Latest / Pod Save America / “Fox’s $787 Million Lie.”

Transcript

“Fox’s $787 Million Lie.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: We are extremely excited to release the trailer for Pod
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Save the UK, hosted by comedian Nish Kumar and journalist
• 0:58
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• 1:02
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• 1:06
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• 1:09
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• 1:14
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• 1:17
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• 1:19
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• 1:30
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• 1:34
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• 1:38
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• 1:41
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• 1:43
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• 2:34
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. The media trial
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: of the century. ended before it began this week, as
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems $ 787. 5 million in a
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: last-minute settlement that denies libs like us the satisfaction of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: six weeks in court where Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and other Fox bozos would finally be exposed as lying
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: grifters who treat their viewers like morons. But alas, Dominion
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: gets the largest media settlement in history, worth ten times
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the value of their company, and we get nothing. No
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: squirming under oath, no admissions of guilt, no on-air apologies.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Just a statement from Fox that says they, quote, acknowledge
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the court's rulings, finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. Dan,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: why did Dominion and its lawyers rob us of this joy?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Do they hate content?
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It's our fault for getting our hopes up, as we
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: do all the time. We never learn our lesson. We
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: get excited and we just have them crushed. That is
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: what happened here. I mean, look, it was probably naive
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: on our part to choose as our fighter in the
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: battle for democracy a voting software company owned by a
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: private equity firm represented by major trial lawyers to be
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: the ones who were going to fight for this in
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: some sort of Aaron Sorkin-esque battle for the truth. I mean,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: of course they settled. Why wouldn't they settle? Fox had
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: every incentive to settle. Dominion, as you said, it was
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: a company that was worth $ 80 million a few years ago.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: A private equity firm has majority stake in the company.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: It's being represented by lawyers who get a cut of
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: the settlement. Why would they not take the largest settlement
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: in media defamation history right there without having to go
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: through any risk of losing that at trial?
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I also let myself get too hopeful
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: about this one because way back when, when it started,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, of course they're going to end up settling.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Why would Fox go to trial? And then, you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of reporting like Dominion doesn't want to settle.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Dominion doesn't want to settle. But look, even if one
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: of their goals, one of their big goals, Dominions, was
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to prevent Fox News from doing more damage and help
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: save democracy, their primary goal is to make money. They
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: are a business. And even though they had a very
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: high chance of winning, it wasn't certain. It wasn't certain
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: at all that they would get that much money, the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: amount of money they did. And like you suggested, it
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: probably would have taken years to go through the appeals
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: process to get all this money or less or an
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: apology from, from them based on like just all the different,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: they could have gone to, it probably would have ended
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: up at the Supreme court and who knows what they
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: would have done. So, you know, they took, they took
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the money, which is again, it's a business. What are
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: you going to do?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And let's just, before we get all depressed about this,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: because of this suit, we got to learn a lot
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: of really fun, really important and quite embarrassing information about
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Fox and its personalities.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: They cannot take that. We had that content. They cannot
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: take it away from us.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, has Fox's rating suffered at all?
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: No.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: But, you know, there's been a couple of polls. There
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: was a poll from last month. It found that like
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: 20% of Fox viewers trust the network less because of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the revelations over the last several months. That is a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: very small percentage, but it's something. Do you think this
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: settlement will impact Fox's business and will it at all
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: impact Fox's behavior?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It's going to be tough for their business. They're going
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to make some real cuts. The five is going to
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: become the four. Oh, my God.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. You testing out your White House correspondence
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: material here?
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Look, you know, you got Lovett's basically professional comedian. Tommy's
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: out here just bringing songs and AI stuff. I'm just
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: trying to bring something to the table here. It can't
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: just all be data for progress cross tabs I got.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Do you have a eulogy for this trial that you
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: can read like Tommy did for Mike Pompeo's campaign? Because
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it's going viral. It's going viral.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Oh, I know.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I participated in its virality. I retweeted it repeatedly because
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: it was good stuff.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: This hurts their business for sure, but they're going to
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: get to write some of this off in their taxes.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Their insurance may cover some of it. The Fox Corporation
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: carries around about $ 4 billion in cash at any one time.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: They make over a billion dollars a year in net revenue,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: so they can afford this, but it's bad. Much like
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the conversation about Donald Trump getting indicted, no one's ever
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: a winner when they're paying $ 800 million to someone else.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: In terms of their behavior, hard to say. They do
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: not want this to happen again. They're going to be
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: more careful. They're certainly going to stop texting about all
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: of their crimes. I imagine that will be the case.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe get some burner phones. I don't know. Maybe
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: do your crimes in person.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Don't take notes on a criminal conspiracy. That is the rule.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And think about it. Put yourself in this position. They're
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: not going to become fair and balanced. They're not going
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: to get rid of the conspiracy theorists, blowhards in primetime
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: and the media. And they're not going to– the propagandists
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: are not going to become mediocre journalists in the daytime.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It's going to stay basically the same. But imagine a
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: situation where Donald Trump– we are in October and November
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: of 2024 and Donald Trump is pushing more conspiracy theories
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: about the election. Fox is going to be this much
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: more careful about that because this costs them almost a
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: billion dollars. They're facing another, they're facing more lawsuits. The
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: price tag of the lies around the election is going
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to be quite high for them. And there may be
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: just a wee bit of hesitancy before they do it again.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that there'll be hesitancy around
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: potentially defaming a big corporation that could sue them. You know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and so if Trump is pushing a big lie again,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: as opposed to targeting Dominion voting systems or Smartmatic or
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: any of the other voting systems, they could just, you know,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: they could have pushed the big lie without specifically targeting Dominion, right?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: They could have just said plenty of questions, you know,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: they could have aired the conspiracy theories and they could have, like,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: there's a whole, I mean, Donald Trump does this all
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the time, you know, where he's like, oh, I would hate.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Who knows? A lot of people are saying that there's
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: some stuffed ballots somewhere and I don't know. They're going
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to do all that and they're just going to be
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit more careful about how they lie because
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: they don't want to actually defame specific corporations.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Or specific people because let's not forget, a few years ago,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: they had to settle a case with the family of
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Seth Rich, the murdered DNC staffer who they slandered and
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: claimed that he was murdered because he leaked documents to WikiLeaks,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: which was obviously completely not true. Let me just put
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: it this way. The legal risk... of being in the
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: lying business has gone up. And because of this settlement,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: there are going to be more lawyers and more potential
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: plaintiffs looking to bring suits. And so it's very possible
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: that if Fox continues its business as it has been doing,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: it's going to get more expensive to do so. And
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: that is not cost-free. They are in a dying business.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Every day, more people.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Cut their cord.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, literally. I mean, their audience, yes, demographically.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: But they make their money.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: From carriage fees based on the number of people who
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: have cable. The number of people who have cable is
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: going down every day. And so they are already managing
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: a very profitable but a decline nonetheless. And that's going
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: to get more expensive as more lawsuits come. Because you
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: know there are a whole bunch of people who just
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: watch the Dominion lawyers get quite rich. And they're going
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to– lawyers are going to be out looking for plaintiffs
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: to do the same thing. This is what happened to
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Big Tobacco.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Yes. And look, we're going to talk about Smartmatic in
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a minute, which is another defamation lawsuit that Fox faces.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: They're also potentially going to be shareholder lawsuits. And what
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: happens with shareholder lawsuits is oftentimes the Fox shareholders who
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: might sue the company for this might demand some kind
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: of management change, you know. And so you might get
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: there's been some reporting that Fox clearly doesn't want to
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: admit that they're going to get rid of people because
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of this lawsuit. But you could start seeing a few
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: heads roll. Not any of the big stars, like maybe
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: a Sid, a Jerry, maybe even a Tom. I mean, they.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Already essentially fired Lou Dobbs for his role in spreading
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: the Smartmatic conspiracy theories. They've already, in one way, admitted
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: some culpability there and will probably be looking to settle
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: that lawsuit as well.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I do wonder about other MAGA media outlets like OAN, Newsmax.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: told the exact same lies about Dominion, don't have as
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: much money as Fox. Could they get sued?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely they could get sued. People were maybe less
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: likely to sue them because their pockets are less deep.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: It's only worth the time and energy for the attorneys
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: if the potential payout is sufficient to cover the costs
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: of the case. And that may not be the case
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: with these middling third-tier propaganda networks like OAN and Newsmax.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: What I was hoping for more than anything was an
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: outcome that required primetime Fox hosts to deliver on-air apologies.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I wanted like five minutes of groveling at the top
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: of every hour, you know, right before they go back
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to yelling about trans kids and immigrants. That first five minutes, primetime,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: just making an apology. That's clearly a fantasy that will
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: not be coming true. Do you think that would have
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: had any effect whatsoever beyond our own enjoyment?
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I don't want to diminish our own enjoyment as a
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: value here. I feel like we've heard that a lot,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: not just you and I, but everyone listening here, we
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: deserve that. No, I don't think it would have made
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: a bit of difference because we all have these fantasies
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: that Fox has this cult-like power over its viewers. And
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: it may be the reverse is true because they did
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: tell the truth once, and it was in 2020 after
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: the election when they said that Joe Biden won Arizona
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: and it was a legitimate win. And did a whole
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: bunch of Fox News viewers come around to the idea
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden was our legitimate president? No, they didn't
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: change their mind. They changed the channel to Newsmax or
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: OAN to go find someone who would tell them what
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: they want to believe. And I think we underestimate the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: power of motivated reasoning and why people believe some of
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: the things they believe. And in some ways, Fox is
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: just reflecting back what its viewers want them to say.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And so would it have been fun?
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Would any amount of embarrassment for Tucker Carlson be a
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: net benefit for society? Yes. Would it change the calculus
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: or reverse the radicalization of Republican voters? I don't think so.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I keep going back and forth on this one because,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: you know, one thing we do know is that more
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: than anything else, Fox really didn't want their audience exposed
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to the truth. And that's why they settled. That's why
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: they refused to apologize. Like they clearly were afraid of
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: what would happen if those audiences were exposed to the truth.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: But as you point out, they're probably not afraid of
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: that because they think that the audience's minds would change.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: They thought that the audiences would just leave them for
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: somewhere else. That's the fear. That's probably why they didn't
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: want all the hosts on the stand and they didn't
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: want to do the on-air apologies. Not because they think
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: they're going to create a bunch of libs, but because
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: those people are just going to go to Newsmax or
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: OAN or somewhere else. So, yeah. Yeah.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I think liberals like sometimes have this fantasy that if
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: just Michael Bloomberg or someone bought Fox News and shut
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: it down, that the world would be saved and that
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: all these people would turn off Hannity and put on
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: PBS NewsHour. And that's not how it's going to work, right?
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It's just they're going to go find another source of
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: confirmation bias in their cable news programming.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Have you seen this study by David Brookman and Joshua Kala?
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: And it was they did one last year in 2022.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: where they paid Fox viewers to watch CNN shortly before
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the 2020 election, and they found large effects on attitudes
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and policy preferences about COVID-19, about evaluations of Trump. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: then I guess they just did one recently, and they
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: found that one in seven Americans consume over eight hours
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of partisan media per month, which is like a lot
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: more than I would have expected. And most partisan media voters,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: they found, are not aligned strong partisans and do not
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: have especially strong prior attitudes, and that they also rarely
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: consume cross-cutting partisan content or meaningful quantities of national broadcast media.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I bring this up because I do wonder if there's
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: more give there with these audiences than we assume. Sometimes
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: we assume that everyone who watches Fox, their mind is
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: made up forever. They're going to only go further right
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: if they leave Fox to OAN or Newsmax. But I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: wonder if we are estimating some people who are more
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: casual Fox viewers who aren't as strong partisans? What do
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: you make of that?
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I have read the summary of the study. I haven't
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: read the whole thing, obviously, for a lot of reasons.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It's 60 pages.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: But there's some interesting points in there that are worth flagging.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: One is we always say Fox's audience is small, right?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: They're getting at most four and a half million viewers
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: at a time. And that is a fraction of it.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: That's not a number that is electorally significant in terms
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: of the overall national electorate. But their point is that
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you have to look at the overall audience, not how
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: many people are watching it at any given time, how
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: many different people watch it over a period of days.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: And that number is actually quite large. Now, some questions
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I have with that study is that as I understood
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: the summary, CNN is included in the partisan audience.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And I'd like to understand– and I understand that the
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: reason for that is that Republicans have been told that
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: CNN is a partisan audience. We can have a lot
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: of debate about what life was like at CNN under
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Jeff Zucker, under new leadership, et cetera. But I think
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: that there's a real– that isn't even apples to oranges.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: That's like apples to, I don't know, lug nuts or something.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Like it's just– they're just very different things that are
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: hard to compare. The one thing I think we also
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: sort of underestimate with Fox is the osmotic effect of
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: it because it is on– It's not just that people
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: tune in at home. If you go to rural America,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: it's on when you're getting your oil changed in the
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: waiting room. It's on in the doctor's office. It's on everywhere.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: And it's also just the people who watch it are
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: then talking about what they see on there. I have
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: seen other studies that are older than this one that
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: raise some real questions about the number of persuadable voters
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: who were there. There's a difference between persuadable voters and
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: not strongly aligned partisans. Like there are people who identify
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: as– who identify as– and this may be adjusted in
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: the other 59 pages of the study that I did
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: not read. But there are– but you can be– you
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: can call yourself a Democrat or an independent and vote
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: with Republicans 100% of the time. And so you have
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: to look not at their party registration or their self-identified
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: party identification, but their actual voting habits and their beliefs
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: to know if there are actually– if there are as
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: many movable voters there as we think.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And one thing we do know, both from research and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: anecdotal data, is that, like, Fox does radicalize people. I mean,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw that horrific shooting of
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Ralph Yarl, the black teenager in Missouri. And they did
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: an interview with the grandson of the 84-year-old guy who
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: shot him. And the grandson's like, yeah, I mean, I
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: actually wasn't really surprised because over the last several years,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: my grandfather's always been conservative, but... He's gone down the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Fox OAN rabbit hole. He's become angrier, listening to the
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: NRA stand your ground stuff. He has been going down
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: that rabbit hole and getting more radicalized over the years.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So we know it happens. We know that they have
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the power to do that.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: If you have powerful media entities who see it as
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: their business model and their political incentive to scare the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: living shit out of a certain set of people about
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: other sets of people, and you live in a society
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: that has easy access to Weapons, you're going to end
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: up with things like this happening all the time.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: So Fox still faces a $ 2. 7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: another voting technology company, whose lawyer released a statement right
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: after the settlement that promised the company will expose more
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of Fox's misconduct and, quote, hold them accountable for undermining democracy.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: You getting your hopes up again? Smartmatic, the new media
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: trial of the century that's going to finally take down
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Fox and save democracy?
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I think that statement... if you were to like hold
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: it up to a mirror or play it backwards on
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: a record player would say, please call me about settlement terms.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, both Fox's response and Smartmatic's is to posture.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Fox is like, see, we're going to, you know, we're
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: not scared of this. We're, you know, that this valid
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Dominion validates us. So we're not going to settle. And
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Smartmatic is saying, we're going to make this as painful
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: for you as Dominion did. So, so it'll be interesting
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: to see how this one plays out taking place in
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: New York instead of Delaware, because Delaware has a very
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: specific corporate court, system there. New York will be taking
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: place in the regular court system there. That's potentially a
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: very bad jury pool for Fox. But also, Sparmatic is
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: a much smaller business than Dominion. So their legitimate claims
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: of amount of damages, if they were to go to court,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: are potentially smaller than Dominion's.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But again, we should not be expecting Smartmatic, this company,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to save democracy. Adam Serwer wrote a great piece in
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic about why this was never going to save democracy.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And it ended, I just want to read the paragraph
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: at the end, no lawsuit, no investigation, no state intervention
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: can prevent people from believing falsehoods they want to be true.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: The only real solution is to prevent those operating under
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: such delusions or the politicians beholden to them from wielding power.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: And that is not the work of corporations like dominion
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that is not the work of the courts that unfortunately
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: is the work of politics and in democracy it is
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: work that never ends whether it's bob muller trump indictments
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: we can't none of this shit's gonna save us we
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: shouldn't expect the new york times to save us the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: mainstream media like we have to do the hard work
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: of persuading people you know and i do think just
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to end this media conversation you have written about this
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: in all of your books and that the real solution
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: is to build progressive media. This is why we started Crooked, right?
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Because instead of just spending all our time trying to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: take Fox down, you know, like we have to go
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: out there and actually persuade people. And we are competing
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: with the right-wing media ecosystem to make sure that more
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: people aren't, you know, radicalized by those media outlets. And
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: simply trying to shut them down is not going to work.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: We actually have to do the hard work of persuading
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: people ourselves.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: The urgency of building up progressive media, I think, was
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: brought even more to the forefront today with the news
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that BuzzFeed News was shutting down, which just shows that
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: the media economics and the changes in people's information consumption
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: habits mean that the days in which an objective, non-ideological,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: traditional press could serve as a bulwark against disinformation like
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: what comes from Fox are over. And you're going to
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: have to beat it by competing with it as opposed
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: to hoping someone's going to do it for you.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's talk about the debt ceiling since House
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Republicans finally revealed their ransom demands. They will blow up
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the economy unless Joe Biden agrees to repeal most of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act, cancel student debt relief and cut
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: everything from education and child care to veterans benefits and
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: health care. President said no deal during a speech at
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a union hall in Maryland on Wednesday. Folks, here's what's
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: really dangerous.
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: Mega Republican Congress are threatening to default on the national debt.
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: The debt that took 230 years to accumulate overall, overall,
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: unless we do what they say. They say they're going
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: to default unless I agree to all these wacko notions
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: they have.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Wacko notions. There's so much awful shit in this plan,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: it's hard to know what to focus on. Does Kevin
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: McCarthy really think that making it easier for rich people
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: to cheat on their taxes and jacking up the cost
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: of prescription drugs is a political winner? What's going on here?
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is not trying to remain Speaker of the House.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: He's trying to remain leader of the Republican caucus. None
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: of this is big picture politics. It's not about trying
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: to persuade voters. It is about continuing to stitch together
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: the 218 votes he needs to remain Speaker. And that
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: is forcing his hand to do something the public has
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: no appetite for, his voters have no dangerous shit Republicans
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: have done. This is near the top of the list,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: because at least in previous debt ceiling battles in the
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Obama era, the congressional leaders were responding to a fervor
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: in the base, like a real reaction to government, particularly
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: in the wake of the bank bailouts and the Recovery
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Act and the Affordable Care Act. There was this spending,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: and I use that in the most generic air quotes
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: sense possible, but government really was a driving motivating force.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: The Republican voters do not give a shit about that.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Nate Cohen has this amazing stat that he wrote a
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: few months ago about how in all they did open-ended
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: questions to ask people what they cared about in the
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: New York Times, Siena College polls. And I think it
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: was two people out of 1,500 respondents mentioned government spending
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: as a top concern. It's not about that. And so
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: this is about keeping his caucus, not his voters, but
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: his caucus aligned with him.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, the White House has been, I think, doing
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a great job over the last 24, 48 hours on this,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: really letting people know what this would mean, because the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: dance that the Republicans have been trying to do is, oh,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: we just want to cut spending. We want to get
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: our deficit in order. And people are notionally supportive of that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: But when you dig into what these cuts would mean, education,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: veterans health care, cancer research, food safety, law enforcement, The
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: repeal of the clean energy tax credits in the Inflation
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Reduction Act could put 100,000 clean energy jobs at risk,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: most of them in red states. And, you know, increase
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: energy bills, take away food assistance for older people. And then,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, the IRS thing, which is just
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I've always thought is the most ridiculous hobby horse of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the Republican side. It's like it's literally more IRS enforcement
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to stop rich people from cheating on their taxes. Also,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: we're going through tax season right now. People have been like,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: because there's more IRS agents, people have found it easier
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to do taxes. It's been like a better process for people.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: You repeal this, it's going to increase the deficit and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: let more rich people cheat on their taxes. This is
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: what they're going to the match for. I just, it's
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: wild to me. It's wild. You think this passes the House?
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess they can only lose four There's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: two goobers who said, no, I'm never raising the debt
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: ceiling ever. I guess like George Santos says he's a
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: no right now, but that he could be open to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: coming around to yes. You got to trust what he says. Yeah,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: you got to trust what he says. But then they
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: like they've interviewed some House Freedom Caucus. Yeah. Who's plus
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: some of the more establishment Republicans. And they all seem supportive,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: which makes me think.
• 26:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Will this exact 320-page bill pass? I have no idea.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: But in general, we know that Kevin McCarthy will do anything.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: He'll cross any line. He'll take on any policy, no
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: matter how politically toxic, to get the votes of Marjorie
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, etc. And also just historically, the
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: rest of the caucus, even the ones who are in
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: the Biden states, tend to vote with the leadership, particularly
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: this early in the fight. It would be a... They
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: also don't want to hobble Kevin McCarthy right away. And
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: so you can see that if they're going to break,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: they will break at the end, not the beginning of
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: the fight.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: If it does pass the House, do you think Biden
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and the Senate Democrats should still hold the line on
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: no negotiations over the debt ceiling? Because obviously there's going
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to be incredible pressure, not just from Republicans, but from
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the media is going to say, OK, now, you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: we're getting close to the close to the debt ceiling.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Why isn't Biden negotiating? And we're already getting that from
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin. The president should sit down. He should negotiate.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: So should they hold the line? And how hard is
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: that going to be?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I think they should hold the line for as long
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: as possible and put as much pressure on the Republicans
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: to do their job. Now, everyone needs to be looking
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: for a way out of the situation that ends in
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: something other than default. And it's very possible Biden's– Good plan.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Good plan.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Biden's hand will be forced by some– I can already
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: see– imagine like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and Mitt
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Romney are all of a sudden having lunch. And now
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: there's a gang of some kind getting together, trying to
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: come up with some sort of plan. Those things may happen,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: but Biden should not– should continue doing what he's been doing.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Put as much– hold his ground. He is substantively correct.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: He is politically correct. force their hand. Certainly, you don't
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: do anything until the Republicans, let's see if they can
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: actually pass this thing. But the problem here is to
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: begin negotiations is to accept the faulty premise of the
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: argument that the debt ceiling is something you should negotiate on.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: So I think Biden should continue to hold the ground.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard, but the Bipartisan Problem
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Solvers Caucus is trying to save the day here. They
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: are proposing a plan that would lift the debt ceiling
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: in exchange for an independent commission, we love an independent commission,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: that would come up with a plan to reduce the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: debt and deficit and that that plan would just be
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: guaranteed a vote in Congress, nothing more. Do you think
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: this is a feasible solution? Do you see any other
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: way out? Are we just fucked? What's going on?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Likely fucked. I mean, I am deeply, deeply worried about
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: this because previous debt ceiling battles have come, have ended
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: because the Republicans were responsive to the massive amounts of
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: political pressure being put on them. That is not the
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: game McCarthy is playing. He is only responsive to his caucus.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: And that is very different. And his caucus is, this
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: is one of the dangerous consequences of gerrymandering is that
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the vast majority of these people, of these Republicans have
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: much greater fear of a primary than a general election.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So from their political point of view, put aside the
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: idea that they might care about the country or the economy,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: from their own personal point of view, voting to lift
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: the debt ceiling is more dangerous than crashing the economy.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And that's a bad thing. to be. If the end
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: result was a fake commission, they got one vote in Congress,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: and the economy stayed on track, great job, Josh Gottheimer.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: I'm for it. Like, who cares? As long as there's
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: no teeth, right?
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why I'm– I mean, I keep looking at
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the plan because I was like, what's the– What's the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: catch here? You know, and it seems like a great
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: outcome if we could get there. And I'm wondering if
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I'm the Biden White House, how long until I try
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: to endorse that plan? Probably right at the end.
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: But if there's if look, if there's a bunch of
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Republicans in the House who are in the problem solvers
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: caucus who will actually get behind that plan. Now, McCarthy
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: still might decide not to bring it to a vote,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: a discharge petition at that point towards the end. will
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: probably take too long. So I don't know how that works.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, just to put some perspective here, we are
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: in the third week of April right now, and Goldman
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Sachs estimated that the middle of June is when extraordinary
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: measures will run out. So there's also, I think, several
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: congressional recesses in the middle of that. So there is
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: some work to do. The danger of the problem solvers
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: caucus solution is that it's coming out too soon. These
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: are the kind of things you want to come out
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: in the last minute when everyone's desperately looking for a
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: face saving exit. But now that it's out here now,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: everyone's going to say no to it and then they
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: can't back off. So we will need another different, hopefully
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: toothless escape hatch at the end.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: A toothless escape hatch. That's what we're looking for. All right.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: If the Dominion settlement and the debt ceiling shenanigans have
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you down, one thing that's sure to bring a smile
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: to your face is the continued trials and tribulations of
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: little Ronnie Puddingfingers. So Tiny D had a big day
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: planned on Capitol Hill this week where he spoke to
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: dozens of Republican House members hoping to win some support
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: for his not yet announced but already failing presidential campaign. Instead,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: he picked up one endorsement, one House endorsement. The person
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: was his former secretary of state in Florida, now a
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: House Republican from Florida. And he lost at this count.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday morning. Who knows? By the time you hear
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: this could be more. lost seven House members to Trump
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: from the Florida delegation, including one Yahoo who literally walked
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: out of a meeting with DeSantis and announced that he's
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: endorsing Trump. I saw this morning he lost another one.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: This guy currently represents the district that DeSantis used to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: represent in Congress. Lost that guy too. Why is DeSantis
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: getting his ass handed to him by a twice impeached
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: criminal defendant who lost the last three elections for the
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Republican Party?
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I'd like to read you a quote from someone
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: in DeSantis' orbit to I think it was Politico this morning.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I love the orbit quotes.
• 32:23
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: He doesn't like talking to people and it's showing.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Seems like a– Tough line of work.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: It seems like you might have picked the wrong business, right?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I mean it is still early and there is still
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: going to be a place for one person not named
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Trump to make a real go at this because Trump
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: is incredibly vulnerable. And everyone has assumed that that was
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: going to be Ron DeSantis. But the first few months
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: of this campaign have offered some real, I would say,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: warning signs that he doesn't have what it takes to
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: play that role. And that's worrisome if you don't want
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Trump to be the nominee because the rest of these
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: people running definitely don't have it. So absent a better
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: candidate– like there was a– was it Playbook today that
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: said– somewhere I read this story that was like, DeSantis'
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: stubbles give an opening to Christie.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I was like, really? Really?
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Does it? So I don't know.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: When you talk about DeSantis and Stumbles, are you talking
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: about his press conference where he continued his attack on
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Disney by threatening Disney World? Can we play a clip
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: of that?
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Now people are like, well, what should we do with
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: this land? You know, maybe have another, maybe create a
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: state park. Maybe try to do more amusement parks. Someone
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: even said, like, maybe you need another state prison.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Who knows?
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: Dude.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Do you think that threatening to put a state prison
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: or a competitive amusement park next to your state's biggest
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: employer is a smart move?
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I actually, after listening to that clip, take back what
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I said about that quote from the person in the orbit,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: which is if my voice sounded like that, I wouldn't
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: like talking to people either.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: It's pretty grating.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Every time is the first time. No matter how many
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: times you hear it, you are shocked to hear it again. Honestly,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know what he's doing. He is reeking of desperation.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: The way he handled the Disney thing suggests he doesn't
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: really understand what his rise was in the first place.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: He didn't even have a plan going into it. He
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: just held an angry press conference where he was pretending
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: to be angry, but not really. Without any real solutions,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: it seemed real. The idea was that he was Trump
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: without the chaos, that he was a smarter, more effective
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: version of Trump. It turns out that he is None
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: of those thus far in this campaign.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, not smarter, not more effective.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: We got to have one more clip because this is
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: my favorite.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: So because the woke represents a war on truth, we
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: have no other recourse but to wage a war on woke.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the corporations.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: is where woke goes to die.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's his 2004 convention speech right there. Remember
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: during the 08 Republican primary when Joe Biden, now President
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of the United States, had that quip about Rudy Giuliani
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: that everything he said was a noun of urban 9-11?
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: That's like DeSantis in woke. He's just fucking woke mad libs.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Like I said, he has a very simplistic voice. understanding
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: of his own political strengths in his own political rise.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: And it is not just saying woke over and over again.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: And he is diverted from that. And I, obviously we're
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: not making predictions. I know nothing, but if it were
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: to come out in the next two weeks that he
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: was deciding against running, I would not be surprised.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I, I, I also think I probably come
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: down on the side that it's too early because, you know,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge Ron DeSantis fan.
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: You have been pushing him. Yeah. But pushing him. No, I,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I still think it's a little early just because, you know,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: there's like a million lifetimes and a million, a billion
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: news cycles between now and Iowa. This is also like
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: we are focusing on the national media narrative. We don't
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: know what's going on in Iowa. We do know that
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: evangelicals in Iowa like aren't thrilled about Donald Trump. Donald
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Trump didn't win the Iowa caucus last time. You could
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: imagine a path for DeSantis where he wins over evangelicals
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: plus the college educated set in Iowa. That's enough to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: propel him to the, to win the Iowa caucuses. New
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Hampshire is a much better state for DeSantis because college,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: heavily college educated there. He does better with college educated Republicans.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: And then it sets them up better for South Carolina.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: So you could imagine this, but like, I don't know
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: all the stuff he's trying to do, go harder at Disney.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: The endorsements are, you can't talk to people. He's trying
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: to mingle more to me. Like, The only thing that
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: matters is how he handles Donald Trump because Donald Trump
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: is just the elephant in the room. He's the only
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: thing in the Republican Party, right? He's the biggest thing
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: in the Republican Party. And the idea that DeSantis is
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: not going to take him on, not going to make
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: his electability argument about Donald Trump in an explicit way.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: It's all these like oblique comments about electability or Trump's
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: indictment or he's trying to be subtle here and there.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: And like, again, I get that. DeSantis can't piss off
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of these voters who love Donald Trump. But
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I don't even think he's trying to make a case
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: against Trump right now.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Well, he's not in the race yet. So I think.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Which is also a weird choice.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: That is likely to turn out to... If he loses,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: which seems like the most likely scenario at this point.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: It was probably always the most likely scenario. Trump is
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: the frontrunner. But his decision to delay his announcement... until
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: after his momentum had passed. Seems like a fatal, and
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: a big, a fatal error. I mean, just take Obama,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: for instance, right? Which you and I obviously are intimately
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: familiar with, but he announced his exploratory committee essentially 17
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: days after he made his final decision. I mean, I
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: had been on the, he hired me for that campaign
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: and I was one of the earlier groups of people hired,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: unlike you who were coming from a Senate office, 10
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: days before that announcement. Because he knew, and we as
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: a team knew that We had momentum. There were donors
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: who wanted to be for Obama. There were tens of
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: thousands of people all over the country who wanted to
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: go work for Obama, who wanted to volunteer for him,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: and we had to give them a place to go.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: DeSantis had that in November. He has a lot less
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: of that now, and that might be a mistake. Could
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: he change it? Maybe, but it is very hard to
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: get the stink of being a loser off of you,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: especially if your argument is that you're a winner.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump seems to have done a pretty good job
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Well, Donald Trump has won, right? And he, I mean,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has a lot of skills as a understander
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: of and manipulator of Republican political sentiment and Republican media
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: that Ron DeSantis currently does not.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right. When we come back, Dan talks to
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny's Leah Lippman about the latest Supreme Court developments
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and the Dominion settlement.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Yesterday, Supreme Court once again did something confusing, chaotic, and
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: potentially evil. Here to tell us more about the case
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: is our resident legal expert and co-host of Strict Scrutiny,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Leah Lippman. Leah, welcome back to the pod.
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, so help us understand what's happening here. So yesterday,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: your favorite, Justice Samuel Alito, issued an extension of a
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: previous stay he had issued, extending the stay on the
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: court-ordered ban on the abortion drug Mifepristone until 1159 on Friday.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Which should help us understand this, but just let's begin
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: with where is that case right now in terms of
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: how it's progressing and access to the drug in this country?
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: So right now, because of all of the stays slash
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: extended stays, mifepristone remains legal and can be prescribed and
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: distributed according to the Biden administration's current guidelines. But that
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: could all end, depending what the Supreme Court does, after
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: its next deadline, which is Friday at midnight. So basically
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: what happened is the district judge said, mifepristone is an
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: unauthorized drug, no one can distribute it. And then the
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: Court of Appeals said, Well, maybe it's not technically an
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: unauthorized drug, but they can't distribute it in the way
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: they currently have been. And basically, you need to relabel
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: all the drugs. So no one's going to be able
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: to access this drug for like at least several months
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: while the FDA figures it out. And now the Supreme
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: Court is figuring out what they are going to do.
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: So it's kind of technically in the Supreme Court while
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: there is still litigation ongoing in the Court of Appeals.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Is an extension like this unusual? This seems like it
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: should be a pretty easy decision for the court, since
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: everything you guys have said on strict scrutiny, everything I've
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: read is that the legal reasoning behind the original ruling
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: was something my daughter would call cuckoo bananas. Like, what
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: is happening here? Yeah.
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: So it's unusual to have to extend an administrative stay
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: that had an initial deadline. That's partially because most of
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: the justices don't place time limits on their administrative stays.
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: So that itself is unusual. But this particular case, it
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: should take two seconds to realize this is all cuckoo
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: bananas or just like straight up bananas, whatever you want
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: to call it, and say, of course, this lower court
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: ruling should be stayed in its entirety. But what is
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: happening is these justices don't much care for the law
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: when it gets in the way of forcing women to
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: undergo childbirth when they don't want to. And so I
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: think you probably have some of the justices thinking, you know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: can I put lipstick on this pig to make it
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: a little bit more palatable while still restricting access to
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: medication abortion? And there's probably some negotiations going on with
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: justices wanting to get more justices on board, you know,
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: in either direction. And so they couldn't work it out
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: before Wednesday. And it's just, it's so ridiculous and laughable
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: that it is taking them more than two seconds to
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: just say this entire thing made us all dumber while
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: we had to engage with it just for a little.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: What are the court's options here and how could this
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: potentially play out?
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: So there are a bunch of different options. One thing
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: that they could do is just stay the district court's
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: ruling in its entirety. That would prevent the district court's
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: various restrictions on Mifepristone, including the Court of Appeals, take
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: on the restrictions from going into effect at any point
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: in the litigation before the litigation ultimately reaches the Supreme Court,
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: which usually takes several years. And so that's one option.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: Another option is they say, well, we'll stay this, but
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: we're going to put this case on our calendar in
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: order for us to hear oral arguments and decide what
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: to do. Another option is they you know, don't stay
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: the court of appeals or district court ruling, and they
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: add the case to their calendar. So they reserve the
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: possibility that they might actually put it on pause, but
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: they let it go into effect in the interim. And
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: then another option is, you know, they let either the
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: district court or the court of appeals ruling into effect,
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: and they just don't really do anything other than that.
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: And those are just some of the options, but there's
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: a lot of wiggle room as far as whether they
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: let either of the rulings go into effect, as well
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: as whether they add this case to their calendar and
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: therefore preserve the possibility that they would change their initial
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: actions sometime in the next few months.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: If they were to allow it to go, take that
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: last option you said, allow it to go into place
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: and not add it to the calendar, are we at
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: a point of no recourse then?
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: No, we are at a point of no recourse, at
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: least until the case finishes up in the district court
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: and court of appeals. But that, again, usually takes years.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: And so in that event, we would be kind of
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: at a point of no recourse in the sense that
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: there would be a bunch of additional restrictions on mifepristone
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: that would suddenly go into effect. It would be much
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: more limited access for the drug, which there's a possibility
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: it couldn't be marketed at all for some period of time.
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: And that would all be playing out while the case
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: kind of finishes its way through the courts.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: I guess I will ask you, but do you have
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: a sense, a prediction of where you think this is
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: going based on your close watching of the court.
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: Over the years?
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: You know, I have extremely lowest of low opinions of
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: this court. And I honestly still think the most likely
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: option is they stay the lower court's ruling in its
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: entirety while maybe adding the case to their argument calendar
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: or not. But, you know, I have, however, a pretty
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: low degree of confidence in that prediction, even though I
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: think it's the most likely outcome.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: And the reason you think it's the most likely outcome
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: is that because generally the court will try to avoid
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: chaos while waiting for a decision, because it does create
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: tremendous chaos in the marketplace and people's healthcare decisions, et cetera.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: So it's a combination of reasons. One is I think
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: there are some number of justices who don't like the
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: extent of chaos that either the district court or court
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: of appeals ruling would inflict on the country. I think
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: it's also that the underlying legal claims are so appallingly
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: bad that you can just poke holes in them and
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: make fun of them for.
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: Endless time periods on end. And then there's also some
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: sense that I think some of the justices who care
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: about preserving their own authority have a sense that people
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: are really reacting to the Dobbs ruling and the consequences
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: that that has had on people's lives. You see the
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: results in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. You saw the
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: results in the midterms. And so I think there is
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: some hesitation about basically going full speed ahead on judges
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: effectively ordering nationwide abortion bans out of some concern that
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: maybe that will finally be the thing that pisses people
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: off enough to do something about the federal courts. And
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: that might cause Brett Kavanaugh, the chief justice, to say, like, whoa,
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: we need to slow this train down.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Pivoting to the settlement reach earlier this week in the
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Fox Dominion case, Last time you and I spoke on
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: the show, I feel guilty about this, but I asked
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: you to pretend to be Donald Trump's lawyer. I will
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: not ask you to be the Murdoch's lawyer this time
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: around out of guilt. But are you surprised that settlement reached?
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: What's your reaction to how that case played itself out?
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: I'm not that surprised that it settled. I mean, most
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: cases settle. On some level, it was a little surprising
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: that it settled this late in the game just because
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: a bunch of really negative information had already come out
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: at this point. And so it's not like settling avoided
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: all of the embarrassing emails and text messages coming out
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: in which it was clear that Fox executives knew that
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: these were lies. On the other hand, it did avoid
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: probably pretty embarrassing cross-examinations where you confront, say, the Murdochs
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: with these emails and texts and ask them why they
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: allowed this to go on, as well as what was
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: likely to be a pretty grueling trial. And you also
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: avoid the possibility of punitive damages. So it's not that surprising.
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: And I think on the other side, Dominion, their interest
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: was always kind of recovering the harm done to them.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: And that is a harm that can be quantified in money.
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: And so the incentives on kind of both sides are
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: really to settle. So it wasn't that surprising, a little
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: bit surprising that there was that amount of brinksmanship and
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: delay that led to the settlement happening really last minute.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Will this settlement, do you think, have any impact on
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: how Fox operates as a media entity?
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, initial signs point to no, right? Like, they're
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: not really covering this. You know, their initial kind of
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: statement about the settlement is, this confirms our highest standards
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: of journalistic integrity. So it's not like they really took
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: the path of, oh, now we need to tell the truth. So...
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: you know, it's a little bit unclear. I mean, on
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: some level, obviously this has to affect their financial calculus
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: about what the most rational business model is for them.
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: You know, they obviously concluded that it was in their
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: interest to have a business model, you know, basically facilitating
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: these lies and that would keep their viewership. On the
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: other hand, they now have Some costs, right, that they
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: have to incur when they engage in these kinds of
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: lies that they think will secure and preserve their viewers.
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: So it's a little bit difficult to know. I mean,
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: maybe they try to lie better and a little bit
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: less recently going forward. But at least initially, it doesn't
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: seem like this is going to cause any sort of
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: major changes.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Do you think they'll stop texting each other to just
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: admit they're meeting the actual malice threshold set by the
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court?
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: There will be company-wide emails on how to use Signal
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: and such deleting messages. But yeah, fewer emails, less text messages,
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: and the like.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Do you think the attorneys will be more empowered to
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: at least raise some concerns to the Tucker Carlsons of
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: the world?
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: You know, again, maybe, but only in the sense that
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: Fox will have to decide how much they're willing to
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: pay in order to keep their viewers and grow their audience.
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: So this is really just assessing them a financial penalty
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: for lying. And if this is their business model, then
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: they will just decide how much are the lies worth.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: And this could get more expensive, correct? Because they are
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: also facing another lawsuit This one brought $ 2. 7 billion from Smartmatic,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: another voting company. And I believe there's a handful of
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: shareholder lawsuits as well who are suing the company because
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: the company has lost value because of this irresponsible behavior
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: on that part. Is that correct?
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: Yes, that's right. Although I also saw that they have
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: concluded that they can basically write off the settlement for
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: tax purposes. So it's not like they are just going
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: to have to pay this all out from their net profits.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: You know, we've had a number of– they're all– I mean,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: you can speak to this better than I can, but
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: they're not all of the sort of the same ilk legally.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: But there has been a number of cases over the
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: recent years that have gone at media entities or media
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: personalities who are spreading conspiracy theories. Fox itself had to
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: settle a case with Seth Rich's family a few years ago,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: the DNC staffer, who they falsely accused of leaking documents
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: to WikiLeaks. The Alex Jones has over a billion dollars
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: in damages he has to pay. Is this specific to
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: what's happening here or do you see any sort of
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: change in the legal environment or the legal risk profile
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: for media entities and personalities who push these lies or
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: push disinformation as part of their business plan?
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: Again, I don't really see any of these cases as
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: really altering the legal standard just because it was clear
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: what these companies were doing were lies and any person
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: with any remote connection to reality would understand that they
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: were lies. So they were knowingly lying or at least
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: acting with reckless disregard for the truth. I think to
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: the extent there are changes, there are likely to be
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: changes you know, that kind of cut in the opposite
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: direction as far as like the political ideological valence of
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: the entities being sued and who is doing the suing,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: which is, you know, you might have, let's say, more
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: conservative-leaning plaintiffs, you know, attacking news organizations for criticizing or
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: making statements about conservative issues. Republican-leaning figures and in those
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: lawsuits seeking to change the legal standard, you know, that's
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: represented by New York Times versus Sullivan that requires plaintiffs
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: to show that these companies were acting with actual malice,
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: that is, like, intentionally lying or they knew that they
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: were lying. And so it's possible that we will see
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: some additional movement on that front with these plaintiffs trying
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: to encourage, you know, more judges to speak out against
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: New York Times versus Sullivan and make it easier to
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: criticize plaintiffs. or make it easier to sue entities that
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: are criticizing public officials. And Clarence Thomas has already signaled
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: that he wants to revisit that standard with the additional
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: negative media coverage of him. He might be additionally motivated
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: to revisit New York Times versus Sullivan.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, but it seems like he
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: would probably recuse himself from that case because we know
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: that Clarence Thomas holds his independence in highest regard and
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: would never rule in a case in which he could
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: possibly have a stake in it.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: Just like Fox has the highest standards of journalistic integrity,
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: Clarence Thomas has the highest standards of ethical integrity. And
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: he definitely would not participate in any case in which
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: he or his wife have any potential interest.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Leah Lippman, thank you so much for joining us. And
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: once again, helping to explain all the crazy and bad
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: things happening in the Supreme Court.
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, like many media organizations, we
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: had all kinds of plans for the trial of the
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: century that never actually happened. And we had Max Fisher.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: He was going to follow the trial and contribute. And
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: we had all these plans. And, of course, it all
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: fell apart. One of the funniest plans we had, which
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't really a plan, our fearless senior producer... Andy Gardner Bernstein,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: who's here with me now. Hi, Andy.
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: Hey, Sean.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Andy took it upon herself to make some puppets.
• 54:05
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I made sock puppets.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: To make sock puppets of Fox personalities because, of course,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: we weren't going to be able to see the trial.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: There's no cameras in the courtroom.
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and they weren't going to let us. They weren't
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: letting any reporters use the audio from the trial.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Correct. So what we were going to do is use
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Andy's puppets. To say the text and testimony.
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so we could read back the testimony and reenact
• 54:30
  Speaker 7: Tucker on the stand or whoever.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: So I figured we kind of have to show you
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: all the puppets. I realize this is an audio format,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: but this is another plug to subscribe to the Pod
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Save America YouTube channel.
• 54:42
  Speaker 7: Yeah, go to the YouTube.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Go to the YouTube right now and you can see
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the puppets. Andy, show us what you made here.
• 54:50
  Speaker 7: Okay, so I made three puppets. And the first one
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: I made, I'm gonna put this on my little stand
• 54:57
  Speaker 7: for those of you watching on the YouTube. This is
• 54:59
  Speaker 7: a picture of Tucker. And I was thinking how to
• 55:04
  Speaker 7: make a Tucker Carlson sock puppet. And you have to
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: always go with their most obvious feature, right? So here
• 55:14
  Speaker 7: we go. I don't know if the camera can get it.
• 55:16
  Speaker 7: So Tucker's feature to me was his eyebrows. So we
• 55:20
  Speaker 7: got it right there. And then he always wears, you know,
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: the gingham shirt. And luckily my kids had graph paper
• 55:28
  Speaker 7: from math. So I use that for, this is a
• 55:31
  Speaker 7: craft podcast now. And my husband let me use the
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: end of his tie to make a tiny tie for Tucker.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Look, if you want to do a DIY Tucker Carlson
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: sock puppet, you're going to want to. take inspiration from Andy's. Yeah.
• 55:49
  Speaker 7: So anyway, everyone just has to imagine what it would
• 55:52
  Speaker 7: have been like to have him falling apart on the stand.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Had you thought through the voice part? Were you going
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: to do the voice?
• 56:00
  Speaker 7: No, no, no, no.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Is there someone who can do great replacement theory through
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: that sock puppet?
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: I think Olivia was practicing her Murdoch accent.
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, she was working on her accent. We had big plans, guys.
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: We have such great comedic Friends here at Crooked that
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: we're going to try, but.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Sadly, the settlement. Can we see the other two too?
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: So the next one I did was Rupert Murdoch. And
• 56:29
  Speaker 7: as I'm sure you can imagine, his greatest, you know,
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: physical attribute are the glasses. And the wrinkles. So I
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: made this little guy. I don't know if you can
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: see him. Quite right. But we used cotton for his
• 56:47
  Speaker 7: hair and we used a pipe cleaner to make his glasses.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: This is just an incredible amount of effort.
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Also.
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: When I'm not like deep into Politico, I'm doing this
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: with my kids.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Real self-starter vibes too. It's not even like we.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: No one asked me to do this.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: No one asked me to do it. You should just
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: send a picture to the Slack. I was like, look
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing.
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: I got the glue gun out.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I think this is your best one.
• 57:17
  Speaker 7: This is my masterpiece. Worked up to this one. This
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: is Maria Bartiromo. And initially I thought Maria's big quality,
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: you know, physical attribute that I needed to go with
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: was her hair. But as I looked at this picture longer,
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: I realized it's the smoky eye. She's got a great
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: smoky eye.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: So... This is Maria. Look at that sweater, too.
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: Yeah, this was an American Girl sweater that I just
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: took from, you know, an old box from back in
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: the day when my kids liked American Girl dolls. And, yeah,
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: we even used some fake eyelashes to get this one going.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: This is amazing. I mean, I do hope that the
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Smartmatic trial does not settle because we may still be
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: able to use these.
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Can I ask you a couple of questions? Did you
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: have prior to this an abiding interest in puppetry?
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: Well, I love, I love the Muppets. Um, yeah, I
• 58:21
  Speaker 7: mean the great Muppet caper is one of the best
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: movies of all time in my opinion. So I, I
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: do love puppets, but I had actually like really, I
• 58:30
  Speaker 7: like crafting and like my kids do a lot of crafting.
• 58:32
  Speaker 7: So like We had most of this stuff already on hand,
• 58:36
  Speaker 7: but I had never actually like sat down and made
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: a sock puppet.
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, so these are your first sock puppets.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: I mean, and they're not great.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, they are.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: Don't sell yourself short.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: They're not great.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Don't sell yourself short.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Can you swear to me under oath that you do
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: not have a John, John, and Tommy set of sock
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: puppets at home?
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: I know. I made it. I was saying the other day.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Why quote?
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: No, I do not.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I do not.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Do you have any sort of, like, John, John and
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Tommy Like a love it.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Is there a Mueller sock puppet from 2017? Oh, if only,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: if only, um, Andy, thank you for those sock puppets.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you to, thank you to sock puppet, Rupert Murdoch
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: sock puppet, Maria Barbaromo and sock puppet, Tucker Carlson for
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: joining us. Uh, thank you to Leah Littman from strict scrutiny.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Everyone have a fantastic weekend. Andy, enjoy the sock puppets.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: I will.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: And we'll see you all next week.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.