Transcript/894: Chatting With Brian Stelter

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Red Alert!

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N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-knowledge fight!

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Dan and Jordan, I am sweating!

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Knowledgefight.com, it's time to pray!

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I have great respect for knowledgefight!

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Knowledgefight!

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I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, saying we are the bad guys!

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Knowledgefight!

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Dan and Jordan, Knowledgefight!

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Need, need money!

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Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy, stop it!

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Andy and, Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy, it's time to pray!

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Andy and Kansas, you're on the air, thanks for holding!

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Hello Alex, I'm a first-time caller, I'm a huge fan, I love your work!

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Knowledgefight!

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Knowledgefight.com

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I love you.

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Hello everyone, welcome back to Knowledgefight!

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Today it's just me without my co-host Dan.

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However, I am joined by the man himself, Brian Stelter!

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Wow.

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Yeah, I mean, that's the only way I can say it on mic now.

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Brian, thank you so much for joining me today, how are you?

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I'm okay, I'm a little nervous, but I respect what y'all do, so bring it on.

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A little nervous, that is, it is funny for me to hear somebody who was on TV for a decade

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being nervous about talking to a clown with a radio show that can only be found on internet.

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Well, to be fair, I did have you on TV once, I believe.

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Didn't we do a little TV together?

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We did, this is the first time I'm actually seeing your face live.

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To give a little behind the scenes to people, we were taken to a very small room

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in downtown Chicago and we looked at a camera hole, and that was our whole experience.

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So it's fascinating, your face is real.

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TV is weird, TV is weird in a lot of different ways for a lot of different reasons,

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but y'all have exposed and revealed Alex Jones in a way nobody else has.

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I think I've learned a lot from listening to your podcast.

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For example, the episode where y'all broke down the,

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I don't know why I'm saying y'all so much, what's wrong with me today?

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It's part of the game, this is a great place to say it.

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You can also say fuck too, I don't know if those two are the same.

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I think it'll probably come up.

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The episode where you all took apart Tucker Carlson's interview,

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it wasn't an interview, Tucker Carlson's, you know, spawning.

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Yeah, what do you describe with Alex Jones?

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I couldn't bear to listen to the actual conversation between the two of them,

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but I was able to experience it through you all, so thank you.

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It is one of the only ways that I can stomach it.

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I couldn't possibly, you know, the greatest of gifts that Dan perhaps has is his ability to endure

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torture beyond what anyone I think I've ever experienced.

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So yeah, that's the first thing that we want to talk about, I suppose, is that

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in Infowars world, you are a demon, you have all kinds of crimes under your belt,

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raging from the sex criminal type to, I believe you've eaten a baby in the past,

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something along those lines.

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Yeah, I don't even know. I can't even keep up with all the things he's accused me of.

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What's your favorite thing that you've not done?

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Okay, so I'm going to have to admit, I don't follow Alex Jones's rants about me that closely.

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So I hate to disappoint the listeners.

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I rely on you, you know, to tell me what he has said.

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There was one though, the very famous one, the one where he accuses me of drinking children's

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blood and running the banks, which you all have dined out on in the past,

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which Tucker Carlson recently celebrated on his web show.

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I will tell you, that was actually the one night during the Trump administration

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that my wife was worried about my line of work and was fearful about our livelihood and our life.

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We were living in the city, we were about to have our first child,

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and she watches this insane, unhinged rant with my smiley face plastered up on the screen.

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And I found it rather amusing. I was trying to laugh about it, and she was freaked out.

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And rightfully, and I totally understand why. Because little Pepe the Frog logos started

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getting sent to us in the mail. And the interesting thing about that is there was no message attached.

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There was no threat or anything. It was just their way of saying,

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we know where you live. Which I find to be a really interesting tactic.

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So all the other stuff that happened, the bomb at CNN, the death threats,

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the time that Trump tweeted about me, none of that really spooked my family.

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But it was Alex Jones and the drink children's blood. I can't top that one as an example.

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Right. Genuine fight or flight response tends to come out.

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Totally. And what do you do? Well, that's my question to you.

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They don't fucking talk to us at all. No one recognizes. I want to be threatened.

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No one has threatened my life once. It's terrifying. So what is it like?

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You don't want this. You don't want to be called his enemy.

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Here's nine times out of 10. I think this is just online chaos.

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Most of the time, almost all of the time, it is just this

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reality distortion field that only exists on people's computers and screens.

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But then every so often as Oliver Darcy experience, something else that you all have covered,

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Alex Jones will show up in person and confront you on camera in your face.

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And so every so often the real world breaks through. It's like the internet world breaks

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through into the real world. And you never know when it's going to happen or if it's going to

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happen. It's part of the problem. Yeah. It is. It is kind of fascinating because there is so

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much of that online harassment. That's a joke. You know, it's, it's nothing. And you shouldn't worry

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about it. And the more time you focus on it, the more it's going to drive you insane. And it's

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nothing until it is that one time. And you didn't see it coming and you don't know who it is.

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And, you know, and I'm not worried all the time. Right. And I'm not blaming Alex Jones for this,

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but you know, I went to the flower shop one day in a town near me and this guy starts growling at

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me. Hey, fuck CNN. This was back when I started seeing a fuck CNN. And I couldn't tell if he

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worked there or if he was a customer. So I decided to leave. I just took myself out of the situation

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and, you know, let me say knock on wood, that that's very rare. This stuff doesn't happen every

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day or every month or not. No, not at all, but every, every once in a while, you know,

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and I do think there are, there are women in this media industry who will tell you it's much uglier

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for them. They're, you know, I'm, I, I let me check my privilege as we talk about this,

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you know, that the Alex Jones stuff doesn't affect me very often and is not in my face very often.

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But yeah, every once in a while. And then of course he called up recently and we can talk

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about that. Well, yeah, I was at, we're going to get to that in a, in a second.

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But can I, can I say a bigger picture though? What was he doing in that rant? Seven years ago,

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he was saying, you're my enemy, right? You're my enemy. I see you. I can't, I'm not going to

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fake it much, but there it is. There's something really like deep and there's a deep despair to

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that, right? Of he is a character who has to create other characters in order to mock, destroy,

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ridicule, whatever he does to them. Right. But I think what I learned in the Trump years as an

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anchor at CNN was that Brian, they're not talking about you. They're talking about a cartoon

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character villain they've created with your name and your face. Like, and, and I don't just mean

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that about Alex and made about, but Tara Carlson, Sean Hannity, you know, the, you know, these guys

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will come up with nicknames and fat jokes and stuff and ridicule. And I had to kind of accept

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that layer of removal from it because there was one night and I don't mean to like sound like the

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victim here or whatever, but you know, we're talking about this weird life of being in the

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public square and having these people send Nazi signals to your house. That's victimizing. I feel

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like it was say I'm a victim of being Nazi attacked. It was weird. Yeah. There was a

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night I was flying to LA. I was on a late night flight and it was coast to coast flight and I

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wanted to get to use the bathroom and I'm walking up to the bathroom and I see on Fox news, all the

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people, you know, in the rows in front of me are watching Fox and there's a segment bashing me as

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I'm walking up the aisle. And it was, I think it was Tucker's show. I'm pretty sure. But it might

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have been Sean's cause that night Tucker, Sean and Laura all did segments where they ridiculed

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or attacked or whatever. I can't remember what I did wrong that day or what I did right that day.

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But three hours in a row, Brian Stelter was one of the villains. And I remember like being nervous

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about walking back from the bathroom, right? Like I hope none of these passengers recognize me,

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right? This is the internet. This is fucking TV. And some of them are probably Democrats who were

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just hate watching Fox and that's cool. But you know, it was, and I, and I actually,

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that was like one of the, so I mentioned the one night that it bothered my wife.

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This plane ride was the one night that it ever really got to me. And I, I mentioned it to my

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boss, Jeff Zucker. I mentioned it in an email. We were emailing about something else. And I said

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like, this actually kind of sucks that this is weird. I don't like this feeling. And he said,

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this is not hard, Brian. What's really hard is cancer. And I mean, I'm paraphrasing,

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but I appreciated, I appreciated the reality. No, I needed the, I needed the reality check.

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I needed to remember that it was just, it was, it was TV. Well, you can agree or disagree. I liked

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it as like a, as a, as a gut check. Sure, sure. But it's definitely an out of body experience

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when you're on a plane everywhere around you, the people are watching this like trash, these lies

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about you. It is a, it is a out of body experience for sure. I, what I find fascinating so much about

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that is that your story just now being in the clothing store is identical to an Alex lie.

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You know, Alex tells that type of story all the time. I was walking down the street and then there

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was this person and I tell you liberals, they're just demons. They just go, they just look at me

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in the eyes and go, you know, and you, you're, you're literally walking into a store and someone

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growls at you. Yeah. And the difference for me is that's like the only time it's ever happened,

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right? You know, I can count on my fingers. That's why it's interesting. Like most of the time,

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if I get recognized by a, a big MAGA person, we have a funny conversation. Like it's usually,

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it's usually like amusing, not scary. Right. But for Alex Jones, it has to all be demonic.

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It has to all be. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it is because, you know, when we describe it as,

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uh, you know, the internet or, or their world catching up to us or breaking into the real world,

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I think that is an example of you getting sucked into a fantasy world. Like you have suddenly

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walked into a LARP that you had no idea even existed. And I find that so fascinating is that

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I had to realize early, like, again, it was, this is in the Trump years and this was my education

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about this. And now it, you know, now we're kind of still in the Trump years. Um, that like, let

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me take the afternoon. Yeah. The afternoon that the Trump like randomly tweeted about me and I

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didn't hear from a single friend of mine. I didn't have a single family member call me. I'm not that

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much of a, like I have friends. Like I'm not, I am a social person. It's just that nobody in my

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world, like in my reality, cared what Donald Trump was tweeting, right? Like it was so removed from

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their daily existence. Why would they care that the president's calling this reporter a laptop

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dog? You know? Um, and, and then, so you go on Twitter and you look at the replies and there's

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thousands of trolls, you know, or, or whatever they are just eating it up and having fun and

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going, going hog wild. But out in my, in my sphere, it was like it never happened. And it's,

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I'm really grateful for that perspective to have that perspective. Yeah. Uh, cause I think

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otherwise it would probably get to me more than it does. Yeah. That's, that's fascinating. I wonder

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you could make the case though. You can make the case, Jordan, that I don't take it seriously

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enough. Sure. Well, I mean, all right. So imagine, imagine you're, uh, let's call it a straight white

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guy in 1770, uh, 1792 or so, right? Thomas Jefferson's talking shit about you as you're

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a newspaper writer. Can you imagine? So you're in the media, right? And the, the president of the

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United States is talking shit about you. But really one thing we don't think about is that

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nobody had any fucking clue. It was only like 30 guys who were allowed to even participate in

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reading about this shit, you know? So it's an interesting, it's an interesting kind of

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reflection of that in the present tense, except everybody halfway knows about it. It's very

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strange. Yes. And it's, so it becomes like a background music, um, to one's existence. Um,

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in a way that's like, I find unsettling. I also, sometimes you realize what's the, what's the saying

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about, um, now I'm blanking on so embarrassing on a podcast. Like, Oh, I'm taking up space in

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your head. Like living, living first time for everything. Uh, no living rent free, living rent

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free in one's head. That's so I get the sense. I might be wrong about this, that Alex, for example,

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might care more about me than I care about him. Right. So not only do we, we come at it from

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different angles, I come at this as a reporter interested in him as a story, a subject, a

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character, a danger. Um, he comes toward me as, um, using me as a villain, thinking that I'm part

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of this evil global conspiracy. Oh, we should talk about Davos. I think he came after me when

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I went to Davos last year too. Um, and, and I get all the facts wrong, of course. So not only did

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we come up from different angles, but I also like, I'm not as interested in him. And then the night

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that he drunk dials me and, and, and, you know, I guess prank calls me and then goes on Tucker's

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show and talks about it and it becomes like, yeah, they like used it to promote their shop.

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Like they use it like to promote his comeback as if like, wow, like Brian's up. And I'm like, who,

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I didn't even bother, you know, it, it's just interesting the difference between like, yeah,

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that I guess, I guess in my head, he's just a supporting actor. Right. And in his head,

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I'm like one of his stars. Oh, right. That's interesting because I also think that you have

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the same perspective in a sense, because Alex Jones isn't real to you, you know, uh, right.

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Alex Jones is, is a character in the same way that you're not real to Alex. You're a character.

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Um, and I kind of find that to be a strange place. And one, I want you to kind of see if there's a

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different experience for, because we're not characters. Uh, we're, we're completely separate.

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You know, we're, we're in the, we're in the crowd. We're henchmen, essentially, you know,

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there's no respect. There's no character building between the two of us, but that's probably cause

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he's scared of you. Like he's, I, if I were him, I would never want to mention knowledge fight

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because it actually undermines what I do. Sure. Takes apart. It takes apart the entire business

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and brand. I, I, I think that's, I think that would be how it would go for like a normal human

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being and stuff. I think it genuinely, I think we just make him feel bad. I feel like he can't like,

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he can't find a way to make himself, uh, feel good about what he does if he listens to our show.

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So he doesn't tell people about it. Like for, for you, whenever he gets pushback from you and

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when Stelter says Alex Jones did an evil thing, you know, he can be like, yes, the establishment

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media is coming out. Right. Right. CNN knows what we're up to. They're trying to take us down person.

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Right. Two asshole comedians from Chicago have weirdly spent the past seven years studying me.

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That sounds like I'm a creep. You know, I don't want to feel like that. I totally get why he

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doesn't talk about us. We're stalkers. Why would you talk about your stalker makes perfect sense.

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I don't think you're stalkers, but I hear your, I take your point, but you're a hundred percent

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right. And this is something that, you know, this was true about Trump also. And what I think this

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was a no win and is a no win situation for mainstream media fact checking Trump only fact

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checking Trump does many things. It's important to fact check Trump. It's not an option not to

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factor Trump, but those fact checks are sometimes fuel for him to say to his voters that the media

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doesn't like you, which is false, but you know, that's the story he can tell. And the same thing

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with Alex Jones, the coverage from CNN. And this is where being a media reporter gets all sorts of

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wacky and, and, and, you know, convoluted because it's, you are hoping you're trying and you hope

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you're shining a light and exposing how the world works or doesn't work. But in so doing you might

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be raising the rate, raising more awareness of these individuals. Right. And so this,

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that kind of paradox, or if that's what you want to call it, let's call it that has kind of been

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around. I mean, the thing about it is that it's less a paradox and more a Gordian not so much as

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like, Oh, well the mainstream media can't exist in the form. It does like, it just has to go

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and be right there. There is no, yeah, right. Yeah. There's no way to have a

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billionaire own the Washington post and then have just by virtue of a billionaire owning it,

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it doesn't even matter if he touches it. What matters is that he owns it, you know,

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and that can never be undone. I don't know. What's the, what's the insinuation? Well,

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the implication is that no matter what happens, it's just a business. So

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the business is what will be sold or dismantled. It doesn't matter how good the work you do is,

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which is fantastic. Tons of people are fantastic. And I don't think that they are in there making

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editorial decisions for people. That's not the case at all. It's simply that if you can destroy

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something, then there will always be the inherent fear of being destroyed by that person. And that

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is just something that you carry with you, whether you can acknowledge it or not, because it is

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always there. How many people have been laid off in media in the past 30 days? You know,

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right. It's never ended. There's always going to be that threat. And the more everybody in the

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media hears about that threat, the more it's going to be a, you know, oh, we're going to keep my job

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somehow. It's just part of the game, which is how we get to Fox news and network of lies, which

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for the people who could see this on the video, you have the cover directly behind you. It's a

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very delightful cover. Yeah, there we go. There's another one. And in it, you start with, I suppose,

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was it the triple C's? The three forms of accountability, which are civil, criminal,

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and then canceling, I believe was the third one, right? And Tucker Carlson was literally canceled.

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It was not cancel culture, right? It was cancel the show, but yes. Right. So I want to talk about

Unknown Speaker (00:20:40.160)

how effective those are in your estimation of, of the Fox news kind of verdict. Like

Unknown Speaker (00:20:48.960)

is anything, has anyone really been held accountable? Is anything going to change

Unknown Speaker (00:20:53.759)

at the network in, in real focus? Right. Well, I mean, Fox news is not going to magically turn

Unknown Speaker (00:21:02.799)

into a mainstream news network. No, that's not going to happen. Fox is always going to be more

Unknown Speaker (00:21:11.519)

anti-Democrat than it is anything else. I view it as even more than a right wing or pro Republican

Unknown Speaker (00:21:18.559)

channel. It's an anti-Democrat machine. It exists to try to defeat the left, whatever it thinks the

Unknown Speaker (00:21:23.920)

left is. And that's not going to change as well as resolve these lawsuits, but around the edges,

Unknown Speaker (00:21:28.559)

yes, they have had to make changes. And, and the amount of money they had to pay dominion is

Unknown Speaker (00:21:35.519)

extraordinary. Even for a publicly traded big company like Fox corporation. Sure. They're in

Unknown Speaker (00:21:40.640)

about a billion dollars. They're almost up there. They are approaching a billion dollars total in

Unknown Speaker (00:21:45.119)

settlements as a result of Trump's election lies and smart Matic is still suing their shareholder

Unknown Speaker (00:21:51.519)

lawsuits. So the, the toll, the financial toll is enough to be actual accountability.

Unknown Speaker (00:21:57.920)

Like it actually is a form of accountability, but whether that causes changes, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:22:05.119)

I think that's kind of the question, isn't it? What is accountability if it doesn't cause change?

Unknown Speaker (00:22:10.400)

I mean, let's, let's fast forward to November of 2024. Donald Trump has lost.

Unknown Speaker (00:22:18.079)

I was like, wait, where are we in the book? Okay. He has lost, let's say he's lost again to Biden.

Unknown Speaker (00:22:24.400)

Yeah. Let's say it was, it was close but clear that he lost and he starts lying about it again.

Unknown Speaker (00:22:31.200)

Let's say that he encourages his supporters to to protest to have a, to have a wild event. The way

Unknown Speaker (00:22:38.880)

he said with January six would be what does Fox do in that scenario? And I think the answer to

Unknown Speaker (00:22:44.000)

that hypothetical is Fox does not defame specific voting companies. Like if you, if you go on the,

Unknown Speaker (00:22:51.519)

if you're booked on Fox in November of 2024, when Donald Trump, if Donald Trump loses again,

Unknown Speaker (00:22:56.160)

if you start saying dominion did it, like you're going to be cut off, like you're going to be,

Unknown Speaker (00:22:59.839)

you're not going to be booked again. So, right. So in that very narrow sense,

Unknown Speaker (00:23:03.680)

something will have changed. There will be specific companies that you're not allowed to

Unknown Speaker (00:23:08.400)

defame on Fox in 2024. It might not be very satisfying to your listeners. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (00:23:17.039)

Now I do think around the edges also there, there might be a little more news and maybe a little bit

Unknown Speaker (00:23:25.359)

less propaganda because there's going to be this increased attention on how does Fox play it? How

Unknown Speaker (00:23:32.400)

does Fox handle it? Right. And so in the scenario I just described, if Trump loses again, Fox will

Unknown Speaker (00:23:36.880)

be torn once again, between Trump and the truth, same problem they had in 2020, same problem they

Unknown Speaker (00:23:42.240)

had basically every day, Trump or the truth, Trump or the truth. And they, they try to side with Trump,

Unknown Speaker (00:23:47.279)

but it gets them into financial and legal trouble and costs them a lot of money. So,

Unknown Speaker (00:23:51.200)

you know, we're going to see a version of this play out again this year, I guess is the answer.

Unknown Speaker (00:23:55.599)

Right. I suppose, I suppose the interesting question there is you know, based upon the,

Unknown Speaker (00:24:02.240)

the book going through all of the internal communications and all of that stuff that you've

Unknown Speaker (00:24:07.039)

put together, I I'm wondering functionally what the difference between Fox news as it stands and

Unknown Speaker (00:24:16.400)

like, you know, fucking Himmler, like what is the difference there in terms of being a functional

Unknown Speaker (00:24:21.759)

mouthpiece for fascism? Um, so I'm not, uh, I'm not there on the F word yet. Uh, tell me, tell me

Unknown Speaker (00:24:32.000)

why I should be there. Tell me, tell me, tell me where I should be. Well, if you are part of the

Unknown Speaker (00:24:39.200)

laundering chain and that doesn't mean, you know, like first off we've got Tucker on there. Uh,

Unknown Speaker (00:24:45.599)

so Tucker is gone definitively, but my question is if Trump wins election, how fast does trucker

Unknown Speaker (00:24:54.319)

Tucker come back to Fox news? Um, that I don't see. No, that I don't. Yeah. Well, that's,

Unknown Speaker (00:25:02.000)

that's the fascism question. That's where we are running into that. That's it kind of, uh,

Unknown Speaker (00:25:08.640)

interesting discussion there. So if Tucker is literally saying that immigrants are

Unknown Speaker (00:25:15.680)

bugs, how is that not in the fascism conversation? Once you dehumanize immigrants and entire

Unknown Speaker (00:25:24.079)

population, that's fascism conversation, right? At the very least.

Unknown Speaker (00:25:30.400)

Well, and certainly Trump has engaged in that for years. Sure. You know, it's disturbing to me how,

Unknown Speaker (00:25:38.400)

how nor he got up there before the Iowa caucus and said, this chance, you and Iowa, it's the

Unknown Speaker (00:25:44.160)

ultimate chance for you to, to declare victory over the perverts and the Democrat. Like he,

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he starts naming all these groups that he considers not real Americans. And it was a

Unknown Speaker (00:25:54.640)

very explicit, you know, dehumanization call and everyone was like, yeah, it's Saturday.

Unknown Speaker (00:25:59.119)

And I'm thinking, no, this is not just Saturday. This is a big deal still. And I feel for the folks

Unknown Speaker (00:26:04.880)

that I'm sure many of your listeners feel this way, where like you, you, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:26:09.519)

you want, you want the media collectively to somehow take Trump more seriously, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:26:15.359)

something along those lines. And, and, and yet, you know, we're, it's, we're,

Unknown Speaker (00:26:20.799)

we're in an environment where individual journalists will, will impress, but institutions

Unknown Speaker (00:26:25.759)

will disappoint. The collectives will disappoint. Right. And that's for all sorts of reasons. And

Unknown Speaker (00:26:31.680)

many of them are boring, but, and mundane. I would say, I would say the most dangerous

Unknown Speaker (00:26:36.079)

ones are the boring and mundane ones where it's like, there's no, there's no heroic way to solve

Unknown Speaker (00:26:40.799)

this, that you need 300 bureaucrats who all decide like, we're going to do this the right way. I

Unknown Speaker (00:26:45.759)

guess this time, you know, it's a lot harder than somebody coming in like Trump with a sword saying,

Unknown Speaker (00:26:51.920)

I have fixed the mainstream media. Right. The, the thing I think about Fox

Unknown Speaker (00:27:00.000)

as it relates to all this, is it Lachlan Murdoch, his father, his, his father Rupert, the shareholders,

Unknown Speaker (00:27:06.400)

what they care about most is the, is the profit and the bottom line of Fox and keeping

Unknown Speaker (00:27:10.559)

Fox as a, you know, strong business going forward. So to the extent that they can align with Trump,

Unknown Speaker (00:27:16.880)

but not be accused of defamation, not be found liable, not be accused of, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:27:24.079)

helping set a riot. Like they, they want to be, they want their hands clean while profiting from

Unknown Speaker (00:27:29.839)

Trump and Trumpism. Right. And that's a difficult, that's a difficult thing, but fire Tara Carlson,

Unknown Speaker (00:27:35.119)

I think was even say impossible, possibly something that they would have to lie a great

Unknown Speaker (00:27:42.079)

deal about in order to pretend to pull off. I think, you know, you're onto something,

Unknown Speaker (00:27:49.119)

but Tara Carlson's firing was Lachlan Murdoch's way of trying to make his network seem a little

Unknown Speaker (00:27:55.839)

more center, right. As opposed to, as opposed to far, right. Now we can, we can dismantle all of

Unknown Speaker (00:28:01.359)

that and we can say it's all bullshit, but in his head, at least, and in his boards, in the minds of

Unknown Speaker (00:28:06.319)

his board members, they were taking Fox, which, which was with Tucker, even further out toward

Unknown Speaker (00:28:12.079)

that Alex Jones conspiracy world and dragging it a little bit back closer to a shared reality.

Unknown Speaker (00:28:17.839)

Sure. And, you know, that's not nothing, even though it's far from what?

Unknown Speaker (00:28:24.000)

No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not saying that it's not nothing. That's, that's absolutely not my point.

Unknown Speaker (00:28:29.839)

My, my point is that they are doing this as a Tucker right now. Right. We are civilly on the

Unknown Speaker (00:28:38.799)

hook for billions of dollars. So we get rid of Tucker. We pull it back to kind of create more

Unknown Speaker (00:28:45.839)

of a shared reality. The idea being because there's a greater amount of scrutiny. Right.

Unknown Speaker (00:28:52.960)

What happens when that scrutiny stops for a sec? You know, like when is, if Tucker is back,

Unknown Speaker (00:28:57.839)

but did they change anything or were they just waiting it out? And if they're why I don't,

Unknown Speaker (00:29:03.200)

what are we doing? I don't see any world where he comes back. You don't seem to believe you

Unknown Speaker (00:29:08.319)

think he's coming back. I don't see that world. I, I I think they've shown once again, they don't

Unknown Speaker (00:29:14.000)

need any individual star that they're just as well off with Jesse waters at 8 PM and they don't need

Unknown Speaker (00:29:19.680)

Tucker and they, and they wouldn't have him return, but I guess crazier things have happened.

Unknown Speaker (00:29:23.680)

Well, I mean, that's kind of, that's kind of the, the situation. Well, one with Tucker Lord knows

Unknown Speaker (00:29:30.880)

the man's been killed in the media. What five times now you can't, you can't get rid of him.

Unknown Speaker (00:29:37.359)

He just keeps coming back. He just keeps coming back. That's problem number one.

Unknown Speaker (00:29:43.599)

But I mean, problem number two is just a little bit of if Trump is reelected as,

Unknown Speaker (00:29:50.079)

as you've described, you know, the business sense in one way is pull it back from the center,

Unknown Speaker (00:29:56.799)

so the center, right. And if Trump is reelected, is the business go farther, right.

Unknown Speaker (00:30:02.720)

And if the businesses go farther, right. Why not?

Unknown Speaker (00:30:07.920)

Yeah, that's, it just makes me want to ask the question, what is farther, right.

Unknown Speaker (00:30:13.200)

In that scenario, you know, that's, I think that's a good question too. I think that is a

Unknown Speaker (00:30:18.079)

really good question. What is pulling it back to the center? Right. What exactly are we discussing

Unknown Speaker (00:30:23.920)

in terms of what people are saying? Is it a matter of degree of language or is it a matter of

Unknown Speaker (00:30:30.960)

substance? Right. And so much of this is the, so much of what's broken, you know, relates to the

Unknown Speaker (00:30:37.039)

Republican party that acts more like a media operation than a law making operation, right.

Unknown Speaker (00:30:42.640)

Than a, than a legislative operation. You know, we hear so little other than, other than around

Unknown Speaker (00:30:48.480)

immigration with Trump, trying to torpedo this border deal. So we hear, we hear so little about

Unknown Speaker (00:30:53.920)

policy out of, out of the, the the far right, but really from, from the right it's, it's become so

Unknown Speaker (00:30:59.839)

much more of a television production arm, right. And so that's, that's part of what's, what's

Unknown Speaker (00:31:05.359)

makes it hard to, to, to hash this out and forecast what it would be. I think there is a, there is a world in which

Unknown Speaker (00:31:12.880)

like, so to me, if you look at Fox corporation, Laughlin, Murdoch, Rupert, Paul Ryan, who's on the

Unknown Speaker (00:31:17.839)

board, the other board members, these are still, maybe not Laughlin, but these are still mostly

Unknown Speaker (00:31:22.720)

country club Republicans, which are still mostly tax cut Republicans. And, you know, they make all

Unknown Speaker (00:31:27.839)

sorts of compromises, you know, to try to appeal to, to a more populist crowd, to try to appeal to

Unknown Speaker (00:31:33.119)

an anti-immigration crowd. But, you know, this is, that's, that's who, who is at on top of Fox.

Unknown Speaker (00:31:40.319)

And I think that's important and relevant when we talk about what's, what, how would they,

Unknown Speaker (00:31:44.319)

how would they approach and how would they handle Trump? I guess I hadn't thought a lot about what

Unknown Speaker (00:31:49.759)

a second term of Trump means for Fox news yet. Oh yeah. I mean, but that's because it's very hard

Unknown Speaker (00:31:55.839)

for me to see him being reelected, to be honest. Really? That's bananas. That is truly bananas.

Unknown Speaker (00:32:03.200)

See, that's the other thing that I wanted to talk about. You and Alex are, let me put it this way.

Unknown Speaker (00:32:10.480)

Your world is closer to Alex's than it is to mine. If that makes sense to you. Like being in the,

Unknown Speaker (00:32:19.119)

in the media, being on TV, being a character, not just in, in like the story of, of what's going on,

Unknown Speaker (00:32:27.440)

but outside. You're a main character in essence. And so is Alex worldwide. You're a main character,

Unknown Speaker (00:32:35.359)

that kind of conversation. And so I find it interesting because that kind of social strata

Unknown Speaker (00:32:42.960)

at that level, it feels like Trump is going to lose, right? Like, do, do you have conversations

Unknown Speaker (00:32:48.400)

regularly with people in kind of your, your area that are like, okay, well, I can't believe by that

Unknown Speaker (00:32:54.480)

people would vote Trump again. Right. I would, I would, I would try to frame it a little differently.

Unknown Speaker (00:33:01.200)

Cause I honestly, I haven't, I don't think I've asked more than a few people, you know, what they,

Unknown Speaker (00:33:06.240)

what they, what their gut says about what's going to happen in November. It still feels hell far

Unknown Speaker (00:33:10.960)

far away. We don't know what the, you know, environment's going to look like financially,

Unknown Speaker (00:33:16.160)

economically, et cetera. I, but, but, but here's what, you know, but we did see at Davos recently,

Unknown Speaker (00:33:22.480)

you know, articles from the times and Axios and others saying the conventional wisdom on the

Unknown Speaker (00:33:27.359)

banker types was that Trump is coming back. And I think there, there is a certain, there is within,

Unknown Speaker (00:33:32.319)

I think some elite groups, that sense of Trump coming back, with the caveat, of course, that

Unknown Speaker (00:33:38.480)

those persons are almost always wrong out of places like Davos. Sure. Here's here's so I,

Unknown Speaker (00:33:43.599)

I guess I would frame it the following way. I look at the country in 2024 and I see a disillusioned,

Unknown Speaker (00:33:50.880)

dissatisfied, depressed electorate, right? People who, who, who don't like these choices,

Unknown Speaker (00:33:56.079)

who don't want to rematch, you don't want to rerun, but are sucking it up and accepting

Unknown Speaker (00:34:00.400)

it's happening. I see a political class that thinks this is all really, really important.

Unknown Speaker (00:34:08.159)

And then virtually everybody else saying, no, no, thanks. We don't care. We're shrugging it off.

Unknown Speaker (00:34:12.880)

Right. I S I see these groups that are dedicated to defending democracy that are doing all the

Unknown Speaker (00:34:19.039)

right things. Cause they're absolutely right. There are real threats. And yet, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:34:23.440)

how do you get your mother to care? How do you get your, your, your neighbors to care?

Unknown Speaker (00:34:27.199)

So in an environment where it just feels like the, the, the, the electorate is disillusioned,

Unknown Speaker (00:34:31.280)

dissatisfied with that said, I think we can also say Trump, Trump doesn't have half the country.

Unknown Speaker (00:34:41.119)

He doesn't have that many fans. He has what, 60% of the Republican voter, voter electorate. He has

Unknown Speaker (00:34:48.400)

maybe 70% on a good day. He, he has definitely for short tens of millions of MAGA loyalists,

Unknown Speaker (00:34:55.840)

but not even close to half the country. Now it doesn't mean you can't win, right? Because when

Unknown Speaker (00:35:00.159)

you're faced with a red or blue choice, some people who don't like Trump are going to vote red.

Unknown Speaker (00:35:04.559)

I understand that, but I think it's important to recognize that he's coming from a place of

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weakness right now, not a place of strength. And I think he, obviously his whole goal is to project

Unknown Speaker (00:35:13.199)

strength. And I think it's important that we look, look at it in the, in the precedent to,

Unknown Speaker (00:35:17.599)

to point out the weaknesses that we see as well, like objective weaknesses, you know, not being

Unknown Speaker (00:35:22.000)

able to come out of Iowa or New Hampshire with a, with a higher percentage. Now, do you think

Unknown Speaker (00:35:26.400)

I'm just, do you think I'm nuts? No, no, no, no. I'm, I'm listening intently. I I'm telling

Unknown Speaker (00:35:32.880)

like I, I, I'll go, I'll go further then. I'll go further. And a very strong opinions,

Unknown Speaker (00:35:38.079)

but I always listen to people in order to change. I'll go further. Most Americans don't want an

Unknown Speaker (00:35:42.079)

autocracy. They don't, they don't want, that doesn't mean they won't vote for a wannabe

Unknown Speaker (00:35:46.320)

autocrat, right? But most Americans don't want that. They, we know that about what one in four

Unknown Speaker (00:35:51.519)

Americans would prefer a strong man style leader. We've seen that in polling for decades. Like we

Unknown Speaker (00:35:56.480)

know there's a strain of authoritarianism in America that dates back to the founding

Unknown Speaker (00:36:00.880)

has always been a minority, but it's a minority, right? It's not even close to a 2%. So I look at

Unknown Speaker (00:36:07.199)

the polls. I look at, I look at the rematch and I think a lot of people are just going to stay home.

Unknown Speaker (00:36:12.000)

And that means it could be a close election and that means anything can happen,

Unknown Speaker (00:36:14.880)

but most people don't want to don't, I guess I, what I find interesting is that despite Trump

Unknown Speaker (00:36:21.119)

having the mega media, having Fox, having all of these sources, having all these outlets,

Unknown Speaker (00:36:25.679)

having all this incendiary rhetoric, most people still aren't buying what he's selling.

Unknown Speaker (00:36:31.199)

Right there. Right. No, I understand. I understand what I, what I question is that,

Unknown Speaker (00:36:39.840)

that, you know, even for naming your book, network of lies, you believe a lot of these people in the

Unknown Speaker (00:36:48.639)

book, you know, like they're believe them in what way? I mean, all of the sources in Fox news, the,

Unknown Speaker (00:36:54.400)

the producers, the people who were there on the ground, you, you kind of have this almost blanket

Unknown Speaker (00:37:01.599)

acceptance that they wouldn't be lying to you in an, in an, you know, network of lies kind of

Unknown Speaker (00:37:08.639)

off air. These are people who wouldn't lie to me on air. They'll lie all they want. Right.

Unknown Speaker (00:37:15.360)

Is that kind of the vibe that you, that you that's interesting into Fox news?

Unknown Speaker (00:37:19.840)

Cause that's the vibe I got from the book. Yeah. No one's asked me that in that way before

Unknown Speaker (00:37:25.519)

that's really interesting question. Why would I believe any of these sources? Yeah. Why wouldn't

Unknown Speaker (00:37:30.480)

they lie? They're Nazis. So, so first of all, again, I reject that word. I understand.

Unknown Speaker (00:37:37.039)

I think, I guess one of the, my takeaways having covered to, I basically have blogged and covered

Unknown Speaker (00:37:44.480)

and written about television news for 20 years now and including Fox and CNN and MSNBC and all the

Unknown Speaker (00:37:49.519)

rest. And, you know, I've been on all these networks as a guest, even Fox, Greg got filled,

Unknown Speaker (00:37:53.920)

had me on red eye years ago. Incredibly rest in peace, red eye. I have, yeah. I mean,

Unknown Speaker (00:38:01.519)

he put me on the cover of his book recently. I went to Barnes and Noble today and it was

Unknown Speaker (00:38:05.440)

all instead of 50% off and I felt bad for him. I feel like I've soaked in this swamp for long

Unknown Speaker (00:38:14.159)

enough to feel like most of the incentives are the same. Most of the people care about the same

Unknown Speaker (00:38:21.440)

things. Most of them are not degenerate liars. Most of them are not completely, you know, wholly

Unknown Speaker (00:38:29.840)

lacking in ethics, you know, like, like most of them want to come over to their families and

Unknown Speaker (00:38:34.159)

make a lot of money and yada, yada, yada, like, like most of them exist in a way that I can now,

Unknown Speaker (00:38:41.199)

within that, there are some that are, you know, incredibly good maniacal and like, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:38:46.000)

author rockers and all that's true. But like, I feel like when I sit across from an executive

Unknown Speaker (00:38:52.320)

at Fox or an anchor or a host of Fox or a commentator on Fox, I can have a honest

Unknown Speaker (00:38:58.559)

conversation, I guess is the, and maybe that's because I come from this. What's that? Or is

Unknown Speaker (00:39:03.760)

that off air or on air? Do you have off air? You don't have the same company on air.

Unknown Speaker (00:39:08.639)

I don't know what it would be like to be on Fox as a guest. And I don't think that opportunity

Unknown Speaker (00:39:12.800)

is ever coming because they, they, yeah, they, they, they, there's no, no, no openness to,

Unknown Speaker (00:39:19.920)

I have been pursued by Newsmax recently, and I've been debating whether to go on Newsmax

Unknown Speaker (00:39:26.000)

and, and well, and so far, the reason I have not said yes is because I don't, I feel like it might

Unknown Speaker (00:39:30.159)

be some sort of trap or, you know, I, I don't know if I would trust the host. There's no reason.

Unknown Speaker (00:39:36.639)

There's no conversation to be had. I mean, like that's, that's kind of the thing. We just covered

Unknown Speaker (00:39:42.079)

the debate, quote unquote that Alex Glenn Greenwald and some other fucker. Oh yeah. I

Unknown Speaker (00:39:49.440)

hadn't heard the other guy. Yeah. Destiny's shit bag and the crash and steam dick wads.

Unknown Speaker (00:39:54.960)

And it is, it is so much like, it doesn't matter. They made a good point. They made a great point.

Unknown Speaker (00:40:01.360)

They dunked on him. It was an awesome point. And then Alex went, and that's it. That's all

Unknown Speaker (00:40:07.920)

it matters. It didn't matter that they said anything. It didn't matter that they had a point.

Unknown Speaker (00:40:12.480)

It didn't matter. What mattered is it was entertaining. And the people who want to go,

Unknown Speaker (00:40:17.360)

there was a winner, get to go. The big angry guy was the winner. Like there's no going into that

Unknown Speaker (00:40:23.199)

situation that is not going to be just pointless for you and useful for them. That very much,

Unknown Speaker (00:40:31.679)

that does get to this, this, this disconnect that I feel, I tried to say earlier, like,

Unknown Speaker (00:40:36.079)

I'm just a reporter. Like he's the entertainer, right? It's I feel very much as if one of the

Unknown Speaker (00:40:42.639)

root of all of our problems, at least in our media society is are those disconnects. Like

Unknown Speaker (00:40:49.039)

you've lots and lots of reporters who are flawed, but trying to tell people what's going on in the

Unknown Speaker (00:40:53.280)

world. And they're up against this entertainment and propaganda thing that doesn't exist to compete

Unknown Speaker (00:40:59.599)

with them editorially. They're not trying to beat those writers to the news. Like they're not,

Unknown Speaker (00:41:05.440)

but you know, Jesse waters is not trying to like get the scoop before CNN. Like,

Unknown Speaker (00:41:10.239)

no, Jesse waters is on a mission. He, his project is to, is to take out the CNN,

Unknown Speaker (00:41:16.719)

so you're like to, to, to remove them from the playing field in order to advance a political

Unknown Speaker (00:41:20.800)

agenda so that he has to pay less lower taxes. Like there's, but, but it's like a category. It's

Unknown Speaker (00:41:26.960)

this constant category error because Fox news is prime prime time. Talk shows look like news.

Unknown Speaker (00:41:32.480)

You know, they're framed like news. They sit at news anchor desks. They have news looking graphics.

Unknown Speaker (00:41:37.440)

They actually go in the field to news reporters. Sometimes like it's all just, you know?

Unknown Speaker (00:41:42.239)

Right. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, info wars has the studio, the trappings of yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker (00:41:48.320)

To, to provide a level of legitimacy that isn't there. Let me ask you a question.

Unknown Speaker (00:41:52.239)

It's very hard for a writer or a reporter to compete with that because what do you do?

Unknown Speaker (00:41:55.679)

Like, how do you, what do you, it's like, where do you even start? Okay. Sorry.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:01.039)

No, no, no, no. I totally understand. I'm with you. I've got a comedy poster from an open mic.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:05.440)

I read on my wall. Yeah, I get it. I do not have a studio. No. What I want to ask you about Jesse

Unknown Speaker (00:42:11.599)

waters. How is it that, you know, that Jesse waters is doing all that shit. Doing what,

Unknown Speaker (00:42:19.599)

what do I mean? Just like, do you, are you saying that, you know, this because it's obvious from the

Unknown Speaker (00:42:25.840)

behavior. Are you saying, you know, this from conversations from within, are you saying that,

Unknown Speaker (00:42:30.559)

you know, this from knowing the guy? I don't, I don't know him personally. I'm not, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:42:37.679)

no, you know, not interested. Right. If, if, if he was a source, I would, I would avoid the, the,

Unknown Speaker (00:42:43.840)

the conversation. Right. I mean, meaning I would, I wouldn't, I wouldn't admit it anyway. I think

Unknown Speaker (00:42:48.880)

like in general, I just look at these the kind of the, the, the, the, the mega host people on Fox,

Unknown Speaker (00:42:57.280)

the commentators, the right-wing commentaries as, you know, they're mostly interchangeable,

Unknown Speaker (00:43:03.280)

right? Jesse's more of like comic relief. He kind of was, he was the Bill Riley sidekick,

Unknown Speaker (00:43:07.440)

and then he, he, you know, grew into this job and all of that, but he's, he's putting on a

Unknown Speaker (00:43:12.480)

very predictable show. But when I say he's doing it in service of political agenda, like,

Unknown Speaker (00:43:17.679)

I think that part's clear, right. Based on what he decides to lead his show with every night.

Unknown Speaker (00:43:22.800)

He, he, you know, very clearly wants Biden to be removed and all that.

Unknown Speaker (00:43:28.719)

Right. So you can see that right away. Now, what confuses me, this is why I go back to this

Unknown Speaker (00:43:34.159)

kind of blanket belief in, in the people that you're talking to at Fox news is that in a,

Unknown Speaker (00:43:40.639)

in a way you are essentially calling all of them fucking stupid because they would have to be

Unknown Speaker (00:43:46.639)

fucking stupid not to know what you know. You know, they would have to be fucking stupid not

Unknown Speaker (00:43:52.719)

to be able to look at what Jesse Waters does and make the same conclusion that you do. So how is

Unknown Speaker (00:43:59.280)

it that they can tell you like, Oh, well, you know, we have all of these things in place to

Unknown Speaker (00:44:04.159)

kind of do all this stuff and you not just go, you know exactly what the fuck you're doing.

Unknown Speaker (00:44:10.079)

Well, I, so I think Fox has evolved over time or devolved over time. There was an era where

Unknown Speaker (00:44:16.000)

they claim to be fair and balanced for real. Like that was like a, not just a slogan that was

Unknown Speaker (00:44:20.480)

reality. And there was a time when if you called the channel conservative, the PR people would

Unknown Speaker (00:44:26.719)

object and would complain and would go to your editors and demand a correction. Sure. That, that,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:31.199)

that era is over and there's not really the same kind of denial of what Fox does or is. So I don't,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:38.639)

I don't think, I don't know if there's really a dispute there in terms of like,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:42.639)

what is Jesse waters there for? I kind of disagree with you if you call Fox news and explicitly

Unknown Speaker (00:44:48.559)

racist network designed and for the purpose of demonizing immigrants and people of color and

Unknown Speaker (00:44:56.480)

nonwhite males, then the PR department will come after you. You are not allowed to say that on TV,

Unknown Speaker (00:45:02.800)

right? They, I think they would have my dumb little, I think they would have,

Unknown Speaker (00:45:07.360)

I think the, well, you can say it, but I think they would object to the term racist. Yes.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:11.519)

Right. Right. I think difference. They're lying about that in the same way they were lying about

Unknown Speaker (00:45:17.039)

being a conservative back then. But you know, but you know how these arguments go. There is

Unknown Speaker (00:45:22.159)

actually a problem on the Southern border. There is a real immigration challenge in this country.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:28.159)

They happen to talk about it a lot more than CNN. They happen to dedicate more resources to it.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:33.280)

Like, you know, all the arguments they could make. I'm not talking about, I'm not talking

Unknown Speaker (00:45:38.239)

about arguments about that. I'm talking about the, the conversation that we just had about them

Unknown Speaker (00:45:44.079)

lying. You know, like you, as you pointed out, they said way back when, if you call them

Unknown Speaker (00:45:49.199)

conservative, their PR people would come after you. And then of course the mass came off five

Unknown Speaker (00:45:54.239)

years or 10 years later, whatever it was. And they were always the conservatives. Right.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:59.599)

They were all, it was always who they were. They were telling you the PR people were angry at you

Unknown Speaker (00:46:04.559)

for telling the truth. Well, yes. And the two, well, yes, but the channels also changed, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:46:09.440)

Like the channel used to have more newscasts, you know, they might've been conservative newscasts,

Unknown Speaker (00:46:15.599)

but right. Things that actually were designed to be news reports. You know, the, the, the product

Unknown Speaker (00:46:21.280)

really has changed quite, quite a lot. I'm just saying on the, on something like racist,

Unknown Speaker (00:46:27.840)

you know, the, the, obviously the pushback would be, would be severe. And, and what they would say

Unknown Speaker (00:46:33.199)

are things like the following. Do you not think that there's an immigration challenge at the

Unknown Speaker (00:46:37.039)

border? Do you not feel the borders initially, but I'm just, this is, this is, these are,

Unknown Speaker (00:46:41.840)

how you, these are our political debates now, right? They're not there. Go fuck yourself.

Unknown Speaker (00:46:46.880)

That's the political debate. They're they're bullshit. That's bullshit. All of that is

Unknown Speaker (00:46:52.320)

nonsense. What are people talking about? Look, when, wasn't it Rhonda Santas who,

Unknown Speaker (00:46:58.320)

who flew migrants up to, uh, can I ask you a question? I'm just saying when Fox, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:47:06.000)

Fox makes sure, you know, Fox has the cameras there to meet the planes. Like Fox has raised

Unknown Speaker (00:47:10.880)

the salience of the immigration conversation or the topic in a dramatic fashion. Like Fox

Unknown Speaker (00:47:17.280)

deserves a lot of credit or blame or whatever for raising the salience to get them on a plane

Unknown Speaker (00:47:24.159)

and send them somewhere else. Is that I'm just a media reporter. I'm not the, but I mean,

Unknown Speaker (00:47:30.079)

that's my kind of, that's my kind of response to you is you are talking about the, the argument

Unknown Speaker (00:47:37.440)

they're having. I'm saying that Ron has committed a crime. I don't really give a shit what everybody

Unknown Speaker (00:47:42.960)

has to say immediately following that beyond either that is a crime or that's not a crime.

Unknown Speaker (00:47:48.400)

Do you know what I mean? There's no, there's no argument about the border until Rhonda

Unknown Speaker (00:47:54.239)

Santas is in jail or I know that I can kidnap people. Well, except, except that that's you,

Unknown Speaker (00:47:59.760)

the way you're, the arguments already happening, the debates already happened. Like you can't

Unknown Speaker (00:48:03.280)

stop it. You're not stopping it with your, with your point. Exactly. Exactly. That is what I'm

Unknown Speaker (00:48:08.159)

saying. That is what I'm saying. When I say that you and Alex are kind of closer than you are to

Unknown Speaker (00:48:15.119)

me, I can have no effect on that debate. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm not a main character

Unknown Speaker (00:48:22.320)

in there. Well, I see. My instinct is to push back on that and to say, of course everyone can make a

Unknown Speaker (00:48:28.719)

difference. And I don't want to say that in like a sarcastic way. I would like to say in a sincere

Unknown Speaker (00:48:33.760)

way to make it come out though. Yeah. I would love to, to tell you that every voice matters.

Unknown Speaker (00:48:43.519)

Sure. And but listen, I'm on the outside now. I'm I'm no, I'm no, I'm not a, you know, I don't even

Unknown Speaker (00:48:55.599)

know where to find Alex Jones's show anymore. Is there, is there a web? How do you find it now?

Unknown Speaker (00:49:00.400)

I mean, I believe it's band.video. I should know that more off the top of my head.

Unknown Speaker (00:49:05.360)

So like when I, when I, when he, when he drunk dialed me that night,

Unknown Speaker (00:49:09.599)

by the way, can I just give the context of the whole story? We listened to his version of it.

Unknown Speaker (00:49:15.039)

And now I would like to hear your version. Yeah. So the phone call came from Justin Wells,

Unknown Speaker (00:49:21.280)

who was her Carlson's like top producer producing partner. And of course, when someone's writing a

Unknown Speaker (00:49:26.960)

book about Fox and Tucker, the reporter, the author tries to reach the producer.

Unknown Speaker (00:49:31.679)

So I had Dustin Wells, his phone number. Sure. So when his number pops up on screen,

Unknown Speaker (00:49:36.239)

it's like 10 o'clock I've been, I've been drinking, but I wasn't looking to drunk dial anybody.

Unknown Speaker (00:49:40.719)

So when he calls late at night, oh, heck, of course I'm an answer. Like, heck yeah,

Unknown Speaker (00:49:43.760)

I'm an answer. Sure. So I answer, I hear Alex's voice. I don't know if it's really Alex or if

Unknown Speaker (00:49:50.079)

it's an imposter. Like I kind of played along in part because I wasn't sure if it was really Alex

Unknown Speaker (00:49:55.119)

Jones. Wouldn't that be so disappointing if it was one of those, those guys suck so bad. I hate that

Unknown Speaker (00:50:01.840)

shit. I hate that. I'm going to pretend to be. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I assumed it was the real

Unknown Speaker (00:50:07.199)

guy, but I just didn't want to like, I just, well, it's two things. One, I assumed that he

Unknown Speaker (00:50:11.599)

was recording the call and two. Yeah. I just, I didn't want to, you know, go all the way down.

Unknown Speaker (00:50:16.000)

I just wanted to keep my guard up. But, you know, they were obviously like trying to,

Unknown Speaker (00:50:21.119)

trying to have some fun. And there was a point at which, and by the way, as a reporter,

Unknown Speaker (00:50:28.239)

my whole attitude with these kinds of things is keep them on the phone. Like let's keep talking,

Unknown Speaker (00:50:32.880)

like whatever. Also my kids are, so we got nothing better to do. Like, this is entertaining,

Unknown Speaker (00:50:37.440)

but like keep them on the phone and ask me questions. But anyway, I, at one point we were

Unknown Speaker (00:50:42.400)

like ribbing each other a little bit and I made a comment about, I don't know where to find his

Unknown Speaker (00:50:46.320)

show. Like I don't even know. Does he still have a show? Yeah. And, and he hit back with the, well,

Unknown Speaker (00:50:50.960)

I know you don't have a show anymore or something to that effect. And this, I think like kind of

Unknown Speaker (00:50:56.480)

crystallizes the difference between Alex and I. So you, I appreciate your point about the, the,

Unknown Speaker (00:51:02.800)

the similarities, the certain kind of broadcasting world. Here's the big difference though. One of

Unknown Speaker (00:51:09.199)

the differences, one of the big differences between here's the one that I'm trying to say

Unknown Speaker (00:51:15.199)

the similarity. Yeah. But the big thing that struck me was when I left CNN, when my, when

Unknown Speaker (00:51:22.159)

the reliable sources program was canceled, when I was fired for me, it ended up being the best thing

Unknown Speaker (00:51:27.119)

that ever happened to me. You know, look, maybe in 10 years or something, I'll feel differently,

Unknown Speaker (00:51:31.760)

but at least now 18 months out, I I've been having the time of my life. And so what it was

Unknown Speaker (00:51:36.159)

so revealing is Alex thought he was insulting me, right? Like for him, it is a put down like,

Unknown Speaker (00:51:41.519)

ha ha, you lose or you got canceled. And it's like, no, I just had the best day. Like I'm my,

Unknown Speaker (00:51:47.280)

I'm my daughter's class dad, like at school, like I get to go off and write wherever I want,

Unknown Speaker (00:51:52.000)

whenever I want. Like I have a great gig in a great life now, but it's so revealing because

Unknown Speaker (00:51:57.039)

people like Alex Jones, who are addicted to the red light, the red light on the camera.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:02.079)

It's a kind of a metaphor. It's a TV agents talk about this. Sometimes they have clients who are

Unknown Speaker (00:52:07.119)

addicted to the red light, who need to be on TV. That's how it's shown. He needs to be heard. He

Unknown Speaker (00:52:12.400)

needs to be out in front of the world. And it turns out I don't have that addiction. And I've

Unknown Speaker (00:52:17.280)

been relieved to learn that I don't, but it was so revealing to me that like, that was his insult

Unknown Speaker (00:52:21.599)

and that, you know, it's not insulting. I mean, I, I, I would say that I would say all of us have

Unknown Speaker (00:52:28.960)

that addiction to a varying degree. You know, like I, I spent 10 years going up on stage for

Unknown Speaker (00:52:35.840)

zero people, you know later on more than zero, but not, not enough, not enough more than zero.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:44.320)

I'll tell you that. And so, you know, that if I wasn't addicted to that, at least a little bit,

Unknown Speaker (00:52:50.559)

you know, I could have just not done this show. I could have just gone back to brick laying.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:57.039)

I don't know why I've never laid a brick before in my life, but I don't know why that would be

Unknown Speaker (00:53:01.280)

my next gig. Anybody brick layers, that's right there for you. So yeah, I wanted to,

Unknown Speaker (00:53:10.079)

I wanted to go down this one, one interesting thing in your, in your book later on is the,

Unknown Speaker (00:53:18.159)

the the Cavuto kind of what revolt, not revolt, like the Cavuto gentle, slight pushback breeze.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:31.599)

During that time period, does he walk around thinking he's fucking noble?

Unknown Speaker (00:53:39.519)

So I don't think I, I don't think I have the firsthand knowledge to answer that question.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:42.800)

Sure. Okay. I think he's of a different, I think he is like,

Unknown Speaker (00:53:49.360)

he is of the 1997 Fox news and has somehow miraculously stayed and, and remained and

Unknown Speaker (00:53:57.199)

been able to be on the 2024 Fox news. Right. But he is very much a vestige of an earlier

Unknown Speaker (00:54:02.719)

and different era. He has been there, you know, since the beginning and, you know, he's, I,

Unknown Speaker (00:54:10.239)

I wish I, I wish I knew exactly how to explain this. He's among the lowest rated hosts on Fox

Unknown Speaker (00:54:16.159)

is 4 p.m. Hour. And yet among the executives, one of the most respected, you know, like

Unknown Speaker (00:54:23.199)

his, cause he is this, he is this like real true. I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna think this is

Unknown Speaker (00:54:29.199)

all BS, but like he actually is an honest, he's an honest report. You know, he's a, he's a truth

Unknown Speaker (00:54:34.480)

teller. Right. So what you're saying is he made a pact with the devil. Oh, here you go. Come on,

Unknown Speaker (00:54:45.519)

come on, Carol, Carol defamation, you know, settlement comes down and $83 million. And

Unknown Speaker (00:54:52.639)

he just honestly calls it. It's a staggering amount. He has guests on who told the truth

Unknown Speaker (00:54:56.639)

about it. And then an hour later on the five, the 5m talk show, ignored it, of course,

Unknown Speaker (00:55:01.280)

didn't even mention aging Carol's success. Obviously that's a higher rate of show.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:05.760)

The five is a really hit. It's a really popular show. You know,

Unknown Speaker (00:55:08.320)

Kubota's hour is not, but they keep them on, right. They keep them on and he keeps on going.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:13.599)

And I, I respect that. I don't think you do a question.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:18.320)

Do they keep him on for you? Well, that is an interesting question.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:23.119)

That's and I mean, you know, I don't mean you specifically, obviously, but I mean,

Unknown Speaker (00:55:26.480)

in the larger sense, he is, he is that pulling back from Tucker Carlson, right? He is the,

Unknown Speaker (00:55:32.559)

he's the varying degree in the laundering process of bullshit.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:37.199)

I am trying to look up the phrase that I have in the book for this because I don't want to

Unknown Speaker (00:55:42.960)

misquote it. Oh, here it is. Yeah. I, I, I, I described Chris Wallace who decided to leave Fox

Unknown Speaker (00:55:51.039)

at the end of 2021. He's now at CNN, but there was this dinner that I described in the book

Unknown Speaker (00:55:57.920)

where Lachlan Murdoch comes to DC and he's hanging out with the whole DC Bureau and

Unknown Speaker (00:56:01.679)

Tucker Carlson show was based in DC. So Tucker's at the dinner and Tucker sitting on one side of

Unknown Speaker (00:56:06.400)

the CEO and Chris Wallace is on the other side of the CEO. And, you know, in terms of financial

Unknown Speaker (00:56:11.760)

impact and identity with the brand, Tucker's the star, not Chris Wallace, but Fox really tried to

Unknown Speaker (00:56:17.760)

keep Chris Wallace from leaving. They tried to renew his contract. They didn't want him to go to

Unknown Speaker (00:56:21.840)

CNN. And, and so in the book I say a senior staffer called it a double or triple game

Unknown Speaker (00:56:27.440)

that the Murdoch's play. They make money from the Tucker people, the opinion people,

Unknown Speaker (00:56:31.360)

but they reap other rewards from the news people. And so I think that applies to Cavuto as well.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:35.920)

It's a double or triple game. Okay. So that implies that, I mean, that requires awareness.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:42.800)

Yes. Right. So if you are aware that you are specifically hiring this person to give you a

Unknown Speaker (00:56:51.760)

veneer of legitimacy, that means you're aware you are illegitimate functionally. You can't not

Unknown Speaker (00:56:57.920)

understand that as a concept, right? Well, legitimacy is an interesting word. I mean,

Unknown Speaker (00:57:03.679)

how about we are mostly a right-wing talking points brand, but we occasionally want to have

Unknown Speaker (00:57:08.800)

people on who, who, who break that mold. I mean that that's not about legitimacy, right? That's

Unknown Speaker (00:57:13.280)

about content. The reason we have these people on is to make the other lunatics seem less crazy,

Unknown Speaker (00:57:22.960)

or it is to make us feel less bad about putting these lunatics on the air.

Unknown Speaker (00:57:28.480)

Either way, it is somebody saying, I know what I'm doing is wrong. I'm a child.

Unknown Speaker (00:57:34.639)

No, but see you bringing right, but you keep bringing moral and ethical arguments to a

Unknown Speaker (00:57:40.960)

financial fight. Right? Sure. Sure. No, but I'm, this is where we get back to the conversations

Unknown Speaker (00:57:47.199)

that you're having. Like I'm still going back. I don't, I don't let shit go. This is why I'm

Unknown Speaker (00:57:52.239)

telling you that I find it so fascinating that when somebody, when a Fox news exec tells you

Unknown Speaker (00:57:58.800)

something, you don't spit in their face because there's, if this person is aware that what they're

Unknown Speaker (00:58:05.920)

doing with the five is what pays their bills and what they're doing with the four is what makes

Unknown Speaker (00:58:11.280)

them feel good. Then they know what they're doing. So they can't come to you and say, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:58:17.760)

kind of thing. Sure. Let's, let's try that a different way. What they're doing it for is the

Unknown Speaker (00:58:24.079)

honorable thing to do, but what they're doing at five is what the audience wants and what the

Unknown Speaker (00:58:28.960)

audience wants is the key, but that's the yeah. Okay. But sure. But, but just, I think the

Unknown Speaker (00:58:36.880)

audience is, is the key is, is the point here. Like they are programming morality into it this

Unknown Speaker (00:58:42.159)

time. Ah, they are doing it to win ratings points, right? On every hour of every day

Unknown Speaker (00:58:47.920)

to, to keep the, and so that, this is why I am somewhat sympathetic to the view that, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:58:56.400)

they're, I, gosh, I don't even want to say it because they're going to laugh, held hostage by,

Unknown Speaker (00:59:01.519)

held hostage by the audience. Yeah. Yep. Yep. You can't, you can't get a, you can't escape that.

Unknown Speaker (00:59:07.760)

And I think, I think part of the, the issue is again, I truly believe that it's, it's kind of

Unknown Speaker (00:59:14.960)

almost evolutionary. We're social creatures and I can't talk to them. They are characters to me,

Unknown Speaker (00:59:22.559)

the characters at Fox news. I can't, you know, I will never be able to interact with them,

Unknown Speaker (00:59:28.159)

despite the fact that they have a material destructive force upon my life. I can't push

Unknown Speaker (00:59:34.320)

back on them whatsoever. Right. So it's easy for me to go fucking spit in their dumb fuck faces.

Unknown Speaker (00:59:41.679)

Right. But you have to it's entirely possible that you'll go to dinner with them. Do you know

Unknown Speaker (00:59:48.079)

what I'm saying? So doesn't it make more, doesn't it feel more likely that you would believe somebody

Unknown Speaker (00:59:54.880)

who is lying to you because, you know, I got to see them next week. Yeah. I mean, look,

Unknown Speaker (01:00:01.840)

first of all you know, I live out in the, in the suburbs. I don't see these people in person very

Unknown Speaker (01:00:07.280)

often. Just, just to be honest, just to be, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to paint you as

Unknown Speaker (01:00:12.800)

anything that you're not. And I'm not trying to say that what you've done is any good or bad or

Unknown Speaker (01:00:18.079)

anything like that. Well, I'm just trying to like, this is kind of the mold of what it is that we're

Unknown Speaker (01:00:22.719)

dealing with, you know, and you have firsthand intimate knowledge of it. Well, here's, here's,

Unknown Speaker (01:00:26.719)

here's a, here's a fun example. So, so Alex Jones and others freaked out when I went to the World

Unknown Speaker (01:00:33.519)

Economic Forum meeting in Davos last year. There, there were these like, you know, propaganda

Unknown Speaker (01:00:38.639)

stories saying that I was being paid and that I was there to promote disinformation and all this

Unknown Speaker (01:00:43.440)

stuff. And, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're paying for Brian Stelter to go

Unknown Speaker (01:00:46.480)

lie to us and all these crazy stories. And in fact, it was like, they asked me to moderate a

Unknown Speaker (01:00:51.519)

panel. I paid for my own flight and hotel. Like it was, you know, I, I actually left a day early

Unknown Speaker (01:00:57.519)

because I wasn't enjoying the conference very much. I missed my kids, but like, it was cool to

Unknown Speaker (01:01:02.400)

be, to see what it was, which what I realized is this is a giant networking event for rich people.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:07.840)

Like it's just a networking thing. They just, they're there to schmooze and see each other's

Unknown Speaker (01:01:11.440)

and go to their parties. But I'm, I'm at Anthony Scaramucci's party and which was hard to get into

Unknown Speaker (01:01:17.280)

this line out the door. And you know, former Trump official turned Trump opponent, right.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:23.519)

And, and who do I bump into? But Maria Bartiromo, Maria Bartiromo, who more than any other person is

Unknown Speaker (01:01:29.519)

responsible for the defamation case by dominion, who started the dominion lie on Fox, who had the

Unknown Speaker (01:01:36.880)

first interview with Trump after Trump lost the election and who, who indulged his delusions and

Unknown Speaker (01:01:42.239)

encouraged his attack against the government. The, you know, not physical attack, but you know

Unknown Speaker (01:01:47.920)

Marie Bartiromo, who, who used to be this renowned CNBC anchor, who now lives in a different reality

Unknown Speaker (01:01:54.400)

on a different earth than I do. And there she is looking for a great glass of wine.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:58.719)

In this overly crowded party in Davos. And, you know, we smiled at each other and like,

Unknown Speaker (01:02:04.480)

I feel like neither of us really actually wanted to have a conversation because it would be too

Unknown Speaker (01:02:09.039)

awkward for both of us. So there is a point at which it's where it would have been awkward

Unknown Speaker (01:02:15.840)

because I don't know who she is anymore, where, where five years ago we did, we were at a party

Unknown Speaker (01:02:22.639)

together and we were dancing next to each other, you know, on the dance floor in the Hamptons.

Unknown Speaker (01:02:26.320)

And now it's like, there's so many, gosh, like now, like you're starting to turn to my therapist.

Unknown Speaker (01:02:32.639)

There's like so much to say, there's so many objections. There's so like, how could you have

Unknown Speaker (01:02:38.239)

done that? Maria, how could you have done, you know, there's so much of that now in between us.

Unknown Speaker (01:02:42.800)

And by the way, I don't think she's ever, ever thought about him ever since she blocked me on

Unknown Speaker (01:02:45.840)

Twitter. I doubt she's ever, you know, used a breath of her energy to talk about me or think

Unknown Speaker (01:02:50.480)

about me. But my point is there are limits to the dynamic you're describing, which is real. Like I

Unknown Speaker (01:02:56.480)

have, you know, I have gone to lunch with folks from Fox and and sometimes they pay the check and

Unknown Speaker (01:03:02.000)

sometimes I pay the check and like we end up in it all like it evens out and we have great

Unknown Speaker (01:03:06.480)

conversation and I learn a lot and I feel like we're on the same planet, but I guess I'm just

Unknown Speaker (01:03:10.800)

trying to say, there's also a point at which there's a, there's, there is such thing as too far

Unknown Speaker (01:03:16.639)

or a point of no return. What's the metaphor? Like there is a point at which it's not possible to

Unknown Speaker (01:03:23.440)

have a dialogue. It's when the, it's when coyote looks down. That's, that's when it's not, I don't

Unknown Speaker (01:03:29.199)

know that reference. What is that? Wiley coyote when he, when he looks down, that's when the

Unknown Speaker (01:03:34.159)

conversation is over. There's, there's definitely a point at which like you can't, and then,

Unknown Speaker (01:03:40.480)

and it is that point where you don't know if she'd even be, you don't know if you'd be able

Unknown Speaker (01:03:43.599)

to believe our answers anyway. No, I, I, here's why, here's what I'm coming to, to believe,

Unknown Speaker (01:03:50.880)

uh, uh, coming to realize, uh, as we go back through the past, you know, we've, we go back

Unknown Speaker (01:03:55.920)

and we listened to Alex Jones episodes from 2003, you know, so we've, we did the night of Y2K,

Unknown Speaker (01:04:03.039)

uh, you know, we were there. Joe Rogan was there. Why not? Or no, no, no. Joe Rogan was there on

Unknown Speaker (01:04:07.920)

September 11th. Cause why not? Uh, he also might've been there. Anyways. Um, I, you know,

Unknown Speaker (01:04:15.920)

people have said, Oh, Alex has changed. Alex's content has changed and all that stuff. And there

Unknown Speaker (01:04:21.199)

are changes. Uh, what hasn't changed is the most important part. I I'm looking at so many people

Unknown Speaker (01:04:30.719)

and we have this point of view of like, they are different to me. I see them differently.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:38.880)

And I find that it's more likely that the world has changed around them. And these are the same

Unknown Speaker (01:04:43.679)

people that they always were. I mean, you know, we, we talk about CNBC, uh, at the idea, but

Unknown Speaker (01:04:51.440)

what you used to get away with saying as a, as a quote unquote liberal in the, in the early 2000s

Unknown Speaker (01:04:57.039)

was nuts. You could be like, eh, fucking kill gay people. That would be fine. That was on the TV.

Unknown Speaker (01:05:04.639)

You know, I mean, not in so many words, but it was, Oh, well, Obama's evolving on gay marriage.

Unknown Speaker (01:05:11.440)

It was all of these different words that we know now mean Obama was fine with it,

Unknown Speaker (01:05:17.760)

but politically he wasn't ready to talk about it. So he was lying to us, you know, he would,

Unknown Speaker (01:05:22.400)

he would rather put it that way. It's a little bit easier. You know, Obama didn't change.

Unknown Speaker (01:05:27.920)

Obama hired Geithner. Obama isn't a hundred million right now because he's different.

Unknown Speaker (01:05:34.079)

Do you know what I mean? So my question is that if you have that conversation with her,

Unknown Speaker (01:05:40.559)

do you think it's awkward because she's changed her because you've changed

Unknown Speaker (01:05:43.679)

Again, back to the therapy. There's some people, and I, I put this in the book that some people

Unknown Speaker (01:05:55.760)

say she's always been the same person that at CNBC, she sucked up to CEOs and a Fox,

Unknown Speaker (01:06:01.760)

the CEO was Trump. And so she just did the same. She had the same sort of approach,

Unknown Speaker (01:06:07.599)

but to politics as to business and with a businessman politician. And so there's,

Unknown Speaker (01:06:12.880)

there's logic to that, that there's actually a consistency. There's a through line

Unknown Speaker (01:06:17.119)

and maybe I'm the one injecting my own sense of moral superiority. I guess what I've,

Unknown Speaker (01:06:23.679)

I guess my trajectory or, or the journey or whatever it's, it's this sense. Look,

Unknown Speaker (01:06:30.480)

what it does, it goes back to, it goes back to 2016 when it becomes clear that the fake news

Unknown Speaker (01:06:38.079)

is actually a real problem. Sure. And I mean, fake news, meaning made up stories designed to

Unknown Speaker (01:06:43.039)

deceive you. Right. Right. There's a, if you Google Brian Stelter Gitmo, you'll find a bunch

Unknown Speaker (01:06:48.320)

of fake news stories and say, I was executed at Guantanamo Bay after being fired by CNN.

Unknown Speaker (01:06:54.639)

I think we can confirm those are fake news stories, but that day, right.

Unknown Speaker (01:07:02.559)

But that moment that Trump took the term fake news and redefined it to mean news,

Unknown Speaker (01:07:06.880)

he doesn't like news. You shouldn't believe the moment that that happened. Like we got

Unknown Speaker (01:07:11.519)

fucked as a country, right? That really like deeply wounded us. And you might think I'm making

Unknown Speaker (01:07:16.880)

too much of that moment, but that moment to me, that's a couple, couple of days it's, it's,

Unknown Speaker (01:07:20.880)

it's two weeks later, they lie about crowd size, you know, and, and we're off to the races in terms

Unknown Speaker (01:07:26.000)

of this, this disinformation campaign it's before we were even using the word disinformation,

Unknown Speaker (01:07:30.880)

you know, but then we started using these, these, these terms to try to understand what

Unknown Speaker (01:07:35.280)

was happening to our sense of shared reality. To me, this was, you know, these were formative

Unknown Speaker (01:07:41.519)

years and I learned a lot about, you know, what my belief system, like my value system, right.

Unknown Speaker (01:07:47.039)

And there's a lot of stuff out there that's garbage, but it's not disinformation.

Unknown Speaker (01:07:51.280)

There's so much stuff out there that's, you know, nonsense, but I wouldn't call it fake. I wouldn't

Unknown Speaker (01:07:56.719)

call it a lie, you know, and where I reserve my most, you know, attention, I guess is for

Unknown Speaker (01:08:03.199)

the straight up lot, like the provable lies. Now here's why I appreciate you. You come at it

Unknown Speaker (01:08:08.079)

totally differently from a comedy lens, like with a comedian's head on it. And you are so much

Unknown Speaker (01:08:13.519)

blunter, right? You'll just, you know, that's why I would use that word. I would use that word,

Unknown Speaker (01:08:20.000)

but you're making me think that Fox promoting Greg Godfeld was genius because a comedian is able to

Unknown Speaker (01:08:27.600)

interpret the world around them so differently than like a nerdy older boy.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:33.439)

I would like to stop you very quickly. I know what I just did ever call gut field,

Unknown Speaker (01:08:38.720)

anything similar to a comedian or give him any credit towards humor. I would, I would rather

Unknown Speaker (01:08:45.199)

shit myself. And I don't mean that from a, a point of view of his politics, anything along those

Unknown Speaker (01:08:51.199)

lines. I just mean that from a joke writing standpoint, like we've, we've gone back and

Unknown Speaker (01:08:55.600)

forth on our show so often about like, okay, here's why conservatives should, this is what

Unknown Speaker (01:09:02.239)

they should have done to make the bit work. Like it's just what we do is we make bits work. Like

Unknown Speaker (01:09:07.279)

we're the writer's room. So it's not that his politics are terrible. It's that he's a shitty

Unknown Speaker (01:09:12.399)

comic. It's that he's not fucking funny. And it drives me insane. And I can be a proof point for

Unknown Speaker (01:09:18.000)

that because he has made dozens scores of jokes about me, but probably more than a hundred,

Unknown Speaker (01:09:23.279)

all the very same fat joke. And it, it makes me worry about his audience. Like, does he think

Unknown Speaker (01:09:31.520)

this audience is asleep? Like, does he think that they're not, like, they're not actually listening

Unknown Speaker (01:09:35.439)

because they've, they've heard the joke before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's another thing. I'm

Unknown Speaker (01:09:42.640)

sorry. Sorry. That's just one of those, man, you know, people who here's generally speaking,

Unknown Speaker (01:09:49.760)

it's a bad idea to insult people. If you're using something that you could insult anybody else with,

Unknown Speaker (01:09:55.359)

it has to be specific and then it has to make them think about it later on. Like if you take

Unknown Speaker (01:10:00.000)

a shower, the only good insult is one where if I have insulted you, you should take a shower the

Unknown Speaker (01:10:05.279)

next day and go, Oh, and feel bad about it. That's, that's an insult. Well, he has not succeeded on

Unknown Speaker (01:10:12.319)

that front with me. Yeah. God. So, but that, well, I mean, even that though, that aspect of a

Unknown Speaker (01:10:17.840)

gut felt, we're going to put that felt on our network. That is as much a business decision

Unknown Speaker (01:10:23.680)

of like, well, we want to diversify our stock or whatever it is as it is like a, well, we're not

Unknown Speaker (01:10:30.720)

all lunatics. Yeah. I do think God failed the hiring, the promotion of got failed to primetime.

Unknown Speaker (01:10:37.840)

Well, first to give him a talk show, then it moved to primetime and then to promote Jesse waters.

Unknown Speaker (01:10:41.840)

To me, it was very much a bring in the clowns approach, like sending the clowns, you know,

Unknown Speaker (01:10:47.680)

we need, we need humor. We're more than a news brand. I mean, I think it says two things. One

Unknown Speaker (01:10:54.000)

box is more than a news brand. It's a way of life. It is a lifestyle brand. It is an identity

Unknown Speaker (01:10:59.600)

for many of its fans. It's important to recognize that like to face that for what it is because

Unknown Speaker (01:11:04.239)

Yeah. And then second, I think leaning on humor allows them to get away with stuff that they can't

Unknown Speaker (01:11:14.800)

otherwise, right. In the same way that you see this with, with a lot of the kind of the right

Unknown Speaker (01:11:19.840)

wing rhetoric around a race, for example, or, or gender. Oh, I was just kidding. Or the, was he

Unknown Speaker (01:11:27.680)

kidding? Like allows them to get to move the conversation. Right? Yeah. No, the joke is that

Unknown Speaker (01:11:33.520)

they, that you let them get away with it. That's the joke. You know, like, like if,

Unknown Speaker (01:11:38.479)

if you have somebody like Gutfeld say, you know, like, Oh, we should put all black people in cages,

Unknown Speaker (01:11:43.680)

you know, the joke is that you and I will go, well, clearly he doesn't mean that.

Unknown Speaker (01:11:48.800)

And for the record, he has not said, no, he does not. And he has not said, no,

Unknown Speaker (01:11:52.720)

I'm giving you an example. I'm not saying that he specifically said that, but, but like in,

Unknown Speaker (01:11:57.600)

in any number, you know, in Anna Merlin's book in Republic of lies, whenever she's going to these,

Unknown Speaker (01:12:02.479)

these groups of people, these youths with their, with their coats, you know,

Unknown Speaker (01:12:08.960)

any number of things, you know, the far right youths there is like that element of like,

Unknown Speaker (01:12:13.520)

ha ha ha, we'll rape somebody. And the joke is that they mean it. The joke is that they're

Unknown Speaker (01:12:19.279)

going to say this to her face and she's going to watch them say it. That's the,

Unknown Speaker (01:12:24.960)

that's what makes them laugh. And that's kind of why it's horrific to compare them to you.

Unknown Speaker (01:12:30.000)

Hmm. There's also right there. Well, there's also, isn't there also an element of

Unknown Speaker (01:12:35.840)

a, this is our politics now, right? That we can't you on MSNBC at 10 PM Eastern time is Lawrence

Unknown Speaker (01:12:45.119)

O'Donnell who grew up in, in, you know, is, is a formative at all experiences. We're working for

Unknown Speaker (01:12:51.119)

Moynihan working, you know, in the Senate, working, working on Capitol Hill, learning how policy is

Unknown Speaker (01:12:56.319)

crafted, learning how laws are made and, you know, and he'll book senators as guests, he'll book

Unknown Speaker (01:13:01.600)

Andrew Weissman, he'll book, you know, legal figures as guests. And that's the show up against

Unknown Speaker (01:13:06.000)

Greg Gutfeld's insult fest. Right. And the fact that on Fox, well, right, but, but the, well,

Unknown Speaker (01:13:13.279)

it's a different audience, right? Lawrence rates. Well, but, but what does it say about the Fox

Unknown Speaker (01:13:17.760)

brand and the Fox base that, that it's a comedy show they've decided is what works and not a

Unknown Speaker (01:13:24.960)

serious conversation about policy. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, I suppose you think

Unknown Speaker (01:13:31.600)

they're all just too far gone that it doesn't matter. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely. Absolutely

Unknown Speaker (01:13:36.079)

not. No, I, I don't think, I don't think that there's much difference. I suppose like, okay.

Unknown Speaker (01:13:45.119)

Uh, I, I understand, uh, uh, how it seems like, ah, disinformation 2016 was kind of a thing, but

Unknown Speaker (01:13:53.600)

you know, you go back and you read some of the political shit that they wrote in the 1800

Unknown Speaker (01:14:00.159)

elections, you know, go back and read about how Thomas Jefferson fucked a slave in the newspaper

Unknown Speaker (01:14:07.600)

and they thought they were lying. Like it is, it is that type of thing, you know, where I,

Unknown Speaker (01:14:16.079)

I wonder if this is just, we keep seeing America be America with newer shit.

Unknown Speaker (01:14:24.640)

Uh, okay. All right. I'm trying to think what the counter, I'm trying to think what the

Unknown Speaker (01:14:28.720)

counter argument to that is. America's going to America. What are you going to do?

Unknown Speaker (01:14:34.479)

Well, I I'd like to say that, I mean, I grew, I was born in 1985, so I kind of remember the

Unknown Speaker (01:14:40.880)

nineties. We maybe, maybe, you know, we, we had a political environment that was not nearly as

Unknown Speaker (01:14:48.399)

toxic and polarizing. Can we, can we say that? Is that true? I think that's true. I think I,

Unknown Speaker (01:14:53.279)

I think that's another thing. That's another thing for me. We say that. And then if you go back and

Unknown Speaker (01:15:00.319)

you watch a nineties movie, you're going to go, Oh, the, our word was fun to say back then.

Unknown Speaker (01:15:05.920)

Oh boy. They just tossed that about like nothing, you know? Yeah. I recently rewatched the hangover

Unknown Speaker (01:15:12.079)

and even more recent movie. And I was surprised by some of the jokes. Yeah. But that's, but that's

Unknown Speaker (01:15:17.680)

different than can neighbors disagree about politics and not fear of fistfight. Definitely.

Unknown Speaker (01:15:24.560)

Is that, you know, that's, that's where Trump has taken us is this fear. And it's what's led,

Unknown Speaker (01:15:29.119)

I think, to the dissatisfaction and the depression of the electorate that I was talking about

Unknown Speaker (01:15:32.319)

earlier. People just are tuned out and checked out. They don't want to deal with it. They don't

Unknown Speaker (01:15:35.439)

want to think about it because they don't want to get into that argument with their neighbors.

Unknown Speaker (01:15:38.880)

They don't, they don't want to have that dispute. That's that to me feels like a kind of a,

Unknown Speaker (01:15:45.520)

like the world that Fox and Trump created or, or nurtured. Hmm. Yeah. And Alex Jones.

Unknown Speaker (01:15:54.479)

Yeah. You know, I think, I think it is a good question. Something of a chicken and egg,

Unknown Speaker (01:16:01.520)

how often these things coincide with a group of nonwhite people getting slightly more power.

Unknown Speaker (01:16:09.680)

Right. You know, is it, is it Trump's America or are LGBTQ people getting slightly more

Unknown Speaker (01:16:15.199)

representation than they were back then? You know it's because now it's trans people. It's

Unknown Speaker (01:16:21.680)

not gay people. 20 years ago, it was gay people who should we be allowing them to be in public,

Unknown Speaker (01:16:28.079)

you know, 20 years before that it was anybody who's ever done drugs. Anybody with AIDS should

Unknown Speaker (01:16:34.239)

be killed, should be dead. You know, like these are things that were, that were there that we

Unknown Speaker (01:16:39.600)

pretend didn't happen. Like Reagan laughed at people dying of AIDS. That's pretty fucked up

Unknown Speaker (01:16:47.760)

in the discourse, right? A little too young, a little too young for that. My favorite analogy

Unknown Speaker (01:16:53.920)

on the point about whites and power is Robert P Jones, head of a PRI, this Institute that does

Unknown Speaker (01:17:01.520)

a lot of surveys on this topic. And, and he said, America, picture America as a dining room table

Unknown Speaker (01:17:07.920)

where it used to be that white Christians controlled who sat at the table and where they

Unknown Speaker (01:17:13.279)

got to sit right. Like the head of the family. And now in an increasingly multicultural country,

Unknown Speaker (01:17:19.439)

there's no single demographic group controlling the table. Everybody is invited to sit wherever

Unknown Speaker (01:17:24.399)

they want. And that's, what's deeply threatening and deeply unsettling to the core Fox viewer,

Unknown Speaker (01:17:30.079)

like to the, to the typical 70 year old white male Fox Christian conservative viewer. That idea that

Unknown Speaker (01:17:36.079)

anybody can pull up a chair is the entire story. All right. So if that idea is what makes,

Unknown Speaker (01:17:44.079)

was what motivates the Fox news program, how is that not institutionalized racism?

Unknown Speaker (01:17:53.520)

It is our job to keep everybody away from our table. Well, I think they would say we are

Unknown Speaker (01:18:00.479)

defending what made America great. So that's, so that's, that's another good point. I don't,

Unknown Speaker (01:18:06.000)

but I don't want to like pretend to be the Fox pun and I'm not good at that. No, no, no. I'm,

Unknown Speaker (01:18:10.000)

I'm, I'm, I'm interested. I'm interested in how it is that this is allowed to fly.

Unknown Speaker (01:18:16.239)

You know what I mean? Like, just like with, you mean free speech? No, no, no, no. I mean,

Unknown Speaker (01:18:21.439)

with the conversations with Fox news employees, you know, like that idea of you have just

Unknown Speaker (01:18:27.359)

explicitly explained racism. That's what it is. White people should be the only people at the

Unknown Speaker (01:18:32.239)

table. That's racism. There's no other way to describe that. Right.

Unknown Speaker (01:18:36.720)

It's not exactly what I said, but okay. Let's go with it. Sure. All right. And if that is what

Unknown Speaker (01:18:46.960)

motivates their viewers, that is what they are doing. That is what they are. So if that is

Unknown Speaker (01:18:56.000)

something that you know, that we can talk about that is demonstrably provable, right? How is it

Unknown Speaker (01:19:02.079)

that they are still allowed to say, you know, like, whoa, no, we're defending what makes America

Unknown Speaker (01:19:06.880)

great again, without all of you going, no, fuck you. Fox is racist from now until the end of time.

Unknown Speaker (01:19:13.119)

You know what I mean? Why does every TV journalist said on TV right now, as we know,

Unknown Speaker (01:19:20.000)

Fox news is a threat to the United States of America. These racist Fox, do you know what I

Unknown Speaker (01:19:25.119)

mean? Okay. We can, we can go down your, your theoretical hole for a minute because even if

Unknown Speaker (01:19:30.640)

that happened, which would never happen, sure. What would the, what would the outcome of that be?

Unknown Speaker (01:19:35.199)

Let's find out. I think it would never happen, but I think the answer is even more disillusionment,

Unknown Speaker (01:19:41.600)

even more polarization, even more taking sides. Nobody's opinion change. Nobody's nobody,

Unknown Speaker (01:19:46.319)

nobody persuaded. Right. Persuasion is no longer possible. Right.

Unknown Speaker (01:19:53.520)

I don't want, I don't like to believe that's true. I don't like to believe that's true. I would,

Unknown Speaker (01:19:58.239)

I would like to believe that there are men. I actually think this, I,

Unknown Speaker (01:20:03.680)

what I do, let me, let me rephrase that. Let me rephrase that. I, I you're right. That's,

Unknown Speaker (01:20:08.560)

that's unspecific persuasion is absolutely possible. Given the challenges that we face

Unknown Speaker (01:20:15.039)

is persuasion, realistically a possible way to solve these problems. That's a better question.

Unknown Speaker (01:20:21.760)

I think it is. I think there's there, there, there have to be, and there are areas of common ground

Unknown Speaker (01:20:30.640)

that can be found and the media can help to do that. Or the media can make the situation a whole

Unknown Speaker (01:20:36.640)

lot worse. And, you know, I think when we, when we look at an hour of Sean Hannity's show that,

Unknown Speaker (01:20:41.920)

that is making the situation worse. Like there is, he is not looking for common ground. He is

Unknown Speaker (01:20:46.640)

not trying to find, you know, areas where we can make progress. He is so in division.

Unknown Speaker (01:20:53.039)

But I think there's a lot of media that helps to show people what they have in common. That's,

Unknown Speaker (01:20:59.279)

that's like, that's the area that I'm more interested in is what do I have in common

Unknown Speaker (01:21:03.119)

with people that are perceived to be my opponent? Maybe not all the way to Alex Jones direction,

Unknown Speaker (01:21:08.960)

but, but that's the difference, right? It's like, it's good faith actors versus bad faith actors.

Unknown Speaker (01:21:13.680)

What you're getting at a lot with Fox is there's an assumption and I'm not disagreeing with it,

Unknown Speaker (01:21:17.520)

but there's an assumption in your comments that they are bad faith actors, right? That they

Unknown Speaker (01:21:21.840)

know that they are lying. They know they are doing damage. Yes. And I'm not claiming that's not

Unknown Speaker (01:21:27.600)

entirely false or whatever, but like there are also people at Fox. I know some of these sources

Unknown Speaker (01:21:32.720)

at Fox who are truly a genuinely pro-Trump who believe his policies are the right ones who

Unknown Speaker (01:21:38.720)

believe X, Y, and Z, who think Fox is doing the right thing, who believe Fox is the fight harder

Unknown Speaker (01:21:44.319)

for Trump's America. Like who like, and those are believers, believers. And I would argue that's a

Unknown Speaker (01:21:51.840)

good faith actor because at least I can meet him where he is. I agree with you. Yeah. The problem

Unknown Speaker (01:21:59.039)

I think you cannot have a debate with a believer. What are you talking about? We can have it as I

Unknown Speaker (01:22:03.760)

would get discussion. Yes. You can have a discussion. Yes. That is true. We're coming up

Unknown Speaker (01:22:08.560)

against the bad faith actors. That is the issue. It's like the bad faith actors who are, they're

Unknown Speaker (01:22:14.159)

just nihilists, right? They just want to watch the world burn. They'll say anything, do anything,

Unknown Speaker (01:22:17.760)

whatever. That's, that's where I have more scorn. Hmm. I mean, then I'd like, I have this problem

Unknown Speaker (01:22:27.039)

with that argument every time, because it's always applicable. That kind of like, Oh, you know,

Unknown Speaker (01:22:33.039)

not every, not all bad apples argument. Right. My, my question then just always comes back to

Unknown Speaker (01:22:39.840)

then like, why don't the rest of you fucking descend upon them? Like Ravens on somebody who

Unknown Speaker (01:22:45.039)

talks shit like that should be your job. Okay. So fine. We all know that there are good faith

Unknown Speaker (01:22:50.720)

actors. Why aren't all of you dog piling on top of Jesse waters? And I mean that physically,

Unknown Speaker (01:22:56.880)

I mean, I want, I want you out there. I want Lawrence O'Donnell out there. I want Rachel Maddow.

Unknown Speaker (01:23:03.039)

I want them landing on top of these people. Do you know what I mean? Like, is it not your

Unknown Speaker (01:23:08.479)

responsibility to police your own? So I, I think the idea that Rachel Maddow would view Jesse

Unknown Speaker (01:23:16.800)

waters as one of her own is, is, is hilarious. Um, I do very similarly, but, but she would,

Unknown Speaker (01:23:24.960)

she would, she, she, she, she would laugh at you and say, I, she would say she is a scholar and

Unknown Speaker (01:23:31.119)

author, a journalist and a broadcaster. And he is a paid monkey. Like he's a performer. He is a,

Unknown Speaker (01:23:38.399)

he is, he reads other people's script. Like she, for example, she writes her copy of her scripts.

Unknown Speaker (01:23:43.439)

He, he reads someone else's I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm just telling you that yes, they are

Unknown Speaker (01:23:47.520)

on, they are on channels close to each other on the cable dial. That is basically the only thing

Unknown Speaker (01:23:52.000)

they have in common. Um, the, I think you're getting, you're, you're, you're, you're,

Unknown Speaker (01:23:56.960)

you're getting to something I think interesting about the, the media kind of media accountability

Unknown Speaker (01:24:02.159)

and holding people accountable and, um, how seriously I take this stuff. And I think that's

Unknown Speaker (01:24:06.800)

been a problem. I think it's been a problem over the years that the, the national news media will

Unknown Speaker (01:24:12.000)

focus intently on what Marjorie Taylor green is saying. For example, a freshmen Congresswoman

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was relative, a little power, but not on what Sean Hannity saying, who is, I would argue more

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powerful, more influential. Like this is something that I started to realize in my ears at CNN,

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when I would get emails from lawmakers, text messages from lawmakers, trying to get on my

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television, the television show that I hosted, I try not to say my show because it's your show.

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And I started to realize, I started to realize like there's a power dynamic here, right? That

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they recognize that I'm the one with the pulpit every week. And I was on for only an hour and all

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that, but like, yeah, there is something really warped where Sean Hannity has more influence in

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the average GOP lawmaker. And so, but, but he's not covered that way. It's not, it doesn't get

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new that kind of news coverage. So I would say there should be more news coverage of what these

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opinion people are saying of what Jesse waters is claiming of the conspiracy theories they are

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promoting. There needs to be more fact checking and coverage of it. You're, you're coming at it

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from like a, like, take them out. I'm just coming at it from a let's take it seriously.

Unknown Speaker (01:25:20.159)

Well, I mean, that's, that's kind of the air we go. That's the last question that I have for you

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and kind of the place that I want to end it is those three obviously where we began because I'm

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a lit guy. There are three C's, you know, that civil criminal and canceling kind of thing. And

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I think of the Fox news verdict, I think of Alex and I think of Tucker and I think of all of these

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people. And I think civilly has anybody been held accountable. Alex is spending $90,000 a month.

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Now will true accountability come hopefully, but as it stands, there's no accountability.

Unknown Speaker (01:25:58.000)

If you can still spend 90 grand a month, that's just, that's my rule. That's my rule in life

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until, until you spend at least as little money as me per month, right. Then you have not been

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held accountable. And what's the latest with him? How, how are the Sandy Hook families trying to

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call the money back? Well, we're the most recent two settlement disputes have been around 85

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million and 55 million. So all again, that 1.5 billion that's not accountability. And the same

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is true for the Fox news settlement. You know, like I understand that they are going to pay that

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money, but Fox news also has an insurance company that's going to came out of insurance and they

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have this, that's going to pay this. And really they have a profit margin of like $1 billion a

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year. So it's not like they lose money. It's that they make less money this year. You know what I'm

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saying? And then they'll spread that out over time. They'll deduct that on their taxes. Frankly,

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this judgment will wind up saving them money in the long run. I don't know. I don't know about

Unknown Speaker (01:26:57.680)

that. I know, I know, but, but you understand my point as far as accountability is concerned.

Unknown Speaker (01:27:02.479)

Yes, this is not accountability, but, but well, the, but these are the structures

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that we have in place. These are the options that we have. And to me, it does feel the courtroom is

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the, has been the most productive, you know, in terms of format forum for accountability.

Unknown Speaker (01:27:18.479)

Right. So then we've got civil, then we go to canceling and that's ostensibly the media's job.

Unknown Speaker (01:27:23.760)

You know, that is where the media gets together. We all dog pile on some asshole to tweet something

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before they got on a plane one time. But the media doesn't get together. I mean, but that's the,

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this is it. There is the, what's the ball gets rolling. The ball gets rolling. You know what

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I'm saying? Sure. Yeah, sure. There's yes. But I, I just, I, I pushed back cause I don't want to

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like give Alex Jones fodder for conspiracy theories. Obviously, obviously that's why,

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again, that's why you talk to a clown is because people don't take me too seriously.

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There was once like some random blogger who wrote like Brian Stelter talked about the death of

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democracy and quoted the same book on the same day as an MSNBC host who gave them the book.

Unknown Speaker (01:28:07.039)

I'll follow that one. I was like, I was like the library gave me the book. Like, well,

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what do you think? Like you think we get together for these meetings to,

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to plan which books we're going to cite on the air? Like there's just, it's happening now with

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Taylor Swift, Vivek Ramaswamy, and these people out there with these crazy conspiracy theories

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that Taylor Swift is a psy-op that she's planted by the CIA to influence 2024 election. Like what

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these people have too much time on their hands. If William said it to Shannon Sharpe, I believe it.

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That's just where I don't know how to help people like not see ghosts. Right. Well,

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and, but that's the next price. This is how I felt with the Gitmo thing. Civil, canceling,

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and then criminal. It is impossible to hold these people accountable criminally,

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even when they commit a crime like Ron DeSantis did. So please, if we're talking about these three

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levels of accountability, I feel like your book has definitively proven there's no way to hold

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powerful people accountable. I don't think that's the takeaway at all. I

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distanced myself from your conclusions. I think the Trump trials are going to be really interesting.

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I'm interested in those as to criminal trials. I'll tell you, I put my money where my mouth is.

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I bet 500 bucks on Nikki Haley, because I think that ultimately Trump will be taken off of enough

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ballots to not be allowed to run. That's my bet. That's where I put my money on it.

Unknown Speaker (01:29:32.319)

That's where you put me. Okay. So I, so you're saying the system's working then?

Unknown Speaker (01:29:37.279)

Yes, that's what I'm saying. The regime is working.

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That's what that means. I'll take it.

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I subscribed to the Harvey Milk slogan. You got to give them hope. You got to give them hope.

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So I look around and I say, uh, the dominion settlement was a lot of money and yes,

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Fox can afford it, but it was painful for them. And I look around and I say,

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Tucker being canceled suggests that maybe kooky conspiracy theories are not quite as

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welcome at Fox as they were the week before he was on the, like, you know, like a little bit,

Unknown Speaker (01:30:10.239)

a little bit of hope, a little bit of hope here. Totally. Those, those are like, I understand that

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I'm, I'm an asshole. So it comes off as though I invalidate kind of what are very, very valid

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things that you, you know, that's, that's true. That's very true. And that's awesome.

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And it's something that we should celebrate. You know, I'm just a person who's always going to be

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like cool, but why didn't you break his knees? You know, that's, that's where I live. Right.

Unknown Speaker (01:30:33.199)

Uh, so listen, your, your utopia sounds incredible and I hope you can get there someday. Hey,

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if everybody has one eye, then I've done my job correctly and gotten revenge. Uh,

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that's a great place to end it. Brian, thank you so much. This has been an awesome conversation.

Unknown Speaker (01:30:51.600)

This has been a delight. Uh, your book network of lies. Could you please, uh,

Unknown Speaker (01:30:56.479)

advertise it up again for the, uh, video viewers. Thank you for having me on this was, uh,

Unknown Speaker (01:31:02.560)

this was a challenge in the best way possible. Why does everybody keep saying that about me?

Unknown Speaker (01:31:10.079)

Well, thank you so much. And you have a great day. Thank you. You too.

Unknown Speaker (01:31:14.000)

Andy in Kansas. You're on the air. Thanks for holding.

Unknown Speaker (01:31:16.000)

Well, Alex, I'm a person in color. I'm a huge fan. I love your work.