February 1, 2025 • 41 mins
Media Matters’ Angelo Carusone examines the media's reaction to Trump’s shock-and-awe legislation strategy. Eoin Higgins details his new book, Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and Illinois Governor JB. Pritzker has blocked
January sixth riders from state jobs. We have such a
great show for you today, Media Matters. Angelo Kirasone talks
us through the media's reaction to Trump's shock and all
(00:23):
legislation strategy. Then we'll talk to Owen Higgins about his
new book Owned How tech billionaires on the right bought
the loudest voices on the left. But first the news Somali.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Obviously, we are still discussing this tragic aviation accent are
first in sixteen years with a commercial flight involved on
American soil. And I'm going to shock you here. Trump
has totally bullshitted his way through this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You know, I actually was listening to it, well, I
was late for you, and I was listening to it
on c SPAN. I was listening to the Seespan has
this podcast where they replay all the sort of bits
of content that have happened during the day. And what's
interesting is he says a statement that's like a normal
statement where you think, oh, this sounds pretty good, like
(01:15):
this is what a president should say, our hearts ache
for you. People in different countries, we all feel for you.
And you think, all right, well, that doesn't sound so bad.
And then he gets out these clips clearly and he says,
now I want to talk about this is why it's
actually good to listen to all of Trump because people say, well,
the clip was taking out of context, but the context
is actually totally fascinating and more upsetting.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
So that seems like the theme of the week is
that was also the theme in cash Ptel's hearings.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Right, he has all these articles and he goes, I'm
going to now read some articles that happened before I
was president, I swear to God, and he starts reading
this article about how the Biden administration wanted to employ
people with mental disabilities for airline controllers.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Now, is that air traffic controllers.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
It's not air traffic controllers, it's that part of DEI
is employing people with mental disability is okay, and that
it sort of makes a lot of leaps. It's clearly
like some right wing talking point article like, but it's
just fascinating, even just the fact that he shows up
to this press conference about this aviation disaster, and he
(02:25):
says this thing about how like he feels for all
the families, and then he's like, and here are some articles.
What I was struck by was the fact that Team
Trump is always always always working the refs on like
their favorite culture war topics. So right, they're already like
this is DEI and they have like a sort of
weak foundation for it, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, a house built on the zone that they footed
with shit.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Right exactly. And so I just thought that was pretty
interesting though, to sort of like actually listen to it
not cut up at all, because it just is totally strange.
And you know, the question, of course, Trump's big question
is will this work for him? Will his people somehow
decide that DEI is what caused a crash which was
very likely human error? And you know, there weren't enough
(03:14):
people at the desk, but it sounds like from what
I understand, the controller asked the helicopter pilot if he
saw the plane and he said he did, so, I mean,
obviously he didn't, and that's how we got here.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yes, and you'll be shocked to hear that Trump launched
the air controller diversity program that he doesn't like.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, the problem with hating the federal government and running
it is that he constantly gets into problems like this, right,
he says, you know this is to blame. Oh and
it's from my last administration, so no one should be
surprised by this. Also, Fox News has a huge DEI,
I mean, Rupert Murdoch is running DEI in his own
parent corporation that is filming the news shows that are
(03:57):
saying DEI is killing America. So make it make sense.
Oh wait, you can't. They're hypocrites, Molly.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
You know, I'm going to defend my president here for
a second. He's a New Yorker just like us, and
we know all about self conflicting hating things we're a
part of.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I'm going to tell you that if he tries to
get rid of congestion pricing, which I've already got a
news alert that he was going to, I will take
to the streets.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Oh you and I both, Okay, I'm gonna throw you
a wild card. We didn't have this planned, but I
feel like it's the weekend. We got to recap these
confirmation hearings of RFK and cash PTTEL. What are your
feelings on these?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think the smartest take I saw was Andrew Desiderio
from punch Bowl News, very straight down the middle, not
on the opinion side, but he covers Congress, and he
pointed out that there were a bunch of times when
we saw Republican senators desperately trying to get RFK Junior
and also to get Tulsey to say that they like
(04:57):
they would say, but you really think vaccines are good?
And he would say, well, not really. And they kept
trying to get Tulsea to say, well, you really think
Edward snowed in as a trader and she'd be like, no,
you know, these are like the please please, please please
let me fool myself for long enough to vote for you,
and they wouldn't even do that. Now, that doesn't mean
(05:20):
these Republicans aren't going to vote for them, but those
were pretty incredible moments, and we saw that throughout. We
saw that with Cash Battel too.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I thought it was very very interesting the right wing
echo chamber of them thinking like Cash Battel and RFK
are owning the senators and everything with like really some
of the worst responses like oh you have this out
of context.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Oh wow, Yeah, you really own me out.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Of context that you said that you're going to go
after your enemies, a thing that probably should disqualify you
from running the FBI.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, I mean I thought it was pretty interesting too.
There were so many moments when RFK was actually just
unprepared and they asked questions and he was like, yeah, yeah,
I got to get the data. And there was also
I mean we talked about this earlier in the week,
but the Bernie stuff where he was like, you just
take money from pharmaceutical companies. OURFK, Junior, this will be
a humongous drama for pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies that have
(06:16):
many many lobbyists have managed to keep drug prices high
for a long long time. It's a very powerful group
of people, not exactly you know, poor kids who need
free lunches. Right, So I'll be curious to see how
pharmaceutical companies go to war with RFK. There are just
a lot of conflicting interests here. Everyone you know in
(06:38):
DC is so cynical and they're like, all these people
are going to get through. The only one who might
not get through is toll SI. Well that's what Trump
world is telling everyone, and maybe that's true. Maybe everyone
else sails through, but you know, nobody thought that Mitch
McConnell was going to vote against teg Sas. Nobody thought that,
and they get through until they don't. And so you know,
(07:01):
maybe all three of them sail through, but maybe they don't.
And I think it's important not to be so nihilistic
and let the Republicans win because you know they may not.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, I mean, I have to say I've heard some
language from some of these Republican senators where they've spent
a long many decade hating the name Kennedy right well, and.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
It was hard for me to see. I mean, Bill
Cassady from Louisiana, he is a doctor, and he, unlike
Ran Paul who's also a doctor but seems to not
believe in medicine, he really did seem furious and he
did not seem like a person who is going to
vote for RFK. So now maybe they can till us him.
Maybe they can go in and spend two hours saying
(07:43):
whatever they said to Tom Tillis to get him to
vote for Hegseth. But maybe they can and more will
be revealed on this Angelo cuirasone is the CEO of
Media Matters. Welcome back to Fast Pas Politics, the home
of all good, happy things. Just kidding, Angelo.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
That sounds right.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
There's a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Things going great. I think we should start by talking
about the many ways in which media companies are not
meeting the moment.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
Yeah, that's a big one. And I think of all
the things that I mean a lot of what I
was talking about in the lead up to the election,
except because I'm not involved in the day to day
campaign work, I had somewhat of an advantage of thinking
about so the larger trajectory, and obviously my expertise in
the media space, and so I spent a lot of
time thinking about products on twenty five and what an
administration would look like, and all the sort of the
parade of horribles that could happen if Trump were to win.
(08:35):
And the one thing that I myself, even again I'm
a critic of the media, did not.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Fully account for.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
It's like I sort of assumed that there would be
some bending, that the coverage would be a little bit
milk toast, then maybe that there would be privileging of
lies and misinformation, you know, some false equivalences. I sort
of expect and built that into my like, what are
all the things that are going to go wrong? What I
did not fully account for was how quickly the fear
would be internalized at like the staff level, the reporter level,
(09:02):
and then how quickly the transactional nature of hey, if
I just give you a bunch of money, I will
extract benefits from it would internalize at like the you know,
at the executive corporate level. And two things together are
I think have really created an incredibly wobbly foundation for
and really undermined the little resilience we had in maintaining
(09:24):
a lot of our core democratic structures.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
You know, there was news yesterday that CBS was planning
to make you know, so we had ABC, now we
have CBS. I mean basically everyone is just paying Trump off,
basically Facebook, Facebook settled in the hopes that that will
mean that he will let them survive.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Basically, there's a lot of evidence to support the idea
that a traditional autocrat that this would not work, That
a traditional autocrat would you would pay them off and
then eventually would destroy you, Like if you look at Russia, right, like,
historically this has not worked, say, more about that.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Yeah, I mean historically what ends up happening is that, well,
it's a couple of things. One, if you were to
say align with them or sort of capitulate really early, historically,
what ends up happening is that they sort of take
the reprieve, they focus on other priorities, and they come
back around and get you anyway, because you're not ever
really considered a full loyalist and they need to replace
you and so, and also like they're just it's such
a grievance based industry and an operation like autocracies are
(10:31):
are theater in a way, and so you can't really
keep lots of the old guard around too long because
that they represent a status quo that you're entirely trying
to upend. And it's also just great theater to sort
of get rid of the past leaders. The other thing
that tends to happen, which is strange, is that is
that you have and this happened a lot in Hungary,
(10:51):
is that you have aligned you know, deep financial interest
by up the competitive media properties and sort of then
turn them into something that are appendages of the burgeoning autocrat.
Those get to survive unless they eventually and even they
get turned on over time, but they have a better
longer chance of survival. That's the part here that I
don't fully get is that it's an extremely short term
(11:13):
gambit from my perspective, because they are assuming that he
is that he will never sort of retaliate against them,
and it other means actually, in a way, it's scary.
It means one or two things. It means one, they're
assuming that he's never going to retaliate against them in
the future, meaning that they can operate somewhat independently. And
if it cuts against him, that they're not going to
end up in the exact same position cause them to
(11:34):
effectively pay him off in the first place. Or they've
so deeply accepted that they no longer have total control
that they're never planning to do anything that runs a
foul of Trump. That's an even scarier prospect, right, Like,
what's the point of buying him off If you say, oh,
I'm going to have a stiff spot in a year
from now and speak truth to power and have operational
control over my platform. Are they just not going to
(11:55):
or they're going to. Are they just planning to buy
them off every.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
Time something comes up and that, to me is the
real concerning part of this is that the either or
here you really gets back to the core issue, which
is that the pieces of our sort of core democratic structures.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
That is what resilience is, and that that will evaporate.
I'm not not even saying, oh, the media will save us,
but this, you know, and I just delay it a lot.
It's like it's it's obviously ABC settling again a lawsuit
that was very unlikely to succeed. Most recently, Facebook settled
with Trump for twenty five million dollars for suspending him.
There's still YouTube lawsuit that's out there that I think,
you know, potentially gets settled.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Who knows.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
It's just there's just this mass sort of shift. That's
the stuff We're going to ultimately need to just be
somewhat neutral at least to have a real fighting chance
here at preserving some of the core parts of our society.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
You know, it's interesting because it's like I am often
an optimist, which is not good for me. Like when
I went through sort of the post mortem on what
I really got wrong in the twenty twenty four election,
it was at every point I was a little bit
too optimal stick about things, right, And it was much
to my detriment. But I actually think that my optimism
(13:07):
is not unfounded here, which is Look, the problem with
the corporate media is that all of these media companies
are not just one newspaper. You know, they're like Jeff Bezos, right,
they own space companies, they have contracts for this, they
have this, they have that. So it turns out billionaires
are not good star wards of democracy, right they right,
they don't give a fuck. They just want to get
(13:29):
their space. You know. They got to be billionaires for
a reason, right, And it was not because they cared
about the common good. Right, those people are social workers.
But I do think to a certain extent, I'm very
interested to see because what I noticed this week, and
I want you to sort of tell me if you
think I'm crazy, because I might be. What I noticed
(13:50):
this week was Donald Trump got up there after that
plane crash blamed DEI and said this is the fault
of DEI. And I know what he was doing, right,
He was like, we control the narrative. We got to
get a story out there that controls the narrative. This
is a story. Are people like they don't like DEI?
They want to blame DEI, let's blame Di. Now. I
(14:11):
think that was a moment that a lot of normal
people were like, there's no way that, Like it just
didn't make any sense, right. You get that. You get
that if you're in the fevers pitches of the far
you know, the internet swamp, you think, oh, Di, okay,
that makes sense. But I think that that was It's
like one of those moments where normal people are like, huh.
(14:34):
And I think that is ultimately Trump's problem really is
that he's in the media bubble just like everyone else's.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Yeah, So I don't think you're wrong. I think that's
a reasonable assessment. I think to take a step back,
and to me, I always ask the question of like,
so what and the assumption, and I think there's so
a lot of what you're saying is that, well, you
still have to have some degree of buy in from
the government in order to maintain power for an extended
period of time, and that's correct. The thing to consider, though,
is that a lot of and this is where it
(15:03):
ties into the media conversation and so much of sort
of this smashing, grab, shock and awe that is happening,
is that that's so what only works over an extent
of perod of time, meaning it to the next election or
the next chance to really transform or change, or the
next inflection point where there could be some response to
public pressure. The issue, though, is that part of what's
unfolding right now, and this is why the media capitulating
(15:23):
so fast is concerning to me.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I agree.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
I never really trusted them, and I never thought they'd
be the savior. But in a way they were sort
of like extending the curve Beny so that we had
a little more time. Part of what's happening right now
in these initial few months is to do so much
so fast that you shift the culture as well. You
actually take away that's so what. And if you can
convince people that the media companies are terrible, it's like, great, well,
then we could just have people go off independently.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Great.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
But if you are successful in burying people in litigation
and threats from cash betel and investigations, then you start
to suffocate and smother the counter narratives that you're identifying,
and people may think it just like they do in Russia,
but then they stop saying anything about it, and that
it doesn't mean so what, and that The one thing
I would say is I agree with your assessment. I
don't think it's too optimistic. What I would just caution
(16:08):
is that that alone is probably not sufficient in this moment.
It's sort of like a plant that's outside when it's
still potentially able to frost, Like, we need to have
a little more protective cover.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah. The only thing that will save us, if anything
does save us, is the is the innate incompetence of
trump Ism. I mean, that's it, right, because the media
is not going to save us. There's no Bob Muller, who,
by the way, that guy really fixed everything, right. James
Comy is writing novels in Connecticut. I mean, you know,
(16:40):
after prosecuting Martha Stewart. I mean these guys, you know,
the people in the federal government are not brave. I
do think that. I mean, the good news is he's
so and again these this good should be in scare quotes, like,
the good news is he's so dehumanized that people work
in the federal goal for men. Yeah, that they're probably
(17:02):
leaking like crazy, and the next four years are just
going to be Trump's you know, sort of every thing
that anyone in that administration has ever done.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
I think so the one thing that it's true, there
is a lot of like incompetence and incapacity. I would
also just note that the core and key players aren't
in place yet. Russell Bote isn't it at omb and
he's going to be a critical part of the capacity
and capabilities because he's the one that sort of has,
in a way the keys to the castle. So much
of their plans are designed to sort of stem from
(17:35):
the work that he did over the last couple of years.
The other thing to note is that, and this is
the thing that's really important, that they have a very
large risk tolerance, Like they're going and assuming a wide
amount of mistakes, and that is something that they're comfortable with.
And it's also something that Elon Musk brings to the table.
That's what he's done everywhere. And I remember when he
first took over Twitter and everyone thought that when he
because he had fired all the engineers and people out,
(17:57):
the system was going to break and fall apart, you know,
and that each it's like, yeah, he's like you know,
and he did the same thing. It tess on other companies,
like you take everything away, you strip it down to
the to the bare bones, and yeah, there may be
a bunch of embarrassing things that happened, but then you
only put in the essential pieces needed to hold the
place up and now it's yours. And that's the thing
to consider, is that some of the incompetents they're okay
with because it means that, you know, if they can
(18:18):
get away with it, and each time they get away
with it, it further empowers them in a weird way.
So I agree, I think that is going to be
a frustrating point. I think the part that does concern
me a lot is that layered in within the incompetence
is just a malevolence and a targeted malevolence that is
going to really make it hard to operationalize the frustration
from that incompetence. And that doesn't mean it's no hope,
(18:40):
I do think, And you said something that really accept me.
It's like you were pointed to or you started listing
some of the saviors that democrats and the public pointed
to the last time around. And that was always the
thing that I was anxious about, is that there was
no savor. The savor, in a way was us, and
we just wanted to outsource it, and I think this
is sort of the inflection point for all of us
is like do we want to outsource it? There isn't
going to be a say, and it's certainly not going
(19:01):
to be the Democratic Party or is it going to
be us? And that I think is a big piece
of this.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah. And I mean I also think this is a
terrible moment in American politics. And I mean it really is.
I mean it's okay to accept that this is just horrendous.
I mean watching I mean I watched those hearings yesterday,
and I mean these Republican senators just begging RFK Junior
(19:27):
just to say that vaccines are okay and you wouldn't,
I mean the sort of let you know, and begging
Tulcy Gabbard to say that Snowden is a trader and
she wouldn't. I mean, just like it was so pathetic.
I mean, you know, these people work, they were elected senators.
I mean, this is like not a great job, and
(19:48):
they're doing it theoretically because they believe in some things.
You know, it's just such an exercise and dehumanization. And
I'm not even fans of these Republican senators.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
No, it's not I so I know this thing about it,
and this sort of ties into a piece of this.
It's like, you know, the same conversation we're having about
the corporate side and sort of their capitulation. I thought
about that in the context of some of these Republican
leaders as well. So you know, Ted Kruz sits atop
the committee that will have subpoena power over tech, and
you know he's he's been critical of big tech in
the past and certainly would use subopenas I don't think
(20:20):
to necessarily be a big justice advocate, but there's certainly
it gives him power and capacity. One thing that the
administration is already is anxious about and is trying to
find a way to strip him away from it, is
to reduce his ability to subpoena big tech companies. It
seems small, but it's like it just reinforces your point
about how much they're sort of pushing Republicans, and we
have Republican leaders are willingly giving this power over for
(20:43):
whatever short term gambit they think they're going to get
out of it, but ultimately they've either made the assessment
that they're going to become you know, they're going to
go full Lindsey Graham, you know, and they're always going
to tow the line, or they hope in the future
maybe they can have a better terrain to fight on it.
And I don't think that's going to happen. I think
in a weird way, Trump is at his wet right
now and everybody else is at their most potent, and
in three months from now, if we continue on this trajectory,
(21:05):
that will be inverted.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I am not convinced of that because I think ultimately
the key to trump Ism is that he kind of
blows himself up. Thank God. I mean, that may not
continue to be true, but what I have noticed in
the past is that it's just like with the family businesses,
he just can't keep it going. Like there's a reason
he's not maclough right, there's a reason he's not. You know,
(21:29):
there are a lot of real estate families in New
York who have made billions and billions of dollars who
are not geniuses. Like it's not a hard it's not
a hard career to run real estate in a city
where everything where real estate just gets more and more expensive.
So what I think is what's interesting about Trump, or
what may save us, and again I am a cock
(21:51):
eyede optimist. Is the fact that he is just very
self destructive and he tends to not be able to
keep it going. But again, I guess we're going to say, right.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
I think that's sort The only thing I would note
is that perception is reality to an extent in politics.
And the thing that makes me very anxious, and this
is especially tied in with the way the tech companies
have sort of been so quickly, is that the imbalance,
the asymmetry in that landscape is so drastically different. So like,
if you look at left leaning and left aligne sort
of like podcasters shows across the full spectrum, and then
(22:23):
you look at their monthly listens, it's somewhere in the
range of on the high level, about seventy million or
so monthly listens, and aggregate on the sort of the
right leaning side, it's close to three hundred million. And
that's just one data point. I mean, the asymmetry and
that is a fairly narrow lens on what you would
identify as right leading. And that's in part because you know,
(22:44):
and so I think part of it is. And that's
just one data point. But the imbalance there the asymmetry
does give them the ability to either shift blame for
problems or for issues, and I think you're sort of
seeing them begin to plant the seeds of that. So
this idea of like malicious compliance, for instance, that everything
that's gone wrong with our edicts are not a result
of the edict, but rather these deep staters that are
(23:04):
implementing it to hurt people on purpose, to make it
bad for us. That's very believable. And if you have
a narrative dominance, which he does, you could see how
most many people would buy into that, like, oh, that
kind of makes sense. They always hated him, you know,
so clearly they're trying to sabotage him. And I think
that's the only thing that gives me a little anxiety
there is that even if he's self destructive in a
(23:25):
few months from now, we'll be love to see it.
Will we even know that he's self destructing?
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Right? And that I think is a big scary todd. Well,
there we go. Not great, not great. We love to
keep from crying. Thank you, Angelo, Thank you. Owen Higgins
is the author of owned How Tech Billionaires on the
Right Bought the loudest voices on the Left. Welcome to
(23:51):
Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Owen, thank you, happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Tell us a little bit about your book.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
The book is called Owen, How tech billionaires on the
right about the loudest voices on the left. And it's
kind of an exploration of both. How Silicon Valley billionaires
like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Andrees and David Sachs
and others have become more public about their right wing,
in some cases far right views. How they've used their
(24:18):
cash their investments to shape the information and media ecosystem
in the United States and beyond. And I use Glenn
Greenwald and Matt Taibi to prominent independent journalists who rose
to fame. They cannot be bought, right, they cannot be bought.
And I use them being bought to explain this phenomena.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So how did they get bought? Pick whoever, which one
you want and talk us through it in the vaguest
possible way.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Yeah, I think I would probably say that Greenwald his
independence has been one of the things he's been most
fierce about throughout his career as a journalist, and over time,
I mean, he created his own career really like just
by writing, which which I think is admirable. He was
in the blogisphere in the mid to late two thousands,
(25:08):
joined Salon, then joined The Guardian. Then he broke the
Snowden story, which catapulted him to global fame, then translated
that into founding The Intercept with financing from Pierre Ohmadyar
former eBay founder.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Who's generally thought of as a pretty good guy.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
As I say in the book, he's been described by
his peers as perhaps more libertarian than he gives the
impression of in public life, but his investments in media
have kind of tilted to the left, tilted liberal. And
you know, this is another example, getting Glenn Greenwell to
come on board after you know, revealing the Snowden leagues,
(25:46):
which was you know, widely I think and correctly seen
as something that was more left wing than right wing.
He also got Jeremy ska Hill, famous international affairs journalists
as well, and Laura Poitras, a filmmaker, and the three
of them found the Intercept. Glenn was with The Intercept
until twenty twenty, when he left over editing of his
(26:08):
article on the Hunter Biden laptop right before the election.
I won't go super into the details, but basically the
editorial stat did not feel that his reporting at the
time met the factual standards that they needed. They just
didn't know enough of what he was saying. Some of
what he was saying has been born out, so he
tends to use that as a pushback, but at the
(26:30):
time they didn't really have a solid idea that what
he was saying was strictly accurate. But either way, he
had already been kind of tilting to the right. He
had been going on Tucker Carlson. He had been kind
of cultivating this right wing audience. He then moved to Substack,
which at the time was Flora Shamming still is, but
(26:51):
coming off of the maths of investment from Mark Andresen
or funding round men by Andresen and so Greenwall joined there.
He wasn't entire there by Substack. They didn't pay him
to come.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Right, It was early Substack.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Yeah, But he came over there and established himself and
did play well for a while. And then in May
twenty twenty one, so the following May, so he left
the Intercept, I think November twenty twenty and in May
twenty twenty one, an investment group consisting of in among
other people, the billionaire Peter Thiel and future Vice president
(27:27):
J D Vance invested in this YouTube alternative called Rumble,
and then Rumble took that money and gave deals to people,
including Glenn. In August twenty twenty one, Glenn was announced
as one of the paid deals that they were hanging
out him alongside Tulsea Gabbard. And if you just kind
of look, his politics had already been moving to the right.
The things he was saying have been moving to the right,
(27:48):
and I think that he has been moving there ever
since in order to cultivate and to keep the audience
that he has. With a few exceptions, a few issue exceptions,
I think Pali sign and some surveillance stuff, he's kind
of broken with the right a little bit on, but
overall he's been He's been pretty close to the conservative
movement and certainly opposed to liberals, which I think is
(28:09):
kind of more maybe how his politics manifest themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
You know, again, I'm not a fan of any of
these people, but I'm just curious, how is he bought
by the right. I mean, it sounds like, you know,
he's made money where the money is and he's a
kind of contrarian, which a lot of those guys are.
But how is he sort of bought by them?
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Well, I think the Rumble investment and then him going
over to Rumble is a pretty clear one to one.
You know, this is a in all but name and
unabashedly right wing video publication, and they gave him money
to come over there. He's still on his deal there.
He actually had to leave substacks, so he consolidate his
(28:52):
writing over there as well on a platform called Locals
that they bought. So I think that the as far
as the money goes, I mean, he's he's clearly making
money from a website that promotes and kind of wakingly
markets itself to the right wing. So I feel like
that's kind of a pretty clear one to one as
far as like how this comes across. I did a
(29:12):
study back, and I believe this was early twenty twenty one,
maybe might have been twenty twenty two, where I looked
over his tweets and how he was talking about Fox News,
which would have him on and that kind of helped
him to build up his writing audis as well. Tucker
Carlson was a big ally of his and would have
him on his show often, and so I did analysis
(29:34):
of his positive and negative tweets about the network, and
you could just see, like I made a whole graph
of it, and you could just see them just spiking,
going huge, like either cumulative or not culative. Once he
started going on Fox, he's stopped being critical of it
and basically added like an unpaid cheerleader, almost like an
employee right of the network. But I think that that
(29:55):
is instructive. That's telling because it shows how Glenn is
willing to adjust his message and adjust the way that
he talks about things and who he allies himself with
depending on if they are benefiting them. Pierre Amyar, who
we were just talking about right, the funder of the Intercept.
(30:15):
When Glenn worked for the Intercept, he never had a
bad thing to say about Pierre. He would say occasionally,
you know, we may disagree on something, but Pierre always
lets me, like do whatever I want. Once he was
away from the Intercept, his rhetoric about ah Mijar became harsh.
He attacked him. He attacked many of his former colleagues
at the Intercept. And look, I'm not saying that they
(30:38):
did or didn't deserve any of his criticism. I'm not
making a judgment on that. What I'm saying is that
the decision to go after them once he was no
longer employed by the intercept the decision to go after
them once Pierre al Midyar's money was no longer funding
his lifestyle as opposed to going after them before about
all of these problems that he said that he had
(30:59):
about the under seven about Omar, I think that just
kind of says a lot about the way that he
functions in this in this world, and the way that
he picks and chooses his targets.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Right. So basically they get them by employing them.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah, they get them by employing them. They get them
by kind of introducing them into this network, this world
where there's a lot of money to be had by
you know, the saying things that they like to hear.
So you know, like not only does Glenn you know,
have this contract with Rumble, but he's also paid to
talk to events like Blagi Trinavisan's Network State conference had
(31:39):
had him as a speaker the All In Podcast, which
is fund which is founded by David Sachs, who's a billionaire.
Like they had Glenn come to one of their conferences.
I mean once you start to understand, like the way
they all like and this isn't this is not at
all unique to this space, but like this the speaking circuit.
You'll see this liberals and conservatives do. It's once you're
in this kind of world. There are a lot of
(32:01):
financial opportunities here that are not always you know, kind
of one to one, like you're being employed by it,
like you're within this world.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The Barry Wise phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Right, Yeah, and Barry features, I mean Barry and Matt
Taibi are two people who have made most of their
money using crowdfunding, right, or most of their money recently
by using prowdfunding by using substacks newsletter service as a
way of getting money from subscribers. They didn't get paid
by substack to come over there. They pay substack a cotton.
(32:32):
Substack facilitates their payments. Right. So if you're just kind
of looking at that, you might say, oh, well, you know,
this is just a situation where you know, they just
have an audience and they are working with that audience.
But then you have Elon Musk making the decision to
choose both of them to publicize the Twitter files, right,
These highly curated tranch of emails and messages that told
(32:54):
a specific story that he wanted to be told, and
they were able to use that to get larger audiences
and to appeal to a right wing audience, and in turn,
they told the story that Elon wanted to have out there.
And so I think that's another example of like how
they were paid, like they were chosen for this. Tayibe
was chosen because David Sachs told Musk that Taiebe was
(33:17):
somebody who Musk should give the files. Due Weiss was
chosen because Mark Andreesen told Elon Musk, this is someone
you should give the files to. So if you start
to kind of put all this stuff together, you can
see the network kind of working here in this kind
of like patronage and backslapping and helping out and everybody.
You know. Barry Weiss's Free Press just had a funding
(33:37):
round last year led by Andresen that valued the website
at one hundred million dollars. I think they raised fifteen million.
It's very like clear, I think, what's happening here.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, they're getting funded because they ideologically reflect the ethos
of these far right billionaires. Do a minute on the
Twitter files because I think that's pretty interesting. So they
gave them these sort of pieces of Twitter stuff in
order to prove a central thesis that Twitter was mean
to conservatives, right, And I feel like it didn't quite
(34:09):
go that way.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I did it, Yeah, I mean there's a reason that
Tybee chose to lead with the Hunter Biden laptop, right,
like this this was a conservative story that they wanted
to put out there. Elon made sure that the time
line that they were allowed to access, you know, had
certain parameters, made sure that there were certain things that
they couldn't ask for. Un sure that he picked them
(34:32):
because there were certain things that they wouldn't ask for, right,
Like there are like certain activist groups on the left
who would have been who were suppressed by Twitter for
one reason or another. Like their suppression was not something
that Musk wanted to have out there, and not something
that Tybee and Weiss were interested in doing, I think
for various reasons, including the fact that they just wanted
(34:53):
to continue having access what the files purported to show.
If you believe Tyee's kind of spent on this and
Weiss's to it to a degree, is this kind of
overarching liberal conspiracy within Twitter and the government which was
at the time run by Trump like the time period
they working for, but somehow was still controlled by liberals,
and that this government and Twitter conspiracy, like all these
(35:15):
bureaucrats and faceless Twitter employees were working together to suppress
right wing commentary, whether it was about COVID, or it
was about Hunter Biden, or it was about kind of
any kind of criticism of the liberal consensus. You know, look,
on the face of it, considering that they were talking
about the Trump administration's time in office, I think this
is kind of ridiculous. But they didn't really provide much
(35:38):
in the way of proof. They had. They certainly showed
in the case of the Hunter Bydon Laptop. Tybee was
able to show the people behind Twitter trying to figure
out how to deal with this reporting. And the reason
that they were trying to figure out how to deal
with this reporting was not because they were necessarily trying
to help or hinder Biden or help her hinder Trump.
(36:01):
It was more is this real and is this the
kind of you know, the political rat fucking that we
want to be like allow on this platform. And so
Tayebe presented this instead as an example of this malfeasance
this conspiracy that involved Twitter and the government at the
same time.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
But it really just involved Twitter, right, it didn't really
involve the government. Yeah, I guess, well, the government was
asking about the COVID stuff, so I guess it's sort
of dead.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Well, yeah, that was the stuff the Weiss I think
did more of. But I just just to go back
to Tybee for a saying, I mean, you know, he
found examples of First of all, there were more examples
of the Trump campaign asking to take stuff down. But
for some reason, even though he admitted that in his reporting,
that wasn't the lead. But secondly, in the reporting around
(36:51):
Hunter Biden, there was also the question of revenge for
the question of you know, there are images of this
man naked or you know, involved in sexual acts activity
that were released without his permission, and like under the
rules of Twitter, the user rules, and also I think
you know laws in some states like you can't broadcast
(37:13):
that that's protected, so they were asking for that to
be taken down. This was presented as some evidence of
malfeasance on the part of the Bind campaign. I just
don't think that that is accurate or fair. As far
as the COVID stuff went, I mean, maybe there's a
little more solid ground to stand on as far as
calling that maybe selective censorship. Your mileage may vary on
whether or not you think that that is appropriate during
(37:35):
a pandemic or not. I mean, you can make an
argument either way. I'm not particularly put out to make it.
To make the argument, I.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Personally believe both that it should have been taken down
and that it was probably ultimately bad that it was
taken down. Right, Like, you're in the middle of a pandemic,
there are not great choices. I just think everybody did
what they thought was the right thing, and some of
it turned out to have larger consequences. But so all
of this is sort of they just went to where
(38:02):
the money is. Is ultimately your thesis.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
That's I mean, that's part of my thesis. They I
think there were other reasons that they turned to the
right that I get into in the book, you know,
like frustration with liberals and Democrats for the way that
they endorsed a lot of the policies during Bush that
they had opposed at the time, right right, right.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Right, for not being truly ideologically pure, which is a
real complaint.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Yeah, for Glenn especially, I think that that was a motivator. Also,
the democratic reaction to Trump the first time, I think
was also a motivator for him. That second one as
well was for Tybee, and Tybee also had to deal
with kind of being canceled over his former writing when
he was in Russia. So it's not kind of like
a black and white thing where it's like this happened
(38:48):
and then this happened, right, It's not like a one
to one. It's like there were a lot of different factors.
But at that time, these billionaires also had their ideological project,
which was to weaken and to decentralize the both the
mainstream and critical independent media, and in order to do that,
they needed to break down those institutions a little bit.
(39:08):
And you know, putting forward a client sycophantic alternative media
structure that they could control or at least that they
could fund, meant that they were able to kind of
damage these institutions. And you know, having big names like
Tybee and Greenwald helped that process along. And I think
that that is part of the motivator for them.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, my pleasure, thank you for having me on No.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Good Jesse Cannon by jug Fast.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
So the Trump administration's halt of CDC Weekly Scientific Reports
is stalling bird flu studies. As this is like crossing
over breeds and like we're seeing so much evidence of
like why we need government to work, and this, uh,
this feels so we're.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
All really really worried about bird flu. Look, nobody wants
the bird flu, nobody wants a pandemic. But Trump has
started deciding that if so, CDC's weekly Scientific Reports will
not be published. This will stall bird flu studies. Trump
administration has re intervened in the release of important studies
(40:23):
on bird flu. The thinking here is if no one
knows it's a pandemic, then I guess it will never
be a pandemic. I mean, this is so stupid and
self defeating. And one of the studies would reveal whether
veterinarians who treat cattle have been unknowingly infected by the
bird flu virus. Another report documents cases in which people
(40:46):
carrying the virus might have infected their pet cats. Well,
this seems really fucking bad and there we go.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Welcome all yeah, and this mucking up the works is
doing all sorts of things. My sister texted to us
today that they stopped giving reportings on shootings, of course,
because they have to also pretend that's not happening too.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, it is just so fucking bad. It is really bad.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Reality doesn't happen if you just pretend it's not happening.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, it still does though. That's about news.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
That's the bad news.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and Illinois Governor JB. Pritzker has blocked
January sixth riders from state jobs. We have such a
great show for you today, Media Matters. Angelo Kirasone talks
us through the media's reaction to Trump's shock and all
(00:23):
legislation strategy. Then we'll talk to Owen Higgins about his
new book Owned How tech billionaires on the right bought
the loudest voices on the left. But first the news Somali.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Obviously, we are still discussing this tragic aviation accent are
first in sixteen years with a commercial flight involved on
American soil. And I'm going to shock you here. Trump
has totally bullshitted his way through this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You know, I actually was listening to it, well, I
was late for you, and I was listening to it
on c SPAN. I was listening to the Seespan has
this podcast where they replay all the sort of bits
of content that have happened during the day. And what's
interesting is he says a statement that's like a normal
statement where you think, oh, this sounds pretty good, like
(01:15):
this is what a president should say, our hearts ache
for you. People in different countries, we all feel for you.
And you think, all right, well, that doesn't sound so bad.
And then he gets out these clips clearly and he says,
now I want to talk about this is why it's
actually good to listen to all of Trump because people say, well,
the clip was taking out of context, but the context
is actually totally fascinating and more upsetting.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
So that seems like the theme of the week is
that was also the theme in cash Ptel's hearings.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Right, he has all these articles and he goes, I'm
going to now read some articles that happened before I
was president, I swear to God, and he starts reading
this article about how the Biden administration wanted to employ
people with mental disabilities for airline controllers.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Now, is that air traffic controllers.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
It's not air traffic controllers, it's that part of DEI
is employing people with mental disability is okay, and that
it sort of makes a lot of leaps. It's clearly
like some right wing talking point article like, but it's
just fascinating, even just the fact that he shows up
to this press conference about this aviation disaster, and he
(02:25):
says this thing about how like he feels for all
the families, and then he's like, and here are some articles.
What I was struck by was the fact that Team
Trump is always always always working the refs on like
their favorite culture war topics. So right, they're already like
this is DEI and they have like a sort of
weak foundation for it, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, a house built on the zone that they footed
with shit.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Right exactly. And so I just thought that was pretty
interesting though, to sort of like actually listen to it
not cut up at all, because it just is totally strange.
And you know, the question, of course, Trump's big question
is will this work for him? Will his people somehow
decide that DEI is what caused a crash which was
very likely human error? And you know, there weren't enough
(03:14):
people at the desk, but it sounds like from what
I understand, the controller asked the helicopter pilot if he
saw the plane and he said he did, so, I mean,
obviously he didn't, and that's how we got here.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yes, and you'll be shocked to hear that Trump launched
the air controller diversity program that he doesn't like.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, the problem with hating the federal government and running
it is that he constantly gets into problems like this, right,
he says, you know this is to blame. Oh and
it's from my last administration, so no one should be
surprised by this. Also, Fox News has a huge DEI,
I mean, Rupert Murdoch is running DEI in his own
parent corporation that is filming the news shows that are
(03:57):
saying DEI is killing America. So make it make sense.
Oh wait, you can't. They're hypocrites, Molly.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
You know, I'm going to defend my president here for
a second. He's a New Yorker just like us, and
we know all about self conflicting hating things we're a
part of.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I'm going to tell you that if he tries to
get rid of congestion pricing, which I've already got a
news alert that he was going to, I will take
to the streets.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Oh you and I both, Okay, I'm gonna throw you
a wild card. We didn't have this planned, but I
feel like it's the weekend. We got to recap these
confirmation hearings of RFK and cash PTTEL. What are your
feelings on these?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think the smartest take I saw was Andrew Desiderio
from punch Bowl News, very straight down the middle, not
on the opinion side, but he covers Congress, and he
pointed out that there were a bunch of times when
we saw Republican senators desperately trying to get RFK Junior
and also to get Tulsey to say that they like
(04:57):
they would say, but you really think vaccines are good?
And he would say, well, not really. And they kept
trying to get Tulsea to say, well, you really think
Edward snowed in as a trader and she'd be like, no,
you know, these are like the please please, please please
let me fool myself for long enough to vote for you,
and they wouldn't even do that. Now, that doesn't mean
(05:20):
these Republicans aren't going to vote for them, but those
were pretty incredible moments, and we saw that throughout. We
saw that with Cash Battel too.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I thought it was very very interesting the right wing
echo chamber of them thinking like Cash Battel and RFK
are owning the senators and everything with like really some
of the worst responses like oh you have this out
of context.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Oh wow, Yeah, you really own me out.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Of context that you said that you're going to go
after your enemies, a thing that probably should disqualify you
from running the FBI.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, I mean I thought it was pretty interesting too.
There were so many moments when RFK was actually just
unprepared and they asked questions and he was like, yeah, yeah,
I got to get the data. And there was also
I mean we talked about this earlier in the week,
but the Bernie stuff where he was like, you just
take money from pharmaceutical companies. OURFK, Junior, this will be
a humongous drama for pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies that have
(06:16):
many many lobbyists have managed to keep drug prices high
for a long long time. It's a very powerful group
of people, not exactly you know, poor kids who need
free lunches. Right, So I'll be curious to see how
pharmaceutical companies go to war with RFK. There are just
a lot of conflicting interests here. Everyone you know in
(06:38):
DC is so cynical and they're like, all these people
are going to get through. The only one who might
not get through is toll SI. Well that's what Trump
world is telling everyone, and maybe that's true. Maybe everyone
else sails through, but you know, nobody thought that Mitch
McConnell was going to vote against teg Sas. Nobody thought that,
and they get through until they don't. And so you know,
(07:01):
maybe all three of them sail through, but maybe they don't.
And I think it's important not to be so nihilistic
and let the Republicans win because you know they may not.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, I mean, I have to say I've heard some
language from some of these Republican senators where they've spent
a long many decade hating the name Kennedy right well, and.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
It was hard for me to see. I mean, Bill
Cassady from Louisiana, he is a doctor, and he, unlike
Ran Paul who's also a doctor but seems to not
believe in medicine, he really did seem furious and he
did not seem like a person who is going to
vote for RFK. So now maybe they can till us him.
Maybe they can go in and spend two hours saying
(07:43):
whatever they said to Tom Tillis to get him to
vote for Hegseth. But maybe they can and more will
be revealed on this Angelo cuirasone is the CEO of
Media Matters. Welcome back to Fast Pas Politics, the home
of all good, happy things. Just kidding, Angelo.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
That sounds right.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
There's a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Things going great. I think we should start by talking
about the many ways in which media companies are not
meeting the moment.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
Yeah, that's a big one. And I think of all
the things that I mean a lot of what I
was talking about in the lead up to the election,
except because I'm not involved in the day to day
campaign work, I had somewhat of an advantage of thinking
about so the larger trajectory, and obviously my expertise in
the media space, and so I spent a lot of
time thinking about products on twenty five and what an
administration would look like, and all the sort of the
parade of horribles that could happen if Trump were to win.
(08:35):
And the one thing that I myself, even again I'm
a critic of the media, did not.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Fully account for.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
It's like I sort of assumed that there would be
some bending, that the coverage would be a little bit
milk toast, then maybe that there would be privileging of
lies and misinformation, you know, some false equivalences. I sort
of expect and built that into my like, what are
all the things that are going to go wrong? What I
did not fully account for was how quickly the fear
would be internalized at like the staff level, the reporter level,
(09:02):
and then how quickly the transactional nature of hey, if
I just give you a bunch of money, I will
extract benefits from it would internalize at like the you know,
at the executive corporate level. And two things together are
I think have really created an incredibly wobbly foundation for
and really undermined the little resilience we had in maintaining
(09:24):
a lot of our core democratic structures.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
You know, there was news yesterday that CBS was planning
to make you know, so we had ABC, now we
have CBS. I mean basically everyone is just paying Trump off,
basically Facebook, Facebook settled in the hopes that that will
mean that he will let them survive.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Basically, there's a lot of evidence to support the idea
that a traditional autocrat that this would not work, That
a traditional autocrat would you would pay them off and
then eventually would destroy you, Like if you look at Russia, right, like,
historically this has not worked, say, more about that.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Yeah, I mean historically what ends up happening is that, well,
it's a couple of things. One, if you were to
say align with them or sort of capitulate really early, historically,
what ends up happening is that they sort of take
the reprieve, they focus on other priorities, and they come
back around and get you anyway, because you're not ever
really considered a full loyalist and they need to replace
you and so, and also like they're just it's such
a grievance based industry and an operation like autocracies are
(10:31):
are theater in a way, and so you can't really
keep lots of the old guard around too long because
that they represent a status quo that you're entirely trying
to upend. And it's also just great theater to sort
of get rid of the past leaders. The other thing
that tends to happen, which is strange, is that is
that you have and this happened a lot in Hungary,
(10:51):
is that you have aligned you know, deep financial interest
by up the competitive media properties and sort of then
turn them into something that are appendages of the burgeoning autocrat.
Those get to survive unless they eventually and even they
get turned on over time, but they have a better
longer chance of survival. That's the part here that I
don't fully get is that it's an extremely short term
(11:13):
gambit from my perspective, because they are assuming that he
is that he will never sort of retaliate against them,
and it other means actually, in a way, it's scary.
It means one or two things. It means one, they're
assuming that he's never going to retaliate against them in
the future, meaning that they can operate somewhat independently. And
if it cuts against him, that they're not going to
end up in the exact same position cause them to
(11:34):
effectively pay him off in the first place. Or they've
so deeply accepted that they no longer have total control
that they're never planning to do anything that runs a
foul of Trump. That's an even scarier prospect, right, Like,
what's the point of buying him off If you say, oh,
I'm going to have a stiff spot in a year
from now and speak truth to power and have operational
control over my platform. Are they just not going to
(11:55):
or they're going to. Are they just planning to buy
them off every.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
Time something comes up and that, to me is the
real concerning part of this is that the either or
here you really gets back to the core issue, which
is that the pieces of our sort of core democratic structures.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
That is what resilience is, and that that will evaporate.
I'm not not even saying, oh, the media will save us,
but this, you know, and I just delay it a lot.
It's like it's it's obviously ABC settling again a lawsuit
that was very unlikely to succeed. Most recently, Facebook settled
with Trump for twenty five million dollars for suspending him.
There's still YouTube lawsuit that's out there that I think,
you know, potentially gets settled.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Who knows.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
It's just there's just this mass sort of shift. That's
the stuff We're going to ultimately need to just be
somewhat neutral at least to have a real fighting chance
here at preserving some of the core parts of our society.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
You know, it's interesting because it's like I am often
an optimist, which is not good for me. Like when
I went through sort of the post mortem on what
I really got wrong in the twenty twenty four election,
it was at every point I was a little bit
too optimal stick about things, right, And it was much
to my detriment. But I actually think that my optimism
(13:07):
is not unfounded here, which is Look, the problem with
the corporate media is that all of these media companies
are not just one newspaper. You know, they're like Jeff Bezos, right,
they own space companies, they have contracts for this, they
have this, they have that. So it turns out billionaires
are not good star wards of democracy, right they right,
they don't give a fuck. They just want to get
(13:29):
their space. You know. They got to be billionaires for
a reason, right, And it was not because they cared
about the common good. Right, those people are social workers.
But I do think to a certain extent, I'm very
interested to see because what I noticed this week, and
I want you to sort of tell me if you
think I'm crazy, because I might be. What I noticed
(13:50):
this week was Donald Trump got up there after that
plane crash blamed DEI and said this is the fault
of DEI. And I know what he was doing, right,
He was like, we control the narrative. We got to
get a story out there that controls the narrative. This
is a story. Are people like they don't like DEI?
They want to blame DEI, let's blame Di. Now. I
(14:11):
think that was a moment that a lot of normal
people were like, there's no way that, Like it just
didn't make any sense, right. You get that. You get
that if you're in the fevers pitches of the far
you know, the internet swamp, you think, oh, Di, okay,
that makes sense. But I think that that was It's
like one of those moments where normal people are like, huh.
(14:34):
And I think that is ultimately Trump's problem really is
that he's in the media bubble just like everyone else's.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Yeah, So I don't think you're wrong. I think that's
a reasonable assessment. I think to take a step back,
and to me, I always ask the question of like,
so what and the assumption, and I think there's so
a lot of what you're saying is that, well, you
still have to have some degree of buy in from
the government in order to maintain power for an extended
period of time, and that's correct. The thing to consider, though,
is that a lot of and this is where it
(15:03):
ties into the media conversation and so much of sort
of this smashing, grab, shock and awe that is happening,
is that that's so what only works over an extent
of perod of time, meaning it to the next election or
the next chance to really transform or change, or the
next inflection point where there could be some response to
public pressure. The issue, though, is that part of what's
unfolding right now, and this is why the media capitulating
(15:23):
so fast is concerning to me.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I agree.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
I never really trusted them, and I never thought they'd
be the savior. But in a way they were sort
of like extending the curve Beny so that we had
a little more time. Part of what's happening right now
in these initial few months is to do so much
so fast that you shift the culture as well. You
actually take away that's so what. And if you can
convince people that the media companies are terrible, it's like, great, well,
then we could just have people go off independently.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Great.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
But if you are successful in burying people in litigation
and threats from cash betel and investigations, then you start
to suffocate and smother the counter narratives that you're identifying,
and people may think it just like they do in Russia,
but then they stop saying anything about it, and that
it doesn't mean so what, and that The one thing
I would say is I agree with your assessment. I
don't think it's too optimistic. What I would just caution
(16:08):
is that that alone is probably not sufficient in this moment.
It's sort of like a plant that's outside when it's
still potentially able to frost, Like, we need to have
a little more protective cover.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah. The only thing that will save us, if anything
does save us, is the is the innate incompetence of
trump Ism. I mean, that's it, right, because the media
is not going to save us. There's no Bob Muller, who,
by the way, that guy really fixed everything, right. James
Comy is writing novels in Connecticut. I mean, you know,
(16:40):
after prosecuting Martha Stewart. I mean these guys, you know,
the people in the federal government are not brave. I
do think that. I mean, the good news is he's
so and again these this good should be in scare quotes, like,
the good news is he's so dehumanized that people work
in the federal goal for men. Yeah, that they're probably
(17:02):
leaking like crazy, and the next four years are just
going to be Trump's you know, sort of every thing
that anyone in that administration has ever done.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
I think so the one thing that it's true, there
is a lot of like incompetence and incapacity. I would
also just note that the core and key players aren't
in place yet. Russell Bote isn't it at omb and
he's going to be a critical part of the capacity
and capabilities because he's the one that sort of has,
in a way the keys to the castle. So much
of their plans are designed to sort of stem from
(17:35):
the work that he did over the last couple of years.
The other thing to note is that, and this is
the thing that's really important, that they have a very
large risk tolerance, Like they're going and assuming a wide
amount of mistakes, and that is something that they're comfortable with.
And it's also something that Elon Musk brings to the table.
That's what he's done everywhere. And I remember when he
first took over Twitter and everyone thought that when he
because he had fired all the engineers and people out,
(17:57):
the system was going to break and fall apart, you know,
and that each it's like, yeah, he's like you know,
and he did the same thing. It tess on other companies,
like you take everything away, you strip it down to
the to the bare bones, and yeah, there may be
a bunch of embarrassing things that happened, but then you
only put in the essential pieces needed to hold the
place up and now it's yours. And that's the thing
to consider, is that some of the incompetents they're okay
with because it means that, you know, if they can
(18:18):
get away with it, and each time they get away
with it, it further empowers them in a weird way.
So I agree, I think that is going to be
a frustrating point. I think the part that does concern
me a lot is that layered in within the incompetence
is just a malevolence and a targeted malevolence that is
going to really make it hard to operationalize the frustration
from that incompetence. And that doesn't mean it's no hope,
(18:40):
I do think, And you said something that really accept me.
It's like you were pointed to or you started listing
some of the saviors that democrats and the public pointed
to the last time around. And that was always the
thing that I was anxious about, is that there was
no savor. The savor, in a way was us, and
we just wanted to outsource it, and I think this
is sort of the inflection point for all of us
is like do we want to outsource it? There isn't
going to be a say, and it's certainly not going
(19:01):
to be the Democratic Party or is it going to
be us? And that I think is a big piece
of this.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah. And I mean I also think this is a
terrible moment in American politics. And I mean it really is.
I mean it's okay to accept that this is just horrendous.
I mean watching I mean I watched those hearings yesterday,
and I mean these Republican senators just begging RFK Junior
(19:27):
just to say that vaccines are okay and you wouldn't,
I mean the sort of let you know, and begging
Tulcy Gabbard to say that Snowden is a trader and
she wouldn't. I mean, just like it was so pathetic.
I mean, you know, these people work, they were elected senators.
I mean, this is like not a great job, and
(19:48):
they're doing it theoretically because they believe in some things.
You know, it's just such an exercise and dehumanization. And
I'm not even fans of these Republican senators.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
No, it's not I so I know this thing about it,
and this sort of ties into a piece of this.
It's like, you know, the same conversation we're having about
the corporate side and sort of their capitulation. I thought
about that in the context of some of these Republican
leaders as well. So you know, Ted Kruz sits atop
the committee that will have subpoena power over tech, and
you know he's he's been critical of big tech in
the past and certainly would use subopenas I don't think
(20:20):
to necessarily be a big justice advocate, but there's certainly
it gives him power and capacity. One thing that the
administration is already is anxious about and is trying to
find a way to strip him away from it, is
to reduce his ability to subpoena big tech companies. It
seems small, but it's like it just reinforces your point
about how much they're sort of pushing Republicans, and we
have Republican leaders are willingly giving this power over for
(20:43):
whatever short term gambit they think they're going to get
out of it, but ultimately they've either made the assessment
that they're going to become you know, they're going to
go full Lindsey Graham, you know, and they're always going
to tow the line, or they hope in the future
maybe they can have a better terrain to fight on it.
And I don't think that's going to happen. I think
in a weird way, Trump is at his wet right
now and everybody else is at their most potent, and
in three months from now, if we continue on this trajectory,
(21:05):
that will be inverted.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I am not convinced of that because I think ultimately
the key to trump Ism is that he kind of
blows himself up. Thank God. I mean, that may not
continue to be true, but what I have noticed in
the past is that it's just like with the family businesses,
he just can't keep it going. Like there's a reason
he's not maclough right, there's a reason he's not. You know,
(21:29):
there are a lot of real estate families in New
York who have made billions and billions of dollars who
are not geniuses. Like it's not a hard it's not
a hard career to run real estate in a city
where everything where real estate just gets more and more expensive.
So what I think is what's interesting about Trump, or
what may save us, and again I am a cock
(21:51):
eyede optimist. Is the fact that he is just very
self destructive and he tends to not be able to
keep it going. But again, I guess we're going to say, right.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
I think that's sort The only thing I would note
is that perception is reality to an extent in politics.
And the thing that makes me very anxious, and this
is especially tied in with the way the tech companies
have sort of been so quickly, is that the imbalance,
the asymmetry in that landscape is so drastically different. So like,
if you look at left leaning and left aligne sort
of like podcasters shows across the full spectrum, and then
(22:23):
you look at their monthly listens, it's somewhere in the
range of on the high level, about seventy million or
so monthly listens, and aggregate on the sort of the
right leaning side, it's close to three hundred million. And
that's just one data point. I mean, the asymmetry and
that is a fairly narrow lens on what you would
identify as right leading. And that's in part because you know,
(22:44):
and so I think part of it is. And that's
just one data point. But the imbalance there the asymmetry
does give them the ability to either shift blame for
problems or for issues, and I think you're sort of
seeing them begin to plant the seeds of that. So
this idea of like malicious compliance, for instance, that everything
that's gone wrong with our edicts are not a result
of the edict, but rather these deep staters that are
(23:04):
implementing it to hurt people on purpose, to make it
bad for us. That's very believable. And if you have
a narrative dominance, which he does, you could see how
most many people would buy into that, like, oh, that
kind of makes sense. They always hated him, you know,
so clearly they're trying to sabotage him. And I think
that's the only thing that gives me a little anxiety
there is that even if he's self destructive in a
(23:25):
few months from now, we'll be love to see it.
Will we even know that he's self destructing?
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Right? And that I think is a big scary todd. Well,
there we go. Not great, not great. We love to
keep from crying. Thank you, Angelo, Thank you. Owen Higgins
is the author of owned How Tech Billionaires on the
Right Bought the loudest voices on the Left. Welcome to
(23:51):
Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Owen, thank you, happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Tell us a little bit about your book.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
The book is called Owen, How tech billionaires on the
right about the loudest voices on the left. And it's
kind of an exploration of both. How Silicon Valley billionaires
like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Andrees and David Sachs
and others have become more public about their right wing,
in some cases far right views. How they've used their
(24:18):
cash their investments to shape the information and media ecosystem
in the United States and beyond. And I use Glenn
Greenwald and Matt Taibi to prominent independent journalists who rose
to fame. They cannot be bought, right, they cannot be bought.
And I use them being bought to explain this phenomena.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So how did they get bought? Pick whoever, which one
you want and talk us through it in the vaguest
possible way.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Yeah, I think I would probably say that Greenwald his
independence has been one of the things he's been most
fierce about throughout his career as a journalist, and over time,
I mean, he created his own career really like just
by writing, which which I think is admirable. He was
in the blogisphere in the mid to late two thousands,
(25:08):
joined Salon, then joined The Guardian. Then he broke the
Snowden story, which catapulted him to global fame, then translated
that into founding The Intercept with financing from Pierre Ohmadyar
former eBay founder.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Who's generally thought of as a pretty good guy.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
As I say in the book, he's been described by
his peers as perhaps more libertarian than he gives the
impression of in public life, but his investments in media
have kind of tilted to the left, tilted liberal. And
you know, this is another example, getting Glenn Greenwell to
come on board after you know, revealing the Snowden leagues,
(25:46):
which was you know, widely I think and correctly seen
as something that was more left wing than right wing.
He also got Jeremy ska Hill, famous international affairs journalists
as well, and Laura Poitras, a filmmaker, and the three
of them found the Intercept. Glenn was with The Intercept
until twenty twenty, when he left over editing of his
(26:08):
article on the Hunter Biden laptop right before the election.
I won't go super into the details, but basically the
editorial stat did not feel that his reporting at the
time met the factual standards that they needed. They just
didn't know enough of what he was saying. Some of
what he was saying has been born out, so he
tends to use that as a pushback, but at the
(26:30):
time they didn't really have a solid idea that what
he was saying was strictly accurate. But either way, he
had already been kind of tilting to the right. He
had been going on Tucker Carlson. He had been kind
of cultivating this right wing audience. He then moved to Substack,
which at the time was Flora Shamming still is, but
(26:51):
coming off of the maths of investment from Mark Andresen
or funding round men by Andresen and so Greenwall joined there.
He wasn't entire there by Substack. They didn't pay him
to come.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Right, It was early Substack.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Yeah, But he came over there and established himself and
did play well for a while. And then in May
twenty twenty one, so the following May, so he left
the Intercept, I think November twenty twenty and in May
twenty twenty one, an investment group consisting of in among
other people, the billionaire Peter Thiel and future Vice president
(27:27):
J D Vance invested in this YouTube alternative called Rumble,
and then Rumble took that money and gave deals to people,
including Glenn. In August twenty twenty one, Glenn was announced
as one of the paid deals that they were hanging
out him alongside Tulsea Gabbard. And if you just kind
of look, his politics had already been moving to the right.
The things he was saying have been moving to the right,
(27:48):
and I think that he has been moving there ever
since in order to cultivate and to keep the audience
that he has. With a few exceptions, a few issue exceptions,
I think Pali sign and some surveillance stuff, he's kind
of broken with the right a little bit on, but
overall he's been He's been pretty close to the conservative
movement and certainly opposed to liberals, which I think is
(28:09):
kind of more maybe how his politics manifest themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
You know, again, I'm not a fan of any of
these people, but I'm just curious, how is he bought
by the right. I mean, it sounds like, you know,
he's made money where the money is and he's a
kind of contrarian, which a lot of those guys are.
But how is he sort of bought by them?
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Well, I think the Rumble investment and then him going
over to Rumble is a pretty clear one to one.
You know, this is a in all but name and
unabashedly right wing video publication, and they gave him money
to come over there. He's still on his deal there.
He actually had to leave substacks, so he consolidate his
(28:52):
writing over there as well on a platform called Locals
that they bought. So I think that the as far
as the money goes, I mean, he's he's clearly making
money from a website that promotes and kind of wakingly
markets itself to the right wing. So I feel like
that's kind of a pretty clear one to one as
far as like how this comes across. I did a
(29:12):
study back, and I believe this was early twenty twenty one,
maybe might have been twenty twenty two, where I looked
over his tweets and how he was talking about Fox News,
which would have him on and that kind of helped
him to build up his writing audis as well. Tucker
Carlson was a big ally of his and would have
him on his show often, and so I did analysis
(29:34):
of his positive and negative tweets about the network, and
you could just see, like I made a whole graph
of it, and you could just see them just spiking,
going huge, like either cumulative or not culative. Once he
started going on Fox, he's stopped being critical of it
and basically added like an unpaid cheerleader, almost like an
employee right of the network. But I think that that
(29:55):
is instructive. That's telling because it shows how Glenn is
willing to adjust his message and adjust the way that
he talks about things and who he allies himself with
depending on if they are benefiting them. Pierre Amyar, who
we were just talking about right, the funder of the Intercept.
(30:15):
When Glenn worked for the Intercept, he never had a
bad thing to say about Pierre. He would say occasionally,
you know, we may disagree on something, but Pierre always
lets me, like do whatever I want. Once he was
away from the Intercept, his rhetoric about ah Mijar became harsh.
He attacked him. He attacked many of his former colleagues
at the Intercept. And look, I'm not saying that they
(30:38):
did or didn't deserve any of his criticism. I'm not
making a judgment on that. What I'm saying is that
the decision to go after them once he was no
longer employed by the intercept the decision to go after
them once Pierre al Midyar's money was no longer funding
his lifestyle as opposed to going after them before about
all of these problems that he said that he had
(30:59):
about the under seven about Omar, I think that just
kind of says a lot about the way that he
functions in this in this world, and the way that
he picks and chooses his targets.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Right. So basically they get them by employing them.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah, they get them by employing them. They get them
by kind of introducing them into this network, this world
where there's a lot of money to be had by
you know, the saying things that they like to hear.
So you know, like not only does Glenn you know,
have this contract with Rumble, but he's also paid to
talk to events like Blagi Trinavisan's Network State conference had
(31:39):
had him as a speaker the All In Podcast, which
is fund which is founded by David Sachs, who's a billionaire.
Like they had Glenn come to one of their conferences.
I mean once you start to understand, like the way
they all like and this isn't this is not at
all unique to this space, but like this the speaking circuit.
You'll see this liberals and conservatives do. It's once you're
in this kind of world. There are a lot of
(32:01):
financial opportunities here that are not always you know, kind
of one to one, like you're being employed by it,
like you're within this world.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The Barry Wise phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Right, Yeah, and Barry features, I mean Barry and Matt
Taibi are two people who have made most of their
money using crowdfunding, right, or most of their money recently
by using prowdfunding by using substacks newsletter service as a
way of getting money from subscribers. They didn't get paid
by substack to come over there. They pay substack a cotton.
(32:32):
Substack facilitates their payments. Right. So if you're just kind
of looking at that, you might say, oh, well, you know,
this is just a situation where you know, they just
have an audience and they are working with that audience.
But then you have Elon Musk making the decision to
choose both of them to publicize the Twitter files, right,
These highly curated tranch of emails and messages that told
(32:54):
a specific story that he wanted to be told, and
they were able to use that to get larger audiences
and to appeal to a right wing audience, and in turn,
they told the story that Elon wanted to have out there.
And so I think that's another example of like how
they were paid, like they were chosen for this. Tayibe
was chosen because David Sachs told Musk that Taiebe was
(33:17):
somebody who Musk should give the files. Due Weiss was
chosen because Mark Andreesen told Elon Musk, this is someone
you should give the files to. So if you start
to kind of put all this stuff together, you can
see the network kind of working here in this kind
of like patronage and backslapping and helping out and everybody.
You know. Barry Weiss's Free Press just had a funding
(33:37):
round last year led by Andresen that valued the website
at one hundred million dollars. I think they raised fifteen million.
It's very like clear, I think, what's happening here.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, they're getting funded because they ideologically reflect the ethos
of these far right billionaires. Do a minute on the
Twitter files because I think that's pretty interesting. So they
gave them these sort of pieces of Twitter stuff in
order to prove a central thesis that Twitter was mean
to conservatives, right, And I feel like it didn't quite
(34:09):
go that way.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I did it, Yeah, I mean there's a reason that
Tybee chose to lead with the Hunter Biden laptop, right,
like this this was a conservative story that they wanted
to put out there. Elon made sure that the time
line that they were allowed to access, you know, had
certain parameters, made sure that there were certain things that
they couldn't ask for. Un sure that he picked them
(34:32):
because there were certain things that they wouldn't ask for, right,
Like there are like certain activist groups on the left
who would have been who were suppressed by Twitter for
one reason or another. Like their suppression was not something
that Musk wanted to have out there, and not something
that Tybee and Weiss were interested in doing, I think
for various reasons, including the fact that they just wanted
(34:53):
to continue having access what the files purported to show.
If you believe Tyee's kind of spent on this and
Weiss's to it to a degree, is this kind of
overarching liberal conspiracy within Twitter and the government which was
at the time run by Trump like the time period
they working for, but somehow was still controlled by liberals,
and that this government and Twitter conspiracy, like all these
(35:15):
bureaucrats and faceless Twitter employees were working together to suppress
right wing commentary, whether it was about COVID, or it
was about Hunter Biden, or it was about kind of
any kind of criticism of the liberal consensus. You know, look,
on the face of it, considering that they were talking
about the Trump administration's time in office, I think this
is kind of ridiculous. But they didn't really provide much
(35:38):
in the way of proof. They had. They certainly showed
in the case of the Hunter Bydon Laptop. Tybee was
able to show the people behind Twitter trying to figure
out how to deal with this reporting. And the reason
that they were trying to figure out how to deal
with this reporting was not because they were necessarily trying
to help or hinder Biden or help her hinder Trump.
(36:01):
It was more is this real and is this the
kind of you know, the political rat fucking that we
want to be like allow on this platform. And so
Tayebe presented this instead as an example of this malfeasance
this conspiracy that involved Twitter and the government at the
same time.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
But it really just involved Twitter, right, it didn't really
involve the government. Yeah, I guess, well, the government was
asking about the COVID stuff, so I guess it's sort
of dead.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Well, yeah, that was the stuff the Weiss I think
did more of. But I just just to go back
to Tybee for a saying, I mean, you know, he
found examples of First of all, there were more examples
of the Trump campaign asking to take stuff down. But
for some reason, even though he admitted that in his reporting,
that wasn't the lead. But secondly, in the reporting around
(36:51):
Hunter Biden, there was also the question of revenge for
the question of you know, there are images of this
man naked or you know, involved in sexual acts activity
that were released without his permission, and like under the
rules of Twitter, the user rules, and also I think
you know laws in some states like you can't broadcast
(37:13):
that that's protected, so they were asking for that to
be taken down. This was presented as some evidence of
malfeasance on the part of the Bind campaign. I just
don't think that that is accurate or fair. As far
as the COVID stuff went, I mean, maybe there's a
little more solid ground to stand on as far as
calling that maybe selective censorship. Your mileage may vary on
whether or not you think that that is appropriate during
(37:35):
a pandemic or not. I mean, you can make an
argument either way. I'm not particularly put out to make it.
To make the argument, I.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Personally believe both that it should have been taken down
and that it was probably ultimately bad that it was
taken down. Right, Like, you're in the middle of a pandemic,
there are not great choices. I just think everybody did
what they thought was the right thing, and some of
it turned out to have larger consequences. But so all
of this is sort of they just went to where
(38:02):
the money is. Is ultimately your thesis.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
That's I mean, that's part of my thesis. They I
think there were other reasons that they turned to the
right that I get into in the book, you know,
like frustration with liberals and Democrats for the way that
they endorsed a lot of the policies during Bush that
they had opposed at the time, right right, right.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Right, for not being truly ideologically pure, which is a
real complaint.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Yeah, for Glenn especially, I think that that was a motivator. Also,
the democratic reaction to Trump the first time, I think
was also a motivator for him. That second one as
well was for Tybee, and Tybee also had to deal
with kind of being canceled over his former writing when
he was in Russia. So it's not kind of like
a black and white thing where it's like this happened
(38:48):
and then this happened, right, It's not like a one
to one. It's like there were a lot of different factors.
But at that time, these billionaires also had their ideological project,
which was to weaken and to decentralize the both the
mainstream and critical independent media, and in order to do that,
they needed to break down those institutions a little bit.
(39:08):
And you know, putting forward a client sycophantic alternative media
structure that they could control or at least that they
could fund, meant that they were able to kind of
damage these institutions. And you know, having big names like
Tybee and Greenwald helped that process along. And I think
that that is part of the motivator for them.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, my pleasure, thank you for having me on No.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Good Jesse Cannon by jug Fast.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
So the Trump administration's halt of CDC Weekly Scientific Reports
is stalling bird flu studies. As this is like crossing
over breeds and like we're seeing so much evidence of
like why we need government to work, and this, uh,
this feels so we're.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
All really really worried about bird flu. Look, nobody wants
the bird flu, nobody wants a pandemic. But Trump has
started deciding that if so, CDC's weekly Scientific Reports will
not be published. This will stall bird flu studies. Trump
administration has re intervened in the release of important studies
(40:23):
on bird flu. The thinking here is if no one
knows it's a pandemic, then I guess it will never
be a pandemic. I mean, this is so stupid and
self defeating. And one of the studies would reveal whether
veterinarians who treat cattle have been unknowingly infected by the
bird flu virus. Another report documents cases in which people
(40:46):
carrying the virus might have infected their pet cats. Well,
this seems really fucking bad and there we go.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Welcome all yeah, and this mucking up the works is
doing all sorts of things. My sister texted to us
today that they stopped giving reportings on shootings, of course,
because they have to also pretend that's not happening too.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, it is just so fucking bad. It is really bad.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Reality doesn't happen if you just pretend it's not happening.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, it still does though. That's about news.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
That's the bad news.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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