Latest / Pod Save America / “Yovanovitch-hunt.”

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“Yovanovitch-hunt.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, Lovett's interview with Pulitzer Prize winning
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: reporter Ronan Farrow, the author of the new book... Catch
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and kill.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Jordan, when I was introducing Ronan, I was like, how
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: should I introduce you? And I couldn't figure out what
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: to say. And Jordan after was like, he won a Pulitzer.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Say that. But I didn't.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: But you didn't.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: But I'm glad you brought it up.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, of course. I'm always there for you, Ronan.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We have a lot of news to talk about first
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: from the latest on impeachment to the disaster Donald Trump
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: has caused in Syria to a preview of this week's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Democratic presidential debate. Lots going on, guys. Lots going on.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the debate, it's going to change our schedule
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a bit this week. We'll have a post-debate pod on
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Wednesday with all four of us instead of our usual
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Thursday pod. And during the debate itself, you can follow
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: along with us on our next edition of Group Thread,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: which you can find at youtube.com slash kroganmedia.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: How was your show this week?
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Great love it or leave it. Emily Heller, Shea Serrano,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: two returning champions, plus Beto O'Rourke stopped by and played
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: queen for a day. One of my favorite episodes... Ever.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Wow. You don't say that too often.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we've been... That's the biggest lie you've
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: ever told on the show. We've been slowly shifting the format,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: trying new things. The show is... It felt very good.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: It felt very good.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Excellent. Finally, if you haven't yet already, you need to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: subscribe to Crooked Media's newest podcast, America Dissected, hosted by
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the brilliant Abdul El-Sayed. Each episode goes far beyond the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: headlines to explore different issues important to our health, and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the one coming this week goes very deep on superbugs
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and the growing resistance to antibiotics.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Six feet wide.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Very scary.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You know, I know it sounds scary. The size of
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: a Chevy Nova.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: But Abdul's, like, funny, and he has empathy for people
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: in these situations. It's just really well done.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: He's a great host. Check it out.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It's good because, you know, our healthcare discussion in politics
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: is all about insurance and coverage, and there's a million
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: other topics in health that deserve attention. attention. So he
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: does that, which is great.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: On to the news. Multiple officials who've worked in the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Trump administration have chosen to defy the White House's obstruction
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of Congress by agreeing to testify as part of the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: House's impeachment inquiry into President Trump. On Friday, the former U.S.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, told lawmakers that there was
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a concerted campaign to remove her from her post that
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: was based on, quote, unfounded and false claims by people
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: with clearly questionable motives. Yeah, no shit. Today, Monday, Fiona Hill,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Trump's former top Russia advisor, will testify that Rudy Giuliani
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: conducted secret diplomacy to carry out Trump's scheme in Ukraine
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that included trying to oust Yovanovitch. And over the weekend,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the Washington Post reported that Sondland himself will now offer
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: testimony that's expected to confirm that Donald Trump traded a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: White House meeting for politically motivated investigations of his political
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: opponent and add weight to the allegation that he also
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: traded taxpayer-funded military assistance for those investigations as well.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Can I just say that something's occurred to me and
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I just want to say it now before we move
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: on because I just want to say it. I just
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: want to say it one time. Ivanovich Hunt. Title.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Write it down, Michael. Just wanted to say it one time.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Make sure it was said. Michael's too busy laughing to type. Guys,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: get it together.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Get it together.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Everybody's inconsolable.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what's the significance of These Trump officials offering testimony
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: in defiance of the White House.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, Trump himself has been hanging a lot
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: on Gordon Sondland's text that there was no quid pro quo.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: How dare you suggest that? What are you talking about?
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: I'm summarizing like Adam Schiff did at the hearing. Like
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Shifty Schiff. Like Shifty Schiff did. Now Gordon Sondland is
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: telling Congress that the no quid pro quo line was
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: just relaying what Trump told him and that he doesn't
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: know the truth and that clearly there was a quid
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: pro quo, but there was not a corrupt one, which-
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: you know, kind of undercuts their main argument.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating philosophically to decide what, you know, the difference
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: between a corrupt quid pro quo and a non-corrupt quid
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: pro quo. Just one other thing that's baked into this
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: that I haven't seen many people note, that what Sondland
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: said is, look, and again, I am paraphrasing, which is
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: a treasonous offense, so everyone just be careful. Be careful
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: out there. Paraphrasing is a crime.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Paraphrasing gets you the guillotine.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's, yeah. But what Sondland said is basically, I
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: don't know if it's true. It's just something Donald Trump
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: told me. And baked into that is the assumption that
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump just doesn't tell the truth. And in any
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: other administration, if a hack who worked for you said
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: something like that, it would be a big story. Because
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: what do you mean? You're saying the president's not telling
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the truth?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what I got from this on the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Sondland thing is Sondland is neither a Trump loyalist at
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: this point, nor is he some kind of a hero.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: He is just a guy who got a pretty good
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: lawyer who's giving him good advice, and he's trying to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: save his own ass. So, like, in addition to what
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Lovett just said about, I don't know if President Trump
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: was telling the truth, the other thing he said about,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it was a corrupt quid pro quo,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: he's saying that because he's like, yeah, no, I know
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: that there was definitely a trade of a White House
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: meeting between for a statement from Ukraine that they were
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: going to investigate Burisma. But I didn't make the connection
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: between Burisma and Hunter Biden, even though those reports were public.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: So fine, if Sondland wants to pretend that he was just,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you know, in the dark this whole time, that's fine
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: for him. But he has implicated Trump. through this, what
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: we're expected to implicate Trump through this testimony.
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: Rudy Giuliani is running around the world with a folder
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: full of depositions and clips that he pitched to his
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: personal journalist, what's his name, John Solomon, over at The
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Hill or whatever garbage publication he works for now, alleging
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: this quid pro quo.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: The Hill being the second most popular newspaper on Capitol
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Hill to bring to the toilet.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: But like- It's not credible that Sondland had not heard
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: of these allegations about Hunter Biden and Burisma. Like in
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: the way they're going to try to muddy this up,
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: I think is like quid pro quos are at the
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: heart of diplomacy, right? You trade, you get a deliverable
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: from some other country all the time to get a
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: White House meeting. The problem here is the deliverable was
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: a political favor for Donald Trump to attack his potential opponent,
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden. That is the definition of a corrupt quid
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: pro quo.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the point. When we first were slowly learning
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: about what had happened here, one of the first cautions
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: being offered by those who were expert in this, looking
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: at this, was to say, don't fall in the quid
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: pro quo trap. It's wrong to solicit foreign interference, even
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: if you don't have a quid to the pro quo, right?
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: It's just soliciting foreign interference is wrong, regardless of whether
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: or not that there's a quid pro quo. Whether it's
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: this idea that there's some non-corrupt version of a quid
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: pro quo in which the thing you are getting is
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: foreign interference is just not possible.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they're still ducking the issue of the hundreds
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: of million dollars of military aid to Ukraine. We know
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: that was being delayed. It doesn't seem like it's a
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: coincidence that it was right around this extortion attempt of Ukraine.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: No, and Sondland's expected to say that it was possible
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: that it was withheld for that reason. He's not... he's very,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: at least in the reports of what his testimony might be,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: he is not going to say there was no withholding
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: military assistance for the political investigations.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: He's going to leave open the possibility. To your point, John,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: Gordon Sondland is not a ride or die Trump guy.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: He was a Jeb Bush supporter who bought his way
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: into this administration with a $ 1 million donation to the
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: inauguration via four, count them, four anonymous LLCs.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, this is, I think, I think
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of times we use as a shorthand of
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Trump loyalists. And maybe there are some people who would
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: be willing to go down for Donald Trump. But Donald
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Trump is a- Scavino.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Well, no, but this is, like, it's worth thinking about. Like,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is a toxic, noxious human being that is
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: known to everyone, even his most ardent defenders. So Sondland, Scavino,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know. We don't know where his story ends, ultimately.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: But like Michael Cohen, right, considered to be one of
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the great Trump loyalist, Trump goons, turns. Why? Because If
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: you're the kind of person who will demonstrate loyalty to
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, it means you're the kind of person who
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: will demonstrate loyalty to anyone. Sondland is not a Trump guy.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: He's a Sondland guy. Michael Cohen was not a Trump guy.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: He was a Michael Cohen guy. And the second these
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: people no longer saw Donald Trump as a meal ticket,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: as a means to prestige, as a means to getting
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: far beyond where their talents and skills ought to have
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: allowed them to achieve, they're right off of that ship.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: They're pushing women and children out of the way to
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: get right on that boat with the other guy. Look
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: at resistance mooch out there tweeting away. Another perfect example.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: He was never a Trump guy. He was a mooch guy.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Someday there's going to be an interview with Kellyanne Conway
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: where she says, what White House?
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I do think to that point, the other significance of
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the testimony this week of these current and former Trump
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: officials is that despite the White House's best efforts to
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: obstruct Congress, their own people, who either work there now
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: or used to work there, are just not going to listen.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And I think a couple people, Fiona Hill, Ivanovich, Sondland
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: coming forward, could lead many others to come forward and
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: cooperate with this impeachment probe. And we also saw news
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: over the weekend that there are more whistleblowers out there now, too.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And of course, we don't know what they're going to
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: say yet. We don't even know if it's about Ukraine
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: or about something else. And of course, Congress has to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: vet these people because you have to make sure that
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: it's credible. But A lot of people coming forward now.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: People are playing ball here.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, credit to Adam Schiff for not like writing 10
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: stern letters before getting to the subpoena. There is no
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: downside to aggressive oversight and investigating Donald Trump, you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: everywhere you possibly can. It's already paying dividends.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: How do you think the testimony this week from what
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: we've heard is strengthening the overall case for impeachment?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: That's such a good question, because the truth is we
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: aren't really I mean, I'm trying to think of anything
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: that we've learned so far, what we could learn that
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: would be sort of surprising. I feel like what we're
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: learning is confirming our understanding about the breadth of this corruption.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's the breadth. That's what I was going
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to say.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: I think that's that to me is what we're kind
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: of understanding that this wasn't. This wasn't about one phone call,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: though we still have more to learn about that one
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: phone call. This was a concerted effort across our government
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: to use the tools of American foreign policy and diplomacy
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: for the purpose of Donald Trump's political ends. And he
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: enlisted many figures in many parts of the government to
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: do this. And with each passing day, the scandal becomes
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: less and less spinnable for those trying to cordon it off,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: blame it on a paraphrase from Schiff or whatever. a
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: whistleblower who didn't have firsthand knowledge despite the fact that
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the rough transcript confirms it. It's getting harder and harder
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: for them to find a boogeyman to attach as the
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: source of all of the problems because the problems are
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: so broad, touching so many different parts of the government.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: It was a conspiracy, right? It started, Trump said, and Giuliani,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: how do we get the Ukraine to help us slime
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the Bidens? Number one, we're going to fire the ambassador
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: because she doesn't want any part of this. Number two,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: we're going to have Rudy and his goons conduct secret
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: diplomacy so that the rest of the government doesn't find out.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Number three, we're going to hold out the promise of
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a White House meeting as a carrot. And then we're
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: going to withhold security assistance as the stick. It's a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: whole plan. Way bigger than a phone call.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: And it's also important to note that it was personally
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: directed by Donald Trump. You know, Gordon Sondland didn't call
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: Rudy Giuliani before texting back, hey, no, no quid pro quo.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: He called Donald Trump. He called the president of the
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: United States. We also now know that two associates of
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Rudy Giuliani were illegally funneling Russian money to get a
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: hack named Pete Sessions, one of the worst former members
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: of Congress that you can imagine, to write a letter
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: attacking our ambassador.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So to get to that, three of the people who
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: helped the president carry out his Ukraine scheme are already
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: in a bit of trouble. The New York Times has
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: reported that Rudy Giuliani is under investigation by SDNY, the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: district attorney's office he once led, for potentially breaking foreign
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: lobbying laws when he lobbied to get Ambassador Yovanovitch fired.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: The Times also notes that their investigation of Giuliani is, quote,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: tied to the case against two of his associates who
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: were arrested this week on campaign finance-related charges, i.e., as
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Tommy mentioned, illegally funneling money to former Republican Congressman Pete
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Sessions in exchange for his help getting Yovanovitch fired. The
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: two goons, named Lev Parnas and Igor Furman, once paid
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Giuliani through a business called... I'm not making this up.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Fraud guarantee. And were finally arrested.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Hey, that's fraud. You can take it to the bank.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Fraud guarantee. Fraud guarantee. is what we're working with here.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Not like these other fraud companies. All right? They'll leave
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: you high and dry, but not us.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It is a fantastic name.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: It's too perfect. If it says Igor, you know, it's guaranteed.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: You turn in a script with that business name and
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: it gets sent back, like, give me a break.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: No one's believing that.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: And the reason that they were arrested before the full
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: investigation of Giuliani and the rest of them were complete
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: is because they were trying to flee the country at
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Dulles Airport.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: One-way tickets to Vienna. I don't know why Vienna makes
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: it more Corrupt-ish sounding. There's something about, there's something just,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: it's very, it's very 90s action movie.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: To go to Vienna, right? It's just like not, it's
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: just a little bit, it's not Rome, you know? It's
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: not Paris. It's Vienna.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: So.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: A little off the beaten trail.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Also, we found out that Rudy was supposed to go
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to Vienna as well.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe they wanted to take in a.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And then last minute decided not to, not to join
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: his pals in Vienna.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Take in a quick walk in that cathedral. I mean,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: these goons. A little opera or something?
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: These goons set up an energy company just to funnel
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: money to Republican political candidates. They fired over $ 325, 000 to
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: a pro-Trump super PAC. They made $ 630, 000 worth of donations
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: to federal Republican candidates in PACs in 2016. I mean,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: these guys were just plowing massive amounts of money into
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: the GOP establishment.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: And What a surprise.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: It opened every door imaginable, including the fucking, got them
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: access to George H.W. Bush's funeral with Rudy Giuliani. Yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: what a weird thing to bring.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: What a weird thing to do.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: What a weird thing to buy access to. To bring your.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Corrupt goons to a funeral.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: I gotta say, again, it's not the most important piece
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: of this story, but a great deal of what's going
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: on in this country does have to do with the
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: fact that Rudy Giuliani is a lonely man struggling with
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: getting older and divorce. And the fact that he brought
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: his two friends slash accomplices to a state funeral, I think,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: is a pretty interesting choice.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: Interesting is a good word for it. But they also
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: went to an eight-person dinner with Trump where they talked
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: about the 2018 midterms and Ukraine-U.S.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Relationship.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: He was, like, all up in the Trump business.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Which is amazing because when Trump was asked about it,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: he did the, you know, Kiki Palmer, sorry to this man,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know who these people are. Maybe I took
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a picture with him, but I take a picture with everyone. No, no, no, buddy.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you did way more than take a picture with them.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: You had fucking dinner with them. And you talked about
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Ukraine policy. I mean, obviously it's satisfying to watch Rudy
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: potentially get in trouble, to watch these goons go down.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: How does this connect, if at all, to sort of
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: this larger impeachment inquiry?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I think we're still learning actually
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: what exactly, I mean, this is approaching a point after
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: which things start to get complicated and hard to understand.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Right now it's, Pretty fucking simple. You laid it out. Like,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: this is the corruption that we're talking about. This is
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: the abuse of power we're talking about. But of course,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: as with all things Trump, there are tangled... webs of
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: connection to other goons, other attempts to subvert our democracy,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: other criminal enterprises.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Because everyone's trying to get their beak wet around Trump, right?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: So it's like, there's stuff like we're trying to fire
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the ambassador and change policy and beat Joe Biden, but
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: there's also like, everyone wants to make money.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I got an oil thing going on over
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: here that I can maybe just like, you know.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Right, everyone's got their side hustle, which really complicates the story.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Right. And so, you know, we'll, I think, find out more.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, Rudy Giuliani's involvement in all this is strange. Like,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: who's paying Rudy Giuliani, I think, is an important question
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: we don't know the answer to yet. So- These two
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: guys getting arrested at Dulles, I don't think it made
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's life better. Certainly didn't make Rudy's life better,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: but I honestly think we're still watching the facts of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: that sort of become revealed to us. Right.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, I don't want to do whataboutism, but
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: those who are saying that it was inappropriate for Hunter
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Biden to seek foreign deals because he was politically connected
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: should also ask themselves, why are you hiring Rudy Giuliani
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: to do literally anything for you? He doesn't appear to
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: be a great lawyer. We know he's not a good spokesman.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: He pedals himself as a cybersecurity expert while texting in
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: like 48-point font.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: With anyone. Again, to my loneliness point, you can text Rudy.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: You can do it. Brian Boitler was talking with him
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: over the weekend, I believe.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Brian broke some news. A couple other reporters were
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: texting with him. And some of them were making jokes like,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Talia Levin was saying like, hey, Rudy, tell me about
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the crimes, the big crimes, the little crimes, all the crimes.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And he's like, I didn't do any crimes.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: I'm glad Brian texted Rudy saying, hey, have you ever
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: discussed a pardon with Trump or anyone related to him?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Which I'm glad he asked because I do think that
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Trump pardons Rudy was a really cool bet you could
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: have made. in the pool in like 2017 that would
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: have been like giving you really good odds, they probably
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: should have taken.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you guys. So Trump was first
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: asked about Rudy when the news broke that his goons
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: were pinched and he's under investigation on Friday. And they
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: asked if Rudy still works for him. And Trump said, quote,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't spoken to Rudy. He has
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: been my attorney. And then a few days later, he's
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: eating lunch with Rudy and tweeting his support for him.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Why Rudy? Why do you think he's sticking with them?
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: What are your theories on this?
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that Trump would throw Don Jr. under
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: the bus if it got him out of trouble. But
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: you have to assume that Rudy knows an awful lot
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: of information that would be problematic in the long run
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: for Mr.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Trump.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Keep him inside the tent.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: That's my guess. All right.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I want to turn to the Middle East, where Trump's
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: decision to give his authoritarian counterpart in Turkey the green
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: light to invade northern Syria has already led to the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: deaths of innocent civilians, executions of our Kurdish allies. and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the escape of ISIS fighters and their families, who raised
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the ISIS flag again over parts of northern Syria. Meanwhile,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced on Sunday that the U.S.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: would be withdrawing nearly all of its forces from northern Syria,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: while Kurdish forces reached a deal to get troop support
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: from a Syrian government backed by Russia and Iran. On Sunday,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump tweeted, quote, The Kurds in Turkey have been
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: fighting for many years. Others may want to come in
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and fight for one side or the other. Let them. Tommy,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: can you talk about the consequences of Trump's decision here? Sure.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, it is true that the Kurds and the
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Turks have been fighting for many years, but I think
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: the important point is they were not for several years
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: in that region of Syria because we were working with
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: them to take out ISIS. And the SDF, the Syrian
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Democratic Forces, of which this Kurdish militia makes up the
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: bulk of the main fighters, have been our partner working
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: hand in glove to take out ISIS in Northern Syria
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: for several years. The campaign started under Obama and President
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: Trump carried it on to his credit, I would say.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: And it was incredibly effective. The Kurds are good fighters,
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: and we have supported them. There was an international coalition
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: of about 80 countries, I believe, also working with them
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: to try to ensure that the people fighting ISIS were
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: not just Kurdish, so it was more multi-sectarian. There were
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: Arab fighters as well. And now we have pulled a uh,
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: our guys from that region. It sounds like we're going
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: to pull all 1000 us troops in Northern Syria from
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: the country, maybe put them in Iraq. And now they're
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: going to have to fight on two fronts. They're going
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: to have ISIS on one side, and they're going to
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: have the second biggest, uh, military in NATO, Turkey fighting
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: them from the other side. And you have these Turkish
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: backed militia groups that at times are full of extremists
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: who are just literally indiscriminately murdering people on the side
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: of the road. And we know that because they're releasing
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: cell phone videos of it. So Our closest allies in
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: the region are getting slaughtered.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: One of the excuses that seems to be emerging from
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the White House and from Donald Trump is Erdogan was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: going to do this no matter what, and we really
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: couldn't have stopped him. All we could have done is
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: just get out of his way. Can you talk about
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: why that is bullshit or do you think it's bullshit?
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: It's true that Erdogan views a lot of these Kurdish
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: fighters as associated with a group in Turkey called the PKK.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: And the PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: state for several decades. The Kurds, there's like 30 or
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: 40 million Kurds in the world. Most of them live
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: in Iraq, Syria, Turkey. And they were promised a Kurdish
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: state after World War I. They never got it and
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: they want one. So Erdogan views them as an enemy.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: They're designated as a terrorist group in Turkey and I
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: believe in the US. But our presence in that region
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: was holding off a Turkish offensive to take out these guys.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: And what Trump basically did was He let himself get
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: browbeaten by Erdogan over and over again. I mean, Axios
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: reported that he would sort of listen to Erdogan, talk
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: about how he wanted to conduct this military operation and
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: be like, well, if Trump would say, well, if you do,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: you now own it, you own ISIS, you own all
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: the problems. And he assumed that that was enough to
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: convince Erdogan not to do it. And then this time
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Erdogan called his bluff and just rolled.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: His guys in.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: But it seems like the U.S. president, right? And Turkey's,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: you know, theoretically a NATO ally. Could have said to Erdogan,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: don't do this.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to be clear.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: It's an excuse.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: That's what I want.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: A lot of people are drawing comparisons to Obama pulling
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: all troops out of Iraq or various other points in history.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: And it's like, fine, if you want to criticize those things.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: But what happened here is Erdogan said, I want to
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: conduct a military option to take these guys out. Trump
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: didn't just say, no, there will be massive consequences for
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: you if you do so.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: He just let him do it.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Right. He just caved to the guy. Can you talk
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: about the effects on our soldiers too? Because we're getting
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: some reports of that. Yeah.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, you're seeing a lot of reports that the
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: special forces guys in particular who are fighting hand in
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: glove with them feel just horrible about this. I mean,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: imagine working with some Kurdish fighters one day to enable
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: a counter ISIS campaign. I'm sure they were friends with them.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: And then the next day you were literally not allowed
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: under the rules of engagement to help them as they
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: come under attack. By the way, you have artillery rounds
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: landing like couple hundred yards from our guys in an
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: effort to intimidate us further out of the region.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. What are the options now? What can we do?
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Can you put this back in a box? Probably not.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I know that some stuff's going on in Congress.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: It sounds like Lindsey Graham's leading the charge for sanctions
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: on Turkey. I hope that happens. But I don't know
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: how sanctions now prevents us from continuing.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: And we still look, and I think the one way
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: this connects um, to sort of this larger impeachment inquiry
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and Trump's abuse of power is once again, we are
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: left wondering whether Trump's foreign policy decision decision about our
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: national security was made because he thought it was in
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the best interest of the country or was made for
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: personal political financial reasons. You know, he, he's talked before
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: about how he has a conflict of interest in Turkey
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: because there's Trump towers there. Um, Or that, you know,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that's one financial possible reason. There's also political reasons, right?
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Like Trump in his mind somehow thinks this is, you know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: he equates getting out of the way with ending endless wars, right?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: He thinks that's a political talking point, which is bullshit
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: since our troops aren't actually coming home as a result
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of this decision. They're just being moved elsewhere. And like
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: you said, Tom, you may be put in harm's way.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: So it does fit a pattern of Trump's abuse of power. Yeah,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: we're once again left in the situation where we don't
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: know what was said on the call, but it's hard
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to come up with an understanding of what's been happening
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: without corruption as being one of the explanations, especially when he's,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: you know, when there are those, when he's trying to
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: make this argument on Twitter and elsewhere that, oh, he
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: was against endless wars as part of his strategy from
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: the beginning, while at the same time promising in a
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: really kind of ugly way, vulgar way, American protection via
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: our armed forces for Saudi Arabia. So there's this contradiction
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: baked into all of this, that there's any claim to
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: an ideology is immediately refuted. Any claim to a strategy
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: is immediately refuted. The only thing that is left is
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: a deeply strange phone call that caused this about face
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: in which Donald Trump has personal vested financial interests in
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: what happens in Turkey.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about 2020. On Tuesday, the New York Times
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and CNN will host the fourth Democratic primary debate in Westerville, Ohio.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: It will be the most crowded presidential primary debate stage
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: in history, with 12 candidates facing off in one night.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Everyone who was there at the last debate, plus Tulsi
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Gabbard and for the first time, Tom Steyer. In advance
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of the debate, CBS released a series of early state
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: polls that show a three-way tie for first in Iowa
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: between Biden, Warren and Sanders at 21, 22 percent. with
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg in fourth at 14 percent. In New Hampshire,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Warren's ahead of Biden by 32 to 24 percent. And
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Biden is ahead of Warren in South Carolina by 43
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to 18 percent. Guys, the debate is three hours with
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: 12 candidates, only three of whom are polling in double
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: digits in the early contests, four in Iowa. How does
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that change the dynamic? What's the dynamic of this debate?
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: First of all, one thing people are not paying enough
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: attention to is that the stage does slowly get smaller
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: as the night progresses. And so not only do you
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: have to debate, you have to slowly build a bit
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: of a buttress to protect yourself, keep yourself on the dais.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: There's a moat, right?
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a moat with alligators. A lot of people
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: think that Beto might try to throw Buttigieg in the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: moat as his move to create some more relevance, but again,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: we don't know. Do you want a serious answer? Tommy,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: did you want an answer?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Did anyone want to give a real answer? What was
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the question? It was just like, how does this change
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the dynamic with this many candidates? And there's three who are,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you know, there's three who are polling in double digits
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: right now, but there's nine more on stage who are not.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I guess Pete is in Iowa. What do you do
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: in a 12-person debate? I just think it sort.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Of makes the strategy a little more unpredictable. I mean,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: it seems like, so there's some reporting.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: Obviously, we spent like a couple weeks talking about Joe Biden,
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: his family, what he did or didn't do in Ukraine.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: It seems like the other candidates so far have taken
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: attack where they think that it helps them politically to
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: defend Joe Biden from unfair attacks from the president. I
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: think that's probably true for the main candidates. I don't
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: know if that's true for Tom Steyer or Tulsi Gabbard.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Tulsi Gabbard was planning to boycott the debate that she
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: had made like a couple of days ago. So I
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: don't really know what these guys are going to do.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: It also, it probably makes it less likely that there's
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: a focused discussion about Elizabeth Warren. You know, some people
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: are starting to obliquely criticize her, right? Pete called her
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: evasive about how to pay for her health care plan
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: in an interview with Snapchat's Peter Hamby. He criticized her
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: campaign fundraising strategy. Biden's been out there saying, oh, we
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: don't need just plans. We need a president. But, you know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know if they will make those attacks on
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: stage because, one, you don't know if they'll get the
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: chance to or if they'll see it as politically advantageous.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, it's hard to see a debate
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: with 12 human beings standing all side by side as
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: having really much of an opportunity for anyone to change
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: the fundamental dynamics of the race, one in which there
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: are kind of three steady frontrunners. I mean, there's been
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: polls out showing that Elizabeth Warren's been grabbing a little bit,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: not from Biden, from Bernie, but from a little bit
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: from some of the other candidates. So I think one,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't know what's going to happen. We
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: have to see what actually plays out. But, you know,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: you go into this thinking hard to imagine how this
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: changes the dynamic, which means it rewards the frontrunners and
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: not those who are trying to vie for a little
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: bit more attention because it'll be hard to get. The
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: other piece of this, you know, I've been thinking about
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: actually since we talked to Cyrus Habib in Seattle, which
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: is he made the point that this is going to
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: be the first debate we'll have had since impeachment really
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: began in earnest. And I am just, it's such, it's
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: going to be such a big part of the race
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: in 2020, how we deal with how the relationship of
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: these campaigns to Donald Trump, to the investigations taking place
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: in Congress. So I'm really interested in how they strike
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: that balance, how they offer a positive case set against
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: the negative case being currently crafted in Congress.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I think that speaking time is such a challenge here.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I don't think this setup is
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: good for any of the candidates except maybe Elizabeth Warren,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: because we're going to talk even more about all the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: different attacks that are being previewed upon her, and maybe
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Biden too. But I think for some of these candidates
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: who haven't qualified for the November debate yet, who at
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: this point on the stage are Beto, Klobuchar, Castro, and
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Tulsi Gabbard, it becomes a, you know, this is it moment.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Like you've got to, if you don't start getting better
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: polling between now and when the deadline is to qualify
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: for the November debate, you know, then you're like Michael
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Bennett and Steve Bullock and some of these people we
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: haven't been talking about for weeks because they didn't make
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the last debate. And so I think it's really hard.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So we, you know, we had a debate two debates
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: ago that was fairly nasty. Then the last debate was
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: a pretty collegial affair. And I'm wondering now, even though
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of candidates on that stage, if either
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: people who haven't made the November debate or people who
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: are sort of struggling in that second tier and sort
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of in danger of falling into a third tier, like
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: a Kamala Harris, doesn't start getting a little feisty with
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the other candidates to try to break out.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I'm not being critical. The DNC is taking plenty of
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: shit for all these debate decisions, and I don't envy
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: them because I don't think there's any decision that would
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: have satisfied everybody, though I'm not super happy about 12
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: people on a stage. I will say one of the
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: unintended consequences of this kind of objective slow winnowing through
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: these debates is it's, I don't really remember from previous
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: primaries feeling as though each debate was like a level
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: in a game to try to get to the next debate,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: big boss, you know, like we're now at debate four
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: dash three. And then, you know, the next debate is
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the water one, you know? And I just think, uh, it's,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: it's unfortunate that that's where we're at and what, that
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: there are so many candidates that a few of them
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: are just viewing this as a place like in like, uh,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: in Tremors, where you had to use a little stick
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: to get from Big Rock to Big Reich to avoid
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the monsters coming up. I love that movie. And this
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: is like, they're just trying to get to the next rock.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: It's a good movie. It's a great movie.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about, and Tommy, you
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: started to do this, some of the lines of attack
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: that the other candidates have been previewing against Warren. Right
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: now it does seem a little kitchen sink-like. I think
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: you're in danger as a candidate when everyone else is
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: sort of coal and the media to a sort of
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: coalescing around one major weakness in your, in your campaign.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I think the issue right now for everyone testing lines
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of attack on Warren is it's a little bit all
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: over the place. So you've seen the Medicare one come
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: up a bunch. Um, Pete has been doing that. Like
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: you said, he's, she said she's been evasive on the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: taxes answer. Biden obviously hit her for that. Um, but then,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: you know, as you said, Pete said to Hamby in
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: that Snapchat interview, um, We're going up against the sitting
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: president of the United States. We're not going to beat
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: him with pocket change. This is in response to Elizabeth
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Warren's decision or announcement that she's not going to do
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: these high dollar fundraisers in the general election, which I
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: don't know about that one, guys.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine an attack. Elizabeth Warren is not like
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: is not more likely. to absorb into her suit and
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: then fire back out. I mean, that is John Delaney
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: level bad because it's like, I can write that sentence
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: right now. Now there are people on this stage who
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: think we need to go to the millionaires and billionaires
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: to defeat Donald Trump, but I'm not gonna rely on them.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna rely on you. Applause, applause, applause, nomination. It's like,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: what are we doing?
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: But there's even, I mean, you can make the moral case, right?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: For like, we shouldn't be relying on billionaires and millionaires.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: We should be relying on grassroots donations. And then you'll
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: get some Democrats and some voters to say, yeah, but,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to unilaterally disarm. We've got
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: to beat Trump. And so whatever it takes to beat him.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And even then, though, Elizabeth Warren can turn to Pete
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Buttigieg and be like, you know what? I outraised you.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: That's also true.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: You relied on the millionaires and billionaires and I only
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: relied on grassroots funding and I raised more money than you.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: And so did Bernie Sanders.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, she can say, hey, I raised twenty four
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: point six million. Bernie raised twenty five. I mean, I
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: think I think Pete's. strength and his weakness is that
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: he's able to provide political analysis in a very interesting way,
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: but in a very interesting way. But it can make
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: you sound like a pundit. And I doubt this was
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: a prepared line. I don't think if you were looking
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: at a bunch of polling about potential attacks on Elizabeth Warren,
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: her inability to get big checks from big donors is
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: very high on the list in the Democratic primary. But
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: it's like when you step back and you do analysis
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: of a race, when you're a candidate, you always get
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: into trouble.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: It happened to Obama. It's happened to countless candidates. It's
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: also worth remembering too that some of the worst, some
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: of the comments that have gotten candidates into the most trouble,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: whether it's deplorables, we all remember that.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Wait, what was that?
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: It was, oh, it was a basket of deplorables. Right, right, right.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: It was very bad. Mitt Romney, 47%. Barack Obama, cling
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: to guns and religion. Those were all things said at
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: fundraisers with wealthy donors.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Always, always. Look, it's weird to me, Pete's strategy over
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the last couple weeks. He's clearly trying to stake out
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: territory as people have telegraphed to reporters, the more electable progressive, right?
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, in a way I understand that,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: but I think if that's going to be your move,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: it has to have been your move from the get-go
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and not once you fell behind in the polls and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: then you feel like you need to catch up because
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: it looks a little... It risks looking a little bit
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: more calculated. And here's the thing. Pete started off this
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: campaign as a very bold... generational candidate, which I liked.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: You know, he talked about the Electoral College. He talked
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: about the Supreme Court reform.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Like he's talking he was talking about democracy reform. That's
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: what got people to like Pete. That's why I think
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: he was such an attractive candidate and frankly still can be. But,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I worry for him sort of like I
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: know someone's told him, look, at some point you've got
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: to draw contrasts if you're going to you know, if
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you're going to get ahead of these people. And I
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: think like I think the Medicare argument is totally fair.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: You can disagree with them or not. But challenging other
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: candidates on policy, it's completely fair. Completely fair. Some of
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the other stuff has either seemed a bit more vague
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: or a little off, like the fundraising thing.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: I would just say the counterpoint to that is that
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: CBS tracking poll that you mentioned early on has Pete
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: now at 14% in Iowa, which is a pretty decent
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: place to be, I would argue, right about now. Look,
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Warren's campaign is going very well for her. I don't
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: think anyone could argue that. But there is maybe some
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: concern in the back of people's heads. Is she surging
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: too early? Do you want to be shot at this early?
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: I do think one of the challenges for all the
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: candidates trying to create a contrast with Elizabeth Warren is
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: that it is hard to do two things. Create a
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: contrast with Elizabeth Warren and do it while you look good.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: It's a tough balance. It is easier actually to do
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: it with some of the other candidates. It is, I think,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: easier to do it with Joe Biden, honestly. because I
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: think he's taken some more moderate positions. So you can
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: kind of argue you're bolder and you can argue for
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: generational change. You can make all kinds of arguments in
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: which you are making a case against Washington, right? But
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: with Elizabeth Warren, I think, look, there's the conversation that
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: happens on television. There's a conversation that people say, you know,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: when there aren't cameras. And I do think that there's this,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: the conversation is, is she too far to the left?
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Is she electable, right? That is undergirding so much of
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: this conversation. But for Pete Buttigieg, who wants to say,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I don't think she's electable. And I think she's too
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: far left, but he can't say it because it makes
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: you sound very small and it makes you sound negative
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: and like you're trimming your sales.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And so the other thing is, if you're going to
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: say she's too left, you have to say, okay, well, which,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: which policies do you disagree? And he's got them. And
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: like I said, I think the Medicare for all argument
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: for him is, is totally fair. He can say she's
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: further to left than me on Medicare for all. I
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: believe in this plan. And that's that, you know, I
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: think that's a totally fair argument. I think when you start,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: when you start getting into more vague things, right? Like
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: he said, he also said, I worry about a tone
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: being set up where it almost seems like fighting is
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the point. We need to find a way to bring
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Americans back together. I do think there is a hunger
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: out there in the electorate, right? He's going to tap
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: into something where there's a lot of people who are
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: sick of political warfare and do want the country to
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: come back together. But the challenge there is someone's going
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to say, what do you mean by that? What specifically
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: do you mean by that? And then you have to,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: then you have to.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: And again, like I just think of, if I was
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: a speechwriter trying to deal with that, context, I would
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: relish the opportunity to write a riff about like, they
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: think we shouldn't fight so hard. Well, I think we
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: should fight against this. And I think we should fight
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: against it. I just think the mood of.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: The electorate is clearly they want someone who can beat
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump. That is their first, second and third concern.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure we're at the come on, everybody, let's
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: get along part of the campaign. We might get there
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: when things get actually vicious. But right now, like people
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: are framing Bernie saying, Elizabeth Warren is a capitalist through
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: and through and I'm not as an attack.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: It is such, that is not an attack. It is
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: so ridiculous, right?
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Everyone's desperate for Bernie to attack her and he's not,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: he doesn't want to do it.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I also, by the way, don't know if Bernie Sanders saying,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm going to finally draw a contrast with
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren and it's that she's a capitalist and I'm
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: not is going to work for him that well. Again,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: for Bernie, this is all about like, you know, you
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: saw this in the CBS tracking polls, Bernie Sanders supporters are,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: are probably more enthusiastic, or at least they are more enthusiastic,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: according to the poll, these polls, than almost any other candidate.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: They're sticking with them. So when you ask people like,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: are you definitely going to vote for this person? His
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: numbers are higher than either Warren's or Biden's. So he's
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: got his base. The question for Bernie, though, has always been,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: can you expand on that base? And I don't know
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: if saying, well, she said she's a capitalist and I'm not,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: is going to get you there.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I also just think it was the answer to
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: the question. You know what I mean? And I think
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: it's an honest view of it, which is that, yeah,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I know some people think we're the lefties, but there's
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: actually an important distinction here. I am a democratic socialist.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: She has embraced capitalism and wants to make her solutions
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: fit within capitalism. I think that ultimately redounds to her
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: benefit to have that be a contrast that's made, but
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I think Bernie views it as just an honest rendering
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: of his politics. Yeah, I mean, I think the other
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: big thing for Bernie in this debate is as simple
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: as sort of how does he look, right? I mean,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: he had a pretty serious health scare. He had a
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: heart attack. He's clearly recovered. He's doing interviews.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: He's out, you know, like Skyping into events and things.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: But we know that concern about age has shown up
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: in some of these polls. Normally, it's more often been
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: in a discussion about Joe Biden, I think probably in
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: part because Bernie Sanders had such a vigorous schedule and
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: was doing four rallies a day and was like constantly
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: out there. And it seems like he's going to scale
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: that back a little bit, although what that means is
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: seems to be in debate. But, you know, I think
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: at the last debate, he didn't look well. And I
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: think they said he had a cold or he was
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: feeling sick. You know, I wonder if that was the
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: whole story, you know, and maybe some of these health
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: concerns were bubbling up for longer. And he seemed to
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: suggest as much. So I do think that's going to
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: be a big question at this debate is like, is
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: he recovered? Can he get back out there to people
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: look at him and think, all right, that guy is
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: going to kick Donald Trump's ass because that's all they want.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine in debate prep right now, the only
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: thing they're trying to drill into Bernie is energy. I
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: bet he's, you know, Bernie can be quite funny. He
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: has a dry sense of humor at times, you know,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I bet he'll try to do that. Um, I bet
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: he won't be as yelly, right? Because we will, I
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: think he'll, I don't know. I think, I think energy and.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I think the best thing he could do is probably, uh,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: put Julian Castro on his shoulders, you know, just to
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: send the right signal, you know, maybe grab a, get,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: get Klobuchar up there too.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: But yeah, we're also seeing like some of the candidates
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: ranking lower in the polls start to, to go after
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: each other a bit. I mean, you know, in that
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: same interview with Peter Hamby on Snapchat, Mayor Pete criticized
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: Beto O'Rourke. Beto O'Rourke has fired back this morning saying
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: Pete can belittle the grassroots. He can call buybacks a
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: shiny object. There's a debate about gun buybacks as a policy.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: He can say whatever he wants, but guns kill 40,000
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: people a year. Those people deserve action. I'll be fighting
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: for them.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: So, like, that's a pretty hard shot for this primary.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: And Booker jumped in, too.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Cory Booker did, too. I mean, he's cared about
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: the gun issues for a long time.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because Pete called buybacks confiscation, which is what, you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: how Republicans.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: The NRA would say.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: What Republicans talk about.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: It actually reminds me a little bit of, like, 2008.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: There was this moment where... Maybe I'm thinking of 2004.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: I'm old. But that... It was about John Edwards, and
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: there was a series of stories saying, John Edwards is
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: annoying all the other candidates. He's the other candidate's least
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: favorite candidate. Do you remember this? No. And they pointed
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: to a bunch of these kinds of things. And I
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: do think Pete is... Like, when Beto was asked about Pete, like...
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: we've made fun of it all the time, but candidates
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: tend to not invoke each other's name in the response
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: when the candidate's name has been made clear before, so
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: that doesn't sound as harsh. But nobody's stopping Beto from saying,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: when Mayor Pete says this, here's why it's wrong, you know?
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I'm most interested in this debate to
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: see whether Pete is as feisty on stage as he's
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: been about the other candidates to reporters and in some speeches.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: How Warren, you know, Dan made this point last week,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: how Warren handles these attacks if they come, because she
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: has led a fairly charmed race for the last couple
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: of months in terms of, you know, every debate you think, okay,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: this is the debate where they're going to challenge, someone's
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: going to challenge Warren and it doesn't happen. And, and
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: she just moves on. And I think it's going to,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I think if I was the Warren campaign, I'd almost
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: want the challenge because I mean, I think people who
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: support Warren should want the challenge too. Like if she's
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: going to go up against Trump, it's going to be
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: the most miserable fucking dirty campaign we've ever seen. And,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: people are going to need to see, can she take
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a punch? And, you know, the Democratic primary is a
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: good place to do that. The other thing I want to,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in is, you know, this is, you mentioned this, Tommy,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: this is Biden's first debate since Ukraine. And I wonder,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: and of course, you know, it's CNN, the New York Times, like,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised, we were saying this, love it,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: if like the first question is going to be about
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Hunter Biden.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: How does he handle this? Especially because Hunter is going
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: to have done the interview that day.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: It's in the news. It's going to be.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: How does Biden handle Hunter? How should he handle Hunter,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: do you guys think? And do you think the other
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: candidates will stay, you know, away from this topic? Or
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: if they're asked about it, at least they'll continue to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: defend Joe Biden?
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it seems like the campaign has started
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: to roll out tools for Biden to use to handle this, right?
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: So we know that Hunter Biden is stepping down from
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: the Burisma board. He promised not to do any foreign
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: work if his dad is president. And then Biden gave
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: a speech recently and rolled out a policy where he
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: said no one in his family or anyone associated with
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: him will be involved in any foreign operation whatsoever, period,
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: end of story.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: That's a quote. So they're trying to lay out sort of.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: An ethics lobbying reform policy that is attempted to, I think,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: kind of cauterize the wound and undo the damage going forward.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: What I'd love to see Biden do, and maybe this
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: is a bridge too far for a candidate, is say, hey,
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: if you're worried about the families of presidential candidates making
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: money off of their dad, why don't we look at
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: Ivanka Trump's trademarks from China? Why don't we look at
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Jared Kushner's sister hawking visas for 500 grand a pop?
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: Why don't we look at Tweedledum and Tweedledummer, Don and Eric,
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: flying around the world, taking meetings, going to major rallies
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: with their dad, and running the business that was supposed
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: to be walled off? Everything Remember that press conference around
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: the emoluments clause early on before he took office where
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: they had like a stack of blank paper and they
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: pretended this is a real policy?
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: It's all bullshit.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: And we've just moved on because the fucking secretary of
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: the Department of Homeland Security resigned on Friday and it's
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: the 20th biggest story.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Of the weekend.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: It's like we're living in La La Land here where
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: there's lots of like ready-made attacks for Biden.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I do think that's true. That's exactly what I think
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: he should say. I do also think if I were,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: I think the other candidates, I don't think there's very
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: much equity in trying to make hay out of this
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: because I think the damage to Joe Biden is kind
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: of doing itself, honestly, and you adding to it won't help.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: I do think, though, that if I were thinking about
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: what kind of question to ask, the question I would
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: ask is, does the fact that you've announced this policy
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: tell you that there was something wrong with the conduct
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: that happened before? And whether or not, now, do I
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: believe that it's fair that that's become the focus of
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: the campaign? Of course not. But I do think that
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: that is the kind of question Joe Biden has to
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: dispense with. And I wouldn't be surprised if he has
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: to dispense with it in this campaign, in this debate.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: I have to imagine they're prepping for that very question
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: right now. Have to. I think, Tommy, I mean, he
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: should absolutely do the Trump children attack as a response
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: to this, because if he doesn't, I think it is
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: a fantastic opportunity for one of the other candidates. And
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Pete actually did this. Pete on Jake on Tapper Show
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Sunday defended Biden by then going after the Trump children.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: And it was a fantastic answer by Pete Buttigieg. And
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: if you're one of the other candidates, and you defend
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden and then go after the Trump children, you
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: get points for defending Joe Biden, and you get points
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: for being tough on Trump.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, the worst thing that could happen to Joe Biden
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: in this debate is somebody says, don't worry, Joe, I'll
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: take care of it, and push Joe behind him to
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: have Joe behind him while they do the fight. I
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: think that is the worst thing that could happen to
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: I thought you and Dan talked about this at length
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: on a recent episode, and you guys accurately described how
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: sensitive this clearly is for Joe Biden. It's not just
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: an attack on His son, his son, who's had some
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: challenges over the years, some of them very public, but also,
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: you know, it's a family that has dealt with just
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: enormous grief in losing Beau Biden and a whole host
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: of other things.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Throughout his career.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: So like God knows what kind of mental state he
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: is is in to be able to deal with these
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: things at a debate or, you know, throw more kids
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: into the political arena as punching bags. But I do
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: think that Jared and Ivanka are different because they work
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: in the White House and they're still making tons of money.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: like 82 million last.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Year, I think was one report I saw.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: And then Don and Eric are clearly part of the campaign.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're, they're just 11 Igor waiting to happen,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: but the, uh, but, uh, yeah, I mean, and you know,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: and you're, you're exactly right about that, Tommy, and about
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: the kind of like, whatever the, the, there's a human
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: story behind this, but it almost is beside the point
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: because look, Donald Trump is going to gin up a
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: set of attacks on whoever our nominee is, whoever it is,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: but we now know what the Biden one is.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: And if Joe Biden wants to be the nominee of
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: this party, He needs to win this argument, and it's
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: going to be tomorrow night.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I will say I watched, I hadn't seen it, some
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: clips of the speech Biden gave last week where he
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: finally called for impeachment. And Joe Biden was quite good
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: in that speech. He was sharp. And if he brings
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of argument to the debate, then I think
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: he will do himself some good. But he has to.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: I'm glad they got there.
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, the argument you were hearing from Team Biden
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: was that Trump deserved due process around impeachment and he
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: wasn't going to call for him to be impeached, which
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: I just think is sort of a misread of the
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: impeachment process generally, right?
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: It's not a court of law. It's a political decision.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: You're not voting. Bad politics. Bad politics. Also, I don't
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: actually agree. You uphold our standards by upholding our standards.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: It's also just one other small point about this, which is, yeah,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: I want to see Biden do that in the debate
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: and crush this issue because if he's going to be
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: the nominee, he has to. But it's also, I think,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: to our larger point, this debate may not change the
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: dynamic of this race. And I think one of the
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: challenges we've seen for Joe Biden is that it did
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: take him so long to come to the microphone and
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: deal with this issue. And I think so. It's not
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: just about this debate. It's about moving forward. Do they
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: understand that Donald Trump, for all his idiocy and chaos,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: he is relentless, creative, and will continue to be so.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have Lovett's interview with
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Ronan Farrow.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Joining us on the pod, he's an investigative journalist and
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: the author of a new book, Catch and Kill, that
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: documents his efforts to uncover sexual misconduct and the machine
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: of intimidation powerful men use to silence women. He's also
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: my golf buddy, partner.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: Partner. I think you can say partner, Jonathan. I call
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: him Jonathan.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Hi, Ronan. Ronan Farrow's here.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: Hi, it's good to be here. You let me on
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: the podcast. I hear you have a podcast.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: You've heard rumors. One day you'll listen to the podcast,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: but for now you'll just be.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: I have been on the podcast before and I'm a
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: friend of the pod and I wear my t-shirt I
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: support it.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: When is the last episode of Love It or Leave
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: It that you listen to on your phone?
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to let my reporting in the
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: book stand on its own.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: All right, let's move further. All right, let's start. So
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: earlier today... Noah Oppenheim, the president of NBC News, put
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: out a long and blistering statement attacking your reporting, calling
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: what you say in the book a conspiracy theory. Now,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I want to get to the sort of facts here. But,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: you know, this idea that you have an ax to grind,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: I think people don't realize how much your relationship with
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: NBC shifted because of this story. Do you remember when
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: you and me and Noah Oppenheim got a dinner early
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: in his tenure? And we were so excited about working
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: with Noah because it seemed like he really understood what
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: you were trying to do with investigative reporting.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the book is very transparent about the fact that
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: these were people I liked and respected. And, you know,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: outside of the troubling facts of the killing of the
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Weinstein story, I had nothing but positive feelings about them.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: You know, memos like that one accompany virtually every tough
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: story that I report on. There was a major smear
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: operation that spun up about the CBS reporting, about the
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: Weinstein reporting. Often they get very personal. But in all
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: those cases, and in the case of Catch and Kill,
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: I'm thankful to say that the reporting stands on its own.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: I'm really confident in it. In this book, the reporting
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: is particularly meticulous. One of the best fact checkers in
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: the world, a senior checker from the New Yorker really
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: raked over every sentence. And the thing is airtight. And
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: I've been heartened to see the fact that people have
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: rallied around that and seen this for what it is.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: So in this latest statement from NBC, they continue to
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: reiterate the position they've taken basically since the story ran,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: which is that you didn't have the story. Now, I
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: do think it's worth saying, talking a little bit about
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: what you did have. And then I do want to
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: talk about how exactly They ordered you to stop reporting
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: on Harvey Weinstein. And how many times they ordered you
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: and Rich McHugh, your producer, to pause or halt or
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: slow down the reporting. But can you just dispense with
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: this idea that you didn't have the story?
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, obviously, that's been roundly discredited by now.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: But for people just catching up at home... You know,
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: this claim that we didn't have the story, the fact
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: is we always had multiple women named in the story
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: over the course of its life at NBC. Rose McGowan
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: was on the record naming Harvey Weinstein on the record explicitly,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: giving a really wrenching interview. Ambra Gutierrez, incredibly brave woman
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: who I reveal in this book, was the source of
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: the police tape, was also named in all the versions
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: of the story. Emily Nestor, another brave source offered to
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: go on the record, which they declined. So I think
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: it's pretty hard to dispute that we had the story.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: And I walked across the street and a few weeks later,
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: it was a Pulitzer Prize winning piece of reporting at
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: The New Yorker. But that's actually not the point here, Jonathan.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: You know, I think that's misdirection. The point is that
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: they ordered a hard stop on reporting again and again.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: You know, this book documents, and they haven't disputed this,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: six occasions on which Noah Oppenheim, the president of NBC News,
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: explicitly told us to stop, to not take calls about
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: this matter. Eight occasions on which Rich Greenberg, the head
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: of the investigative unit under him, passed on that order
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: to stop. Also, again, blaming his bosses for that and
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: evincing a lot of discomfort with it. So this is
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: a situation where a news organization behaved unlike a news organization.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: They actively pushed me to take the story elsewhere. Um,
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: and obviously the social impact of the story shows that
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: it was a good thing that I did, but, but
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: the book kind of shows why this was a company
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: with a lot of secrets as it turns out.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: So I want to get to like the actual, like,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I think people will find this interesting. So the thing
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: that was so crazy is I remember, I remember when,
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: when I believe Noah first suggested you could take the
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: story elsewhere, right? Correct.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: No, and it was a coordinated thing, not an offhand comment.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: In the narrative of the book, it shows very clearly,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: and they haven't disputed this, you know, Rich Greenberg, the
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: head of the investigative unit, tells my producer, wouldn't this
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: be a great Vanity Fair piece? Then Noah Oppenheim says
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: to me, you know, you've got a great New York
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: Magazine piece here. There was a concerted effort to get
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: rid of this story.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: But that's what's so... I just remember at the time,
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: you and I talking about this and just being like,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: They can't possibly mean that. I just remember us thinking, oh,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: this is just their way of trying to kill it
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: without being held responsible for the story dying. Because I
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: remember at the time, before you even had walked into
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: the New Yorker with the story, I remember us thinking
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: they'll never actually, if you really do ask to take
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: the story somewhere. I remember us talking about the fact
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: that they would never actually let you do it because
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: if the story ran, it would create a huge scandal
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: about why they let it out the door. Do you
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: remember when you were crafting the text message to Noah
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: to try to ask permission to take the story out?
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: I vividly remember us talking about how careful we had
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: to be and how careful you had to be because
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: you just couldn't imagine they would let such a big
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: story out the door knowing the blowback would come.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Well, and you also have to bear in mind that
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: this is in the context of Harvey Weinstein bearing down
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: on me and sending legal threats letters from his pit
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: bull attorney, Charles Harder, who was really laying siege to
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: NBC at the time, saying explicitly, we have a deal
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: with NBC. And we quote these letters in writing. There's
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: a paper trail on it in which they have given
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: us written assurances they are killing this story and in
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: which they have agreed to assert a copyright claim if
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: you ever use any of the material. So all of
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: this is against the backdrop of the very real threat
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: that if I don't keep things friendly with these executives
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: at the time, they might prevent me from ever reporting
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: it anywhere. So it was, I think, your strategic idea
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: actually to go back to him. This was after they
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: kind of crossed a real red line by ordering us
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: to cancel an interview with a rape victim whose story
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: is told in full in this book. And it's pretty
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: shocking that anyone would want you to cancel that interview,
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: I think, once you review the facts. So it was
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: clear that this thing was dead despite the many, many
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: months of us fighting to get it on air at NBC.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: And your idea was take him up on his offer.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: Just say, Noah, I know you said go with God.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: You want to see this in print first. Let's just
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: do it. And then, you know, after that even, I
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: pushed to see if they would put NBC cameras in
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: the interviews so they could at least have a follow-up
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: story even though they had made clear they didn't want
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: to go first. And that too was rebuffed. And in
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: the book, I document the other half of that Harvey
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: Weinstein claim that he had assurances from them that it
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: was going to be killed by showing 15 calls with
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: NBC executives, which they had kept secret but are now
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: acknowledging today, in which promises were made to kill the story.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: So let's go beyond Weinstein and NBC. You talk about
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: the tactics Weinstein used to silence women, to silence the
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: reporting at NBC, but they were also employed by a
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: bunch of others. Can you talk a little bit about
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: what you found out about Donald Trump's relationship with the
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: National Enquirer?
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: So over the course of the plot that unravels in
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: Catch and Kill, I follow a trail of clues that
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: leads from NBC to Harvey Weinstein's alliance with AMI to AMI,
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: the publisher of the National Enquirer, deploying a lot of
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: underhanded tactics to suppress stories about other powerful men, including
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. And obviously, a couple of the big stories
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: I broke in the last year were about these catch
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: and kill payments that they made on Trump's behalf during
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: the election, where they were buying the rights to stories
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: in order to bury them for him. And one of
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: the new revelations in this book is that there was
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: yet another example of that previously undisclosed, where the Inquirer
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: actually in collaboration with Michael Cohen and in conversation with
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: Trump's folks, went after a claim that was raised in
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: an anonymous Jane Doe lawsuit that Donald Trump had sexually
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: assaulted an underage girl alongside Jeffrey Epstein. And now, as
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: with so many of these catch-and-kill stories, the point is
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: not the veracity of the underlying claim. I make clear
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: in the book this point, woman accuser was elusive. Reporters
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: couldn't get a hold of her. Independent cooperation couldn't be found.
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: But it was of enough concern, I reveal in this book,
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: that there was another case where AMI sent a reporter
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: to pursue this in conversation with and under the supervision
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: of Trump's folks.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: And this is related to the catch and kill process
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: that went on for the Stormy Daniels affair, right? That
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: the National Enquirer would be basically the vehicle for the
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: payout to silence the women.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: That's right. This is a pattern. And I document a
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: case in which there was another catch and kill operation
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: where AMI went after buying the rights to the story
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: of a Trump Tower doorman who claimed Trump had a
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: love child there again. It's not about the veracity of
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: the underlying claim. We don't know if that's true, but
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: the transaction happened and they killed that story as a
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: There was another case in which Karen McDougal, a Playboy playmate,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: went on the record with me for the first time
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: talking about the fact that she too had the rights
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: to her story bought explicitly with the goal of burying it.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: And then there was this Stormy Daniels case, which obviously
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: everyone knows about, which the Wall Street Journal did great
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: work breaking. And previously undisclosed but present in this book
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: is the fact that before Michael Cohen brokered that deal
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: with Stormy Daniels directly, AMI had been approached about it.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: The lawyer involved, who had also represented Karen McDougal, went
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: to Dylan Howard, the editor of the National Enquirer, and said,
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: you guys should catch and kill this one too. And
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: the Enquirer facilitated it getting to Michael Cohen instead.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, and then Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels directly.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: Instead of it running through AMI.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Using this hilarious contract where She's called Peggy Peterson, and
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: he's called David Dennison. And we reveal in the book
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: for the first time that the reason for that is
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: the lawyer, Keith Davidson, had a high school buddy on
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: his hockey team or something named David Dennison. There's this
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: quote where he says, you know who really got fucked
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: in all this? David Dennison from high school.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about what exactly AMI,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: the parent of the National Enquirer, what they were sitting on,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: and what you uncovered about their efforts to destroy evidence
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: of what they had gathered on Donald Trump.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: So this is a book about patterns of corporate behavior
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: designed to suppress stories on behalf of powerful men. And
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: one of the best examples of that and most significant
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: to the future of our country is all of the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: criminal investigation into AMI and its collaboration with Trump during
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: the election. The book unravels some new details of that.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: that during 2016, AMI compiled a comprehensive list of every
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: piece of dirt it had in its vault about Donald Trump.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: And this has kind of been like a fabled Holy
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Grail thing, like what is in the Trump vault. And
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: for the first time in this book, a New Yorker
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: fact checker and I saw the complete list of what
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: is in that vault. And here again, it is not
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: about the underlying contents. I mean, there were at least
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: five affairs discussed. Some of them have been public, some
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: of them have not. There is at least one allegation
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: of misconduct on that list from Jill Hearth, which obviously
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: has become public. But what is significant and has been
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: in the crosshairs of prosecutors, AMI signed a non-prosecution agreement
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: admitting that they had undertaken this collaboration and it may
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: have violated campaign finance law, is the fact that the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: list was created and what happened to it. And what
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: happened to it, I show in this book, is... just
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: before the election, there was a shredding operation where AMI,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: in a panic, as the Wall Street Journal starts calling them,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: apparently takes stuff out of the vault and just starts
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: destroying it. And it's worth noting Dylan Howard and AMI
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: deny this, as in every other case, we include all
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: of that pushback, but we have multiple sourced accounts of
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: them getting stuff out of that safe and making it disappear,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: and of senior people at that company saying, Checking that
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: vault a year later and realizing that there's missing stuff
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: about Trump.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: And we don't know. And some of that may be
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: just lost, just lost evidence, lost information. We just don't
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: know what the only people who know are the people
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: who aren't talking, the people that on Donald Trump's behalf
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: destroyed what was in that vault. Correct.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: And it's a literal safe.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: You're talking about a literal safe. We're not using vault
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: in a cool National Treasure Book of Secrets way. This
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: is an actual physical vault.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, I write in the book that there was
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: subsequent coverage when people learned about this that kind of
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: described it like it was, you know, the warehouse from
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: the end of Indiana Jones.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: I want you to know, Ronan, that I have counted
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: how many times you've referenced, as I say, in the book.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: We know it's in the book.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: You're going to sell the book. The book's going to sell.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: I'm selling a damn book, Jonathan. Got to deal with it.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: But in fact, you're right. It was a kind of small,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: old safe. And they actually, there's a little episode where
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: they have trouble getting it closed afterwards during the shredding day.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: And yes, we don't know exactly what is lost. And
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: this is a significant fact because it is wrapped up
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: in these ongoing criminal investigations. And so it's unsurprising that
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: AMI has not only denied this, but Dylan Howard has
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: hired lawyers in every part of the world to threaten
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: to sue booksellers to prevent this book from becoming public.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: So I will let people interpret that as they may.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: Now, during this time, you were being surveilled by Black Cube,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: an Israeli private investigations firm with ties to intelligence organizations,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: and also AMI was being employed to kind of dig
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: up dirt. Can you tell the people how I managed
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: to thwart AMI's efforts to surveil me?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: So I did receive multiple-sourced accounts of, in addition to
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: the very elaborate sort of high-end plot to deploy international
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: operatives with false identities to go after me on one coast,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: that the Inquirer had a somewhat more homespun operation to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: surveil one Jonathan Lovett going to and from his home and...
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: I do quote an AMI employee as saying that the
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: subcontractor used for this purpose gave up eventually because your
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: routine was too boring. I'm not going to say I'm shocked.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, you in your defense now, as with everything else,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: we fact checked all these claims with everyone involved, including
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: Jonathan Lovett, who does have a quote in the book
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: pointing out that he is indeed interesting and went to
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: an escape room one time.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: I go to escape rooms on the regular. It's fine.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: It's very he's very interesting. I find him interesting.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know. How's this interview going? What do they
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: want me to do?
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Is this like a Joe and Mika thing we're doing here?
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Honestly, let's just face it. I don't think we're yet
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: up to Joe and Mika quality banter. I just don't
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: think we've been on air together enough.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I mean, I think when you're in
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: a romantic relationship with someone and also awkwardly on air
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: with them all the time, you get good at the banter.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: You got to. I have nothing to say about that.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: All right, let's move on to a new one. So
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: in all seriousness, I want to finish by talking a
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: bit more about sort of the broader implications of the
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: stories you tell in Catch and Kill. And David Boies,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: this is somebody who is considered to be a respectable lawyer, right?
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Famous for being involved in Bush v. Gore, famous for
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: being involved in... marriage equality cases, who I believe through
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: your reporting, we find out not only is he representing
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: the New York Times, but he's signing off on contracts
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: for Black Cube to investigate the New York Times and
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: surreptitiously surveil and gather oppo on the New York Times.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: That you have someone like Lisa Bloom, who claims to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: be an advocate for women, representing Harvey Weinstein secretly. Can
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: you just say what she said to you when you
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: made this discovery?
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: When I finally realized that Lisa Bloom was a double agent,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: which is not a term you get to use in
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: normal life a lot of the time, I did have
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: a conversation with her where I said, Lisa, you swore
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: to me as a friend and as an attorney that
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: you wouldn't tell his people. And she said, oh, Ronan,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: I am his people. And I just, my blood ran cold.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a moment I will never, never forget
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: because it just feels like bad movie dialogue. And I
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: also don't understand how someone says that of themself. I mean,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: she knew exactly what she was doing. And Jodi Kantor
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: and Megan Toohey have done great reporting, you know, unveiling
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: the fact that she was filing these expense reports and
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: these memos saying, you know, I'm going to go after
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: Rona and I'm going to go after the women. There
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: are people who say incredibly transparent things about the bad
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: things they're doing all the time is one of the
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: reveals of this book.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: Uh, Jordan, our producer, her jaw literally dropped. It just dropped.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: It just fell down.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: Mine did too. And you can imagine, you know, at
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: a time when I'm losing my job, when I am
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: getting lawsuit threats that are coming, not a news organization
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: because I was abandoned by a news organization, but at
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: me personally, um, And when I'm increasingly suspicious about a
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: conspiracy to surveil me that turned out to be true
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: and documented to the nth degree and admitted to by
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: everyone involved, what a ball of stress I was and
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: what a pain in the ass I was to be
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: in a relationship with.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, who can say?
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: He can say. I think one Jonathan Lovett can say. And,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: you know, he before many people did. And as many people,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: including those executives, were saying, this is not a story.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: It will never be a story. Do we care about
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: it at all? John Lovett was saying, because he is
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: apparently from the future, this is a huge story and
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: it is hugely important for social justice. And if I
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: hadn't had him and the brave sources who were taking
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: such huge risks and in my ear saying, hey, this matters,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: this matters, we matter. And people like Rich McHugh, my
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: producer saying, I'm not going to fold to their efforts
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: to tell me to lie about this. Things might have
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: been very different. And those stories might not have broken. So,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: you know, I include that story, to be nakedly honest
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: about what a low point it was for me, because
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of reporters who are there,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: and I hope they can draw strength from it. And
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: I hope all the people around those people can draw
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: strength from Jonathan's story.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, enough. I can't. I just can't.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: I can't take it. I can't take it. He can
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: take it and he loves it.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: One more question about all this. So the reason I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: brought up all those respectable people who were involved in this,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: because I think they didn't realize or they couldn't allow
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: themselves to admit what they were a part of. And
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: I think that goes to what you've seen at NBC,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: what you've seen elsewhere. So put aside all the hard
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: evidence of the methodical way in which they tried to
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: prevent the story from coming out, the intimidation that Weinstein uses,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: the way it was effective at NBC. Beneath the kind
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: of hard record is a kind of harder to identify
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: kind of baked in misogyny in how news organizations have
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: been run, are continuing to be run. I mean, this
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: is something Rebecca Traister and others have noted from Mark
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: Halperin to Matt Lauer to many others. People in positions
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: of decision-making around the coverage of our politics, of our culture,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: of our society, Les Moonves, others, put their monstrousness aside.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: Their assumptions about men and women, their baked-in prejudices, had
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: an impact in our political system and in your ability
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: to get this story. I mean, do you agree with that?
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: There were two things happening simultaneously during the killing of
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: the Weinstein story. And one of them is a highly
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: specific plot where there's a paper trail and very careful
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: investigative reporting about the way in which NBC's secret patterns
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: of sexual harassment settlements and other things were under threat
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: of exposure. And this was a company that was panicking
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: and making promises that they shouldn't have. That's specific, and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: it's about a specific group of people. But the story
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: is ultimately a lot bigger than a specific group of executives,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: than a specific network. These are much more widespread patterns.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: And underpinning all of those specific plot points is a
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: more general phenomenon, which is a lot of our great
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: institutions are run by an all-white, all-male chain of command,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: like the one at NBC News, with a specific set
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: of attitudes about And, you know, I uncover in this
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: book Noah Oppenheim's writings saying, you know, women walking into
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: dark frat houses and getting assaulted want to be pumped
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: full of alcohol and preyed upon. That's something that he
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: put in writing and he's now had to apologize for.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: You know, we have other executives at the company doing
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: very misogynistic things. Andy Lack, who's Noah Oppenheim's boss, is
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: accused by two women on the record of, you know,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: sleeping with them when they were his underlings and then
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: retaliating against him. So, you know, when a person like
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: Harvey Weinstein approaches a news organization and starts to make
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: points like, look, we were all acting like this, there
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: is also, as you allude to and as Rebecca Traister
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: wrote about, a baseline of cultural understandings that I think
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: now is starting to shift. But even a couple of
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: years ago, as this was playing out, was very toxic
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: and very antithetical to waking up and understanding culture. this
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: matters and these women's voices matter and people are going
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: to care even if we don't yet.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Do you think if there had been one executive who
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: had gotten behind you, you know, we talked about this,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: that not only, you know, you document all the ways
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: in which they tried to stop you and how they
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: were worried about the story and how they were squeamish
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: about the story, how they waved, you know, Harvey would
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: suggest that you were doing this, you know, to take
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: some sort of psychological vengeance on Woody Allen. And the
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: next thing you know, Noah would be saying the same
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: thing to you. We, there's a lot of malfeasance and
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: misconduct that went on in the handling of the story. But,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: but one thing that you and I had talked about
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: a lot about is that like, there was also just
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: something missing that forget doing all the wrong things. There
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: was just never anybody like Noah never said to you, wow,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: this is incredible work. You know, keep going. You know,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: this is such a, I'm so proud of you for
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: getting this much information. What a big scoop. This is
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: what a big story. This is, do you, How different
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: do you think things could have turned out if there
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: had been one person in the chain of command who
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: had fought for the story?
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: There's two things going on here. One is, yes, Noah
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: Oppenheim heard that tape of Harvey Weinstein admitting to sexual
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: assault and a pattern of sexual assault and shrugged and
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: hemmed and hawed and said, people say a lot of things,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: getting rid of a girl like that, and is it
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: really news, and it doesn't belong on the Today Show,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: nobody cares about a producer grabbing a lady, which obviously
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: isn't The reaction when it was on every network, including
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: their own after I broke it in The New Yorker,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: was very different. And, you know, the other thing is
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: just about passing the buck in corporate culture. So many
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: of the stories I report are about institutional failures of culture.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: They're about failures of board culture where no one on
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: a board stands up and says, hey, this is wrong
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: and maybe it's going to hurt our company or knock
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: a billion dollars of stock value off it, as was
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: the case with the CBS reporting I did, if we
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: don't address this. I mean, CBS spent months knowing that
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: I was working on this story, having crisis meetings every
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: time they thought it was going to break, being aware
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: that there were criminal investigations into executives there, and just
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: covering it up and breathing a sigh of relief every
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: time I actually broke an unrelated story and hoping that
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: I wasn't still working on the CBS story. That is
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: a microcosm for what happened at NBC, what happens at
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: so many companies, where there is no one in a
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: corporate chain of command willing to stand up and say, hey,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: it's my job to do the right thing. And if
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: one person in that chain of command at NBC had said,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: you know what, this maybe is an important story. And
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: maybe someone here should say, we're not comfortable with the
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: way in which this is being shut down. It would
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: have made a huge difference. And the outcome, I think,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: would have been very different for NBC News. Obviously, you're
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: seeing appropriately, I think, a lot of tough questions directed
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: at them right now because no one did that. Now,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: at a working level, Everyone did that, and I am
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: so grateful for that. The great journalists at NBC were
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: supportive throughout this, have been supportive since, are asking tough
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: questions of their bosses right now, that's become public, and
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: have approached me one after another to say thank you.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: And were it not for Rich McHugh, the working-level producer
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: on this, saying, I'm not going to stand for this,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: this is being shut down, it's weird, it's wrong, I
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: might have felt much more alone, and I might not
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: have had the strength to go on.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: You know, it's also worth, I think, remembering throughout this
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: you weren't just alone at NBC in reporting this out.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: You were working with Rich McHugh, a seasoned veteran news
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: producer who was as gobsmacked and shocked by the conduct
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: of his colleagues, people he used to respect. And I
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: vividly remember you and Rich having these long emotional conversations
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: because you just couldn't believe that NBC was doing this.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: It just seemed so impossible that NBC would be so
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: callous about this story. And a lot of people did
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: the wrong thing. But can you talk about Rich McHugh
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: and how he did the right thing?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: Every working level journalist who looked at what we had said,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: we got to get it on air immediately. And you
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: can imagine how Rich McHugh and I, having heard a
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: tape of a powerful person admitting to serial sexual assault,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: were kept up at night by that fact, that we
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: for months were sitting on a piece of hard evidence
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: that maybe if we got it on air could protect
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: other people. And that's why we fought so hard. And
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: it has made all the difference that I had that
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: support from another journalist who was in the trenches with
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: me and saw that it was wrong and honestly was
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: more seasoned than I was and stronger up front. I
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: was afraid for my job. I was being sort of
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: gaslit by these executives telling me over and over again,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: This is not a story. This is not a story.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: And he knew from the beginning and never wavered in saying,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: not only this is a story, but we have the
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: evidence and something weird is happening to shut it down.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: And obviously my investigative reporting since shows that that is
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: exactly what was happening. And he is one example of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: a larger trend over the course of this plot, which
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: is not just about cover-ups and crimes. It is about
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: brave people where in every room where something bad is happening,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: there is also someone who says enough. And, you know,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: it's people like this secret source sleeper who passed me
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: those contracts signed by David Boies to hire secret spies
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: to kill the story. And it's people like Igor Ostrovsky,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: one of these spies who was hired to surveil me
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: and then developed a conscience. And there's this incredible twist
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: where he says, I grew up in the disintegrating Soviet
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: Union in a police state context, and I don't want
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: the powerful people in this country that is now my
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: home to control the press.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: I hope people close this book and feel hopeful, because
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: I feel hopeful looking at the people who refuse to
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: shut up, even in the face of spin machines and
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: smear campaigns and legal threats.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's moving in reading it. It's moving in just
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: reflecting on it, honestly, just because there's no siren that
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: goes off when somebody's doing the wrong thing. There's no
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: siren in a corporation that goes off to tell you
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: it's your turn to say the right thing, to speak out.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: And you know, The past few years, we've seen so
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: much misconduct across our government in companies like CBS, like NBC.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: And we have really relied on people who no one
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: was going to tell them to do the right thing.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: In fact, there was a bunch of people around them
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: who were doing the wrong thing and telling them to
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: continue to do the wrong thing. And whether it's a
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: whistleblower on Ukraine or this person that managed to leak
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: you documents about what Black Cube is doing, this Black
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Cube person, Rich McHugh, all these people That's still inside
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: of a system that was telling everyone to just go
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: along to get along, that we've been so lucky and
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: fortunate that these people have been willing to recognize that
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: they were in a moment where they had to make
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: a choice. and they couldn't just pretend that they didn't
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: have a choice. And that actually, I think, is the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: mirror image of what happens in your conversations with Noah
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: because as you see in the book, you see someone
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: who refuses to admit that he made a choice, that
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: he was responsible, that he bore some agency for what
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: was happening inside of NBC. And thankfully, there were enough
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: people who did decide the head agency that we got
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: to know what happened. And that is my speech about
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: your book.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: Every conversation around this within NBC, there was someone in
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: a position of leadership who passed the buck, who said,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: as Rich Greenberg says repeatedly in this book, this is
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: above my pay grade.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: Does it have journalistic value, this interview we're canceling with
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: a rape victim?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: It's above my pay grade. Noah Oppenheim, who says, everyone decided.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: Everyone decided this. It wasn't me.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: I have a boss.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: It's not just me. And I think that the counterpoint
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: of all of these brave whistleblowers who were surrounded by
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: people who were also telling them collectively, don't do the
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: right thing and cut against that grain, hopefully is a
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: lesson that you can be an Igor Ostrovsky or a
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: sleeper and not a Noah Oppenheim. I think that there
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: is a way to be in a collective that's doing
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: the wrong thing and to do the right thing in
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: the face of that.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: Do you want to talk about our news at the
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: end of the book? I don't want to.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: The book is out tomorrow, and guys, I would say
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: that there is a satisfying conclusion to one Jonathan Lovett's
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: arc in this book.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: Okay. It's your arc too, buddy. It's our arc. All right. Bye,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow. Thanks for coming on
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: I had to pull a lot of strings to get
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: on here, guys.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: Listen, it wasn't a sure bet. It just wasn't. Let's
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: just face it.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: Let's say both ways. I'm a tough booking right now, too.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: Ronan Farrow, thank you for being here. His book is
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: Catch and Kill. He's one of the nation's leading investigative
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: journalists who also leaves wet towels on the bed.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: I'm going to have to fact check that claim, but
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: thank you for having me on, Jonathan.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Ronan for joining us today. And again, we
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: will be on Group Thread tomorrow night for the debate,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night. And then Wednesday morning, the three of us
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: and Dan will all be recording a post-debate pod, which
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: will be out Wednesday afternoon.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: You know what I was also thinking about? What? You
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: know they had to change the rules because Simone Biles
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: was too good at gymnastics?
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit like Donald Trump is the Simone
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: Biles of crime.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: So he's so good at crime that they've changed the rules?
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: He's so good. Republicans don't want to hold him to
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: the standards they would hold other candidates because otherwise he
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: would be like 10 out of 10 crimes. So they
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: need to kind of lower the points on some of
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: his misconduct so that he fits in with some of
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: the other presidents.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: Okay. Got it. This only works if there's music underneath.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: I hope there's been music underneath the whole time.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Just going to keep workshopping that. Yeah.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: That's why I didn't say it during the episode. All right, everyone.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you later.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segwin is
• 1:22:12
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• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Cohnian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: film and upload these episodes as a video every week.