for joining the show today. It's a
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: blast talking with you. Everyone should subscribe to Playbook. Everyone
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: should follow you on Twitter. What's your Twitter?
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: At EugeneDaniels2. At EugeneDaniels2.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: That's it for the show today. Thank you. John and
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Dan will be back with a new show Friday morning.
• 50:41
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• 50:44
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