October 14, 2024 • 31 mins
In this special bonus episode of Fire and Fury, Michael and James sit down with Barry Diller, an iconic figure in the media industry and former head of Paramount Pictures and Fox TV. Diller shares his candid perspective on the current political landscape, including his views on Donald Trump, the dangers of a close election, and how Trump’s reality-TV persona has reshaped American politics. They also explore the role of wealth and the future of technology in shaping public discourse.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
We're sitting down with Barry Diller today. I've known Barry
for a very long time since actually I believe nineteen
seventy nine. Barry was then the youngest head of Paramount
Pictures and has continued on for decade after decade to
both dominate the media business at various times and then
(00:30):
to be a model for how to thrive in the
business and how to thrive outside of the business. He is,
and I think there might be wide consensus on this.
The smartest person in the business often the scariest person
in the business, and someone either I would say you
(00:51):
don't want to spend time with, or you very much
do want to spend time with. And I am in
the latter category.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I remember from the magazines in the the nineties, if
you needed to sort of sex up a business story,
say see what Barry thinks. Let's put a picture of
Barry in particularly when the East Coast and the West
Coast was so separate, and he was the guy who
the East Coast all looked up to as being, you know,
the smart face of Hollywood, and then the smart face
of Rubert Murdoch's enterprise when he started Fox TV.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Our conversation with Barry Diller coming right up. Welcome to
Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
We are now in twenty eight, twenty nine days out.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
He realized this has been going on for years.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I am in my tenth year of writing about this.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I understand you with your Trump obsession, but this election
has been going on now for a couple of years.
We've raised this to such insane heights. It is a
month ago, but then it's going to start all over.
It's never going to end. Oh my god, even if
there's not another election, it's never going to end. Particularly
if there's not. What's really horrible to contemplate for me
(02:16):
is that it's going to be close. I so don't
want it to be close. I'll take it either way,
although God knows I don't want it that way, but
I think that the closeness is the terror for me.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
What's offensive to you about it being close?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Look, I want him gone. I want it to be over.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
The only way it's over to me is if it's
an absolutely uncontested don't mean the end of democracy, because
they are enough restraints and I think that will be
at work. But I think that if he wins by
a wide margin, it will be a definition of something
that we will have to absolutely accept that this rotten
(03:01):
character characterizes us, and I think things will get worse.
Out of that will come and I don't mean this
in capital our terms, but there will come a proper resistance,
and out of that might come something that's very good.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So he gets in on a squeaker, or he gets
in with a couple of points to spare. He is
the next president of the United States. How do you
react to that? Personally?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I've been asking myself for some time now. It was
a long time ago when you started this, I said
very publicly that I'd either leave the country or join
the resistance. And in the last oh I guess year
and certainly now even now I say, when I question
(03:49):
what am I going to do? I can't really answer it.
I know that if he wins, and wins by a
large margin, I actually will be pleased at that because
I think that in there is hope.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So that's what I might come out of this with. Listen,
it's not the end of democracy. The card rails are
in place. The truth is that to me, all these
policy issues, the truth is they are really aligned on
a surprisingly large amount of actual issues. I don't worry
(04:27):
on the Democratic side that we're going to become this
progressive looney bin. And I don't worry on the Trump
side that we're going to have martial law and deport
eleven million people, et cetera, et cetera, because I think
the restraints will be in place. And this is about character.
And what shocks me is how few people will discount
(04:52):
the character issue because they think that this country is
in such terrible shape and going so terribly wrong and
all of these things, things that they can't take a democrat.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Well, at the same time, many of those people actually
don't discount the character. They like the character.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, that's the other part of this, And it's very
hard for people to really understand opportuly. People in New
York who kind of assimilated him over a number of years,
they've taken it into their rhythm of life and gotten
used to him and know him for exactly who and
(05:33):
what he is without any equivocation. They know he is
and always has been a con man, seller of various
things that benefit himself, full stop. And yet Mark Burnett
comes along and makes up a character which doesn't resemble
(05:54):
him at all in The Apprentice, and most people who
watch The Apprentice him. But I think most of it
is cooked up in this mythology that was really started
by Burnett, and to which he knowing a good thing
when he sees it, has just kept digging at it,
(06:15):
that you're a fired thing in him metastasized into knowing, well,
if I'm really evil about people, if I tease out
their most vulnerable personal characteristics, not only will it excite them,
but it'll excite my audience because they it's the extension
(06:35):
of your fired.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So it's the show business of it all, which has
another side, which is that there is actual meaning here,
and part of the meaning is we don't like what
politicians are. Trump is a fuck you to politicians, which
is absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, blame the elites. It's a horrible word, but it's
kind of accurate. They're not They just act that way
and condescendingly. So in many things. Look, I've been using
this word progressive of all my life, and I like
the concept of it. I don't like the practice of
it in many cases, because I think it's mostly not effective.
It has had some effects clearly some positive effects, for sure,
(07:17):
but it has displaced most people from the American dream.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So you're an influential democrat, you consort with the.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Oh god, consort is the word plutocrats.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Well, let's get to the plutocrats. But before that, back
to just the plain old Democrats. One of the mistakes
that they've made that you see.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well, as I say, I think it goes back decades,
and it is in policies that are of course well intentioned,
but have not been particularly effective, and particularly dealing with
the expansion of the middle class rather than the Barbell
(08:02):
two sides of inequality. And I think that's the biggest
issue to me for proper resentment and anger at all
these elites who are mouthing all these words, enacting all
these laws that don't actually help a working person get
not only somewhat ahead in their lives better than they
(08:28):
grew up with, let's say, or better than their family,
but that their children ever will. And I think that's real.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Stylistically, one of the things that Trump has managed to
do is hold the attention, whereas the Democrats you know,
have have had great difficulty in doing that.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So I mean, just impurely dramatic terms.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And purely dramatic terms, those words you're fired, that he
understood better than the people who gave him those lines,
and what the content squences of that.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Were was so deep in reality television, which is based upon,
of course, conflict.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I've been extolling, and we're talking about this earlier today,
this Netflix documentary about pro wrestling, mister McMahon.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I watched about two episodes, which which shocked me that
I would stay that long something.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I'm thinking, Oh, wrestling, I guess this is a big
thing which I've missed for the past thirty years.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Apparently I had the good fortune of being sued by
the McMahons twenty years or so ago when we owned
USA Network. As you note maybe from watching this stock,
USA Networks really put nationally world wrestling on the map.
And when we got it, world wrestling was not a
(09:50):
big part of the diet, but it was a big
show on USA and I went to one wrestling match
and I couldn't imagine not the wrestling thing, which was wrestling,
which is not really wrestling, it's storytelling. I took it
off its major time period, and the McMahons sued us
(10:15):
for doing that which was against the contractual provisions, which
it wasn't really, but it was a little shady or
in the spaces and actually they want So you decided
that this was I didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, well I just thought bad taste.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
It was. Yeah, it was kind of creddy people doing
silly things.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So I thought, well, this explains Donald Trump. I mean
every aspect of this, from the fact that nothing really
has to be real to the fact that the heel
is the star.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Well, it's interesting when you say it that way because
the credulity, which is the thing that I was really
surprised at and surprise even watching the doc is how
people actually believe in the stories. It can get invested
in these made up stories of this person, whatever outlandish's
(11:06):
name this person has or that person has, this person
is the hero and this person is the heavy out
of your classic storytelling, and that they could believe it.
They could actually say, yeah, a story I'm going to
invest in. I mean, I'm gonna be interested in what
this zeus dressed character does to this you know, person
(11:26):
in tinfoil.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, so you see the through line to now where
people no longer care for what Trump says is true
or demonstrably false.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Well, you think you have that, but I think you
also have the storyline, So true false doesn't really make
any difference. It's our am I invested in the story.
Trump tells a story. No other politician tells a story,
a constant, running story. It continues to bring everyone to
the edge of their seat or to the screen watching him.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
You know, it brings everyone that you're talking about, who
are susceptible to that kind of surface storytelling, whether it
be The Apprentice or wrestling or whatever. It does not
answer why Steve Schwartzman, John Paulson, people who I doubt
I've ever watched WWF, or other people who absolutely they
(12:23):
know who he is. They simply don't care.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Well, let's go there to your fellow plutocrats.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, we were talking about Elil Musk just now and
his sort one hundred tweets a day for the last
ten days, essentially echoing Trump's talking points. It seems to
me that there's a class of billionaire now that is
different from the past. In the past, you felt you
made the money. You bought a sports franchise, you had
your name on a building, but you were not essentially
(12:53):
selecting and then running candidates for president. Does that seem
like something new to you that Trump possession in, No.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
It's on both sides. I think there have been activists
people of wealth forever engaging in politics, whether simply financially
or as sparkers and spokesmen and all that stuff. What's different,
or I won't even do different, is none of them
talk about character. None of them They actually say this
(13:27):
is purely economic policy. And these are all wildly wealthy people, yes,
and how can they justify for economic purpose after they've
done so very well themselves? Right? Economics should not be
such a personal determining issue for them that overrides character.
(13:52):
And yet they don't ever talk about it. I tried
to get I prompted the other day Andrew Sorkin, who
was interviewing John Paulson, and I wrote, Andrew, and I said,
why doesn't he talk about character? So Andrew, hearing from
the audience, says to Paulson, he asked the question a
Paulson wouldn't answer, He changed the subject.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I think it probably would have been two years ago,
maybe closer to three. I talked to Paulson about this.
I found him very if not adamantly anti Trump, certainly
turn his nose up at Trump, and clearly there has
been a transition. I just saw him at the end
of the summer. I said I want to come and
(14:35):
talk to you about Trump, and he said, I'll only
say nice things. And I said, that's okay with me,
but what about And then he said, I will only
say nice things.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
That's to me the most amazing thing. That rich people
far too rich man, he would say. But I don't
do relative quantification. But people who don't need another nickel
to say the least, actually refuse to discuss character in
this election and are only seem to be supportive on
(15:08):
pure economic terms for themselves.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
How does one consider someone like Musk? I mean, it
cannot be in his economic interest to support Trump. He
sells cars to liberals.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Oh listen, some time ago, in his mind, in his
capacious but often addled mind, he was always selling cars.
But he's distanced himself from what he says to direct
economic consequences of his products. I mean, listen, he took
over Twitter and alienated at least half the audience for
(15:38):
no reason other than his own talkings.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So you put this down to brain chemistry.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
You could also put it down to size of wealth.
I mean there's wealth that you want to protect and grow,
and then there's a level of wealth where nothing matters
to you. You're beyond that you can indulge.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I actual don't think wealth has anything to do with it.
Michael actually think that he's wealth agnostic. This is someone who,
in contrast to most, actually said I don't want to
own any owns and stays with friends basically and doesn't
have many possessions and isn't motivated by that. So I
(16:18):
don't think it's wealth. There's a of course, a form
of meglomania, and who would deny him meglomania given what
he actually has accomplished. So there he is, and there
it is, and it has no bounds. This is someone
who is not only well educated, but educated in the
humanities and knows a lot and says things across a
(16:42):
whole range of arenas that have great depth, sensitivity and
deep intelligence underneath them. I enormously admire, particularly his managerial ability.
I mean what he did when you think about this,
what he did at Twitter, and by the way, many
(17:03):
of these companies, most companies get to a point where
they're overstaff, particularly that area. In a week or ten
days or two weeks, he fired seventy five percent of
the employees and it still worked. What an extraordinary thing
to do, and it did not hurt. What hurt Twitter
was his anti advertising policies and statements that hurt Twitter's economy.
(17:27):
But the product experience not bad. Who cares about Musk
and his grand accomplishments. They're grand enough, and he deserves,
as I say, I think he deserves to stride the earth.
Why he has gone this way, I think is out
of some weird bitterness and rejection by the current administration.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Will be back right after the break. Let's go to
our mutual interest, Rupert Murdock and Rupert's conversion. I mean,
Rupert has been adamantly anti Trump, probably single handedly responsible
(18:18):
for the Ron De Santa's bubble, implementing a policy to
keep Trump off of Fox's air yep, and now is
utterly back in the fold. On the phone, Trump maintains
with him every day. Really well, that's what Trump says,
So I would discount that by some factor.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But still listen, he did try, you know, the old digger,
He did try, and he tried for several years he
failed and where did he go, which does in a
way kind of surprised me. But he too went for
his pocketbook. He went for his audience, and he said,
(19:01):
my audience, my Fox News audience, my post audience, post audience.
They want him, and so I'm not rejecting them.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
No, I think that's clearly true, clearly in character or
in business character.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Absolutely. It always amazes me, and I'm sure you a
better watcher than I am that while Rupert has been
in its entire life anti establishment, he is also toadied
up to whatever the establishment of the moment is in
the most toty ways.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Always back to the to the plutocrats. One of the
things I think about in one of the reasons the
plutocrats can overlook Trump's behavior is the belief, which I
might challenge, but I think it might seem also to
be true, is that he's ownable or overlook what he
is because we can own him. He's incredibly responsive to
(20:00):
money and the Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I think that's true. But again, it's not they want
to own him for the good of the people. It's
not that they want to own it's that they want
to own him to prevent adverse business conditions for themselves.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But let me flip that. Are the Democrat plutocrats different
from that? Yes, sure they are so the Hollywood money, please.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Don't do Hollywood. Hollywood doesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Anymore, the entertainment business from the left coast. Yes, you
think they're different qualitatively generally.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
We know this. They are more liberal by definition, artists
always are.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So there's just that I mean, do in fact they
taking all of this money, And I would say that
that is a difference, that there is so much more
money available that these people want to do something different
than owning whoever is the president.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yes, there aren't by definition crass, they're not their interest
all over the place, but they're not that, and I
think that's a significant difference. But the thing about the
money that has been raised in this particularly actually by Democrats,
who I think have outraised Republicans by some fairly large amount.
(21:26):
It's obscene. We've jacked this presidency thing up beyond all comprehension.
We've jacked the presidency itself, unlike other countries' leadership. You
don't have to do anything but look at New York
City and an entire section of the city literally shut
(21:52):
down because a presidential car is driving by shut down.
In no other part of the world does any leader,
including I think the protection of Putin, rise to this
standard of protect I mean, with all his issues about
the Secret Service and all of that, which to me
is its own silly category. But that we have created
(22:16):
bubble wrap upon bubble wrap around this institution of the presidency.
It's such an absurdist height that it's no wonder, by
the way, that anybody living inside that for too long
doesn't somehow go not crazy, but is so insulated from reality.
(22:37):
So when you see it from somewhat inside that bubble,
it's a miracle anybody actually survives that with a brain intact.
But for us people, that we've done this to this job,
the most important person on earth, the most powerful person
in the world, et cetera, et cetera, and what we've
(22:59):
institution is so beyond humanness. Think of those seconds Biden
is backstage at the horrible debate. Think being inside him
for the minute or two before he walks out and
knows I have ninety minutes uninterrupted with cameras on my
(23:21):
every face, gesture and speech. Forget whether or not he's
adult or not. What does a human do with that
kind of pressure.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
It actually changes the nature of the issue and changes
the nature of why we vote for someone, which is
really about how they react. Can you stand up to
that kind of.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And you can stand up to that because you know
when you say stand up to it, the only way
you can stand up to it is by not being human.
And one presumes we want our leaders to have humanity
as part of them, but the ability to actually get
through that experience is not a human like thing. It
is some ability to through whatever process you go through.
(24:09):
It isn't prep. I don't know how much of it
as drugs, but I suspect some that you can get
through that. It's acting at its most incredible essence of
being an actor.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Do you think Kamala Harris has the constitution to get
through that?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, she did kind of get through it, I think.
I mean, I don't think she was great, and I
don't think she was terrible.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But she's kind of campaigning on her humanness.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
She I guess, with some reserve, we'll write about this
incredible rise depending upon what happens. I's assume she is president,
but this rise up through political ranks without really ever
being tested in any particular way, and without ever having
(24:51):
any kind of particular ideology. It's a remarkable series of accidents.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
If she loses, what would you say is the mistake
not her mistake necessarily, but the Democrat's mistake.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
It goes back decades, so I'm not so sure that
it's a single.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Even in this I'm looking.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I'm looking for granular.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
She loses Pennsylvania, we say Josh Shapiro, she should have
chosen Josh Shapiro.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
It's beyond my ken I think that it will simply be,
which is why I want it to be. If she
loses by a big majority. I want it to be
a ringing reality that this is what we've done. And
if that happens, I see good in that.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
The truth is she hasn't. I'm very critical of because
I think you have to go out there and make
mistakes and then correct your mistakes. I think you have
to risk things, and she's risked very little. And again
it's this bubble wrap of the process. The most important
to me quality of Kamala was revealed in the first
(25:59):
six hours because she did something quite extraordinary, which is
almost everyone in the outer or in the talking circles,
wanted an open convention. Everyone who participated in this process
to encourage Biden. Word encouraged is probably loosely applied here,
(26:19):
but to encourage Biden to step down wanted an open process,
and actually a month of five six weeks. The ideal
it was seven weeks that we would have a bunch
of candidates and we'd have a real race and choose
a great person out of that process. She locked it
(26:40):
up in six hours, and she did it magisterially. I
mean what she did is she really said to people
in the first ten minutes, tell me now, not tomorrow,
right now, and go out and tell everyone now, or
never tell anyone. And she did that herself first. I
(27:01):
mean really, six hours after he informed her it was over.
Now that's playing a hand.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Look, I like Kamala and Over fairly well and certainly
support her. But I would have preferred and I said
to her, I think you'll take it, but take the chance.
It'll be a much better process for everyone. I much
wanted a different process. Yeah, she's not taken enough risk.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
That's what I was going for. Just that, Oh, that
was the answer I wanted.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I'm so glad I gave it you. You know, it
took me a long time me up earlier.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
So very one one thing I think we can say
Trump has succeeded wildly at his crediting the legacy media.
And I want it as a media proprietor mogul yourself,
if you think that was warranted, what you make of it,
How the media comes back from it.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
We've gone so past this word media that it's like,
just like Hollywood, it's really no longer relevant. Yeah, there
are so many voices, so many options for voices. Just
the tonnage of it alone has made almost any single
part of it kind of irrelevant. And I don't think
it ever well, it certainly never goes back. It just
(28:22):
keeps getting more and more dispersed, has more and more
ability to communicate through more and more communication systems come about.
I saw yesterday you should really go see Meta Facebook.
As you may know, he changed the name to the
Meta because of the oculus and because of advances in
(28:47):
technology as to how we would see things, etceter, investing
huge amounts of money. But yesterday I went for a
demo of their glasses, which won't be out for several years.
Actually I said, tell me like next year. The year
after I could not pin them. They said years, and
they've been working on it for ten years. It is
(29:09):
the most extraordinary experience because you are looking glasses like that,
a little heavier, that have so much technology in them.
Just mind blowing. I mean literally in a pair of glasses,
I think there are eight cameras. But also you are
also seeing screens. There was one part of the demo
(29:30):
when there were three different screens that you were looking at,
and as I'm saying it, I would think you would saying, well,
that'll just give me a headache or make me dizzier.
It's so perfectly done that it's enhancing so as to
how people communicate and how much information they'll take in
and from where and from how and whatever. We're going
through it. I mean, listen, we're embarking if in the
(29:54):
next years, because we're going to have AGI. It's really
not a decade away. It's not five years away. Probably
it's maybe as early as a year or two or three.
But it's coming things that just five years ago, ten
years ago, anybody's estimate was thirty fifty years away. And
(30:16):
it's going to happen and it will. I mean, everything
is going to change. Trump is the past.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Let's put him in the past.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Well, I want him either in the dustbin or I
want it so front and center that we can't get
away from its consequences and have to deal with those consequences.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Perfect. Let's end there.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Thank you, Fire and Fury.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
The podcast is hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolf
and James Truman. The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Marinolf,
executive producers for Caneidisc, mangesh Had Together and Os Vloscian,
executive producers for iHeart On, Nikki Etour and Katrina Novel
(31:12):
M M
Speaker 2 (31:17):
HM
We're sitting down with Barry Diller today. I've known Barry
for a very long time since actually I believe nineteen
seventy nine. Barry was then the youngest head of Paramount
Pictures and has continued on for decade after decade to
both dominate the media business at various times and then
(00:30):
to be a model for how to thrive in the
business and how to thrive outside of the business. He is,
and I think there might be wide consensus on this.
The smartest person in the business often the scariest person
in the business, and someone either I would say you
(00:51):
don't want to spend time with, or you very much
do want to spend time with. And I am in
the latter category.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I remember from the magazines in the the nineties, if
you needed to sort of sex up a business story,
say see what Barry thinks. Let's put a picture of
Barry in particularly when the East Coast and the West
Coast was so separate, and he was the guy who
the East Coast all looked up to as being, you know,
the smart face of Hollywood, and then the smart face
of Rubert Murdoch's enterprise when he started Fox TV.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Our conversation with Barry Diller coming right up. Welcome to
Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
We are now in twenty eight, twenty nine days out.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
He realized this has been going on for years.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I am in my tenth year of writing about this.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I understand you with your Trump obsession, but this election
has been going on now for a couple of years.
We've raised this to such insane heights. It is a
month ago, but then it's going to start all over.
It's never going to end. Oh my god, even if
there's not another election, it's never going to end. Particularly
if there's not. What's really horrible to contemplate for me
(02:16):
is that it's going to be close. I so don't
want it to be close. I'll take it either way,
although God knows I don't want it that way, but
I think that the closeness is the terror for me.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
What's offensive to you about it being close?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Look, I want him gone. I want it to be over.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
The only way it's over to me is if it's
an absolutely uncontested don't mean the end of democracy, because
they are enough restraints and I think that will be
at work. But I think that if he wins by
a wide margin, it will be a definition of something
that we will have to absolutely accept that this rotten
(03:01):
character characterizes us, and I think things will get worse.
Out of that will come and I don't mean this
in capital our terms, but there will come a proper resistance,
and out of that might come something that's very good.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So he gets in on a squeaker, or he gets
in with a couple of points to spare. He is
the next president of the United States. How do you
react to that? Personally?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I've been asking myself for some time now. It was
a long time ago when you started this, I said
very publicly that I'd either leave the country or join
the resistance. And in the last oh I guess year
and certainly now even now I say, when I question
(03:49):
what am I going to do? I can't really answer it.
I know that if he wins, and wins by a
large margin, I actually will be pleased at that because
I think that in there is hope.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So that's what I might come out of this with. Listen,
it's not the end of democracy. The card rails are
in place. The truth is that to me, all these
policy issues, the truth is they are really aligned on
a surprisingly large amount of actual issues. I don't worry
(04:27):
on the Democratic side that we're going to become this
progressive looney bin. And I don't worry on the Trump
side that we're going to have martial law and deport
eleven million people, et cetera, et cetera, because I think
the restraints will be in place. And this is about character.
And what shocks me is how few people will discount
(04:52):
the character issue because they think that this country is
in such terrible shape and going so terribly wrong and
all of these things, things that they can't take a democrat.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Well, at the same time, many of those people actually
don't discount the character. They like the character.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, that's the other part of this, And it's very
hard for people to really understand opportuly. People in New
York who kind of assimilated him over a number of years,
they've taken it into their rhythm of life and gotten
used to him and know him for exactly who and
(05:33):
what he is without any equivocation. They know he is
and always has been a con man, seller of various
things that benefit himself, full stop. And yet Mark Burnett
comes along and makes up a character which doesn't resemble
(05:54):
him at all in The Apprentice, and most people who
watch The Apprentice him. But I think most of it
is cooked up in this mythology that was really started
by Burnett, and to which he knowing a good thing
when he sees it, has just kept digging at it,
(06:15):
that you're a fired thing in him metastasized into knowing, well,
if I'm really evil about people, if I tease out
their most vulnerable personal characteristics, not only will it excite them,
but it'll excite my audience because they it's the extension
(06:35):
of your fired.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So it's the show business of it all, which has
another side, which is that there is actual meaning here,
and part of the meaning is we don't like what
politicians are. Trump is a fuck you to politicians, which
is absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, blame the elites. It's a horrible word, but it's
kind of accurate. They're not They just act that way
and condescendingly. So in many things. Look, I've been using
this word progressive of all my life, and I like
the concept of it. I don't like the practice of
it in many cases, because I think it's mostly not effective.
It has had some effects clearly some positive effects, for sure,
(07:17):
but it has displaced most people from the American dream.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So you're an influential democrat, you consort with the.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Oh god, consort is the word plutocrats.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Well, let's get to the plutocrats. But before that, back
to just the plain old Democrats. One of the mistakes
that they've made that you see.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well, as I say, I think it goes back decades,
and it is in policies that are of course well intentioned,
but have not been particularly effective, and particularly dealing with
the expansion of the middle class rather than the Barbell
(08:02):
two sides of inequality. And I think that's the biggest
issue to me for proper resentment and anger at all
these elites who are mouthing all these words, enacting all
these laws that don't actually help a working person get
not only somewhat ahead in their lives better than they
(08:28):
grew up with, let's say, or better than their family,
but that their children ever will. And I think that's real.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Stylistically, one of the things that Trump has managed to
do is hold the attention, whereas the Democrats you know,
have have had great difficulty in doing that.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So I mean, just impurely dramatic terms.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And purely dramatic terms, those words you're fired, that he
understood better than the people who gave him those lines,
and what the content squences of that.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Were was so deep in reality television, which is based upon,
of course, conflict.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I've been extolling, and we're talking about this earlier today,
this Netflix documentary about pro wrestling, mister McMahon.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I watched about two episodes, which which shocked me that
I would stay that long something.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I'm thinking, Oh, wrestling, I guess this is a big
thing which I've missed for the past thirty years.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Apparently I had the good fortune of being sued by
the McMahons twenty years or so ago when we owned
USA Network. As you note maybe from watching this stock,
USA Networks really put nationally world wrestling on the map.
And when we got it, world wrestling was not a
(09:50):
big part of the diet, but it was a big
show on USA and I went to one wrestling match
and I couldn't imagine not the wrestling thing, which was wrestling,
which is not really wrestling, it's storytelling. I took it
off its major time period, and the McMahons sued us
(10:15):
for doing that which was against the contractual provisions, which
it wasn't really, but it was a little shady or
in the spaces and actually they want So you decided
that this was I didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, well I just thought bad taste.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
It was. Yeah, it was kind of creddy people doing
silly things.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So I thought, well, this explains Donald Trump. I mean
every aspect of this, from the fact that nothing really
has to be real to the fact that the heel
is the star.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Well, it's interesting when you say it that way because
the credulity, which is the thing that I was really
surprised at and surprise even watching the doc is how
people actually believe in the stories. It can get invested
in these made up stories of this person, whatever outlandish's
(11:06):
name this person has or that person has, this person
is the hero and this person is the heavy out
of your classic storytelling, and that they could believe it.
They could actually say, yeah, a story I'm going to
invest in. I mean, I'm gonna be interested in what
this zeus dressed character does to this you know, person
(11:26):
in tinfoil.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, so you see the through line to now where
people no longer care for what Trump says is true
or demonstrably false.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Well, you think you have that, but I think you
also have the storyline, So true false doesn't really make
any difference. It's our am I invested in the story.
Trump tells a story. No other politician tells a story,
a constant, running story. It continues to bring everyone to
the edge of their seat or to the screen watching him.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
You know, it brings everyone that you're talking about, who
are susceptible to that kind of surface storytelling, whether it
be The Apprentice or wrestling or whatever. It does not
answer why Steve Schwartzman, John Paulson, people who I doubt
I've ever watched WWF, or other people who absolutely they
(12:23):
know who he is. They simply don't care.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Well, let's go there to your fellow plutocrats.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, we were talking about Elil Musk just now and
his sort one hundred tweets a day for the last
ten days, essentially echoing Trump's talking points. It seems to
me that there's a class of billionaire now that is
different from the past. In the past, you felt you
made the money. You bought a sports franchise, you had
your name on a building, but you were not essentially
(12:53):
selecting and then running candidates for president. Does that seem
like something new to you that Trump possession in, No.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
It's on both sides. I think there have been activists
people of wealth forever engaging in politics, whether simply financially
or as sparkers and spokesmen and all that stuff. What's different,
or I won't even do different, is none of them
talk about character. None of them They actually say this
(13:27):
is purely economic policy. And these are all wildly wealthy people, yes,
and how can they justify for economic purpose after they've
done so very well themselves? Right? Economics should not be
such a personal determining issue for them that overrides character.
(13:52):
And yet they don't ever talk about it. I tried
to get I prompted the other day Andrew Sorkin, who
was interviewing John Paulson, and I wrote, Andrew, and I said,
why doesn't he talk about character? So Andrew, hearing from
the audience, says to Paulson, he asked the question a
Paulson wouldn't answer, He changed the subject.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I think it probably would have been two years ago,
maybe closer to three. I talked to Paulson about this.
I found him very if not adamantly anti Trump, certainly
turn his nose up at Trump, and clearly there has
been a transition. I just saw him at the end
of the summer. I said I want to come and
(14:35):
talk to you about Trump, and he said, I'll only
say nice things. And I said, that's okay with me,
but what about And then he said, I will only
say nice things.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
That's to me the most amazing thing. That rich people
far too rich man, he would say. But I don't
do relative quantification. But people who don't need another nickel
to say the least, actually refuse to discuss character in
this election and are only seem to be supportive on
(15:08):
pure economic terms for themselves.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
How does one consider someone like Musk? I mean, it
cannot be in his economic interest to support Trump. He
sells cars to liberals.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Oh listen, some time ago, in his mind, in his
capacious but often addled mind, he was always selling cars.
But he's distanced himself from what he says to direct
economic consequences of his products. I mean, listen, he took
over Twitter and alienated at least half the audience for
(15:38):
no reason other than his own talkings.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So you put this down to brain chemistry.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
You could also put it down to size of wealth.
I mean there's wealth that you want to protect and grow,
and then there's a level of wealth where nothing matters
to you. You're beyond that you can indulge.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I actual don't think wealth has anything to do with it.
Michael actually think that he's wealth agnostic. This is someone who,
in contrast to most, actually said I don't want to
own any owns and stays with friends basically and doesn't
have many possessions and isn't motivated by that. So I
(16:18):
don't think it's wealth. There's a of course, a form
of meglomania, and who would deny him meglomania given what
he actually has accomplished. So there he is, and there
it is, and it has no bounds. This is someone
who is not only well educated, but educated in the
humanities and knows a lot and says things across a
(16:42):
whole range of arenas that have great depth, sensitivity and
deep intelligence underneath them. I enormously admire, particularly his managerial ability.
I mean what he did when you think about this,
what he did at Twitter, and by the way, many
(17:03):
of these companies, most companies get to a point where
they're overstaff, particularly that area. In a week or ten
days or two weeks, he fired seventy five percent of
the employees and it still worked. What an extraordinary thing
to do, and it did not hurt. What hurt Twitter
was his anti advertising policies and statements that hurt Twitter's economy.
(17:27):
But the product experience not bad. Who cares about Musk
and his grand accomplishments. They're grand enough, and he deserves,
as I say, I think he deserves to stride the earth.
Why he has gone this way, I think is out
of some weird bitterness and rejection by the current administration.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Will be back right after the break. Let's go to
our mutual interest, Rupert Murdock and Rupert's conversion. I mean,
Rupert has been adamantly anti Trump, probably single handedly responsible
(18:18):
for the Ron De Santa's bubble, implementing a policy to
keep Trump off of Fox's air yep, and now is
utterly back in the fold. On the phone, Trump maintains
with him every day. Really well, that's what Trump says,
So I would discount that by some factor.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But still listen, he did try, you know, the old digger,
He did try, and he tried for several years he
failed and where did he go, which does in a
way kind of surprised me. But he too went for
his pocketbook. He went for his audience, and he said,
(19:01):
my audience, my Fox News audience, my post audience, post audience.
They want him, and so I'm not rejecting them.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
No, I think that's clearly true, clearly in character or
in business character.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Absolutely. It always amazes me, and I'm sure you a
better watcher than I am that while Rupert has been
in its entire life anti establishment, he is also toadied
up to whatever the establishment of the moment is in
the most toty ways.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Always back to the to the plutocrats. One of the
things I think about in one of the reasons the
plutocrats can overlook Trump's behavior is the belief, which I
might challenge, but I think it might seem also to
be true, is that he's ownable or overlook what he
is because we can own him. He's incredibly responsive to
(20:00):
money and the Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I think that's true. But again, it's not they want
to own him for the good of the people. It's
not that they want to own it's that they want
to own him to prevent adverse business conditions for themselves.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But let me flip that. Are the Democrat plutocrats different
from that? Yes, sure they are so the Hollywood money, please.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Don't do Hollywood. Hollywood doesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Anymore, the entertainment business from the left coast. Yes, you
think they're different qualitatively generally.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
We know this. They are more liberal by definition, artists
always are.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So there's just that I mean, do in fact they
taking all of this money, And I would say that
that is a difference, that there is so much more
money available that these people want to do something different
than owning whoever is the president.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yes, there aren't by definition crass, they're not their interest
all over the place, but they're not that, and I
think that's a significant difference. But the thing about the
money that has been raised in this particularly actually by Democrats,
who I think have outraised Republicans by some fairly large amount.
(21:26):
It's obscene. We've jacked this presidency thing up beyond all comprehension.
We've jacked the presidency itself, unlike other countries' leadership. You
don't have to do anything but look at New York
City and an entire section of the city literally shut
(21:52):
down because a presidential car is driving by shut down.
In no other part of the world does any leader,
including I think the protection of Putin, rise to this
standard of protect I mean, with all his issues about
the Secret Service and all of that, which to me
is its own silly category. But that we have created
(22:16):
bubble wrap upon bubble wrap around this institution of the presidency.
It's such an absurdist height that it's no wonder, by
the way, that anybody living inside that for too long
doesn't somehow go not crazy, but is so insulated from reality.
(22:37):
So when you see it from somewhat inside that bubble,
it's a miracle anybody actually survives that with a brain intact.
But for us people, that we've done this to this job,
the most important person on earth, the most powerful person
in the world, et cetera, et cetera, and what we've
(22:59):
institution is so beyond humanness. Think of those seconds Biden
is backstage at the horrible debate. Think being inside him
for the minute or two before he walks out and
knows I have ninety minutes uninterrupted with cameras on my
(23:21):
every face, gesture and speech. Forget whether or not he's
adult or not. What does a human do with that
kind of pressure.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
It actually changes the nature of the issue and changes
the nature of why we vote for someone, which is
really about how they react. Can you stand up to
that kind of.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And you can stand up to that because you know
when you say stand up to it, the only way
you can stand up to it is by not being human.
And one presumes we want our leaders to have humanity
as part of them, but the ability to actually get
through that experience is not a human like thing. It
is some ability to through whatever process you go through.
(24:09):
It isn't prep. I don't know how much of it
as drugs, but I suspect some that you can get
through that. It's acting at its most incredible essence of
being an actor.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Do you think Kamala Harris has the constitution to get
through that?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, she did kind of get through it, I think.
I mean, I don't think she was great, and I
don't think she was terrible.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But she's kind of campaigning on her humanness.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
She I guess, with some reserve, we'll write about this
incredible rise depending upon what happens. I's assume she is president,
but this rise up through political ranks without really ever
being tested in any particular way, and without ever having
(24:51):
any kind of particular ideology. It's a remarkable series of accidents.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
If she loses, what would you say is the mistake
not her mistake necessarily, but the Democrat's mistake.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
It goes back decades, so I'm not so sure that
it's a single.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Even in this I'm looking.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I'm looking for granular.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
She loses Pennsylvania, we say Josh Shapiro, she should have
chosen Josh Shapiro.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
It's beyond my ken I think that it will simply be,
which is why I want it to be. If she
loses by a big majority. I want it to be
a ringing reality that this is what we've done. And
if that happens, I see good in that.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
The truth is she hasn't. I'm very critical of because
I think you have to go out there and make
mistakes and then correct your mistakes. I think you have
to risk things, and she's risked very little. And again
it's this bubble wrap of the process. The most important
to me quality of Kamala was revealed in the first
(25:59):
six hours because she did something quite extraordinary, which is
almost everyone in the outer or in the talking circles,
wanted an open convention. Everyone who participated in this process
to encourage Biden. Word encouraged is probably loosely applied here,
(26:19):
but to encourage Biden to step down wanted an open process,
and actually a month of five six weeks. The ideal
it was seven weeks that we would have a bunch
of candidates and we'd have a real race and choose
a great person out of that process. She locked it
(26:40):
up in six hours, and she did it magisterially. I
mean what she did is she really said to people
in the first ten minutes, tell me now, not tomorrow,
right now, and go out and tell everyone now, or
never tell anyone. And she did that herself first. I
(27:01):
mean really, six hours after he informed her it was over.
Now that's playing a hand.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Look, I like Kamala and Over fairly well and certainly
support her. But I would have preferred and I said
to her, I think you'll take it, but take the chance.
It'll be a much better process for everyone. I much
wanted a different process. Yeah, she's not taken enough risk.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
That's what I was going for. Just that, Oh, that
was the answer I wanted.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I'm so glad I gave it you. You know, it
took me a long time me up earlier.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
So very one one thing I think we can say
Trump has succeeded wildly at his crediting the legacy media.
And I want it as a media proprietor mogul yourself,
if you think that was warranted, what you make of it,
How the media comes back from it.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
We've gone so past this word media that it's like,
just like Hollywood, it's really no longer relevant. Yeah, there
are so many voices, so many options for voices. Just
the tonnage of it alone has made almost any single
part of it kind of irrelevant. And I don't think
it ever well, it certainly never goes back. It just
(28:22):
keeps getting more and more dispersed, has more and more
ability to communicate through more and more communication systems come about.
I saw yesterday you should really go see Meta Facebook.
As you may know, he changed the name to the
Meta because of the oculus and because of advances in
(28:47):
technology as to how we would see things, etceter, investing
huge amounts of money. But yesterday I went for a
demo of their glasses, which won't be out for several years.
Actually I said, tell me like next year. The year
after I could not pin them. They said years, and
they've been working on it for ten years. It is
(29:09):
the most extraordinary experience because you are looking glasses like that,
a little heavier, that have so much technology in them.
Just mind blowing. I mean literally in a pair of glasses,
I think there are eight cameras. But also you are
also seeing screens. There was one part of the demo
(29:30):
when there were three different screens that you were looking at,
and as I'm saying it, I would think you would saying, well,
that'll just give me a headache or make me dizzier.
It's so perfectly done that it's enhancing so as to
how people communicate and how much information they'll take in
and from where and from how and whatever. We're going
through it. I mean, listen, we're embarking if in the
(29:54):
next years, because we're going to have AGI. It's really
not a decade away. It's not five years away. Probably
it's maybe as early as a year or two or three.
But it's coming things that just five years ago, ten
years ago, anybody's estimate was thirty fifty years away. And
(30:16):
it's going to happen and it will. I mean, everything
is going to change. Trump is the past.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Let's put him in the past.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Well, I want him either in the dustbin or I
want it so front and center that we can't get
away from its consequences and have to deal with those consequences.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Perfect. Let's end there.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Thank you, Fire and Fury.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
The podcast is hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolf
and James Truman. The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Marinolf,
executive producers for Caneidisc, mangesh Had Together and Os Vloscian,
executive producers for iHeart On, Nikki Etour and Katrina Novel
(31:12):
M M
Speaker 2 (31:17):
HM
Hosts And Creators
James Truman
Michael Wolff
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.