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Albo and the art of the soft-soap interview · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, March four, twenty twenty five. The White House
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  Speaker 1: seems determined to keep its spat with Ukraine, going with
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  Speaker 1: Secretary of State Marco Rubio accusing President Zelenski of Ukraine's flaming.
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  Speaker 1: That's after Donald Trump and JD. Vans said Zelenski was ungrateful.
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  Speaker 1: Both the Australian government and the opposition say they want
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  Speaker 1: to support a UK led coalition of the willing, but
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  Speaker 1: won't commit troops on the ground. Food producers and retailers,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: as well as charities that feed the needy, say the
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  Speaker 1: government has failed to address the cost of living crisis,
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  Speaker 1: soaring cost of energy and fuel. That's an exclusive live
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  Speaker 1: now at Vaustralian dot com dot au. Tis the season
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  Speaker 1: for politicians in Hawaiian shirts to sit down with their
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  Speaker 1: glowing partners to reveal the real me. And Anthony Albanesi
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  Speaker 1: has found a new ultrasympathetic outlet, the long form podcast Interview.
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  Speaker 1: But what are we learning about politicians in their new
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  Speaker 1: favorite medium? That's today's episode. We've all watched politicians for
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  Speaker 1: at least a decade try to be relatable on social media.
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  Speaker 2: All right, let's make a sandwich a back my popular demand.
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  Speaker 1: It's James Cocktail Hour and can I tell you after
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  Speaker 1: one week of campaigning, mommy need the cocktail.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, TikTok, thought i'd hop on here to let you
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  Speaker 3: know the big news we're announcing today.
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  Speaker 1: It's usually horrifying.
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  Speaker 4: Did you know Anthony Albanizi is on TikTok because I
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  Speaker 4: had no idea and it appears that not many other
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  Speaker 4: people did either.
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  Speaker 1: That's Kristin Amio, producer of the Front and The Australian's
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  Speaker 1: podcast critic.
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  Speaker 4: I really think i'd prefer him in a hard hat
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  Speaker 4: and hi viz somewhere.
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  Speaker 1: The advent of social media was meant to mean politicians
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  Speaker 1: didn't need boring old journalists with their tricky questions anymore.
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  Speaker 1: They could go direct to the people.
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  Speaker 3: Hi there, PM here, I'm back with your weekend reminder
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  Speaker 3: that the right to disconnect is now law.
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  Speaker 1: But now they've thought of a new way to avoid
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  Speaker 1: the tough questions. Podcasts. But not podcasts like the one
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  Speaker 1: you're listening to. Podcasts like this.
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  Speaker 2: Here's what I'm wearing for the most important interview of
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  Speaker 2: my life trousers. That's how serious is guys, I'm in trousers.
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  Speaker 1: That's reality TV star and radio host Abby Chatfield prepping
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  Speaker 1: for an interview with Anthony Albanezi.
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  Speaker 2: This actually is like consequential and I've got twelve pages
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  Speaker 2: of notes and I feel like that feeling the night
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  Speaker 2: before UNI Present.
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  Speaker 1: She's the host of podcast It's a Lot with Abby Chatfield.
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  Speaker 1: It covers everything from sex to feminism, a lot more
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  Speaker 1: sex and relationships. She's smart and funny and the show
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  Speaker 1: has been near the top of the Australian podcast charts
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  Speaker 1: since twenty nineteen.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to Its a Lot podcast. Prime Minister Anthony ALBANIZI.
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  Speaker 3: Great to be here Abby.
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  Speaker 1: Over the course of about ninety minutes, the PM got
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  Speaker 1: time to wheel out all his lines.
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  Speaker 3: The intervention that we've done has really looked after low
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  Speaker 3: and middle.
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  Speaker 1: Income earners the Middle East, the right.
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  Speaker 3: Of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and
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  Speaker 3: security with prosperity the voice. So we did that and
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  Speaker 3: it didn't work out. I accept that, and we accept
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  Speaker 3: the result. The other guy talked to everyone and in
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  Speaker 3: Peedi Dartin doesn't.
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  Speaker 1: And he just reeled off the talking points he did.
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  Speaker 4: When I initially pitched that story, I perhaps naively assumed
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  Speaker 4: that Anthony Albanezi would make some kind of announcement, would
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  Speaker 4: maybe elaborate on some of his policy agenda. We are
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  Speaker 4: pretty close to a federal election now it hasn't been
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  Speaker 4: called yet, but it is coming. But really all I
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  Speaker 4: got was everything that I've already heard in the press
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  Speaker 4: conferences that have happened really over the course of the
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  Speaker 4: last twelve months, if not longer.
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  Speaker 2: My strategy was to kind of give a problem, a
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  Speaker 2: criticism of the government, and then let him answer and reply.
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  Speaker 2: This wasn't because I didn't want to debate him. It
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  Speaker 2: wasn't because I didn't want to prove him wrong. It
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  Speaker 2: was just a timing thing.
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  Speaker 4: But I really that's not to say she gave a
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  Speaker 4: bad interview, but it's an opportunity, I think for us
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  Speaker 4: to step back and understand what the objective is of
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  Speaker 4: these podcast interviews and what we as voters and as
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  Speaker 4: listeners want out of them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the last thing a lot of politicians
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  Speaker 1: want to do is sit down with a newspaper journalist
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  Speaker 1: who's going to dig through their policies one by one
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  Speaker 1: looking for a splash a news story that the politicians
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  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily want to be out there. That's what we're
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  Speaker 1: always looking for. So politicians for years now, forty years,
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  Speaker 1: fifty years have been going on kind of light entertainment
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  Speaker 1: programs in an effort to make themselves seem more relatable.
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  Speaker 1: Peter Costello dancing on Kerry An Keneley's midday show. John
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  Speaker 1: Howson blowing himself up on a current affair. If I
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  Speaker 1: buy a birthday cake from a cake shop and GSP
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  Speaker 1: is in place, do I pay more or less for
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  Speaker 1: the birthday cake?
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  Speaker 5: Well, it will depend where The cakes today in that
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  Speaker 5: shop are subject to sales tax, so they're.
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  Speaker 1: Not, which I must say is not like entertainment. It
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  Speaker 1: was one of the greatest news interviews in Australian television history.
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  Speaker 1: But even when they go on shows like Today or Sunrise,
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  Speaker 1: they get a hard time. This is under your watch.
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  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I know what it's like to do it, tough net.
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  Speaker 1: It seems like the appeal of going on a ninety
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  Speaker 1: minute podcast is just that it's a nice, cozy, warm
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  Speaker 1: blanket and they don't really get challenged.
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  Speaker 4: I think that's absolutely right. I was looking through the
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  Speaker 4: kind of slate of other podcast interviews that Anthony Albanezi
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  Speaker 4: and to a lesser extent, Peter Dutton have done this year,
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  Speaker 4: and strangely enough, cricket is widely represented in this list.
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  Speaker 1: We literally have the Prime Minister of the country. Just interrupt.
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  Speaker 2: Anthony, We're just talking cricket in there, Prime Minister.
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  Speaker 4: The b Tudor advert, a satire publication, is represented.
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  Speaker 3: My mum raged three great plays, Catholic Church, South Sydney
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  Speaker 3: Regular Football Club and the Australian Labor Party.
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  Speaker 4: Now, as James Madden, who is The Australian's Media editor
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  Speaker 4: noted in the Media Diary, this was an absolute zinger
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  Speaker 4: when it was first dropped by Anthony Albanesi around about
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  Speaker 4: twenty fourteen, I think. But he has said it quite
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  Speaker 4: literally hundreds of times in media interviews since then, and
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  Speaker 4: it's lost a little bit of the luster that I
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  Speaker 4: think Albo thinks it carries. We've got some women's networks,
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  Speaker 4: and then there are what I would call smaller independent
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  Speaker 4: news and current affairs shows for both Anthony Albanesi and
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  Speaker 4: Peter Dutton.
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  Speaker 1: Hi, my boris and this is straight talk. Peter Dutton
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  Speaker 1: was straight talk Mike. Great to be with you, Thank you,
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  Speaker 1: min Yeah, So let's talk about Peter Dutton. He gave
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  Speaker 1: a ninety minute interview in December to a former Olympic diver,
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  Speaker 1: Sam Fricka, who's got a massive YouTube audience. He's got
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  Speaker 1: about six million subscribers. And again, it was not a
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  Speaker 1: particularly challenging interview, was it.
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  Speaker 4: No, it was a long interview and it was, as
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  Speaker 4: far as I can tell, an attempt to kind of
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  Speaker 4: counter this emerging hard man persona that has come about
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  Speaker 4: around Peter Dutton, whether or not that's been fostered by
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  Speaker 4: him and by his team, or if it's something that's
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  Speaker 4: happened due to the circumstances. But it did seem that
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  Speaker 4: the audience that did watch this interview on YouTube wasn't
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  Speaker 4: necessarily buying it.
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  Speaker 6: So my apologies for being so tarti in our arrival time.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, thank you for coming in.
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  Speaker 1: And as other campaigns are like just moving around the
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  Speaker 1: country talking to people, what's a Dane your life look
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  Speaker 1: like at the moment, Well.
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  Speaker 6: It is pretty much like that.
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  Speaker 1: So the election proper, Yeah, which is interesting, isn't it,
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  Speaker 1: because presumably you don't follow Sam Fricka to get politics,
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  Speaker 1: and you don't follow Sam Fricka to get just unfiltered politics,
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  Speaker 1: where it's just the endless repetition of talking points or
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  Speaker 1: worked up media lines. I wonder if that's the audience's
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  Speaker 1: irritation with it, that politics is actually quite boring.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I wasn't actually familiar with Sanfrica until Peter Dutton
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  Speaker 4: appeared on his podcast. His life after Diving seems to
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  Speaker 4: actually be quite diverse in terms of the paths that
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  Speaker 4: he has pursued. He does have a podcast which is
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  Speaker 4: called Diving Deep. He seems to interview people from all
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  Speaker 4: walks of life, but it's not in any way, shape
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  Speaker 4: or form specifically a politics podcast, nor is it a
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  Speaker 4: politics podcast that would really attempt to peel back those
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  Speaker 4: layers of those talking points and actually understand the policy
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  Speaker 4: that's at the heart of that agenda.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up where you've heard this all before.
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  Speaker 5: Do me a favor. Do you know Elon musk Yez
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  Speaker 5: he endorsed me by the way he gave me the
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  Speaker 5: nicest endorsement too, the tougher he said, the country's going
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  Speaker 5: to have failed. You should do the same thing, Joe,
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  Speaker 5: because you cannot be voting for Kamala.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan is one of the biggest podcasters in the world.
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  Speaker 1: His show That Joe Rogan Experience regularly clocks up millions
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  Speaker 1: of downloads per episode. In November, Rogan got Donald J. Trump,
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  Speaker 1: there's a.
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  Speaker 5: Lot of interest in it.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things that's a lot.
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  Speaker 5: Of interest in the people coming from space. You know, yes,
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  Speaker 5: and I know you're interested.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm very interested in that.
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  Speaker 2: How much do they tell you about that a lot?
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  Speaker 1: Trump's presidential opponent, Kamala Harris, appeared on another Mammoth podcast,
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  Speaker 1: call Her Daddy, hosted by Alex Cooper.
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  Speaker 2: I saw the Governor of Arkansas said, unfortunately, Kamala Harris
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  Speaker 2: doesn't have anything keeping her humble. How did that make
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  Speaker 2: you feel?
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  Speaker 6: I don't think she understands that there are a whole
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  Speaker 6: lot of women out here who are not aspiring to
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  Speaker 6: be humble, a lot of women out here who have.
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  Speaker 1: Harris was talking to young women. Trump was talking to
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  Speaker 1: young men. It was a friendly environment for Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 1: wasn't it.
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  Speaker 4: It was probably also a pretty easy numbers play based
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  Speaker 4: on the fact that this is one of the biggest
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  Speaker 4: podcasts in the world. But it felt different in my opinion,
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  Speaker 4: in the sense that Joe Rogan is so ideologically aligned
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  Speaker 4: with his audience being predominantly young men, and we saw
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  Speaker 4: that reflected in the vote in America in November. Whether
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  Speaker 4: or not there's a causal link there, I don't think
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  Speaker 4: it would be fair to say that Joe Rogan's millions
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  Speaker 4: of listeners heard that interview and automatically switched to vote
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  Speaker 4: to Donald Trump or were compelled to vote at all
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  Speaker 4: because of it. But there is a difference there in
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  Speaker 4: that Joe Rogan is so ideologically aligned with his audience
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  Speaker 4: in a way that some of the Australian podcasts being
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  Speaker 4: engaged by Australian politicians don't necessarily seem to be. That
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  Speaker 4: feels more like a surface level demographic play.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the risk for those interviews is that, in
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  Speaker 1: a very comfortable environment where you're not really being challenged,
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  Speaker 1: you reveal yourself to be not as likable as you
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  Speaker 1: think you are. Kamala Harris, appearing on Call Her Daddy,
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  Speaker 1: the Big American Podcast, relaxed enough to let herself talk
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  Speaker 1: quite freely about Donald Trump as a human being and
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  Speaker 1: said some things that maybe didn't win her any new
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  Speaker 1: voters and could potentially have turned some people off. That's
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  Speaker 1: the risk, isn't it.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely. It's presented to the audience as this opportunity to
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  Speaker 4: get to know the real you. And if there's nothing
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  Speaker 4: there for them to get to know, then why would
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  Speaker 4: you go and cast a ballot for this person who
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  Speaker 4: said that they can be the one to change your life,
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  Speaker 4: will make your life better.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Kristin Amiott is producer of the Front. You can read
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: all our coverage of the looming federal election anytime at
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au