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Getting Ready to Interview Trump: An Exercise · Question Everything

0:00
Speaker 1: A few weeks before the election, I thought I might
0:02
Speaker 1: actually get an interview with Donald Trump. Our executive producer
0:05
Speaker 1: was texting with the campaign's press team. We were like,
0:08
Speaker 1: Trump seems to like going on podcasts. We have a podcast.
0:11
Speaker 1: And they seemed to be entertaining it. I had one
0:14
Speaker 1: main thing I wanted to ask him. In his second term,
0:18
Speaker 1: how is he going to treat journalists? Trump's been quite
0:21
Speaker 1: clear about his other goals for his second term, dismantling
0:24
Speaker 1: the civil service, seeking retribution against enemies. And while he
0:27
Speaker 1: certainly has maligned the media a lot, I wanted to
0:30
Speaker 1: use any time I might get with him on this show,
0:32
Speaker 1: about journalism, to ask what he was thinking about doing
0:35
Speaker 1: to the press, in as much detail as I could get.
0:39
Speaker 1: Because I think it's important to know what possibly lies ahead,
0:42
Speaker 1: especially now that he's won. Obviously, the interview was a
0:45
Speaker 1: long shot, but it seemed conceivable enough that I still
0:48
Speaker 1: had to get ready. And that's what today's show is about.
0:51
Speaker 1: My week of preparation for an interview with Donald Trump,
0:54
Speaker 1: the guy who helped me prepare for that interview, and
0:57
Speaker 1: his old wrestling buddy.
0:59
Speaker 2: From this side, it looks like you guys are just
1:02
Speaker 2: repeating what you're told to repeat from people who are
1:04
Speaker 2: funding whoever you're working for.
1:06
Speaker 1: This is Question Everything from KCRW and Placement Theory. I'm
1:12
Speaker 1: Brian Reed. Stick around. If I was going to talk
1:25
Speaker 1: meaningfully with Donald Trump about his plans for the press,
1:29
Speaker 1: I wanted to go in with more than just, I
1:30
Speaker 1: know you call this fake news. I wanted to do
1:33
Speaker 1: my due diligence. Compile every last thing Trump has ever
1:36
Speaker 1: said about reporters, the press, the media. To do that,
1:41
Speaker 1: I brought in Sam Egan.
1:43
Speaker 3: It was a doozy of an assignment.
1:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:45
Speaker 1: Sam produces a political podcast for The New Yorker. He
1:48
Speaker 1: worked at Vice, and he also freelances with our show.
1:50
Speaker 1: It was mid-October, and we told Sam this interview with
1:53
Speaker 1: Trump could come through any moment. We needed a master
1:55
Speaker 1: list of every comment Trump has made about the media.
1:58
Speaker 1: since he started running for the presidency in 2015. What
2:02
Speaker 1: Sam came back with was massive. First off, he found
2:05
Speaker 1: this spreadsheet that the U.S. press Freedom Tracker had put
2:08
Speaker 1: together of just tweets alone from Donald Trump about the media,
2:11
Speaker 1: which totaled well over 2,000. It was overwhelming to behold.
2:16
Speaker 1: My eyes almost glazed over, confronted with it. November 26, 2015.
2:19
Speaker 1: The failing New York Times should focus on fair and
2:23
Speaker 1: balanced reporting rather than constant hit jobs on me. Yesterday,
2:26
Speaker 1: three boring articles. Today, two. August 30th, 2018. I just
2:31
Speaker 1: cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the
2:33
Speaker 1: media is. Truth doesn't matter to them. They only have
2:36
Speaker 1: their hatred and agenda. And on and on. So terrible.
2:39
Speaker 1: Such a disgrace. So wrong. So dirty. Just row after
2:43
Speaker 1: row after row of vitriol towards the press. And that
2:46
Speaker 1: was just the tweets. Sam spent hours scrubbing through Trump's rallies,
2:50
Speaker 1: press conferences, interviews, posts on true social, and pulled together
2:54
Speaker 1: pages of comments, which he sure are still not comprehensive.
2:59
Speaker 3: I mean, I had two days to do this.
3:01
Speaker 1: You're exposing what a great manager I am.
3:02
Speaker 3: Thank you.
3:03
Speaker 1: So there could conceivably be some that have been missed.
3:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, a ton more, I'm sure.
3:09
Speaker 1: As Sam created this timeline, basically, laying out Trump's comments
3:13
Speaker 1: about the press chronologically over the past nine years, he
3:16
Speaker 1: began to see an evolution to the president's remarks. You
3:19
Speaker 1: could break them down into three progressive phases. Phase one
3:23
Speaker 1: began back in 2015 with Trump the brawler, clapping back,
3:27
Speaker 1: picking fights.
3:29
Speaker 3: New York tabloidy guy, like having this like tit for
3:31
Speaker 3: tat battle with the press. And he's like, ah, a
3:33
Speaker 3: bunch of them are scumbags, but some of them are good.
3:35
Speaker 3: It's something he like frequently said, uh, when he was
3:38
Speaker 3: first running and.
3:40
Speaker 1: Not, not exactly.
3:42
Speaker 3: He would say something to the effect of like 30%
3:45
Speaker 3: of them are great and 30% of them are all right,
3:47
Speaker 3: but about 15 to 20% of them are like horrible,
3:49
Speaker 3: evil people, which is, you know, not great nuance, but
3:55
Speaker 3: any nuance on the media from president Trump is surprising
3:58
Speaker 3: to read and in hindsight. And I think after his
4:01
Speaker 3: election is when that kind of started to shift.
4:04
Speaker 1: Which brings us to Trump's next stage of development in
4:06
Speaker 1: his attitude towards the press.
4:08
Speaker 3: There was a rally that I believe, if I remember
4:10
Speaker 3: the date correctly, it was February 18th, 2017.
4:14
Speaker 1: While making the master list, Sam pinpointed what he thought
4:17
Speaker 1: might have been the actual time and place when Trump
4:20
Speaker 1: pivoted from phase one to phase two.
4:23
Speaker 3: He was in Melbourne, Florida, doing a rally. And he
4:27
Speaker 3: Most of his rallies are kind of the same. And
4:29
Speaker 3: he does his shtick over here about this. He does
4:32
Speaker 3: his shtick over here about this. And then somewhere 20
4:35
Speaker 3: to 40 minutes in, a lot of the time, he's like,
4:37
Speaker 3: and look over there at the press box. They suck
4:40
Speaker 3: to hell with them. And everyone's like, and he moves on.
4:44
Speaker 3: But it's typically like a line, two lines.
4:47
Speaker 1: So what was different about this, the Melbourne?
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Speaker 3: He launched into this very long. Do you want to
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Speaker 3: read it?
4:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I also want to speak to you without the filter
4:56
Speaker 3: of the fake news. the dishonest media, which has published
4:59
Speaker 3: one false story after another with no sources. Even as
5:02
Speaker 3: they pretend they have them, they make them up in
5:04
Speaker 3: many cases. They just don't want to report the truth,
5:06
Speaker 3: and they've been calling us wrong for two years. They
5:09
Speaker 3: don't get it, but they're starting to get it. I
5:10
Speaker 3: can tell you that. They've become a big part of
5:13
Speaker 3: the problem. They are part of the corrupt system. Thomas Jefferson,
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Speaker 3: Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln, many of our greatest presidents,
5:20
Speaker 3: fought with the media and called them out, oftentimes on
5:23
Speaker 3: their lies. When the media lies to people, I will never,
5:26
Speaker 3: ever let them get away with it. I will do
5:28
Speaker 3: whatever I can so that they don't get away with it.
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Speaker 3: They have their own agenda. Their agenda is not your agenda.
5:33
Speaker 3: In fact, Thomas Jefferson said nothing can be believed which
5:36
Speaker 3: is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself, he said, becomes
5:38
Speaker 3: suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. That was
5:41
Speaker 3: June 14th, my birthday, 1807. It will continue to expose
5:46
Speaker 3: them for what they are. And most importantly, we will
5:48
Speaker 3: continue to win, win, win. Most of his comments prior
5:54
Speaker 3: to that were like, ah, these greasy media guys, like
5:56
Speaker 3: they're out to get their, you know, they're unfair to
5:58
Speaker 3: me all the time, you know? And at this point
5:59
Speaker 3: he is saying, oh, it's not just me. These people
6:02
Speaker 3: are a part of a system that's doing what it's
6:04
Speaker 3: designed to do. And he kind of begins to project
6:07
Speaker 3: himself as like the solution to that system.
6:10
Speaker 1: If phase one was disqualify the press, then phase two
6:14
Speaker 1: was demonize us. Like we're actually not American. We're trying
6:17
Speaker 1: to undermine America. We're in opposition to America.
6:20
Speaker 4: Exactly.
6:20
Speaker 3: The cabal.
6:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, what strikes me about it is what you just read,
6:24
Speaker 1: this statement at the rally, this seems researched.
6:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:27
Speaker 1: Down to the date that Thomas Jefferson, you know, made
6:31
Speaker 1: a comment about newspapers. Actually, he got that date wrong
6:34
Speaker 1: by three days. I guess he wanted to say it
6:36
Speaker 1: was on his birthday, but still. There's something strategic about it.
6:41
Speaker 1: And so this is February 18, 2017. It's the first
6:44
Speaker 1: month of his presidency.
6:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
6:48
Speaker 1: So after having kind of assessed all this– do you
6:51
Speaker 1: make anything more of like why that happened then and
6:54
Speaker 1: what that shift means in retrospect?
6:57
Speaker 3: I mean, this feels like conjecture, but, um, I think
7:02
Speaker 3: it reads to me like someone who realized they were
7:04
Speaker 3: actually the president and like had to now do this
7:08
Speaker 3: for four years at least, you know what I mean?
7:10
Speaker 3: Had to like, this wasn't like, uh, even, even, even
7:14
Speaker 3: if you're Donald Trump, like you can, to some effect
7:17
Speaker 3: duck in and out of the media pre him being
7:18
Speaker 3: the president, you know, you're not, Reading this compilation brought
7:24
Speaker 3: me back to that time, to the first month of
7:26
Speaker 3: Trump's first term, particularly poignant as we're about to enter
7:29
Speaker 3: the first month of term number two.
7:51
Speaker 1: It brought me back to just how much strife there
7:53
Speaker 1: already was in that short period. Already in that first month,
7:56
Speaker 1: there'd been the Women's March, with hundreds of thousands of
7:59
Speaker 1: demonstrators descending on D.C. and arresting shots on cable news
8:03
Speaker 1: of a sea of pink hats on the National Mall.
8:06
Speaker 1: News organizations had brought in crowd-counting experts who estimated that
8:09
Speaker 1: there were about three times as many people at the
8:11
Speaker 1: march than there were at Trump's inauguration, which infuriated him.
8:16
Speaker 1: Trump had also instituted the travel ban for majority Muslim
8:19
Speaker 1: countries that first month, which led to reporters putting out
8:22
Speaker 1: story after story of flash protests and chaos and immigration
8:26
Speaker 1: lawyers rushing to airports across the country. That's what was
8:30
Speaker 1: going on when Trump made that new kind of speech
8:32
Speaker 1: in Melbourne, Florida.
8:34
Speaker 3: And, you know, like right around this time, he uses
8:37
Speaker 3: the term the enemy of the American people for the
8:40
Speaker 3: first time on Twitter, referencing, you know, like the press.
8:44
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I mean obviously I know he did that.
8:46
Speaker 1: It's just interesting to kind of think about when it happened.
8:49
Speaker 3: And to see it in like– And to see it
8:50
Speaker 3: laid out here. Yeah. I mean in hindsight it all
8:52
Speaker 3: is such a blur.
8:53
Speaker 1: Like it happened the first month of his presidency. In
8:56
Speaker 1: my head I would have just kind of compressed it
8:57
Speaker 1: all and fake news and enemy of the people kind
9:00
Speaker 1: of all happened during his campaign or something. So phase one,
9:06
Speaker 1: disqualify the press. Phase two, demonize. And then in the document,
9:11
Speaker 1: you can see phase three begin. Phase three is– If
9:14
Speaker 1: the press is bad, if the press is other.
9:17
Speaker 3: Now what do we do about it? Here are actionable
9:20
Speaker 3: things that we can do.
9:21
Speaker 1: Phase three picked up after Trump left office. After the
9:25
Speaker 1: coverage of January 6th and his impeachment and of the
9:28
Speaker 1: criminal cases against him and of his most recent campaign,
9:31
Speaker 1: Trump started threatening more and more things he and the
9:35
Speaker 1: government would do to the press. So, for instance, not
9:38
Speaker 1: just trying to find leakers who give information to journalists,
9:42
Speaker 1: but threatening to go after the journalists themselves.
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Speaker 3: That in particular is like a theme that he's returned
9:46
Speaker 3: back to a lot. There's certainly like every administration kind
9:49
Speaker 3: of is like we need to shore up our leagues.
9:50
Speaker 3: But like I think he was somewhat unique in being
9:53
Speaker 3: like almost being like, hey, screw going after the leakers.
9:57
Speaker 3: We could go to the reporter. And he starts doing
9:59
Speaker 3: things like– I don't know if you remember that he went–
10:01
Speaker 3: he wanted to go after CBS. He wanted to have
10:02
Speaker 3: their FCC license revoked because of the way that they
10:06
Speaker 3: edited the Kamala Harris interview that they did. He attacked
10:09
Speaker 3: the Comcast CEO. He was constantly talking about reshaping libel
10:14
Speaker 3: laws and kind of hypothesizing– Live on Truth Social, how
10:20
Speaker 3: he's going to sort of materialize his larger qualms with
10:25
Speaker 3: the press that he had for his first term and
10:28
Speaker 3: beyond into like actionable steps to diminish their ability to
10:32
Speaker 3: report on his administration fairly.
10:36
Speaker 1: In case this wasn't obvious, I never got the interview
10:38
Speaker 1: with Trump. His campaign declined our request the day after
10:41
Speaker 1: they wrote us that he went on Joe Rogan. Less
10:43
Speaker 1: than two weeks after that, he won the election. Which
10:46
Speaker 1: is how Sam and I found ourselves doing this kind
10:48
Speaker 1: of post-mortem analysis on the document he'd made. A document
10:52
Speaker 1: that has only become more foreboding, I'd say, in the
10:55
Speaker 1: days since Sam stopped adding to it.
10:57
Speaker 3: I don't even think I have it on there because
10:59
Speaker 3: it was in the last week or two. He was
11:00
Speaker 3: talking about having reporters shot, wasn't he?
11:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I ended my last episode.
11:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
11:05
Speaker 1: He talked about it, I believe, the day before Election Day.
11:09
Speaker 3: Exactly. So, God, that's crazy.
11:12
Speaker 1: Also new, since Sam finished the document, The Columbia Journalism
11:16
Speaker 1: Review recently reported that a week before the election, Trump's
11:19
Speaker 1: attorney sent a legal threat to both the New York
11:21
Speaker 1: Times and Penguin Random House demanding $ 10 billion in damages
11:26
Speaker 1: for libel. And his attorney filed a complaint to the
11:28
Speaker 1: Federal Election Commission about the Washington Post, claiming the way
11:32
Speaker 1: they promoted their coverage amounted to an in-kind contribution to
11:36
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris's campaign. In the last three weeks, Trump did
11:40
Speaker 1: sue CBS for $ 10 billion. which of course is an
11:44
Speaker 1: example of Trump making good on these threats. That's what
11:47
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if we'll come to see more of. This week,
11:50
Speaker 1: Trump named his choice to head up the Federal Communications Commission,
11:53
Speaker 1: a man named Brendan Carr, who has shown a willingness
11:56
Speaker 1: to strip networks of their licenses for choices they make
11:59
Speaker 1: in editorial coverage, even though that's not allowed under FCC rules.
12:03
Speaker 1: He could be in a position to take real action
12:05
Speaker 1: against broadcasters. So I feel like that brings us up
12:07
Speaker 1: to where we are. Now we're at punish.
12:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.
12:11
Speaker 3: Punish the press, the rubber... meeting the road, so to speak.
12:15
Speaker 1: You have like a slight, I don't know, smirk or
12:17
Speaker 1: grin on your face. Like why? Um, I don't know.
12:23
Speaker 3: That's a good question. I probably at some level of
12:26
Speaker 3: an uncomfortable laugh in there. I'm a little bit, you know,
12:29
Speaker 3: a little bit nervous about it. Um, but also like,
12:33
Speaker 3: this is as, as far as, as, as like a,
12:36
Speaker 3: a journalist, there is no like before time for me.
12:38
Speaker 3: There's a whole class of journalists. Like this is all
12:39
Speaker 3: that they've ever, they've ever known. You know, I, I
12:43
Speaker 3: never knew a like civil media era in the United States.
12:48
Speaker 1: Right. Um, what's that been like?
12:52
Speaker 3: Um, you know, I think it's almost feels like asking
12:59
Speaker 3: like what it was like before you were born. I don't,
13:01
Speaker 3: I don't, I don't, I don't exactly know. Uh, it
13:03
Speaker 3: sounds nice. What, you know, what it was like before
13:08
Speaker 3: when I hear stories about it. But, uh, On some level,
13:13
Speaker 3: there's like more of a sense of, you know, conviction.
13:16
Speaker 4: What do you mean?
13:17
Speaker 1: Like it gives our work greater purpose in a way?
13:19
Speaker 3: I think so. And some, well, you know, this week
13:22
Speaker 3: I'm struggling with that.
13:27
Speaker 1: So we had this document, this odd artifact, which memorializes
13:31
Speaker 1: Trump's evolving relationship with the press in the last nine years.
13:35
Speaker 1: And now without an interview with Trump and with him
13:37
Speaker 1: having just one, I was trying to figure out what
13:39
Speaker 1: to do with it. We seriously considered reading it all
13:42
Speaker 1: aloud or having AI read it and releasing a six-hour
13:45
Speaker 1: podcast of it. It would be a piece of performance
13:48
Speaker 1: art basically, like Andy Kaufman reading the entirety of Great Gatsby.
13:53
Speaker 1: We ended up mixing that idea. I'm trying to figure
13:55
Speaker 1: out what's the value of it. I have a sense
13:58
Speaker 1: that there is value to it.
13:59
Speaker 3: I will share this with you. I had an exchange
14:02
Speaker 3: a couple of days ago with a friend of mine
14:06
Speaker 3: from Wyoming.
14:08
Speaker 1: Sam's from Utah and went to college in Wyoming. He
14:11
Speaker 1: was a D1 wrestler there.
14:12
Speaker 3: Where I'm from, like most people, I'm the only journalist
14:14
Speaker 3: that they know. They have never, especially people my age,
14:17
Speaker 3: have never met a journalist in their lives. Except for me.
14:21
Speaker 1: How old are you?
14:22
Speaker 3: I'm 29, just turned 29. So I get roped in
14:25
Speaker 3: these conversations a lot.
14:26
Speaker 1: And on the day after the election, Sam posted a
14:28
Speaker 1: somber selfie online.
14:31
Speaker 3: I was shitposting on my close friend's story on Instagram,
14:35
Speaker 3: expressing my concerns about Trump's rhetoric about the media.
14:37
Speaker 1: On top of the selfie, he wrote, real Weimar Republic
14:41
Speaker 1: vibes at the New Yorker today. Having conversations about what
14:44
Speaker 1: we're all going to do if Trump begins targeting members
14:47
Speaker 1: of the news media. I do not know what timeline
14:50
Speaker 1: I expected to live through, but it was not this one.
14:54
Speaker 1: A guy from Sam's old wrestling team, The Endem.
14:57
Speaker 3: And he was sort of like, I feel like you're
14:59
Speaker 3: being dramatic. If a Republican did this like the day
15:02
Speaker 3: after the election and Kamala had won, you would call
15:04
Speaker 3: it silly. And I referenced this document. I was like, hey, man,
15:08
Speaker 3: I spent two days compiling a 13-page document that I
15:14
Speaker 3: know is not 1,000 percent comprehensive. There's stuff that's missing.
15:17
Speaker 3: It's still that long of just comments that were like
15:20
Speaker 3: ranging from vaguely threatening to like pointed threats at the media.
15:25
Speaker 3: So I don't really think this is overreacting. And he was–
15:27
Speaker 3: he could not believe it. He did not believe me.
15:29
Speaker 3: He was like share with me. The only reason I
15:31
Speaker 3: didn't share is because I don't know what you're doing
15:32
Speaker 3: with it. It was like I'm going to– Oh, wow.
15:34
Speaker 3: He was like, email it to me, please.
15:35
Speaker 1: As a Trump supporter?
15:36
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Okay.
15:38
Speaker 1: And you're pretty good friends with this guy?
15:39
Speaker 3: Great friends with this guy.
15:42
Speaker 1: After seeing the pages of invective, of threats, would Sam's
15:45
Speaker 1: friends still think he was being dramatic? Would he see
15:48
Speaker 1: why Sam was feeling scared as a journalist? It seemed
15:51
Speaker 1: like a conversation worth having in these raw weeks after
15:53
Speaker 1: the election. Do you think it would be interesting to
15:56
Speaker 1: talk to him about it? Yeah.
16:01
Speaker 4: Was that Sammy talking to me?
16:02
Speaker 1: Yes.
16:02
Speaker 3: It's both of us.
16:04
Speaker 1: Sammy? We're both here and we're not on video just
16:06
Speaker 1: because we're sitting across from each other at a table.
16:09
Speaker 3: In like a tiny cramped studio, so you don't have
16:11
Speaker 3: to be on video if you're not feeling it.
16:12
Speaker 4: Just kind of wanting to see your pretty face, Sammy.
16:15
Speaker 1: After a quick break, we bring this document Sam made
16:18
Speaker 1: to an old friend of his who doesn't trust journalists
16:21
Speaker 1: but does trust Sam to see how the list looks
16:24
Speaker 1: to him. And he makes the case for why we
16:26
Speaker 1: should see it differently. We're going to share the list
16:29
Speaker 1: in our newsletter. You can sign up at kcrw.com slash
16:33
Speaker 1: question everything. Sam's friend Chaz is 30, married with two kids,
16:45
Speaker 1: one brand new, just over a month old. He works
16:48
Speaker 1: for a roofing company in Colorado and is pursuing a
16:50
Speaker 1: professional MMA career. Sam says he's a great fighter. Chaz
16:54
Speaker 1: says he voted for Trump, not particularly enthusiastically, but because
16:58
Speaker 1: he's anti-abortion.
17:00
Speaker 3: So did you get a chance to look at the
17:02
Speaker 3: sort of master list of Trump statements about the media?
17:05
Speaker 2: Yes.
17:06
Speaker 4: Yes, and I have it here.
17:07
Speaker 3: Did you print it out?
17:08
Speaker 4: I did.
17:09
Speaker 3: Dude.
17:10
Speaker 4: I had it printed out.
17:11
Speaker 3: What are you, 80? You're a father of two now
17:13
Speaker 3: and you're printing stuff all of a sudden?
17:17
Speaker 1: Sam sent Chaz the list before we got on the phone.
17:20
Speaker 1: When Sam went to write Chaz, he was a little
17:22
Speaker 1: embarrassed to see in his DMs that in his post-election,
17:25
Speaker 1: shit-posting mood, when Chaz had chimed in saying it seemed
17:28
Speaker 1: like he was overreacting and Sam had responded, telling him,
17:32
Speaker 1: if you think I'm overreacting, how about this document I
17:34
Speaker 1: just spent two days making? Sam had described the document
17:37
Speaker 1: to Chaz. as a list of every time Trump had
17:39
Speaker 1: called for violence against the media. Which, that's not what
17:43
Speaker 1: this document is. It's mostly insults, accusations, and other kinds
17:47
Speaker 1: of threats.
17:48
Speaker 2: Honestly, nothing surprised me. I felt like these were things
17:52
Speaker 2: that I've seen or heard him say before.
17:56
Speaker 1: Looking at Trump's statements laid out chronologically, Chas quickly noticed
18:01
Speaker 1: the same early evolution that Sam did.
18:03
Speaker 2: It looked like over time it got progressively more like
18:06
Speaker 2: the media.
18:08
Speaker 4: is the devil.
18:09
Speaker 2: Um, from like 2015, when you have here, like much
18:13
Speaker 2: of the press has been terrific or honorable people.
18:16
Speaker 4: I've had amazing people like 30%.
18:18
Speaker 1: Okay.
18:18
Speaker 2: And then it kind of moves towards like, they're just
18:20
Speaker 2: the worst people ever and totally dishonest. Um, I, I like,
18:26
Speaker 2: I tend to lean more towards that direction.
18:29
Speaker 3: You lean, you lean which direction just to be clear, more.
18:32
Speaker 2: Towards more skepticism of traditional news media, like a TV show,
18:37
Speaker 2: newspaper radio. I'm pretty skeptical and not just of liberal
18:42
Speaker 2: news media of all news media too. I'm pretty, pretty
18:46
Speaker 2: skeptical of what I'm hearing.
18:48
Speaker 3: Where do you get your news?
18:50
Speaker 2: I primarily, and it might, might be silly YouTube.
18:56
Speaker 3: That's not surprising to me at all. I honestly expected
18:58
Speaker 3: you to say YouTube.
18:58
Speaker 4: Like YouTube. Yeah.
19:00
Speaker 2: Um, I like, I really enjoy long form podcasts. Um,
19:06
Speaker 2: where we get to sit down and listen to people
19:08
Speaker 2: talk a.
19:08
Speaker 4: Little more human. You know this, I love Joe Rogan,
19:11
Speaker 4: huge Jordan Peterson fan.
19:13
Speaker 2: When I'm listening to podcasts, it seems more natural to
19:17
Speaker 2: where it's two people having a conversation as opposed to
19:19
Speaker 2: like a corporation through one reporter.
19:23
Speaker 1: To Sam's list, we asked Chaz if there's anything in
19:26
Speaker 1: there that jumped out at him for one reason or
19:28
Speaker 1: another that would help us see how it was landing
19:30
Speaker 1: with him. He turns to a section of a speech
19:32
Speaker 1: Trump gave when the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v.
19:36
Speaker 1: Wade had been leaked ahead of time to a Politico reporter.
19:40
Speaker 1: In the document, Sam has summarized this moment as, quote,
19:44
Speaker 1: Trump threatens reporter with prison rape if they do not
19:47
Speaker 1: reveal the identity of the Roe Supreme Court leaker.
19:51
Speaker 4: I felt like that was a bit of a stretch.
19:54
Speaker 1: Like, I felt like.
19:59
Speaker 4: Like, could that have been heard as a joke? That's
20:03
Speaker 4: how I read it.
20:04
Speaker 1: Can you just read what... I just want to make
20:06
Speaker 1: sure we're talking about the same part.
20:07
Speaker 2: Yep.
20:08
Speaker 1: Okay.
20:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, Trump states.
20:10
Speaker 2: take the writer and or the publisher of the paper
20:12
Speaker 2: and say, who is the leaker? And they say, we're
20:16
Speaker 2: not going to tell you. They say, that's okay, you're
20:19
Speaker 2: going to jail. And when this person realizes he's going
20:22
Speaker 2: to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he
20:25
Speaker 2: will say, I'd very.
20:27
Speaker 4: Much like to tell you exactly who the leaker is.
20:29
Speaker 2: It reads like a joke to me based off like
20:33
Speaker 2: how he, I mean, he is who he is, brash
20:37
Speaker 2: and not.
20:38
Speaker 4: Not a polished politician.
20:39
Speaker 2: In that way.
20:40
Speaker 1: Even if you take the bride of another prisoner, say
20:42
Speaker 1: that is like a bit of a joke.
20:46
Speaker 4: Like a prison joke.
20:47
Speaker 2: Sure.
20:48
Speaker 1: I think the idea of a president saying we're going
20:51
Speaker 1: to threaten a reporter with jail if they don't reveal
20:56
Speaker 1: a source. What do you think of that idea?
21:00
Speaker 4: If there was anything that was done after that, I
21:03
Speaker 4: would take it more seriously.
21:04
Speaker 2: Like if there was any concrete steps to like– Like,
21:07
Speaker 2: all right, we're going to arrest him and question him.
21:11
Speaker 4: Sure, I'd take that seriously.
21:12
Speaker 2: But if it was just that and it was left
21:13
Speaker 2: where it was and there was no follow-up on that whatsoever,
21:16
Speaker 2: then I don't know how you could take it more
21:19
Speaker 2: seriously than Trump being Trump and how he speaks.
21:22
Speaker 3: Well, that was in 2022 and he wasn't the president. Now,
21:26
Speaker 3: getting back to what originally spawned this whole conversation, do
21:28
Speaker 3: you see how that could be something that I find concerning?
21:35
Speaker 1: I guess.
21:37
Speaker 4: I'm not in your world. I'm not a journalist. I'm Neil.
21:39
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't doubt your sincerity or your, or
21:43
Speaker 2: your fear in that. But to me, it seems silly
21:47
Speaker 2: for you to be afraid of that.
21:51
Speaker 4: It just seems silly.
21:54
Speaker 3: So you said that you were aware that, um, that
21:59
Speaker 3: Trump spoke about the press in this way. I'm just
22:02
Speaker 3: curious how his rhetoric, I mean, it's been going on for,
22:05
Speaker 3: A decade now. This is how he's spoken about the
22:06
Speaker 3: media for a decade. I'm curious if you think that
22:08
Speaker 3: this has affected your own perception of journalists at all.
22:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say yeah.
22:16
Speaker 2: I would say his interaction with the media certainly has
22:19
Speaker 2: contributed to more skepticism of traditional news outlets.
22:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.
22:27
Speaker 1: Chaz tells us about a recent experience he had trying
22:30
Speaker 1: to figure out what to make of a policy.
22:32
Speaker 2: J.D.
22:32
Speaker 1: Vance said something during the vice presidential debate about how
22:35
Speaker 1: the Biden administration was using asylum laws to grant legal
22:39
Speaker 1: status to immigrants. Chas was a poli-sci major in college,
22:42
Speaker 1: and he says he's always made a point of seeking
22:44
Speaker 1: out sources from across the political spectrum. So after J.D.
22:47
Speaker 1: Vance made that claim at the debate, Chas did that.
22:51
Speaker 2: I started to look into the Harris or the Biden administration,
22:55
Speaker 2: how they were construing these numbers to show that they've
22:58
Speaker 2: actually gotten tougher on the border and When it doesn't
23:01
Speaker 2: look like that, but it could look like that based
23:04
Speaker 2: off how they're presenting this information.
23:06
Speaker 3: Sure.
23:08
Speaker 4: I looked into it enough to think, I don't really
23:12
Speaker 4: know who to believe here. And so what's the point here? Well,
23:18
Speaker 4: that's not a very good outcome.
23:20
Speaker 1: It wasn't.
23:21
Speaker 2: I mean, it was like, yeah, I don't know who
23:26
Speaker 2: to believe.
23:28
Speaker 3: It's interesting because I think I kind of imagined that
23:30
Speaker 3: you would come out of this with more right-wing conviction,
23:33
Speaker 3: I guess you might call it, if I'm being candid
23:35
Speaker 3: with you. But it sounds like usually what you're coming
23:37
Speaker 3: out of this with is apathy.
23:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, 100%.
23:43
Speaker 1: So Chaz goes on to say what's really influenced him,
23:46
Speaker 1: maybe more than what Trump says about the media, is
23:49
Speaker 1: how the media has responded to Trump.
23:52
Speaker 2: I felt like there was a lot of clickbait over
23:54
Speaker 2: the last 10 years that probably could have been I
23:59
Speaker 2: don't want to say ignored, but shouldn't have been made
24:05
Speaker 2: into the mountain that the molehill was.
24:07
Speaker 4: I guess.
24:08
Speaker 1: Chaz gives Sam and me a few examples, pieces of
24:11
Speaker 1: media that he's come across that have contributed to this
24:13
Speaker 1: impression he has. For one, he mentions a book called
24:16
Speaker 1: The Gray Lady Winked, which digs into certain narratives the
24:20
Speaker 1: New York Times has promulgated over the last hundred years,
24:23
Speaker 1: including some stories that got wrong, perhaps tellingly about the
24:26
Speaker 1: way algorithms really do dictate our media intake these days.
24:30
Speaker 1: Chas learned about this book on one of the podcasts
24:32
Speaker 1: he listens to, yet neither Sam nor I, nor anyone
24:35
Speaker 1: in this office, actually, despite all working in media in
24:38
Speaker 1: New York, had ever heard of it. Chas also sends
24:41
Speaker 1: us two videos that he saw recently. The first is
24:45
Speaker 1: a woman on YouTube talking about how Trump was embraced
24:47
Speaker 1: by the media before he entered politics, which is true, obviously.
24:51
Speaker 1: He was a media personality, part of the industry, basically,
24:54
Speaker 1: for a long time.
24:55
Speaker 5: Like, literally, guys, I don't know if you guys remember this.
24:56
Speaker 5: Oprah wrote him a letter. And was like, if you
24:59
Speaker 5: ever run for president, you know, consider me as your
25:01
Speaker 5: running mate.
25:01
Speaker 1: She plays a clip of Trump on the Ellen DeGeneres show,
25:04
Speaker 1: circa 2004.
25:05
Speaker 5: Got engaged.
25:06
Speaker 1: Correct. Melania, is that how you say it?
25:08
Speaker 6: Melania.
25:09
Speaker 1: Melania.
25:09
Speaker 3: And she's going to join us in a minute, and
25:12
Speaker 3: we'll see.
25:12
Speaker 1: What you're really like. Okay.
25:13
Speaker 3: All right. We'll be right back, right after this.
25:15
Speaker 5: Somebody said he seems like an actual human being here. Yeah, well,
25:17
Speaker 5: he is. Somebody said he seems so kind and gentle.
25:20
Speaker 5: What happened? You guys just started believing the media instead
25:22
Speaker 5: of actually believing him.
25:24
Speaker 1: And to illustrate the flip, Chaz sends a second video,
25:27
Speaker 1: a mashup, of TV news coverage from Trump's first term
25:31
Speaker 1: called Scripted Journalists All Saying the Same Thing Compilation.
25:36
Speaker 3: Today was historically bad for President Trump. Today is a
25:38
Speaker 3: turning point.
25:39
Speaker 1: Today was a turning point.
25:41
Speaker 4: A turning point. We're at a turning point here.
25:43
Speaker 1: I gather that Chas had a similar experience watching this
25:46
Speaker 1: video of the press talking about Trump that Sam and
25:50
Speaker 1: I had reading the list Sam put together. of Trump
25:53
Speaker 1: talking about the press. Watching these videos, putting on Chaz's glasses,
26:24
Speaker 1: so to speak, and imagining how many dozens, hundreds of
26:28
Speaker 1: more like them he's viewed over time, I can see
26:31
Speaker 1: from his perspective how journalists look. It's not good. I mean,
26:36
Speaker 1: this show's about how to make journalism better. I don't
26:37
Speaker 1: have some rosy picture of it. As someone who's worked
26:40
Speaker 1: in the traditional media, NPR, The New York Times, what
26:44
Speaker 1: I see in that mashup is groupthink. I see unoriginality.
26:48
Speaker 1: I see cable hosts who make millions of dollars and
26:51
Speaker 1: are disconnected from average voters. I see pontificating that is
26:55
Speaker 1: very unhelpful, if not plain wrong. I see poor business
26:58
Speaker 1: models and managerial decisions that incentivize punditry over real reporting
27:03
Speaker 1: and force programs to chase the same stories night after
27:06
Speaker 1: night in a superficial way. A lot of real failings
27:10
Speaker 1: amidst all the essential and strong reporting that does get
27:13
Speaker 1: done that end up looking to Chaz.
27:15
Speaker 2: It looks like you guys are just repeating what you're
27:18
Speaker 2: told to repeat from people who are funding, whoever you're
27:21
Speaker 2: working for.
27:21
Speaker 1: That's how it looks.
27:22
Speaker 2: That's what it, that's what, that's the perception. That's the perception,
27:25
Speaker 2: not for me necessarily, but that's, that's like the kind
27:29
Speaker 2: of the vibe that I pick up on. You know,
27:30
Speaker 2: when I talk about some of these things is like the,
27:33
Speaker 2: like journalists, journalists tend.
27:36
Speaker 4: To have that.
27:38
Speaker 2: Again, I know Sam, you're my only friend person in
27:44
Speaker 2: my life that, that is a journalist.
27:48
Speaker 4: I don't even, I don't even think I met another one.
27:50
Speaker 4: So this isn't Sam, but for like the perception of
27:55
Speaker 4: the media.
27:55
Speaker 2: Is that they've been weaponized, that they've been bought, that
28:01
Speaker 2: they're told you need to push this right now to
28:04
Speaker 2: sell the story and that they do it.
28:08
Speaker 3: Who is pushing this?
28:09
Speaker 4: I don't, I don't, total conspiracy theory cabal.
28:16
Speaker 2: I don't know who, I don't know who, you know,
28:19
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I'm saying this. I'm saying that that's
28:22
Speaker 2: the perception that I get from a lot of people
28:25
Speaker 2: that I'm around.
28:27
Speaker 3: We're reporting on Trump in a negative light because a
28:33
Speaker 3: secret cabal of sorts, a deep state, and Trump is
28:37
Speaker 3: the person who promises to expose them.
28:41
Speaker 4: That's a pretty popular thought out there right now.
28:49
Speaker 3: Do you believe that?
28:51
Speaker 1: I don't believe it fully.
28:53
Speaker 2: I think that there is probably some deep state stuff
28:58
Speaker 2: going on.
29:01
Speaker 1: I think Chas epitomizes what I'm most frightened about in
29:04
Speaker 1: the second Trump term. Here's a guy who wants to
29:07
Speaker 1: be informed. He studied political science. He has close friends
29:11
Speaker 1: like Sam, who he disagrees with, and he's not afraid
29:13
Speaker 1: of engaging with them on their disagreements. He's not some
29:16
Speaker 1: hardcore Trump stan. And yet his experience trying to inform
29:20
Speaker 1: himself in our current political and information ecosystem has led
29:24
Speaker 1: him to believe that there might be some deep state
29:26
Speaker 1: involvement in how the press is covering the president. And
29:30
Speaker 1: maybe even worse, it has led him to, in some instances,
29:34
Speaker 1: give up on the idea that the truth can be established,
29:37
Speaker 1: to throw his hands up and say, what's the point?
29:40
Speaker 1: in even trying? After the election, I had a conversation
29:45
Speaker 1: with Jody Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
29:49
Speaker 1: Her organization defends journalists all around the world. And she
29:52
Speaker 1: told me this is what she's concerned about too, the
29:54
Speaker 1: environment that Trump's attitude towards the press engenders. She did
29:58
Speaker 1: list a bunch of specific worries that track with things
30:01
Speaker 1: Trump has said. An increase in harassment of reporters, a
30:04
Speaker 1: burst of legal threats and lawsuits. She's worried that a
30:07
Speaker 1: landmark Supreme Court case, Times v. Sullivan, which is the
30:11
Speaker 1: key legal precedent that protects journalists reporting on political leaders
30:15
Speaker 1: against libel claims, could get overturned like Roe v. Wade was.
30:19
Speaker 1: Two of the conservative justices have signaled their willingness to
30:22
Speaker 1: revisit it. She's afraid of authorities using subpoenas to go
30:26
Speaker 1: after journalists' sources. As of now, she's less afraid of
30:29
Speaker 1: those authorities using actual prosecution and jail time. She's also
30:33
Speaker 1: paying attention to the way the federal government could wield
30:36
Speaker 1: funding to go after the press, cutting off money for
30:38
Speaker 1: public media, but also possibly government advertising budgets, like for
30:43
Speaker 1: the Army or Health Department, which could staunch revenue for
30:46
Speaker 1: some news outlets. All that said, Jodi told me, What I.
30:51
Speaker 6: Don't want people to think and focus on is, oh, well,
30:54
Speaker 6: as long as Donald Trump doesn't push for the abolition
30:59
Speaker 6: of New York Times versus Sullivan, or as long as
31:04
Speaker 6: he doesn't defund NPR, then everything will be okay. Because
31:10
Speaker 6: it's the small incremental changes that get enabled that create
31:18
Speaker 6: the environment in which Stamage is done. What we've seen
31:23
Speaker 6: over and over again in all sorts of countries is
31:27
Speaker 6: It doesn't require big, headline-grabbing, sweeping legislative change for severe
31:36
Speaker 6: and serious damage to be done.
31:40
Speaker 4: I mean, what has he done? What has he done
31:42
Speaker 4: other than the words?
31:46
Speaker 3: He sued a lot of people. He sued the New
31:49
Speaker 3: York Times. He sued Bob Woodward.
31:51
Speaker 4: Is there any grounds for it, or is it all just.
31:55
Speaker 4: Like do you think that the media has portrayed him
31:57
Speaker 4: in a fair way?
31:58
Speaker 2: Like they haven't ever clipped his things or taken things
32:02
Speaker 2: out of context.
32:04
Speaker 3: I would not be comfortable saying that the media has
32:05
Speaker 3: never done that.
32:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's where I get thrown off. I'm
32:08
Speaker 1: just like I'm always going to be way more skeptical
32:11
Speaker 1: of a politician than I am of a reporter. I
32:13
Speaker 1: don't care who the politician is.
32:15
Speaker 4: And I guess that's been blended in my mind.
32:17
Speaker 1: And I feel like that was the orientation for a
32:19
Speaker 1: long time. Like we're supposed to be aligned with you guys.
32:23
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like we're– you know, a
32:26
Speaker 1: civilian press corps.
32:28
Speaker 2: And that's not what it feels like. Like, that's the
32:31
Speaker 2: first time I've heard those words, and I like how
32:33
Speaker 2: that was said. I would love an advocate that I
32:39
Speaker 2: felt like I could trust. Because, like, I'm not against journalism.
32:42
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody is against, like, just someone seeing
32:44
Speaker 2: something and like, oh, look what's going on. You know,
32:48
Speaker 2: I feel like that's how we got the gospel out.
32:53
Speaker 1: I think what Sam was hoping for in this conversation
32:56
Speaker 1: was for Chaz to give a little more ground, to
32:58
Speaker 1: concede that there are plenty of other journalists like Sam,
33:01
Speaker 1: and we aren't just making stuff up. We're doing our
33:04
Speaker 1: best to do the work in the way we think
33:06
Speaker 1: is right.
33:07
Speaker 3: If you're attacking the press, ultimately what you're saying is
33:09
Speaker 3: you don't trust what they say, and nobody should trust
33:11
Speaker 3: what they say. But if you would humor me and
33:14
Speaker 3: assume for a moment what the press is reporting largely
33:16
Speaker 3: is generally true and typically quite well researched, wouldn't that
33:20
Speaker 3: be troubling?
33:23
Speaker 2: What, what would be troubling his, his, his remarks about
33:26
Speaker 2: the press is if I believe that, that, that overall, um,
33:30
Speaker 2: journalism as a whole, it has maintained its integrity in,
33:34
Speaker 2: in our system over the past 10 years.
33:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
33:38
Speaker 4: Of course. I, I just don't think, I just don't
33:41
Speaker 4: think that that's, that that's true.
33:44
Speaker 1: Chaz, can I, um, like, can I just put like
33:46
Speaker 1: a thought experiment forward for you? Um, I found it
33:50
Speaker 1: interesting when, um, Sam asked you to like kind of
33:55
Speaker 1: just like suspend disbelief for a minute. Imagine that the
34:01
Speaker 1: majority of what we're publishing is true. And then he
34:05
Speaker 1: asked you to like think about what it would mean
34:07
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump was just saying over and over again,
34:09
Speaker 1: what we're doing is dishonest.
34:10
Speaker 3: We're dirty.
34:11
Speaker 1: We're not to be trusted. We're enemies of the American people.
34:14
Speaker 1: We're undermining democracy. We're conspiring against everybody, regular people. would
34:19
Speaker 1: that be troubling? And you seem to very honestly just
34:22
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, it would be. Can you just inhabit
34:25
Speaker 1: that like reality for a second, take a second and
34:27
Speaker 1: think about it and just is that, is that how
34:30
Speaker 1: it looks when you do inhabit it?
34:33
Speaker 4: Yeah.
34:34
Speaker 2: But that is that, is that all, you know, that,
34:37
Speaker 2: that scenario, does that include me totally accepting everything that
34:44
Speaker 2: has been said from the media about Trump?
34:48
Speaker 1: Not everything. I'm asking– I guess the premise I'm asking
34:51
Speaker 1: you to humor for this exercise is we're definitely not
34:58
Speaker 1: a cabal. But even aside from that, we are operating
35:04
Speaker 1: in good faith. We do care about the truth. We
35:08
Speaker 1: do care about giving a well-rounded view. When we're looking
35:14
Speaker 1: at something, we're trying to like– put it in kind
35:18
Speaker 1: of perspective in the way that feels right based on
35:20
Speaker 1: the evidence, you know, and, and certain values, I guess,
35:24
Speaker 1: of like transparency and holding power to account and all that.
35:29
Speaker 1: So that's the premise I'm asking you to accept for
35:31
Speaker 1: the purposes of this exercise. And then if you were
35:34
Speaker 1: to accept that and look again at this list of
35:36
Speaker 1: comments that Sam compiled of Trump, just talking, saying that the,
35:41
Speaker 1: you know, the press is totally not to be trusted.
35:44
Speaker 1: Like how, if you put on those glasses, how does
35:46
Speaker 1: it look?
35:47
Speaker 2: It would look like his thoughts on the media are
35:51
Speaker 2: totally baseless. And that, in a system that's supposed to
35:55
Speaker 2: be designed to operate on an informed public, would be troubling.
36:01
Speaker 2: In that exercise, certainly a threat to democracy would be present.
36:09
Speaker 1: With those glasses on, Chaz could see things the way
36:11
Speaker 1: Sam and I saw them. But of course, the glasses
36:15
Speaker 1: were imaginary. All right, you can take the glasses off
36:18
Speaker 1: unless you want to leave them on. But, you know.
36:22
Speaker 3: They felt weird.
36:28
Speaker 1: Chaz Polson in Colorado. Question Everything is a production of
36:34
Speaker 1: Placement Theory and KCRW. Please let us know how you're
36:37
Speaker 1: liking the show. Leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or
36:39
Speaker 1: Spotify or YouTube or hit us up on Instagram at
36:43
Speaker 1: KCRW at Placement Theory. Today's episode was produced by me
36:50
Speaker 1: with Sam Egan and edited by Neil Drumming. Our show
36:53
Speaker 1: is made by executive producer Robin Simeon, producers Zach St.
36:56
Speaker 1: Louis and Sophie Kazis, and production intern Emily Miltare. Jonathan
37:01
Speaker 1: Goldstein is a contributing editor. Fact-checking by Maggie Duffy. Sound
37:05
Speaker 1: design by Brendan Baker. Our music is by Matt McKinley.
37:08
Speaker 1: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seifel, Gina Delvac, Tejal Ajmera,
37:12
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.