Stephen A. Smith
Appearances
Candace
LeBron James ATTACKS Stephen A. Smith | Candace Ep 156
I am not a person that had a problem with Bronny James. being on the court for the season opener with LeBron James. That was a phenomenal moment to see a father on the court with his son who has NBA aspirations playing together for the first time in NBA history. The Griffys in baseball, Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. were in attendance for it. It was a special moment.
Candace
LeBron James ATTACKS Stephen A. Smith | Candace Ep 156
My position has always been that should have been the only moment we saw Bronny James in a Lakers uniform this season. Because he's not ready. I'm not here to tell you that he won't be ready. I'm not here to tell you that he won't be an NBA player. I'm not here to tell you that he should give up his dreams and his aspirations. I think the kid's got potential.
Candace
LeBron James ATTACKS Stephen A. Smith | Candace Ep 156
I think the kid will be in the NBA one day. I watched him in the G League doing his thing. I think he's going to be fine eventually. But that's not the case yet. And because it's not the case yet, and then you see some of these numbers, I do find myself looking at LeBron James instead of Bronny James. Because LeBron is the basketball savant.
Candace
LeBron James ATTACKS Stephen A. Smith | Candace Ep 156
LeBron is one of the top two greatest players in the history of the game. LeBron has forgotten more basketball than most people would know. So no matter what we think about Bronny, he knows more. But you see what you see. Bronny James has played in 13 NBA games. Ladies and gentlemen, he's averaging 0.3 points, 0.3 assists, and 0.4 rebounds.
Candace
LeBron James ATTACKS Stephen A. Smith | Candace Ep 156
He shot one for 16 from the field in his NBA career and 0 for 7 from three-point range. And he's playing in the first quarter of an NBA game? Really? Really? And everybody wants to look at it and LeBron has nothing to do with that. Yeah, he didn't tell JJ Redick to put him in the game. I get all that. But come on. I'm not being cruel to Bronny. I'm looking out. Do you want it this way, LeBron?
It's Been a Minute
Are men in your life getting more political? This guy may be why.
Is this something you think— Listen, I've been— I have no choice.
It's Been a Minute
Are men in your life getting more political? This guy may be why.
Because I've had elected officials, and I'm not going to give their names, elected officials coming up to me.
PBD Podcast
Joy Reid FIRED, Alec Baldwin vs Trump Impersonator, Crenshaw Threatens Tucker | PBD Podcast | Ep. 551
I mean, if you really wanted to get raw, ain't nobody hiding from that. I could be that way. It's just that my mama taught me to respect my elders. And you are 80 years of age, if I remember correctly. And I'm trying to be respectful, so I'm not going to come at you the way that you came at me. I thought that was completely unnecessary. That's number one.
PBD Podcast
Joy Reid FIRED, Alec Baldwin vs Trump Impersonator, Crenshaw Threatens Tucker | PBD Podcast | Ep. 551
Number two, I religiously say I'm no political aficionado. I religiously say I don't know politics like that. I read. I watch the news. I'm a conscientious observer. But I do have to ask you a question, Mr. James Carville, albeit rhetorically. You do know that you're talking to a voter, right? Could that be one of the reasons why y'all lost? Just a thought.
PBD Podcast
Joy Reid FIRED, Alec Baldwin vs Trump Impersonator, Crenshaw Threatens Tucker | PBD Podcast | Ep. 551
Because you sound like one of those old curmudgeons that want things to stay or be the way that they used to be. And you're resentful, harboring an abundance of animosity because you're not being heard. That's not Stephen A. Smith's fault, sir. That's that damn Democratic Party that I was talking about.
PBD Podcast
Joy Reid FIRED, Alec Baldwin vs Trump Impersonator, Crenshaw Threatens Tucker | PBD Podcast | Ep. 551
You see, they shouldn't listen to me. Do you realize, James Carville, that that means they shouldn't have listened to you either? Which makes no sense, because we were both right. Because guess what? What I was saying is what you were saying. I saw you on Fox News. I saw you on CNN. I saw you on your podcast before the election. Where the hell you think I got some of this stuff from?
PBD Podcast
Joy Reid FIRED, Alec Baldwin vs Trump Impersonator, Crenshaw Threatens Tucker | PBD Podcast | Ep. 551
When you were talking about the Democratic Party, I'm making that up?
PBD Podcast
Joy Reid FIRED, Alec Baldwin vs Trump Impersonator, Crenshaw Threatens Tucker | PBD Podcast | Ep. 551
Natürlich.
PBD Podcast
Trump & Bukele BLAST CNN's Kaitlan Collins w/ Eric Bolling & Chris Cuomo | PBD Podcast | Ep. 577
Stupide Fragen. Stupide Fragen. Stupide Fragen.
PBD Podcast
Trump & Bukele BLAST CNN's Kaitlan Collins w/ Eric Bolling & Chris Cuomo | PBD Podcast | Ep. 577
Sie haben gesagt, dass wenn der Supreme Court sagt, dass jemand zurückgezogen werden muss, dass Sie davon abheben würden. Sie haben das auf Air Force One gesagt, vor ein paar Tagen. Und sie haben gesagt, dass es sich ermöglichen muss.
PBD Podcast
Iran Threatens Trump As Tariff Trade War RAGES | PBD Podcast | Ep. 572
Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, I've had no choice but to get a bit more serious about it. I've been approached by people on Capitol Hill. I've been approached by people who are elected officials in office, whether it's governors or mayors or what have you. And people have legitimately and seriously asked me about that. I have no desire to be a politician. My life is pretty well.
PBD Podcast
Iran Threatens Trump As Tariff Trade War RAGES | PBD Podcast | Ep. 572
But I've decided I'm no longer going to close that door. I'm going to keep my options open. I'm going to entertain the possibility.
PBD Podcast
Iran Threatens Trump As Tariff Trade War RAGES | PBD Podcast | Ep. 572
And if it comes in 2020, late 2026, 2027, where I look at this country and I think it's an absolute mess and there's legitimate reason to believe, whether it's via exploratory committees or anything else, that I indeed would have a legitimate shot to win the presidency of the United States, I am not going to rule it out. And I'm not playing. I just think that it's a mess right now. I'm not scared.
PBD Podcast
Trudeau Resigns, Skip Bayless Sued, DC On High Alert, Andrew Tate For PM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 529
Okay.
PBD Podcast
Trudeau Resigns, Skip Bayless Sued, DC On High Alert, Andrew Tate For PM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 529
I don't know what happened. But just like I said, I've known Jay-Z for 25 years. I can't imagine that. I've known Skip for just as long. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine it, especially when they brought up the $1.5 million. The Skip Bayless I know has a hard time giving away $15. He's one of the cheapest people I know. Cheapest? That's just me.
PBD Podcast
Trudeau Resigns, Skip Bayless Sued, DC On High Alert, Andrew Tate For PM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 529
But that doesn't mean that I have any inside knowledge about any of this. I don't, and I'm not going to get involved. I think it's incredibly dicey and irresponsible for people who don't know to act like they do know. But in the same breath, I also feel it's important
PBD Podcast
Trudeau Resigns, Skip Bayless Sued, DC On High Alert, Andrew Tate For PM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 529
That if you know people or you think you know people and you've had a longstanding relationship with those people, that it's not a crime for you to say the person that I know, the person that I've been around, the person that I worked with in his case. you know, for four straight years, from 2012 to 2016, doing first take every weekday morning at 10 a.m. to 12 noon.
PBD Podcast
Trudeau Resigns, Skip Bayless Sued, DC On High Alert, Andrew Tate For PM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 529
The person that I knew since our days at Fox Sports when we would appear on Jim Rome's show, okay, The Last Word and stuff like that, and we were in the same Fox building off of Pico Boulevard and Avenue to the Stars. The person that I've seen that... really, really trust almost no one and doesn't expose himself to anybody. You know, eating the same breakfast and lunch every day.
PBD Podcast
Trudeau Resigns, Skip Bayless Sued, DC On High Alert, Andrew Tate For PM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 529
His vice is a diet Mountain Dew, and he doesn't socialize with people. That's the guy I know. So imagining him being in this kind of position and It's shocking to say the least.
PBD Podcast
Trudeau Resigns, Skip Bayless Sued, DC On High Alert, Andrew Tate For PM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 529
I know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point?
PBD Podcast
Trump's Film Tariffs, Alcatraz Reopened, China Shut Down | PBD Podcast | Ep. 583
Alberta will be taking steps to better protect ourselves from Ottawa. As a start, I will soon appoint a special negotiating team to represent our province in negotiations with the federal government on the following reforms requested by our province. We hope this will result in a binding agreement that Albertans can have confidence in. Call it an Alberta Accord, if you will.
PBD Podcast
Trump's Film Tariffs, Alcatraz Reopened, China Shut Down | PBD Podcast | Ep. 583
First, Alberta requires guaranteed corridor and port access to tidewater off the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic coasts for the international export of Alberta oil, gas, critical minerals and other resources in amounts supported by the free market rather than by the dictates and whims of Ottawa. Every province in the country other than Alberta and Saskatchewan have coastal port access.
PBD Podcast
Trump's Film Tariffs, Alcatraz Reopened, China Shut Down | PBD Podcast | Ep. 583
Tom, your thoughts on this?
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed to take sweet victory. I know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point?
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
If that man put his hands on me, I would have immediately swung on him.
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
What he had to say, I was in no position to give any kind of retort without making a scene. It was during the third quarter. It was fresh out of a timeout. It was him walking to the basketball court. It was on national television. The cameras were rolling. And had I done something, what do y'all want me to do? You want me to act new?
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
You want this to be a reincarnation of Chris Rock and Will Smith? And let me state for the record that while we bring up that, let me assure you it wouldn't have gone down like that. I would have gotten my ass kicked because had that man put his hands on me, I would have immediately swung on him. Immediately. That I'm not going to tolerate. But I knew he wasn't going to do something like that.
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
There was no fear in my mind about it. It was shock because as I have repeatedly stated, I was not talking about his son. I was talking about him.
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
But don't the truth matter? Because there's one person in this ordeal that's telling the truth. And it's me. I don't lie to y'all. His ass lies a lot. And there's a lot of shady stuff that he does. And one of the things is his passive aggressiveness. and the two-facedness and smile in your face and dig you behind the back. I happen to know that about him, which is why I don't like him.
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
And he don't like me. That's right. But it doesn't stop me from being fair and calling it like I see it. We ain't exchanging Christmas gifts. We ain't having Thanksgiving dinner together. What you bring your son up in there for? When you bring your family up in there before, you're going to go on Pat McAfee's show, talk about you're going to protect your house. What you talking about?
PBD Podcast
Zelenskyy's OMINOUS Putin Threat | PBD Podcast | Ep. 568
Your son ain't at the house. He's at Crypto.com Arena. We ain't covering him in Brentwood. We covering him in downtown L.A. at the Crypto.com Arena. Where you put him. Mm-hmm.
PBD Podcast
Trump Wants The Panama Canal & Greenland, NYC Subway Fire, Newsom Confronted | PBD Podcast | Ep. 525
Anybody could dismiss Donald Trump at this particular moment in time, not just because of him, but because of what we've seen the Democrats do. We're not falling for it any longer. The American people aren't falling for it any longer. I voted Democrat, and I got to tell you something right now. I don't like the fact that I did. I don't like what I'm seeing.
PBD Podcast
Trump Wants The Panama Canal & Greenland, NYC Subway Fire, Newsom Confronted | PBD Podcast | Ep. 525
I don't want to hear about, oh, we're about a law. Nobody's above the law. Nobody's above the law. But then you go out and you're pardoning your son. And you're trying to blame everybody else for it. I don't want to hear about defund the police. I don't want to hear about, you know what, there should be open borders. I don't want to hear this stuff.
PBD Podcast
Trump Wants The Panama Canal & Greenland, NYC Subway Fire, Newsom Confronted | PBD Podcast | Ep. 525
And I don't think most of the American people want to hear that. And I'm no longer interested in, nor do I believe any of us should be interested in, in listening to a bunch of fear-mongering to tell us who we shouldn't vote for. Why don't you come up with a plan that tells us why we should vote for you?
PBD Podcast
"This Was A Bad Idea" – Andrew Callaghan’s WILD Coverage Of BLM Riots, COVID Protests & Border Chaos | PBD Podcast | Ep. 580
to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone standing a murderer when this is the United States of America, as if we don't lionize criminals, as if we don't have, you know, we don't stand. murderers of all sorts, and we give them Netflix shows.
PBD Podcast
"This Was A Bad Idea" – Andrew Callaghan’s WILD Coverage Of BLM Riots, COVID Protests & Border Chaos | PBD Podcast | Ep. 580
There's a huge disconnect between the narratives and angles that mainstream media pushes and what the American public feels. And you see that in moments like this. And I can tell you, I saw the biggest audience growth that I've ever seen because people were like, oh, somebody, some journalist is actually speaking to the anger that we feel.
PBD Podcast
"This Was A Bad Idea" – Andrew Callaghan’s WILD Coverage Of BLM Riots, COVID Protests & Border Chaos | PBD Podcast | Ep. 580
So you're gonna see women especially that feel like, oh my God, right? Like here's this man who's revolutionary, who's famous, who's handsome, who's young, who's smart. He's a person that seems like this morally good man, which is hard to find.
PBD Podcast
Diddy Trial BOMBSHELLS, Trump DESTROYS Neocons, Putin BAILS On Peace Talks | PBD Podcast | Ep. 587
I've listened to Jasmine Crockett. Both AOC and Jasmine Crockett are welcomed on this show. I respect the hell out of both of them. I'm not here to disrespect anybody. I'm only talking about what strategy is going to work. When I hear Jasmine Crockett talking about how I'm just against all things and everything Trump, is that legislating?
PBD Podcast
Diddy Trial BOMBSHELLS, Trump DESTROYS Neocons, Putin BAILS On Peace Talks | PBD Podcast | Ep. 587
Isn't it an obligation that you have to come up with something? If the other party is in office, You have to go from thinking that you're going to get what you want if your party was in the White House and instead transitioning to how can I work with the other party to get some of what I want because I know I'm not going to get most of what I want because they won the election.
PBD Podcast
Diddy Trial BOMBSHELLS, Trump DESTROYS Neocons, Putin BAILS On Peace Talks | PBD Podcast | Ep. 587
Who?
Pod Save America
Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Here's the deal. The man was impeached twice. He was convicted on 34 felony counts. And the American people still said, he's closer to normal than what we see on the left. Exactly. That's what they're saying. He's closer to normal. Why?
Pod Save America
Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Because something that pertains, when you talk about the transgender community, for example, and you're talking about the issues that pertain to less than 1% of the population, the Democratic Party came across as if that was a priority more so than the other issues. And so he comes into office. Now you're talking about childbirth, citizenship, and what have you.
Pod Save America
Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
He knows that's not going to pass the mustard, but he knows that he made that promise. So when he shows up week one on Capitol Hill, he says, this is what we're going to do through an executive order, even though it's going to be. shot down through the courts and what have you. He's saying, I kept my promise.
Pod Save America
Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
A lot of other things that he's going to point to that he's going to try to do, I kept my promise. Then you turn around and you look at the left and you say, what promises did you keep? Now, you might know the answer to that. I'm certainly not questioning your knowledge about that at all. What I'm saying is, what resonated with the voter?
Pod Save America
Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
What voter out there can look at the Democratic Party at this moment in time and say, there's a voice for us, somebody that speaks for us, that goes up on Capitol Hill and fights the fights that we want them fighting on our behalf? They didn't do that. And that's why they're behinds a home. And that man is back in the White House. And they want to sit up there and talk.
Pod Save America
Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
You look at the networks right now. They're talking about, look at it. This is the latest. Look at him. Here he goes again. Well, you know what here he goes again means? He's doing what he said he was going to do. He promised you he was going to do these things, and he walked into office week one, and that's exactly what he's doing, and he's saying, y'all do something about it.
Pod Save America
Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
And when you try to do something about it, he's going to say, look at them now. Now they're concerned about these issues. Were they talking about that during the campaign? Hell no. That's really it.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
What's going on, man? How you doing? How's everything?
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I think it's fair. I don't have any desire to do it. I have no desire to be a politician whatsoever. But if the country was in a bad place and you told me that somehow, some way that I'm favored to win an election and be the president of the United States, I don't think anybody would summarily dismiss that personally because we all live in this country and we all understand that.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
what comes with it. And as much of a headache as it would be, as stressful as it would be, as much of a compromise it could potentially be to my quality of life, make no mistake about it, what kind of quality do we really have that the country sucks? if it's just in a very, very bad place with no reprieve in sight whatsoever.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So, again, for me personally, with what I have going on in my life, with how happy I am, with the fact that I'm more interested in remaining a pundit and a commentator rather than a politician. Those things still stand. I'm very authentic in saying that. I have no desire to be a politician whatsoever.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But my God, if you came to me and said, listen, there is nobody else and America is clamoring for you, which I sincerely doubt would ever happen. But if that were to happen, would I give it strong consideration? I won't lie. Yes, I would. I would give it strong consideration.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You forgot about what got you here. Black folks got you here. Hispanics got you here. The working class got you here. The most egregious thing that you could say about the Democratic Party right now is that the Republican Party seems to be more identifiable with the working class than the Democrats.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Who would have ever thought in our wildest dreams that anybody would be able to get away with saying that? Remember, a lot of times people that are in the know, that are highly, highly knowledgeable about the intricacies that involve politics, they lean on that. They keep forgetting the voters don't know what they know. The voters live on perception.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Whatever issue touches them is what touches them. And that decides who they're going to vote for or whether they'll vote at all. And a lot of people don't get that. I laugh when... When folks try to challenge my knowledge of the intricacies of politics, I'm like, you're clearly not listening. I tell you all the time, I don't study it like that. I read the newspaper. I watch news.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I'm a conscientious observer, but I'm not entrenched in it the way somebody that lives it every day would be. But I'm an American citizen and I'm a voter. And I'm watching what's going on in the streets of America. And I'm telling you, certain things ain't going to work.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
When you looked at the Democratic Party, certainly there's probably policies that they pushed forth and battles that they have fought that would have benefited working class Americans. But that ain't what they were talking about. They were talking about LGBTQ. They were talking about transgender rights specifically.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They were acting as if there was no problem at the borders involving illegal immigration. Nobody was believing that because if you travel, if you see footage of the streets of America, you're like, what's going on? It wasn't just Fox News. It was everybody, ABC, NBC, CBS.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Everybody was talking about the border when it was crimes in the streets and people were being let out the same day that they were getting arrested. But everybody was talking about that when you had stores that were allowing three people in it at a time because they were afraid they were going to get robbed and the repercussions weren't severe enough.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So there was a level of fearlessness that the lawless in our communities were, you know, that they possessed. People were talking about that and. The Democrats were talking about something else. And so when you look at it from that standpoint, you just say to yourself, they really, really forgot.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They forgot what got them here, what made them so popular, what got Clinton in office, what got Barack Obama in office. Hell, to some degree, what got Jimmy Carter in office before Reagan arrived. They forgot all of these things.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
To forget that against Donald Trump, of all people, who's claiming elections are rigged, who's calling y'all crooks, who are saying that y'all are nasty, evil people, questioning how duplicitous you can be, how corrupt you can be, even while he's getting impeached, even while he's being convicted of felonies, all of this stuff. And y'all just ignored it. Not you.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I'm not talking about you, Tommy, but I'm just saying the Democratic Party, it boggled the mind. It boggled the mind. It still does.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Get Trump like. What I mean by that, Tom, is be your real, true, authentic self for better or worse. Can you genuinely tell me as a person who covers this stuff for a living that Trump surprises you? What? Think about how he acts. Think about the things that he says. And then he goes and he tries to do it for better or worse. He's letting you know, I don't care. I'm not a politician.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I'm not a career politician. I don't listen. The man doesn't even want to be in the White House. Every chance he gets, he's at Mar-a-Lago. You don't even want to be there. OK, he wants to run the country from his resort for crying out loud. He might want to use the Air Force One plane. OK, so he don't have to spend his own money with his gas and everything else. But he'd rather.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But that's about it. The man wants to be where he wants to be. He wants to do what he wants to do. He wants to show you every chance he gets that he is nothing like the career politicians. He is nothing like. like what you have witnessed for decades on Capitol Hill. He says Capitol Hill needs to be purged. What is he doing? He's trying to purge Capitol Hill. You understand?
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Meanwhile, we had Kamala Harris, Ms. Prim and proper, tries to say the right things, listening to her party, Talk to her about this is the way to go over the last 107 days to win an election, etc. And guess what? It wasn't resonating. You go on The View and The View says, is there anything, anything at all about Joe Biden? that you would do differently, that you would change.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And she looked into the cameras and said, I can't think of any. What? What? I mean, are you kidding me? I mean, you can't do that because it's not just about your answer. It's about the believability factor. You see, even when Trump is lying, you believe that he believes that What he's saying and what he says he's going to do, even if he's lying to himself, you sit up there, you look it up.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Look, man, you can't just eradicate departments like that. You can't just violate civil liberties like you can't just sit up there and make your own rules and subvert the Constitution and try to get a third term in office, whatever. But who doubts he's going to try? Who doubts that he's going to try to pull that off? Whatever it is that he says, there is an authenticity
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That comes with it in terms of how it resonates to the American people who are salty and skeptical with vile feelings towards Capitol Hill. That's where the connection happens. Well, if you are somebody on the Democratic side and you feel that way, where's your vitriol? Where's your disgust? Where's your aversion to the status quo and what you aim to do about it? That's what people want to see.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But tell why. But tell why. You don't have, you can't compete with that and you don't have that. I'm not talking about you specifically, of course. I know, I know. About Democratic Party. You don't know that and you can't compete with that for the biggest reason of all.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Because y'all are too busy trying to pick candidates for the American people instead of listening to the American people tell you who they want. The last Democrat that the American people told you they wanted was Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton, it's her turn. Bernie Sanders had momentum. It's Hillary's turn.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Joe Biden captured momentum because Representative Clyburn got involved in South Carolina, saved his behind. But it's really, really his turn. OK, he has no business running for reelection. But everybody went for it, knowing he was supposed to be transitioning. He's going to be 81 years of age. Then you sit up there. He doesn't have a primary. Then he goes on the debate stage, embarrasses himself.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Then y'all still let him take three damn weeks to walk away instead of getting the hell out there immediately. So you can see if there's somebody other than Kamala Harris who could be the Democratic nominee. Then she gets the nomination and everybody wants to act like she's the rock star. All y'all wanted all along. Oh, my God. Let's throw up our hands and just say, hey, she is the one.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
When you know good and damn well that wasn't the truth. Meanwhile, Trump has been around since 2015. They had Christie, they had Kasich, they had Fiorini, I believe her name is. Later on, you had DeSantis, you had Nikki Haley, you had Ramaswamy, you had all of these people. It didn't matter. We went through law and all this stuff. It didn't matter.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They looked the public in the face and they said, we want him. We don't care what y'all want and forced the Republican party to capitulate to the demands of their constituency. That's what they did. The Democrats somehow some way have gotten away with, with ignoring the constituency and compelling the constituency to capitulate to what they want as a party. And that is the problem.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And that's why I said it all needs to go. Some of those candidates need to go. The pundits, the strategists, they need to go. Whoever was involved with the latest election, from a strategy standpoint, every one of them should be fired. Every one of them.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I don't want to be. And that's why I am one. Because you see, I wouldn't go to the Daytona 500, but I'd have been at the Super Bowl. I'd have been at the hockey All-Star game. I'd have been at NBA All-Star weekend. I'd be at the World Series. I'd be at All-Star weekend for baseball. I mean, I'd be at a boxing match. I'd be at a UFC match, et cetera, et cetera. The point is, you're a politician.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You're supposed to be able to do what the people want you to do as a politician. See, this is this is just you're giving me damning evidence. I didn't even think about it until you brought it up. I'm going like this. Wait a minute. Aren't they politicians? Isn't it their job to recognize and notice? What their constituency finds appealing and cater to that.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
No, that doesn't work. Here's why. You don't think so? Because Obama's not looking for their vote. He knows he's not getting it. You're talking about the other side and the independents. And the independents want—here's what the independents want, because I'm a registered independent. I'm not a Democrat. I'm a registered—I'll vote for a Republican in a heartbeat.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I might not have voted for Trump, but I'm not averse to all conservative policies. I have some conservative policies I support. I have a lot of liberal policies I support. But let me— Right. You don't like taxes. That's right. I don't like high taxes. I don't like high taxes. I don't like open borders. I don't like open borders.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I think that those kind of things affect the economy in a negative kind of way, no matter how we try to slice it. Look at Mayor Eric Adams in New York City complaining about the billions of dollars it cost him and what it's deprived him of in terms of what he has to contribute to the system in terms of homelessness and other issues that are permeating in the city of New York City. Because why?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
He had to spend money on the illegal immigration issue, it being a sanctuary city. So all of those things come into play. But the point that I'm trying to make is this. If you're around, if you're looking at somebody and you're saying to yourself, what is it going to take? How can we find that candidate?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
The first order of business is finding a candidate that recognizes the importance of appealing to not only his own constituency, but those who are undecided. and playing to win. If you're a centrist, what you're saying is, I'm willing to compromise. I'm willing to walk across the aisle and work with people. I'm not interested in all of this chaos. If it has to get chaotic, so be it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But that's not the objective. That's not the goal. We're Americans. We can come together. We can work together. Don't look at black, white, Latino, Asian, whatever the case may be. Don't look at all of that stuff and think that that's a license. to dismiss and alienate others just because they don't look nor feel like you do. You might have a shot at convincing them if you talk to them.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You could go to them and talk to them about what their desires are, what they wish for their communities, what's the kind of thing that plagues their community and how we can alleviate those concerns. That's your responsibility. And see, to me, I'm sitting there, again, I have no desire to be in politics, zero. My life is pretty good. My life is pretty damn good. But guess what?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I'm looking at it and I'm saying, this isn't hard. This isn't hard. I'm talking about compared to the Democratic candidates that you have available. It's not hard. Look at their roster.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Listen, I was very impressed with Josh Shapiro. Very impressed with him. And I love me some Wes Moore. No doubt about it, right? And if there's anybody – but I would be concerned – I think that one could easily argue Trump would never have been president if Barack Obama hadn't been president. Barack Obama's presidency caused a white backlash.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
OK, because you had people in this country that didn't like his policies, didn't like him, was walking around crying about how he's trying to indoctrinate our children just because he was speaking to elementary school kids and stuff. This ridiculous stuff that people came up with. Right. Which is far beyond the pill. No excuse for.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
OK, but people were really feeling like their way of life was being compromised because, again, they didn't know everything that he was doing. They were going by what they were being told by the other side. And then here comes Trump saying, we're going to purge this whole system. We're going to throw this all aside because these folks ain't strong enough, ain't good enough.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Remember, Jeb Bush, low energy. Marco Rubio, small hands and all of this other stuff. Little Marco and stuff like that. You know, Carla Fiorini and, you know, she's this or that or Doug or Chris Christie and getting on him. We saw Kasich. I thought I was a huge fan of Kasich. But guess what? He wasn't resonating with the constituency out there. So they their side chose who their side chose.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You don't get an opportunity to do that as Democrats because they pick who they want exposed instead of saying. Let's put everybody out there and see who the constituency gravitates towards. That's the problem. And that's the real reason why somebody like little old me is polling, which makes no damn sense whatsoever. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It should be embarrassing to the Democratic Party. It really should.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Of course he's overreaching. But why is he overreaching? Because he has the license and the mandate to do so. Because you see on the left, you've got Democrats saying there's no mandate. He didn't receive 50% of the vote. Are you kidding me? He won 49.8% of the vote. He had over 77 million people vote for him. He beat you by nearly 3 million votes if you're the Democratic Party.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
He beat you by nearly 3 million votes. Okay? He won every swing state. He went up in 50 different counties across the country. Didn't drop in any of them. And, oh, by the way, the black vote, the Latino vote, and the young vote, he basically got an increase in that regard. You look at all of those different things. In a blue state like New York City that in 2016— I think it was Hillary.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
She got like 62% of the vote in New York City. It was like 53% for Biden. It was 37% in this particular situation for Trump. He got 37%. What are you talking about? You're listening to these people and you're saying, Trump, there's no mandate. No, he does have a mandate. And because he has that, he's pushing the envelope. And why is he pushing the envelope?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Because he knows something that Democrats better pick up on. Democrats are strongest usually during the national election. During those midterms, most of the time Republicans are seen as going to the polls more so than Democrats. If Trump can somehow some way.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
win the midterms, he'll be able to do whatever the hell he wants because they'll get even more seats in the Senate and the House come midterm elections. He sees this. He knows exactly what he's doing. And he's pushing the envelope because he knows he has the Republicans scared shitless to go against him. So as a result, do whatever I want to do right now.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I think this is going to win me additional seats for the party in the midterms, which is why he was talking about Gavin Newsom the way that he was talking about Gavin Newsom. Because for the first time in a while, they sense they can take California. They can shift. They can turn it into, if not red, turn it into at least a purple state. You understand? Do something.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
He's sensing all of this and he sees an opportunity and that's what's going on. So I'm not surprised by what he's doing at all. It's perfectly understandable. And most people in that position of power, if they have an agenda, they will go to whatever extinct necessary to do that. Remember Barack Obama. I think it was 2012.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
He sat up there and said the American people, not just 28, 2008, 2012, said the American people have spoken. They elected us. And oh, by the way, we don't need Congress to get everything we want done. Barack Obama said that in 2012. How do I know that? Because Trump has sent his surrogates out to remind everybody what Obama said back in 2012.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Well... What I would say to you is that you're wrong. And the reason you're wrong is because never before has the Democratic Party been this damaged.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But listen, John Kerry wasn't that strong. You know what I mean? He didn't necessarily appeal that much. This was different. Because the reason why it's never been this bad... George W. Bush, for whatever it is that you want to say, the Republicans didn't really have that much of a problem with him.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And if you look at America at that particular moment, we might not want it to be in the war in Iraq. We might not want to be chasing around Osama bin Laden and all of that stuff. That might be true. But in the end, it wasn't like it is now. How it is now is there's a president that was convicted on 34 felony counts. and impeached twice.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Back in the day, this man wouldn't have even been allowed to run for office. How do we know that to be true? Let's take into account the whole hush money trial in New York. According to the courts and according to what we've seen, Donald Trump hooked up with a porn star. Donald Trump didn't want that to get out before the election, so he paid some hush money to silence her. That's it?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And he was scared for that to be found out. Think about that. That is what he was scared about before 2016. Now he gets convicted of 34 felony counts after being impeached twice. And he has no fear running for reelection in that short period of time. Look at how things have changed. It's not the same. It's the Democratic Party's got to wake up. It has it has changed drastically.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You know, somebody said to me, I said I said I joked around because I've been single all my life. And I said I said, look, man, I don't need to be running for no damn office. I've been single. I've been single all my life. I've been doing some things in my lifetime. I don't need to do that. And somebody said to me, quote, please, after Donald Trump, who cares? What did Al Sharpton just say?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
What did Al Sharpton just say about Andrew Cuomo running for the mayor's seat in New York? He said everything's changed because Donald Trump got reelected. He said the bar is so low, I don't even know if we can find it. The point that I'm trying to make to you is that you're dealing with a different beast. You're dealing with a different time. This is not politics as usual.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And let me tell the Democratic Party something else, because I hope you're not one of these people. I hope you're not one of those people out there wasting your time knocking on doors. I hope you're not doing that. Because don't worry—
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Here's what I mean. Stop wasting your time.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
If they voted for you, they were going to vote for you anyway. If they didn't vote for you, they weren't going to vote for you anyway.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I don't give a damn what they told you. I'm telling you right now, because the media and the platforms that we have available to us now, podcasting, YouTube shows, linear television, cable, streaming, there are too many outlets to watch that influence your thinking. Don't waste your time knocking on doors. Don't do it. Stop. Stop.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Covering sports. You can have great players, right? Why would the owner not be satisfied? Because they're always looking for somebody box office. Winning is one thing that's very, very important because obviously you win during the regular season, you win through the playoffs, you play more games, you generate more revenue because you have more games to play.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But nothing beats somebody who's a box office attraction because folks walk through the turnstiles if for no other reason to see him. And what I'm saying to you is I'm not talking about a bunch of manufactured audiences like you had at the DNC in Chicago. That's not what I'm talking about. OK, I'm talking about somebody.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That Obama was, for example, in 2008, where ultimately he elevated to rock star status where no matter where he went or what he had to say, the camera was a magnet for him. And then obviously you got to follow through with the message and you got to follow through with practice. All of that's true. But you got to get somebody with sizzle.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You got to get somebody that when they speak, they influence minds. They influence hearts. And they get people to really, really think and spin their wheels. I'm talking about not people on the left because you got them. I'm talking about the independents. I'm talking about the centrists.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You got to get somebody that can speak to that audience, that can go across the aisle and dare Republican constituency to bet against them. Because guess what? I'm better than the candidate that you have because I'm a lookout for you better than the candidate that you have. Because that's what Trump was telling Democrats. A bunch of black folks, Hispanics.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
What do you have to lose and all of this other stuff? This is what Trump did. He was fearless with it. Where are those Democrats? I don't see them around. That's why I'm a damn candidate. Because of that. It's embarrassing. I want to make sure America understands this. I believe it is an utter embarrassment to the Democratic Party that I am a candidate.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
in people's eyes for the presidency of the United States. It's an indictment against them, and they need to get their act together before somebody like me or somebody else takes it real seriously and says to hell with y'all because the roster that I'm seeing right now, y'all don't have anything. You don't have anything that's going to sizzle with the national audience.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I love Wes Moore, and I love Josh Shapiro. I think both of them got a chance, all right? But I need somebody that was national appeal, and maybe it is one of them. I hope so. I really do. Because the Democratic Party is in a bad state right now. The whole damn thing needs to be purged. I'm dead serious. They need to go. Those strategists fire every damn one of them. Get rid of them.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Get rid of them. They serve no purpose. Find somebody else.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Yes, it was a nine to zero. In our favor. In our favor against the district court ruling. The ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador's sole discretion was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time. No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I think one of the real critiques from folks not just on the left but even in the journal itself is that some of the corporate media entities are trying to curry favor with Trump for reasons separate and apart from the specifics of their publication itself. So you have the Disney Corporation settling a pretty –
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How the Right Took Over the Media
specious lawsuit that a lot of legal experts think ABC could have won involving George Stephanopoulos erroneously calling Trump a racist.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Sorry, rapist. Calling him a rapist, yes. You probably could have gotten sued for the racist one. And then you have reports that Paramount, which has a merger, a very large merger before the Trump administration, considering settling what is an even more reportedly absurd lawsuit about the editing of the Kamala Harris interview.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. This is our second Sunday show. These episodes are going to be coming out every other weekend and will give us hosts a chance to step back from the churn to have longer-form conversations about the big ideas and forces shaping news and politics. My guest today is Ben Smith, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the news site Semaphore.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Just sort of as a publisher, a person, a long-time media critic, what's your response to how some of these entities are doing this?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
You know, it's funny that for years, for our whole careers, there's been a set of advocates who yelled about the corporate consolidation of media. They're kind of like Ralph Nader people. There's a group called Free Press. They were totally irrelevant to the political conversation, like nice people. And you'd be like, yeah, I don't know.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Like I work in corporate media and I've never had my corporate overlords cutting secret deals with the government. That doesn't, that's not a thing that happens in America. And they were totally right. What you see now is that this very, very consolidated media is largely owned by, on one hand, public companies that have fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And when we say media, we really mean news media, because they have lots of exposure beyond news. The Ellison family isn't buying Paramount because they want CBS News. CBS News comes along with the bargain in this kind of a headache. but they want, you know, they're looking for a content library and, you know, getting into the movie business. And so this, like, CBS News is this liability.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And actually, the Disney suit is, you know, sort of specious, but it's the kind of suit sometimes you settle because I think they were worried about, what was it, you know, disclosing George Stephanopoulos' text messages, whatever. There's some argument for settling that one. Not a great one, but the CBS one is ludicrous. It's about editing a, It's a very normal journalistic thing.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
If you edit an interview the way you want to edit it, maybe you screw it up, maybe, whatever. But it's something that is widely viewed as protected and as a specious lawsuit, even if they've found a friendly judge in Texas. But Sherry Redstone, who's selling CBS, would like to get paid. And the quickest way to getting paid is caving to Trump.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And if that damages the brand, if that blows up the newsroom, it's not a big deal for her. I think Similarly, you know, Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shang are billionaires. And the issue isn't that they're billionaires, it's that they have lots of exposure in other businesses that the government has a lot of power over.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Soon-Shang is in the healthcare business, you know, FDA, incredibly important to him. Bezos is very interested in his space projects. And Trump will obviously punish them. I mean, he's done it in the past. He'll threaten, he'll kill those, he'll kill contracts if your publication fails. It angers him. And Bezos wrote this in his letter about canceling the endorsement.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And he said, well, I'm not doing this because I'm caving to Trump, but I can't blame you for seeing it that way because I recognize that it looks that way. And I just think that what you see is that it makes you realize the importance of independent media and independent in sort of the old Naderite sense that they are independent of consolidated ownership.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, the New York Times is the only major publication in the country that is independent in that sense. You know, the Murdoch Press, for all the many problems I have with them, are at least in the news business in a real way and have some experience in dealing with power and not just caving.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And then lots of smaller outlets like ours, like yours and mine, and if the Trump administration decided to try to damage your business and go after your advertisers, it could probably do a lot of damage. But you're not dealing with a sister company that is heavily regulated.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Ben is a longtime reporter. He worked for Politico, was the editor of BuzzFeed News, and was the New York Times media critic. So he has a ton of experience covering the coverage. From the prominence of podcasters and influencers in the 2024 election to the way Trump is running roughshod over the media, it feels like we are at a critical moment for the role of the fourth estate.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And I think that, to me, is actually kind of the scary thing, is the way in which ownership is really being brought to bear for the first time in my career.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
It is – there's just this ultimate irony that like the ABC settlement actually goes to the Trump Library where it won't ever be built. It's going to be in Newt Greenland. That's right. Or it could be in Gaza.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Somebody in Trump's orbit described it to me as the Trump Library and Casino.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I'm sure that is the case, or an amusement park or whatever else it'll be. But it's just there's a tremendous irony. So Walt Disney and ABC have given Trump money for the library. If Paramount settles his suit, CBS will give Trump money for his library. Mark Zuckerberg just settled a suit with Facebook against Trump that will go to the library.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And Trump is going to end up with a library built by the legacy media and big tech. It's just sort of a wild thing.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I can imagine. I can imagine that he's quite satisfied to him. In the first Trump term, fact-checking was a very important part of how the press was thinking about holding Trump accountable, right? He is telling all these lies. It is our job to sort reality for our readers. We're going to fact-check him. We're going to do it. Bring on people like Daniel Dale and CNN right afterwards. And it –
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I'm curious how that's going to happen this time. Here, I want to have you listen to this clip from Trump's recent press conference where Peter Alexander tries to question the reality of what Trump just said. Let's take a listen.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
The cited FAA tax that you read is real, but the implication that this policy is new or that it stems from efforts that began under President Biden or the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is demonstrably false. It's been on the FAA's website.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
No, it's on the website, the FAA's website. It was there in 2013. It was there for the entirety of your administration, too. So my question is, why didn't you change the policy during your first administration?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
So Peter Alexander here, who's the MSC news correspondent, does exactly what you're supposed to do. Trump holds this press conference, makes a series of claims that are demonstrably not true. He corrects him on it. Trump runs right over him. And I guess the question is, what value do you see in fact-checking? Is it still an important part of journalism?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Is it even possible when you have a president who, you're an administration or even a political party right now, who's sort of willing to ignore reality?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, as you know, I come from a slightly weird corner of the world. I never really liked the formalized fact checking, like I think journalists job is to get the facts right, and that you shouldn't outsource that to some other often Facebook funded or whatever institution populated by 23 year olds who are learning how to do their jobs.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
That's why I wanted to bring Ben on to dig into the state of the American free press, what journalists need to do differently for Trump 2.0, and whether the right has finally won the war on the media. Ben Smith, welcome to Pod Save America. How are you doing?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
But anyway, let me bracket that particular rant. No, I mean, I think there's a level of I mean, the media, the news media is weaker than it used to be. It was weaker in 2016 than it thought it was. Maybe it realizes how weak it is now. But like what I mean, I think there's some question of what's like we should get our facts right.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
We have a responsibility to our readers to tell them what's really going on.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
are we going to disabuse Trump's supporters of things that they believe or, or of things that maybe aren't really being received as facts, but more as political statements or as sort of, you know, like, you know, I don't, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like we're, that those fact checks were changing a lot of minds or reaching a lot of people who were looking to have the facts checked.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And so I think that kind of formalized fact checking, like, I mean, I, I'm not sure what it was doing in the end. There's a fair amount of research on media effect and media impact that none of us actually wind up looking at that much. But I think it's often interesting to ask, well, okay, did we do some focus groups where this then changed people's minds and people...
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How the Right Took Over the Media
came in thinking that one thing was happening and then read factcheck.com and left thinking another thing was happening. I don't really see a lot of that. I do think this is a real obvious case where there's a factual dispute. It is, in fact, this journalist's job to resolve it and say what is true and for people who are looking for it to read the true thing.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
A lot of things that got fact-checked were sometimes a little hazier, were sometimes more political disputes. Is immigration good for the economy? That's not really a fact-checkable claim. That's an argument among economists.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I mean that was – I mean even – that's been a problem even in my days in government. Like I would rage at my desk at the Washington Post fact checker for taking a sort of a statement of values or a statement of principle and then assigning some of their Pinocchios to it because you could find – like you could nitpick it in a way.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Good. Thanks for having me, Dan. It's nice to see you. Absolutely. We've known each other for a very long time. I think we first met on a bus in Iowa in 2007.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, it's the most pedantic imaginable approach to politics. And I think sometimes – kind of annoyed people and backfired in that way. But I think the broader question of, I mean, I, you know, there is, I mean, this is honestly often true with the first wave of people who come into government that like, they believe some things that are just not true about reality and about how government works.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And they come in with some things that they've said on the campaign trail about, I mean, I think you saw this in the Biden administration with the Saudis, frankly. Like, they had some views on Saudi Arabia that did not survive contact with reality and wound up being the Saudis' best friends. Just to kind of, like, think about one.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
But, like... Yeah, I mean, that's a slightly... To me, that's a slightly different one. But, for instance, I wrote about this guy named Darren Beatty who's going to be in the State Department. And it has some views on how, like... they were trying to orchestrate color revolutions like Eastern European style.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
The people who had orchestrated the color revolutions in Eastern Europe had come back here and were trying to orchestrate against Trump. At some level, that's a factual claim. Do we think that happened? And I do think that I'm sort of more interested in some ways in people who
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How the Right Took Over the Media
are, like, arriving with Trump with a set of beliefs that may or may not, like, because I think the one thing that people underestimate is a lot of the people who are saying things, they believe the things they're saying. Some of it is nonsense. Bannon, I think, often will just, like, spin yarns whose details are not all true and doesn't believe all of them.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
But a lot of these folks, like, believe what they're saying. Like, I think RFK mostly believes the things he says about vaccines.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, I guess on a day-to-day basis, as you cover politics or government or whatever, everything in the world you're covering, like what do you, like, what is your, what did like, what do you say to your reports is your task?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I mean, I think we are trying to speak to a really informed audience that has to understand what's actually going on because they're encountering it in the world of business, economics, politics. I mean, actually, the business press often is more reliable than the political press because they are talking to people who have to trade stocks, have to make decisions based on reality.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And they were like, we have an adult here to take charge of you all. And it was you.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
So we obviously see that as our responsibility. I do think it's a moment when you sort of have to bring some humility as a journalist, whether you like it or not, because we have less power than we did. And we definitely do try to do two specific things. And one is to try to say to readers, Because I do think people live in these deep information bubbles.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And it's not that you necessarily believe the things that are being said on Fox News. But it is important if you're a listener of POTS to probably know what they're talking about some of the time. Like literally what Republican legislators are walking into the House with no idea what the Democratic colleagues like read that morning. And the Democrats have no idea what the Republicans were reading.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And so we have this very popular feature called Blindspot. It's literally like we're not trying to arbitrate the reality of this. Often these are true stories just with different emphasis, totally different emphasis. but the Republicans are talking about some crime committed by an illegal immigrant in Colorado. And the Democrats are talking about some just totally different story. Right.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And the adult, I think I was 29, 30 maybe at the time. So like a true adult. Yeah. But look, Trump's been in office for nearly three weeks. It has been a truly insane and intense three weeks. But we know that's part of his and Steve Bannon's flood the zone strategy. Bannon first described this approach in 2018.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And I think some level of just trying to say like, this is giving a glimpse of the reality that the other side is living in is pretty useful. I mean, just act sort of actionably useful. And, um,
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How the Right Took Over the Media
and sometimes i do think social media is a machine for taking the stupidest thing that your opponent said and elevate the stupidest version of the stupidest thing they think and constantly barraging you with it and there might there might be someone in there who's actually making a reasonable case you could argue with but it will be totally swept away in social media and i think we do try to sort of you know to elevate the stronger arguments and to try to like
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How the Right Took Over the Media
creates some space for reasonable disagreement. So I think there's a fair amount of that too. Although there is also, as you say, like eroding shared factual basis around this for sure.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I think the blind spot thing is very interesting because in my career in politics, one of the things that was a fundamental shift in how government and politics worked was the moment Republicans and Democrats stopped reading the same media, which probably happened about midway through the Obama years.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
People would pretend like they were playing a part, particularly around 2010 when the Tea Party sort of took off. A lot of the Republicans were sort of – they were appealing to – the base. But they were still reading the New York Times. They were still reading Politico. They were seeing everything else.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And so we were operating under the same set of reality, at least in a private negotiation you were having over legislation. We all sort of agreed on the same reality. Right about, I would say, midway through Obama's second term, kind of when Facebook became – Republicans radicalized a little bit after Obama's re-election. Fox News became sort of more powerful.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
He said his strategy for overcoming the media's opposition was to flood the zone with shit. For our listeners, let's take a listen to what he said on PBS's Frontline back then.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And then the sort of right-wing media ecosystem took off, sort of powered by Facebook. So the Breitbart era, Daily Caller. Right around 2014, it's like we stopped having the same reality. We were having completely different conversations. And it is – so that speaks to governing. And in politics, it is –
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How the Right Took Over the Media
The difference has been that – and I think this might be changing a little bit for better, probably for worse – is that Democrats had a media diet that was primarily legacy media. Still, we're serving the New York Times, still it's NPR. Maybe it would skew a little on the more left-leaning part of that legacy media diet, but it was traditional media abiding by the –
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How the Right Took Over the Media
rules of journalism as commonly understood. And the Republicans had shifted to something totally different that did not abide by and often sort of spat in the face of those rules. And now we are fully in that moment where the Trump administration and Republicans writ large, up and down, it's not just in Washington, it's everywhere, exist in this wholly other media ecosystem.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
much less clear to anyone else because it's not just it's not like you like yes you could turn on fox news and that would be a very good idiot's guide to what the right is thinking but that's often i think in this day and age is kind of a lagging indicator of what's really bubbling up like are you like do you know what's happening on rumble are you watching so you know are you listening to the daily wire or reading barry weiss or some of these other things that are um yeah those are really affecting and
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, that's a very, I mean, it's an incredibly fragmented system that you're describing. And I mean, like, right, like, there's a big distance between Rumble and Barry Weiss. These are all different things. I don't think there are parts of it.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I think that I was talking to a really prominent conservative podcaster who was saying that, you know, they spent a lot of their time complaining about the, you know, journalists and everything they get wrong. And then once more, there'll be a holiday. And they're like, where is the flow of news for me to talk about? It's so annoying.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And it's like, oh, all the people I hate are taking vacation with their kids. And so there's no fodder for me. There's no underlying information. I do think there's this question that gets kicked around sometimes. Actually, Tucker Carlson founded The Daily Caller to solve this. It did not. Which is that there's no real... center-right, far-right reporting apparatus or not much of one.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Actually, one of the things that distinguishes Breitbart from the others is they do some original reporting. Most of the places, a lot of the places that in that world, podcasters are really commentating and reacting or reacting to things they've seen on social media, which really are often made up.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And there's like a lack of a kind of baseline of, yeah, I mean, it would be healthy if the Trump movement developed more reporting muscles, honestly. Yeah.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
You've mentioned a couple of times here that the media is weaker than it has been and maybe recognize its weakness. I think just to put that sort of in perspective, right? We had the 2024 election where the candidates interacted less with the media than at any point. Trump did famously no interviews with a mainstream media organization for the last, you know,
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How the Right Took Over the Media
whatever it was month of the campaign Harris did historically few, they took few Harris took a few questions from the, from the press then. And then you have just, you know, you have to, you know, drop in cable subscript, cable subscriptions, ratings, the economics you know, sort of the Washington post is losing money.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
It's just, if the media has been weaker is weaker at this point than it has been in any time. And so I kind of like, well, On top of that, the credibility and the reach of the legacy media is obviously at its nadir. Is it fair to wonder whether the right, who's been raging a decades-long war against the media, has now won that war?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I think that, I mean, yes, I think that's a reasonable thing to say. Like, what's the prize for winning that war? I'm not sure. I mean, there's a couple, just when you talk about trust, like the polling data here is worth looking at because it's interesting.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And basically what you see is that like starting with Dan Rather, actually, all of the decline in trust in the media is among Republicans. Like, the independents, pretty flat. Democrats, pretty flat. But you see this decline starting with Dan Rather in 2004. Republicans start saying the media is too liberal.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And then at some point in the Trump years, it flips from the media is too liberal to the media is making everything up. And that's a huge difference. And that's sort of what you're talking about. It used to be a shared reality in which Republicans complained about the refs. sometimes justifiably, to a situation in which they believe that the whole thing is made up. And that is a big shift.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And then the final thing that is kind of dispiriting is the one place that trust media is eroding among Democrats is among young people. And that's happening pretty fast now.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And this is Gallup polling. Right. And I, and I've done, I was, I saw a lot of focus groups, a lot of research in how Gen Z gets their news. And just the idea of going to a website to get news is like, we never, it doesn't even occur to them. The idea that you would turn on the television to watch news does not.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And, and, you know, my daughter, um, you know, if she, uh, if she knew about half Indian post and she was like, Oh, is that, is that something in safari? Yeah.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, that's right. Just, I mean, you, you wrote about this in your book and you've talked about a lot of the interviews when you're talking about a couple years ago, but is just the, uh, and this is sort of where we, so you have, you have two things. You have lack of trust in media, which is, uh, and growing among Democrats, particularly among young people.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
You have what I think is actually a distribution crisis in news, which is, you know, sort of the, the short version history I always do is that if you were a person who was not a news junkie, In the pre-internet era, you had to see the news, some form of the news. You would bump into it organically because someone literally threw a newspaper at your door every morning.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And you had to open that if you wanted to know when the movies were, the baseball score, the weather, like something happening in your local town. There you see headlines, right? If you wanted to know the weather the next day, you had to turn on the 6 o'clock news and you would see news that way. And then we moved from newspapers. I mean, this has been your whole career.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
We trained some group of people that they should go to www.nytimes.com or www.politico.com in the morning. The same way you would grab a cup of coffee and read a dead tree newspaper, you would grab a cup of coffee and pull up your laptop, or if it was at a certain year, your iPad, and you would look at a website and read the news that way.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Maybe the first thing you did at work was you would sit down and read the news. Then social media came, and we have a better plan. Facebook's going to deliver the news to your phone. You're going to see it.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And even if you're just scrolling through to look at pictures of your friends' kids or whatever else you know on Facebook, killing time in the grocery store, waiting in line, you would see some sort of news. And then some point after 20, and Twitter served the same function for a smaller group of people. Then sometime after 2020, that all fell apart, right?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And now it's like, how do people get, like, there is no major distribution mechanism for legacy media to reach people who are not actively seeking it out, right? That is the thing that has changed.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I think that's a really good way to put it. I mean, I would say, you know, that these things keep changing. Like it's, I don't think it's reached a static point. And I think that the thing that you describe, which sounds incredibly disorienting and maddening, most people, most consumers hate. Like if you ask people like, hey, do you think this is working for you?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Do you like how you're getting your news? No, everybody hates it. And I think that's, I mean, that was sort of what we were reacting to in creating Semaphore was like just why, and you know, why I left the Times, just this sense of like, oh, there's actually an opportunity to like,
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How the Right Took Over the Media
like to respond to the fact that people feel totally disoriented, feel like they don't know what to trust, and try to address that stuff directly. And I think you're seeing, so I think that, I mean, ultimately we live in this very, very dynamic free market society in which consumers do, even in news, and news is sometimes an exception to that.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Like the tradition in news is if the consumers say, we hate you and everything you're doing, we say, fuck you, you're wrong. But I think there is this opportunity for both legacy and for new outlets to take pretty seriously how terrible the experience of consuming news is. And a lot of the pendulum swing is back to some of the older values.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
It seems like a pretty accurate description of what at least the first couple of weeks of Trump 2.0 have looked like. How have you been covering Trump 2.0 and how have you tried to deal with the flood the zone strategy?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Like I think the reason that email newsletters are very popular is they actually kind of print, like they force a kind of hierarchy of saying what's important. They force a kind of concision because they're not infinite. And I think that's made them very popular.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And I think, so I guess I, I mean, I'm obviously an optimist because I wouldn't still be doing this stuff, but I do think that the current, the status quo in some ways is kind of untenable. And the fragmentation commercially is extremely annoying too. Like how many subsects do you want to subscribe to? How many different streaming services are you going to pay for?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Like, and I think there's a very aggressive push and will be over the next couple of years to reconsolidate that stuff, like for better or for worse, but you'll have one subscription to newsletters. You'll have two streaming services, they'll all swallow each other.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Again, that could be bad or that could be good, but I think that experience of just absolute disorientation and fragmentation is terrible and everyone knows it. And so there are a lot of opportunities to fix it.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, the question I think, I agree with that. We're sort of in a moment and this is not, you can have the same conversation about you know, just content services beyond news, right?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Like, are you really going to, are you going to really pay for how many people are, how many stream services are going to pay for, you know, YouTube TV, which has become very popular is basically just cable through the internet, right? Where it's like, it looks at the same format. So how are you going to like, is there a way to get back to it? But I wanted to sort of get back to the, um,
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it is a very accurate description. And I mean, is the media dumb and lazy? Like often also accurate. But I think, you know, he thinks the notion that the opposition party is the media and that the world is totally mediated by the media and that we shape reality and decide what happens to me, like I don't really buy that.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
the role of the media because it like yeah like we're like you and i are like right now this conversation about distribution is about the business of media right like how do you because ultimately you need readers to make money whether that's gonna be subscriptions or average or how you get ads in front of people or whatever that is just to stop you though i because i see where you're like i think i agree with where you're going the extent to which all of everything we're talking about the chaos the disruption
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How the Right Took Over the Media
is all fundamentally driven by these huge technological shifts and business shifts. That is the underlying thing here. It's not little choices made by journalists here and there.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
No, no, no, no. I fundamentally agree with that. And it is... I think you can... You pointed out a couple of examples. You can point back at various choices made by people in the media. You do two things. You do the business of media, like giving away your product for free on the internet for a few years, probably in hindsight not the best move, or...
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How the Right Took Over the Media
you know optimizing a Facebook or whatever else like you can do you can do some things you can also point to some journalistic choices that have eroded trust fairly or unfairly right you pick the Dan Rather just the entire coverage of the Iraq war in the run up to it that is the biggest one yeah Yeah.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
But then you also have cultural shifts that have happened, which is in how young people think about news. One of the things you see when you do sort of focus groups of younger folks is they find more authority and more relatable, a piece of content that looks like the conversation you and I are having, more than nine pundits at an anchor desk for CNN.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
When they think of news, it is people with headphones on, on a couch or around a table having a podcast, or it's a streamer doing a vertical video. And that is to them what the sort of traditional image of Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather or Brian Williams at the Anchor Desk is to previous generations.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, it's funny, we on our podcast, Mixed Signals, we interviewed Colin and Samir, who are big YouTubers who think a lot about, who sort of talk a lot and think about YouTube. And at one point I said to Samir, like, I mean, so when did you start thinking of yourself as a journalist? Like, how'd you get into journalism? And he was like, what? Don't call me that. That's offensive.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
So yeah, I think it's a, that was a pretty striking thing to me. It's a very, it's a totally different ecosystem. Yeah.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
But I also think it's kind of poisonous for the media to think that about itself in a way. You know, and I get, you know, I mean, we're trying to cover the story. We're trying to understand what's happening, why things are happening, who's actually making these decisions, what their actual motives are, things that social media can often be shaky on.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I just want to get back sort of to the role that the media has played in sort of politics and public discourse, because that to me has been a fundamental shift, is it was a measure of accountability, right? We called it the fourth state for a reason. You interacted with the media as a politician or a governmental entity because you were For two reasons.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
One, you needed the media to get your message out. That was a fundamental thing. If I was preparing Barack Obama for a press conference, the Faustian bargain in my head is I'm going to take a bunch of questions that are going to be annoying. They're going to be about the things that I know voters don't care about. But the price of that is the airwaves.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
It's the way I can get my message in front of people. And you would react to – the media could, if they picked a thing that was going to become the narrative, could change government policy, right? It would create such a firestorm that you would have to stop doing it or change course or whatever else.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I do sort of question after watching this election, the first couple weeks of Trump, whether – like it seems like that role is so diminished as to be – is that the media becomes – maybe this is for better, not for worse from your perspective, but more – almost entirely an observer and chronicler of the process as opposed to a participant when it was a huge participant in politics for basically since the invention of the newspaper.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah. And I think, I mean, I don't think it's a binary thing, but yeah, but I think the media's role in being able to sort of set the agenda essentially is obviously diminished, you know, to some degree given over to whatever, like a non on Twitter caught Elon's eye this morning. Like right now, that's what's driving.
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That's what you'll see on Fox tomorrow morning and in the white house the next day. Like that's, you know, is literally random people tweeting it in Elon's replies, but, And I guess, yeah, and I think that the media can overplay it. Yeah, I do have some ambivalence about that role.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And we definitely, I think, we are able, like Semaphore has been able to build a lot of trust with Republicans and Democrats, partly because we see our lane as narrower, right? Like we're trying to tell you what's going on and provide really good information, but not ultimately resolve the argument. Yeah.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, I think one of the big stories, one of the stories that struck me early, you know, is that is obviously you have this iconic image of Mark Zuckerberg and et al sort of in, you know, paying their, showing up to support Trump's inauguration and and to sort of pledge their loyalty to the administration.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
That said, I do think that there's a long tradition of people in American politics who think they can shape reality. There was a famous... Who was it in the Bush administration?
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He told Robert Draper that they didn't have to be accountable to the reality-based community anymore. At some point, journalism is the reality-based community. The power doesn't really ultimately come from... To me, like it comes from the fact that you're revealing things that are in fact true and the citizen voters are going to wind up having to react to.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And I don't think we've I don't think that's the people kind of underestimate that that's really the power of it in the first place.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I think reality is still reality. Let's say the Biden administration had been able to get a bunch of reporters. Inflation is an example. It did not matter what The New York Times or CNN or Semaphore or anyone else wrote about inflation. People still went to the grocery store and were paying more for eggs or milk or whatever. That is reality.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
The thing that is, I think, harder is people are less informed about what's happening now because it's harder to get news. And you have this gigantic gap now. We saw this in a bunch of the polling. There was NBC polling before Biden dropped out. You had Navigator Research polling afterwards, which just shows that the biggest gap in politics is not left and right.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
It's news consumers and non-news consumers. And Which does go to the irony, which I'm sure you might find quite sweet, that all the Democrats who've been screaming at myself sometimes, including who've been screaming about New York Times headlines, turned out to be the New York Times readers are the ones who were most likely to support Biden or Harris and the people who did not read the news.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
You do just sort of have this question. To me, that chasm is growing so much larger, really since 2020, I think. And how... That to me is a crisis for democracy. All this stuff, you mentioned Elon 50 times, as you should. It's one of the biggest stories maybe in generations of American politics.
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We have the world's richest man possibly running rush shot over laws and rules and norms to just reshape government without any sort of accountability. How many people are actually consuming any of that? How do you get that information to them? Is that your job, I guess, is the question.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, those are all really good questions. I mean, I think, I mean, I guess I would say, like, it's certainly nothing like the democracy that we grew up in in the 20th century with a very kind of state, unusually stable, unusually centrist media. It's a lot like 19th century American democracy, right? I mean, it's a lot like, and I think that...
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How the Right Took Over the Media
There is something about what we're seeing is a kind of small-D democratic media that's an absolutely chaotic, hyper-partisan, untrustworthy mess. um, that is very embedded in the history of democracy.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And it was really striking to me, a story we broke over the weekend, that when it comes to key appointments, like the general counsel for the FCC, they pick somebody who is the most anti-big tech possible lawyer in America. Like this bought them nothing. The Trump people think it's hilarious. They like it, but it isn't buying them. It's not buying them anything. And then conversely,
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So, and I, so, and I don't, I'm not, I'm not saying that as a good thing, but I do think that like the, the kind of thing that we know that honestly, by the beginnings of our careers was already in trouble, the sort of broadcast, the, you know, the Walter Cronkite thing, that was the blip, right? I mean, this is the norm.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
You talked to a lot of Republicans, talked to a lot of Democrats. Um, do you think Republicans better understand this media environment than Democrats?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I think that in this moment after the election, everybody thinks that the winning side figured it out and that the losers are morons and everybody is gearing up to refight the last war and every CEO, every politician is going to be booking themselves onto a bunch of podcasts nobody listens to for the next four years. But that in fact, and that always the world changes faster than they expect.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I think we're headed back into a moment of consolidation basically and that there's going to be a recentralization of audiences and of content and that like some poor hapless congressional candidate is going to spend 300 hours talking to podcasts nobody listens to, to no discernible effect.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
But also the Trump years have, I mean, the consolidation of power in Washington is also really new in media, right? Like the extent to which media executives are obsessed with what the administration can do to hurt them. And it's true across business. We're hosting this huge World Economic Summit here in April.
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And just the appetite of CEOs in America to get to Washington to figure out what is going on is really new.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Say a little bit more about moving back to a more centralized media. I assume you don't mean ideologically. What do you mean by that?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Oh, just, you know, I mean, it was technological. If you needed, for the late 20th century, you needed a broadcast tower or a printing press if you wanted to reach a lot of people. And not that many people had them. Spectrum was regulated. And so, like, you really had this very, I mean, for technological reasons, fundamentally. There were, as you said, about distribution.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
The system was meant, and then the business incentives of those were to sell mattresses to Republicans and to Democrats. And Often that led to something that we romanticize, actually, a kind of so centrist media, but it also did produce this kind of false consensus around Iraq, which, as you say, is part of why everybody lost trust in that kind of media.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
But the fundamental change was technological, the splint in the fact that you didn't need these broadcast towers anymore. And so I just think it's hard to imagine going back to that. And, you know, there are, like, we definitely see for readers, part of the value is, and I think you do this too, like, we can read everything so you don't have to and go out into the,
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Put on the hazmat suit and go out into social media and find the interesting stuff, some of which is on weird sub stacks and right wing podcasts and some of which is in the New York Times. And it's this very disorienting moment to be a media consumer.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, that's one of the things that I think with like my media business head on is that the. One of the places where there is opportunity is basically curation. Yeah. And that's at Semaphore. That's so much of what we do. And you have to build trust with the audience has to trust you.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And that is like for better or for worse, that trust is, you know, you can build brand trust as I'm sure as you're trying to do at Semaphore, but it's often with people. With individuals. Totally. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
it's like i trust joe rogan to tell me what's happening i trust ezra klein to tell me what's happening i trust positive america whoever else and i mean you've done that a little bit with some of your reporters trying to lift them up like dave weigel like yeah no we definitely are building around expert reporters on key beats in a way that in the old days you would just you're all cogs in the dispensable cogs in the wall street journal machine and now if you're
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Who has actual influence in the White House? Which who in media has Trump's respect? Rupert Murdoch, whose publications have been very, very tough on Trump. And actually, if you read the Wall Street Journal editorial page, you'll get much tougher, clearer criticism of Trump than you get from... you know, the LA Times, which only writes about Los Angeles now because they feel scared.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Liz Hoffman on Wall Street or Burgess Everett in the Senate. You trust a person. It's an interesting time to be in this business, for sure.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Speaking of that sort of curation role, I went back and read your first column as the New York Times media critic, which was claiming that your brand new employer, the New York Times, had grown so successful that it was bad for business. Since then, the New York Times has become even bigger, even better read, and its putative competitors have struggled mightily since then.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Washington Post, most notably. Wall Street Journal still does well, but has had layoffs recently. etc. And so, you know, where do you think the New York Times stands right now? Do you still believe it's bad for journalism?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, I actually think it's scary for the New York Times. Like, you don't want to be the sole strong independent outlet in a kind of democracy where rule of law is a little shaky. That's a bad place to be. And it would be healthier for the media ecosystem. Yeah, for sure.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And it would be healthier for the media ecosystem and healthier for the Times and better for the leverage of journalists and their salary negotiations if there were lots of big competing outlets with somewhat different outlooks on the world. I mean, that's just a healthier system. And I don't know. I mean, I'm hopeful that
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How the Right Took Over the Media
a couple of other legacy outlets, the Wall Street Journal, maybe CNN, could get their acts together, and that long, long-term places like the Washington Post can pull it out.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And then I do think there's a lot of... I mean, I do think that, again, if you go back to, like, if you ask people, if you ask your listeners, like, do you think this is all great and you're satisfied with what you're getting, or do you want new stuff? People really are hungry for new ways of getting information, for new voices, for...
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And somebody who will go out, as you say, and just like sort through all the lunacy for them. And so I think, I mean, I think there's, I mean, I think, you know, it's, we're in this moment of crazy transition and there'll be a bunch of new things too. But yeah, no, I do think, I mean, I think it's in no one's interest to have one absolutely dominant and defending company. Yeah.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
I sort of feel like the New York Times has become Netflix for news, where it's just, it's the place you go for every, it is replaced, sort of like the way Netflix has replaced television, right? You want. So does Netflix have taste, right?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Like Netflix has the stuff that is targeted at conservative people in the middle of the country and the stuff that's targeted at liberals.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah. They have everything. And New York Times obviously brings with it a brand that exists, but it is like right now, if I am just like, I want to find out what is happening right now in this moment, my default place to go would just be the New York Times.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
I know, like it's 2005, right? Because for 10 years and then 15 years in the middle, Twitter was where I would have gone to see that. Now you can't use social media for that. Like you just can't ask the question of what is going on and have it answered.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, you can't just open up Twitter and have it be at the top of your feed in the way it was before from a trusted, you know, a reporter or a news outlet you knew that had been verified by Twitter. Yeah.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And you want to know what's going on and you want to know what's more important than what else. Like you want to know where on the page it is. You want some hierarchy actually in the chaos. No, I mean, that's the opportunity that we see ourselves as running at for sure.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
but it's like right now for a lot of people, I think who are sort of in the serious news consumer, it's like, you want to know what's happening in sports. Maybe you go to ESPN or maybe you go to the New York times. Right. You want to know how to cook something. You go there. You want to play, you want to play a game. You go there. You want to know what's happening. Yeah. You go there.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
It's an interesting thing. I think you see there's these like demonstrations of weakness by a lot of kind of would-be media moguls, which they imagine are going to ingratiate themselves to the White House. And there's no evidence that it is.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
You want to know who's winning the Grammys? Yeah. You open up the New York Times app, and they are telling you as they come in where they are. It is such a dominant position in the ecosystem that it has. To me, I really feel like it has replaced the conglomerate of major news sources you were all getting from Twitter or from whatever you were using 10 years ago. Yeah.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, yeah, it is the internet for news, right? In the way that Netflix is the internet for TV and movies, primarily.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, and then you can get a bunch of stuff around the edges. But ultimately, no, I think that's, I think that's really true right now. But I think we're also sort of in this moment when podcasts like this one, like, what is this? Is this a pod? Are we on video? Is it television? Is it a podcast?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Some people will be watching this on a big screen on YouTube and at some point somebody's going to come and make us both wear makeup to do this so our skin looks less weird. And then suddenly we're just like idiots in boxes screaming at each other just like cable.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And I think there's a really, really fast convergence happening between what we used to call podcasts and what we used to call television. And I don't quite know where that lands, but I think that's People don't quite realize the speed at which that's happening and at which that's going to be a kind of re-centralized form of consumption. You see it on ESPN, right?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
You see Pat McAfee out in the afternoons on ESPN. It's like, what's happening here? Like one guy's head is bigger than the other guy's head?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, there is the conventions of television as we know it are coming down in news particular. And the things that people don't sort of realize –
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
who sort of even like people even who work in journalism or who are in the communications field in politics or PR or whatever else is there is still like a old world mentality that's hard to break out of because you're always people like people a lot of people are generationally like frozen in amber and when they started in media I think that's very true of politicians every single one of us it's just
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I want to get into some of those tributes that some of the media and tech are paying to Trump in a minute. But I think – I'm not going to defend Steve Bannon often in the history of Pod Save America, but I think when he made those comments in 2018, 2019, whatever it was, he – the world, it was a different place, right?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
but I think some people, and I give you kind of this point have, you know, you have been in different, you, you know, you were sort of, you were a tabloid reporter in the, in New York city. You were a blogger when blogs took off and sort of became the, you've ridden the wave. I've tried to ride the wave, um, as well, but, um,
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Like the fact that you don't sort of realize is one, the biggest podcasting platform in the world is not Spotify. It's YouTube. Right. And that a shocking the numbers of people who watch YouTube on their actual smart TV in their house shocks people that it's so. Yeah.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Would you like put on nicer clothes if you really thought about it?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
I put on a – normally I'm wearing a t-shirt. I put on an actual sweater. That's pretty nice. I would not have put on a sport coat because this is a podcast. But don't you think – It's not a funeral wedding or court date.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
But actually, you're also running a media business. You must be thinking, why don't you have – like some hour of MSNBC. Why isn't Podsave providing an hour to CNN or MSNBC or something? Why are they paying these people way more than you would charge them to provide an hour of programming? Don't you see that stuff converging?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
I think you can see that converging, whether how it converges, whether it can actually – this has been the challenge for most media organizations. You've witnessed this. Truly, with the exception of The New York Times, there is not a good example of a previous legacy media organization that has made an actual transition to digital. Right. And it's just like, they cannot do it.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Some, you know, some like Politico start digitally, right? Like you had, like when you started, there was an actual newspaper that people read over lunch at Capitol Hill, but it was a digital first publication. And, but no one else can do it because they are, I mean, it is to the great credit of the New York times as a business story of pulling that off. But people can't actually do it.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
ESPN is trying to do it, and maybe they'll be successful with, like, Pat McAfee is an example of it.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, Disney's trying to do it. Right, it is incredibly hard. But it just seems to me that people are producing, podcasters are producing shows that are more interesting than most of what's on TV, and they have big audience and big followings, and they're doing it for, like, a tiny fraction of the cost of producing an hour of television. And meanwhile, television's running out of money.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And it just seems to me that set of factors means inevitably that I'm going to, like, be in a dentist's office and see your face very soon.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Well, I hope not. Not my face, but maybe some other face. But there is a little of everything is old is new again, which is for a long time, the thing ESPN ran all morning was just a video feed of ESPN radio shows. Because ESPN radio was where the money was. And so it was just like, you could just watch Mike and Mike every morning. And Imus, another example. I mean, Howard Stern.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
The media did play, the legacy media, if you will, just who he's really talking about, right? Like when we talk about media in this podcast, that is everything from Semaphore to the New York Times to Fox News, now to Joe Rogan, Alex Cooper, everything. But what Ben is talking about here is he's talking about the White House press corps, right?
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, this is that. Right. This is not a complicated business. And so what is that? But then what does that mean for this super fragmented political landscape? I actually think it means it gets a little less fragmented than these... kind of re-coalesces around really, really big individual voices probably more than, I mean, I think like the Megyn Kellys of the world, like you guys.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, I think there's sort of a re-consolidation around a relatively smaller number of really big voices.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Well, it's like how you think of channels is different because it's not... that's not like a network channel. It is, um, either a media network that is centered around a podcast like crooked media or daily wire or Alex Cooper's unwell network or whatever that you like, because you try and that usually you're entering it because of the talent at the top.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And then that gives you entry into the other people. Um, but it just, it exists very differently. I think that you asked me the question about like, why not CNN, MSNBC, um, The thing that I watch – I talk to a lot of people in the progressive media space is the thing you have to be careful not to do is take your new thing and then just rebuild the failed model of the old thing.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
You see this in Substack a lot where the economics of Substack are great when you're small.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
When you start hiring a bunch of reporters and doing that, you're right back to where you were before, which is it becomes very hard to support it. So how can you do something that is new and stays new? I think we are just like – this is the reason I want to have this conversation with you of all people today is we are just in a fascinating moment in – And politics is media.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Politics is the war for attention. Politics is the information war. And so these things interact in a way that are just sort of critically important to – and it's just – it's happening so fast.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Like I used to say that when I left the White House in like 2015, that the period of time from when I went to work for Obama, which was before the iPhone came out, to the time I left when Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat were becoming dominant or – was the fastest period of change in media since the invention of the printing press.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And I actually think the change from when I left to now is greater than that, I think.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, you were there for this almost very linear story. It felt like this rocket ship, but we could see where it was going. And then at some point, it just exploded. And the whole thing is- It exploded, and new things came.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And the power of the legacy media changed dramatically because of technology, because of economics, et cetera.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I think there's a big open question of whether this splintering new right-wing media, like what becomes of it? Does it create its own New York Times or does it just continue to spend its time basically yelling about the New York Times? I think that's a really open question.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, and some of them are getting quite big, right?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
The establishment media, legacy media, regime media, as Republicans call it. And back then, it certainly played a larger role, I think at least, maybe you can, if you disagree, you should say it, in sort of mediating reality.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, and has it become boring just to be an attack dog for the people in power? To me, that's the most boring and demoralizing form of media, to be an attack dog for power. If you worked really hard to get Donald Trump elected, that's sort of what you've become. And so I think there's going to be a question of who in the media just sticks with loyalty as their brand.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And who tries to, I mean, as again, as Murdoch has established sort of an independent voice and power base that is not just fealty to the president.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
It is an ecosystem grown in opposition. Are they the dog that caught the car and what do they do with that? I think it's going to be a big question going forward.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
It is going to be really confusing to watch for us.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
That is a good summary of where we are in the media world. Ben Smith, thank you so much for this great conversation. It's always good to talk to you.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, they were reacting, of course, to a moment in which the Russia investigation had totally swamped the administration, driven by breathless media coverage, you know, and... And so I think in a way, and they had gotten onto the back foot in the first weeks of the administration and never really got onto the front foot. They were very rarely were they able to really drive that story.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
It was mostly they were the rabbit being pursued by the wolves. And so I think they were kind of honestly reasonably successful. figured we don't want that to happen again. And that strategy, I mean, Bannon puts it in really bombastic terms, but I don't know.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Do you think it's probably a good, like, is that, if you were a White House comms director, would you come out with muzzle velocity right now?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I think he would want muscle velocity. I think the question for Trump, if I'm stepping back from the perspective of a political operative, is are you telling a larger story or are you getting swamped by action? What they are demonstrating right now is action, right? He's doing things, and that is standing in stark contrast to what people perceived of Biden, right? He was largely absent.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Even though he did a lot of things, a lot of those things weren't public. They didn't see him. And so... I was thinking about this the other day is that in Trump's first term, in the beginning, he suffered, I think, mightily in public perception with the comparison to Obama because he was out there. He was kind of saying dumb, crazy things.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
He was not thoughtful, and Obama was much more popular than Trump, so that suffered. In this situation, I think he actually benefits from the comparison to Biden because Biden was perceived to be, fairly or unfairly, as – absent, not doing a lot, not showing strength, not being out there. And Trump is out there 24-7, right? When was the last time?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
The public never really saw Biden, and Trump is out there all the time, so he benefits from it. The question will be, right now, that is a very good short-term strategy. What points are you putting on the board in terms of delivering your campaign promises, right? Or is it just a bunch of noise? And it's early to know whether that's actually true or not.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, and the thing that, I mean, I think Bannon is a smart guy in some ways. he's so ubiquitous that people don't underestimate how consequential he is. But notably absent from the muzzle velocity speech is just like, which way is the gun pointed? What's in it? And it's a strategy that's kind of content neutral. Like they could be announcing anything.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
And there was this narrative last year that, well, look, like this time around, Trump has a real plan. They know what they're doing. They have a set of actions planned. And some of the stuff coming out of the muzzle, like some of the particular on immigration, I think is actually like, look, we had a plan. We're going to do some high profile, even if they're not massive raids.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
We're going to try to scare people away from the border. We have some legal changes we want. Like that all felt planned. The Elon stuff is obviously, he's just seeing tweets about agencies he's never heard of reacting, canceling stuff, uncanceling stuff. I mean, it's mostly improvisational. And I think... And that's, as you say, like at some point, like these are the fights.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, I think, you know, the laws of gravity still apply. Like you, the president has this hundred days, has this moment at which to set an agenda, to pick their priorities, to pick the fights they're going to pick. And some of the fights they're picking are the fights they plan to pick and wanted to pick. But a lot of fights they're picking are the fights that Elon saw a tweet about yesterday.
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How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I mean, they are better – it is a better run organization than last time only in the sense that you have a bunch of people who maybe care about a specific issue that Trump may or may not care about as much and they are finding ways to drive that. Some of it is not legally sustainable. Some of it is just like a bunch of bullshit like the –
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
like the executive order on transgender sports participation. That's not something the government has any access to, but just by being out there and being mobastic, you get likely the NCAA or someone else to respond to it. But they didn't have executive orders in the can last time to do it. And the ones they've written, and I think Trump is freed this time from carrying what
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
the media thinks or at least he seems to be like they were very they were more sensitive to the you know what maggie haberman would say about them they seem to be now i think that remains to be seen i think trump likes at least let me say the administration question about trump yeah i do think that you're i mean this is going to be a real question as you know because they're just do they are have a lot of muzzle velocity and that says right like some of the stuff and a lot of it is kind of
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
organizationally, you know, kind of culture war stuff that doesn't, that doesn't really affect the outcomes of government policy in an immediate way is all happening. It's moving. They clearly had it well planned. But again, I mean, a lot of the most consequential stuff is being decided by Elon Musk in a pretty chaotic way.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And when it starts, and I think there's a real question of some of it will be very unpopular. Some of it will get really bad press. Do we think Trump wants that? Like, I actually don't think Trump likes getting bad press or is comfortable with getting bad press. I think he likes getting good press.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Yeah, I think that's true. I think so. I guess the way I've been thinking about it is I mean, the way he backed off the tariffs very quickly for just basically nothing is notable the way they I know a judge stopped the funding freeze, but Trump also pulled the plug on it. And reportedly, I mean, at least it's a reporting I read. That was his choice because it was so noisy and messy.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And so I think he's still going to be reactive to some of that stuff. The people around him are less reactive to it. Like last time he had so many Republican establishment people in his administration that they were more reactive to it. Like, you know, John Kelly is going to be more reactive to bad press than Kristi Noem. For sure. Or, you know, same thing with his defense.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Pete Hankseth is not going to care about it, you know. And so I think that it will matter. But I guess I guess I question have is. It seems to me at least watching this over the first three weeks that the legacy media, establishment media, right? I always want to kind of just at least the people in the briefing room. In Trump 1 came in really sort of guns blazing, right?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
They sort of branded themselves as defenders of democracy. There was a ton of fact checking. And there is a – it feels like – at least from afar, a different approach this time, right? A little more... Not that there is not real... I do kind of want to separate the journalists who are covering the White House or covering Trump from maybe the parent companies who own them.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Because there is real... Reporters, I will say, are working their ass off and they're writing a lot of really important stories, whether anyone's reading them or not is an open question. But It does feel like the press has more of an accommodationist and less aggressive approach this time. Do you see it that way? Is my anti-media bias coming through? I mean, I think that's one way to see it.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
I mean, I guess I never really bought the idea that our choice is to be accommodationist versus collaborationist versus aggressive. We're supposed to be covering reality. And I think that there was an almost delusional quality to the media where Reporters loved having people they met out in the world say to them, like, wow, you're so brave. Thank you for what you do.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
It's like, come on, you cover the White House like you're not you're not a war reporter. And I do think like the work is incredibly important to democracy, but that's a little different between saying journalism is this vital pillar of democracy and journalists are themselves heroes of democracy who ride around on white horses. It's a weird job.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And the best reporters, reporters who are very valuable right now, spend a lot of time burrowing into Trump world and telling you what's happening there. And that's an incredibly valuable thing, but you don't have to, I don't know, but I think there was a level at which the media fell in love with the narrative about itself that made liberals love them and conservatives hate them.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And that's not the only factor, maybe even the most major factor, but I don't think in retrospect that was a good thing. And I would say the underlying thing here is just to go back, Trump gets elected and a lot of journalists, a lot of liberals think there's no way this was legitimate. Like, there's been a mistake here. And like, what happened? Maybe it was Facebook.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
Like, maybe there's some technical social media trick, or maybe it was the Russians. And like, these are two very great lines of reporting inquiry that lots of really smart journalists, and I don't think they're always framing the story that way, but a lot of journalistic effort was expended basically trying to answer the question of how did Donald Trump manage to get elected?
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And those were both factors, obviously, shifts in social media, Russian interference in the election. But I think they did not sufficiently consider option three, which was that he was pretty popular and won a lot of votes.
Pod Save America
How the Right Took Over the Media
And so I think that was, Trump people aren't wrong to be upset that most of the journalistic energy of 2016 and 2017 was expended on trying to figure out what trick got him elected.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Can I critique that? Because the important part is one of the things I've always said, and I go on Fox News, I think I told you I actually was on Matt Gaetz's podcast a couple years ago. I wrote a book. It was about that. It wasn't about policy. I think we as progressives, as Democrats, we can't cede the ground. I agree. But the thing that kills me about what Gavin is doing –
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You've got to challenge the person. Correct. I mean, sure, don't be there in the trans thing. I think you need to understand that it is not primarily about whether or not trans women should play in sports. It's about the fact that there is a movement in this country. that is trying to dehumanize, target, and act like trans people don't exist and the rhetoric around that.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So you want to have a conversation about who should play in what leagues, I'm open to it. But when you're out there saying there's only two genders, when you're banning transgender people from serving in the military,
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
When you're denigrating them and insulting them – and I'm going to forget the exact quote, but there was a quote that Charlie Kirk used against – that basically they're freaks and weirdos. I mean he is dehumanizing and challenging the very existence of a group of people. And if you can't stand up and fight back against that, if you get dragged into a conversation –
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Well, there's two ways of looking at it. My confidence level is very low, by the way. One of them is worrisome. The other one is catastrophic. One is that Trump genuinely wants to get a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And it's not incorrect to say that as long as Ukraine was insisting on their maximalist goals, retake all of Ukrainian territory, try Putin for war crimes, force Russia to repay. And I've had this conversation with Zelensky as well as with others to say, we're with you. We're going to defend you and help you. But that's a war that you can't win. So we got to get to a path.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And if you want to put a little pressure on Zelensky to say, hey, let's come to the table and have that conversation. So the charitable view is that that is what Trump is trying to do. The problem with that view is it only works if you also put pressure on Putin. And this is the argument that I had. last year when we were arguing over passing the supplemental to help Ukraine.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And a lot of Republicans who claim to support Ukraine were like, yeah, but we got to get to peace and we're not doing this right. We're not doing that right. I said, okay, great. But if we cut off Ukraine, they're dead. So I'm happy to have that conversation. But there's a threshold question here. Are we going to support Ukraine and put them in a position to defend themselves?
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So when Trump comes in and cuts off intel sharing- and cuts off aid and cuts off the military assistance. He's just throwing the door wide open for Putin. You got to put pressure on Putin to force him to the table. He's the one who started the war.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And the only pressure is you have to give security guarantees to Ukraine and cutting off their assistance is the exact opposite of giving security guarantees to Ukraine. So the charitable way of looking at this is that Trump's a little incompetent in terms of how he negotiates.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
There is a darker vision and that is personified by Marjorie Taylor Greene and a variety of other white Christian nationalists who populate the Republican Party. What was Cheney lovingly referred to as the Putin wing of the Republican Party that views Vladimir Putin in Russia as an ally. Because he is anti-woke. He is a white Christian nationalist. And which side of that is calling the shots?
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I wish I had more confidence that it was the side that just wants peace and they're going at it awkwardly. I'm deeply worried that. Trump is aligning us with Putin and Russia's vision for the world, which is a dark and terrible vision.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Right, exactly. It's a fascist clinging to whatever unites the people. Any good fascist has to have, like, you know, that sort of following. Exactly.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
All of which is why it is so important that the Democratic coalition gets its shit together. And fights that. And again, the whole center left thing, I get dragged into that world a lot. But I am frustrated.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
With the left's unwillingness to make changes in policy so that we can build more housing, so that our streets can be safer, so that we can have more competent – and I understand where a lot of this comes from. Power has been abused and in our country, power has primarily been held by straight white men. So they wanted to go after the power structure. That's fine.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But you have to have rules and standards and hierarchies in order to actually accomplish things for the people that we progressives want to help. Chaos only benefits the people who already have enough money that they don't have to worry about it. So could we update that ever so slightly so that we actually have – if the power system is abused, fix it. Yeah. Get the right people in place.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Hold the people accountable who are abusing it. But then you have to have rules. You have to have standards, accountability, personal responsibility so you can build a better, safer society so that we can go to the public and say, you know, not just don't go with the fascist, which I would love. I would have hoped that that would have been enough. One would think. I will be honest with you.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But it's very clear that it's not. No. So we have to say, come with us because here's how we're going to build a better life for people.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Just on that point. And I work a lot. I think I mentioned Simon Rosenberg. I've worked with him a lot, a bunch of different issues. And he's in favor of opening a second front. Front number one is Trump's destroying our economy and, you know, threatening a whole bunch of different things. Threat number two is he's making us weaker.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
He is actually making us more vulnerable as a country, that his national security strategy is making us weaker, more vulnerable, and economically less strong. And that these institutions that he's smashing because he just sees it as, you know, basically he sees allies and partners as people to be exploited, not as a partnership. That is making us weaker economically.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And the idea that the system of alliances that we built was a giveaway by the U.S. to the rest of the world, we benefited from that more than anybody by having the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world. Now, we screwed up on the distribution of that wealth. We've generated a lot of wealth. We've concentrated in the hands of the few and left the working class behind.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But the notion that we have become weaker because of that, we need to go after Trump for weakening us by picking fights with everybody in the world, isolating us. It makes us less safe. Yeah.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
See, that would be the second leg in my three-leg stool about how Donald Trump is making us weaker. By weakening our institutions, by weakening our federal government, and certainly at DOD, but he's doing it at NIH. He's doing it at the FAA. He's doing it at the National Nuclear Security Agency.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
By randomly firing people, canceling programs and sowing chaos amongst our workforce, he is making us weaker. And yes, he is making us weaker at the Pentagon. I have a death of Stalin analogy, which I like to use at this point. So it's bad enough. And C.Q. Brown is a highly qualified individual. He has led commands in a whole bunch of different places.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Deputy CENTCOM commander, ran the Air Force, I believe. And I've met with him. I've worked with him for years. Deeply talented individual. So getting rid of that level of talent right off the bat makes you weaker. But the death of Stalin analogy is at the start of that movie, Stalin has a stroke, doesn't die. And they show up, what do we do? Well, we got to go get a doctor.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Let's get the best doctor available. And it's like, we don't really have a best doctor. What do you mean we don't? Well, we kind of, we either killed them or we sent them to Siberia to make sure that they were loyal to us. So they're all just kind of not that good anymore. And that's what you get because it's okay. They fired C.Q. Brown and they fired others as well. The people who are left,
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Now, some of them will be brave and some of them will say, I'm doing my job and I don't care. And then they'll get fired. But a lot of people say, if this is the way the game is played, I know that being competent, being good at my job is not important. I simply have to be a sycophant and a loyalist to Trump. I'm going to do that and I'm not going to focus on actually running this place well.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
That will weaken us all across the board and certainly at the Pentagon. So – Look, Donald Trump is attempting an authoritarian takeover of our country. I was with a group last night of more Silicon Valley-like people, defense industry folks, and talking about this. And they were attempting to argue, well, we're going to say – I'm like, no. This is what's happening.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I mean they fired someone at the Justice Department for not giving Mel Gibson back his gun rights. Yeah, that seems wrong. It's not just wrong. Yeah. It is an authoritarian takeover of the government. It's saying, no, no, no, no, no. Justice Department, DOD, NIH, I don't care who you are. You do not work for the American people. You do not work to uphold the laws of the Constitution.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You work for Donald Trump and you will do what Donald Trump tells you to do when he tells you to do it or you will be gone. That is an authoritarian takeover of our government. And we ought to call it that. Now, I think we got to be intelligent about how we do that.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And simply, you know, running around with our hair on fire and screaming about it and yelling at people isn't necessarily the most effective way to do that. Yeah. But we should be 100 percent clear eyed about what we're dealing with.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I know Mike Flynn, yeah. I knew him before everyone knew who he was.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I mean, they don't do a great – well, they have influence over the curriculum, over how the Air Force Academy is run, over how West Point is run. And so they are going to be pitching their unique right-wing ideology and also – Back to the point I just made earlier, they're going to be making sure that everyone's loyal to Trump and Trump's agenda first, last and then always.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And that's what their focus is going to be. It's going to be to put forward Trump's right wing agenda. But again, agenda aside, it's going to be about loyalty to Trump, not trying to actually accomplish something for the American people. So, yeah, that's one of many aspects to it.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And also on the authoritarian takeover part, can we please stop having people write articles about, well, Trump hasn't actually pushed a constitutional crisis yet because he hasn't actually defied the courts. Yes, he has. He's repeatedly defied the courts. Now, the courts have not yet taken the next logical step in that situation, and that is to sanction.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
the Trump administration people, because that's the way I'm an attorney. I never practiced that much, but I went to law school. So I have vague ideas about the stuff I prosecuted briefly for the city of Seattle. And the way it works is if you defy the judge, the next step is sanctions. Go to jail, get fined. Contempt. Contempt. Exactly.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
They've defied probably at least a couple dozen different court orders at this point. Now, the courts, I think rightfully so, are reluctant to step in and pick this rather monumental fight. So they keep holding out hope that, well – They're taking their time, but eventually they'll comply. You got John Roberts putting out statements trying to calm Trump down. Please comply. Right, right.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You know, pretty please. But we're going to reach the point, I think we've reached it already, where they're going to have to sanction them or admit. that their rulings are irrelevant. Trump is defying the courts right now, and we shouldn't let anyone get away with saying, well, sort of. No, he is 100% defying court rulings, and we should hold him accountable for it.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Well, the biggest thing, I don't think we should be sucked into an extended play conversation about a CR. That's just a starting point. So that's my way of saying I'm not going to directly answer all different aspects of that question. The going forward part is what should we do differently is more interesting to me. We need to directly confront Donald Trump in a consistent, aggressive way.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I think that needs to happen. I totally disagree with James Carville's take. I understand what he's saying. He's saying, let the Republicans fail. Let it be clear to everyone that they're the ones who failed. That's not the world we're living in today. Today is a 24-7 messaging battle for attention.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And I've been doing it in a way I've never done it before, do a lot of my own videos, go on media. I think we have to point out that Donald Trump is attempting an authoritarian takeover of our government. To the extent that people don't agree with us on that, we have to convince them. Now we also have to work on other issues. So I think the notion that we need to be more aggressive is correct.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
There's dumb people in the world. You're right. It's a balance. But I don't think I think we've been too quick to just dismiss that as something that we should even worry about. So I want us to do it effectively. I want us to do it intelligently and loudly. And look, let me just say, just so people don't get the wrong idea, as I said earlier, good on Al Green for what he did.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
right now the paddles were ineffective just because they yeah when i say dumb people i mean like violent people people breaking laws right like i think protests have to be peaceful in part because hey guess what guys the fascists on the other side they're always going to out violence us yeah be loud 100 for that be loud but also take a little time to listen because we got to persuade more people you know we got 48 and a half percent
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Not terrible, but we got to get a little more. So to do that, you can't just shout at the people who voted the other way. You have to make your points, I think, loudly, forcefully, intelligently and respectfully and constantly. But then also take a little time to listen and say, this is how I feel. Where are you coming from?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And then once you learn where those people are coming from, you're in a better position to counter their arguments, to understand their arguments. And to bring them in. So it's a balance. And I worry a little that the general message from a lot of folks is whoever breaks the most things is the person I'm going to follow.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I mean, be loud, be passionate. But also there's a part of it that has to also be trying to be more inclusive. And there's a bunch of good ways to do that. And I think we've talked about it. No, I agree.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Really appreciate it. It was a great discussion. I appreciate the opportunity. And like I said, every day we got to keep doing it. We got to keep putting the message out there and trying to grow, grow support. Amen. Thank you.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I think the idea that Democrats haven't always picked the best leaders is correct. I mean, you and I started talking when I was trying to get Joe Biden out of the race. It still is flabbergasting to me that anybody, much less a significant group of people, thought that an 82-year-old Joe Biden was an effective messenger for us. And I have respect for the man's career.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I have respect for a lot of things he did as president. But you could see him from four years ago. And even if he was doing a good job as president, you could know that he wasn't going to be the effective candidate we need. So I think we do have a hard time making those judgments. Also, I have clashed with Chuck Schumer before. Details of that story aren't worth getting into. So I kind of see that.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But what really worries me is the same people who are pushing this narrative the hardest are are the same people who spent a lot of the time, sorry, not the exact same people, same group, the last year protesting Democrats. When Donald Trump was an existential threat, they were protesting Kamala Harris, they were protesting Colin Allred, they weren't protesting Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So I think we need to look at the broader coalition message and see what some of the flaws are in that left-leaning approach on policy, on immigration, on economics, on identity politics. on to Ezra Klein's point in his new book, getting things done where we govern. So, yeah, I don't agree with the way Chuck Schumer handled that. I don't think the messaging was strong.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I don't think it's been well organized. I do think Hakeem Jeffries did a great job in the House. I think we ought to give him credit for that. But what I'm worried about is if we buy into that, then do we buy into all this other stuff that has really created problems for the Democratic coalition?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
A broad tent. Right, the other part of it, yes, we have to have a broad tent. And the other part is that broad tent has to be really focused on defeating Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. And within our coalition, there's a lot of differences of opinion. We have to figure out how to bring enough of them together so that we can defeat Trump.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Because whether you're talking, I mean, on Gaza, and there's a lot of differences of opinion on that. Donald Trump's not better on that issue. The MAGA people aren't better on that issue. And then there's a whole host of other things. So the challenge that I'm trying to take on, politics is about building coalitions.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
My fundamental theory is that our coalition is broken and the Democratic Party broken. Brand is broken. And I don't presume to have all the answers, but we have to start the conversation and we have to force it forward and we have to have disagreements about it and not try to say there's only one way to do it and we're going to force everybody into that.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And I'm hoping to have that broader open conversation about how to rebuild the coalition. and rebuild the brand and address the policy issues we need to address. Got to challenge Trump for being authoritarian. Got to challenge him on economic issues, on the way that it's impacting people's lives beyond the democracy thing. but then we have to have a reasonable alternative for the American people.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And I think the biggest reason Donald Trump won was because too many people didn't think we did.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, I think... We have to do multiple things at the same time in terms of messaging. I think, like I said, we do need to make the case against Donald Trump. Now, the one thing I would, I think we need to stop this debate about what the right way to do that is. I put out a statement about the whole Al Green, Alyssa Slotkin thing. We had this huge debate within the coalition.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Oh, the Democrats, they're not on the same page. You got Al Green out there screaming. You got Alyssa Slotkin giving, you know, which approach is right? Both churches are right. Okay. Good for Al Green for standing up to Donald Trump and saying, you're a liar. And on January 6th, you besmirched the very institutions that you're asking me to come here and respect.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Good for him making that point forcefully. And good for Alyssa Slotkin for clearly, articulately, in a measured way, laying out an agenda that a broader group of... It's got to be everybody. We've got this fight. No, you've got to scream louder. No, I guess it depends on the circumstances. So you've got to pull all that together.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But I also come back, and this is where – and I've spoken with Ezra Klein a couple of times. We've got to govern better. We just have to get things done. We're in California. We feel that one. Yeah. And I'm Washington State, the Seattle King County area. We are drowning in process and inclusion. We're not building housing. We're not building roads. We're not building high-speed rail.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
We're not governing effectively because we've fallen in love with too much process and too much inclusion as opposed to getting things done for people. Now, there's a lot of blame to go around here. And I'm dragged into this world of, are you a centrist or are you on the left? And I went through those battles. In the 80s and 90s, I was New Democrat, part of the DLC.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Early 2000s, Simon Rosenberg, who's a good friend of mine, and I sort of, Felt like the New Dem movement was losing its way to some extent. And I concluded that what we need is we need the center and the left. It's not, okay, which side is right? We got to figure out how to work better together going forward. No doubt.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But my frustration in the Seattle King County area is that a lot of left-leaning policies have proven ineffective. And that's fine. This is a complicated, very difficult business. What are a couple of examples? Criminal justice, housing, homelessness, drug abuse.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Correct. But also just basic insistence on competency, accountability, and personal responsibility in addition to helping people. We've set up organizations based more on identity and lived experience than competency at the task. So as a consequence, a lot of the money that we've poured into homelessness hasn't been well spent.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
It's gone to organizations who don't know how to run a business, don't know how to build housing or run housing. So we haven't been as focused on efficiency and effectiveness in what we've been spending. And also, I think that the balance – we needed criminal justice reform. I'm 100 percent opposed to mass incarceration. I think we've made progress on that.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But can we have accountability in the alternatives to incarceration programs? We don't have that accountability in King County. And the other aspect of it, which we've alluded to earlier is, so I noticed this like four years ago, five years ago, and I started having conversations.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And the resistance to any changes to trying to make it better, every time I asked a question, I was like, well, you're just, you know, you're in favor of mass incarceration. You're citing Republican talking points. I'm just trying to fix a problem, trying to make us work better. So I think the ideological rigidity and that came out a lot in the opposition to Gaza.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I mean, using threats and intimidation to try to silence people who disagree with you should not be a progressive value. And I've had that happen. I had a town hall meeting last June and could not conduct the meeting because it was just – insults were screamed. I wouldn't let anybody else talk. And the entire civic discourse broke down because of that approach.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So I think we need to be more inclusive and more results-oriented.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And part of that has to be just open and honest conversations. And that's what I've really struggled with in areas where the Democratic Party is essentially a one-party system, which is California, Washington State, Seattle, King County. They tend to grab onto that power and then say, don't you question me. Don't you challenge me.
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Pope Save America
Your position is that every one of those individuals is by constitutional right afforded due process. I don't know the answer to that. I'm telling you. You don't? You haven't read the Constitution? It says all persons. I've got it right here. But what you're saying is that every single one of the illegals that was sent down to El Salvador is supposed to be given due process pursuant.
Pod Save America
Trump's War on Your Kids' Toys
But the court has ordered you to facilitate that. I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don't want to do this. But the buck stops in this office. No, no, no, no. I follow the law. You want me to follow the law? If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I'd probably keep him right where he is. On his knuckles, he had MS-13. There's a dispute over that.
Pod Save America
Trump's War on Your Kids' Toys
Wait a minute. He had MS-13 on his knuckles tattooed.
Pod Save America
Trump's War on Your Kids' Toys
It says MS-13. That was Photoshopped. That was Photoshopped, Terry. You can't do that. Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that's okay. I picked you, Terry, but you're not being very nice.
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Trump's War on Your Kids' Toys
Well, I say this. We had riots in Harlem, and frankly, if you look at what's gone on, and people from Harlem went up and they protested, Stephen, and they protested very strongly against Harvard. They happened to be on my side. You know, I got a very high black vote. You know that. Very, very high black vote. It was a very great compliment to me. I did criminal justice reform.
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Trump's War on Your Kids' Toys
They agree with what I'm doing with respect to Harvard.
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Trump's War on Your Kids' Toys
Core GDP, and this is, you know, you probably saw some numbers today. And I have to start off by saying that's Biden. That's not Trump, because we came in on January. This is quarterly numbers. So this is Biden. And you can even say the next quarter is sort of Biden, because it doesn't just happen on a daily or an hourly basis.
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Trump's War on Your Kids' Toys
They made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion one. with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need. Somebody said, oh, the shelves are going to be open. Well, maybe the children will have $2 instead of $30. And maybe the $2 will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2203 - The Democrat-Media Scandal That Won’t Go Away
Donald Trump's modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They're in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons. No chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2203 - The Democrat-Media Scandal That Won’t Go Away
To be clear, there's no way for us to know whether they were actually criminals or not, because they refused to give them a trial. We're supposed to just take their word for it. And when duly elected members of Congress tried to exercise their constitutional right of oversight at an ICE facility, they get shoved around and threatened with arrest.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2203 - The Democrat-Media Scandal That Won’t Go Away
And when courts told them repeatedly to knock it off, they brazenly defy them.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2203 - The Democrat-Media Scandal That Won’t Go Away
And that is George Santos. Now, will he be going to a men's or a women's prison?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2160 - The Case For Derek Chauvin | Episode 1: The Background
See, you're trying to go down the lane I wasn't trying to go down. I'm not going to let you take me there, which is why I turned down your invitation to appear on your show. We're not getting into all of the science and what the doctor said and an autopsy report, even though I just read it to you to some degree.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2200 - What’s In The Trump BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL?
AOC, who is 35 years of age, has emerged as a leading voice for Democrats, but some within the party are concerned she'll turn off centrist voters who are needed in the swing states that Trump swept in November. For the record, they are absolutely right. She will turn off centrist. If you believe... that higher taxes is the way to go, that a focus shouldn't be on securing the borders.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2200 - What’s In The Trump BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL?
If you believe those kind of things and that's where you stand ideologically, AOC is your candidate. And not to be literal, not to be taken literally, but she gives the impression that when you talk about universal health care and you talk about other things, if it equated to taxing Americans 70 percent of their income, she wouldn't be against it. That ain't going to win you elections.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2154 - Stephen A. Smith ATTACKS Me!
Would you have taken that position if George Floyd was a Jewish person? A white Jewish person? If a black cop had his knee on a white Jewish person for over nine minutes, Ben Shapiro, would you have called for that individual to be pardoned?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2154 - Stephen A. Smith ATTACKS Me!
It's moments like this where I get on people's nerve, particularly white America and the NBA community specifically, because I point out it's beautiful to be a white guy. It's just beautiful. You know, you're a question mark as a coach in some people's eyes, including in Boston, but somehow, some way you moving upstairs.
The Charlie Kirk Show
DOGE Potential and SOTU Predictions
It is a mandate, and I'm going to explain why. And I don't mind the question, but let me be very clear. I'm no supporter of Trump. I'm a supporter of truth and the facts. And here's the facts. The man won every swing state. He increased in terms of his voter turnout in his favor from the standpoint of blacks, Latinos, and young voters. He increased his numbers in that regard from 2020.
The Charlie Kirk Show
DOGE Potential and SOTU Predictions
Eighty-nine percent of the counties shifted to the right. That's a mandate. We can sit up there and play around all we want to. In 2020, Trump didn't win the popular vote. He didn't win the electoral college vote. A matter of fact, the Republicans had won the popular vote, if I remember correctly, since 2004. But they did this year.
The Charlie Kirk Show
DOGE Potential and SOTU Predictions
So 20 years after they last won a popular vote, they won the popular vote. They won the electoral college vote. The mayor won every swing state. And on top of it all, 89% of the counties shifted. I don't understand how people can look at that and say, there's no mandate. There's a mandate.
The Charlie Kirk Show
DOGE Potential and SOTU Predictions
But the problem is that if you're the Democratic Party and you lost 49.8% to 48.3% and you're looking at that 1.5% dip, that's an excuse for you to say, what we did really wasn't that bad. Well, some people didn't show up. We should continue to do that. No, don't continue to do that. Find a new strategy.
The Dan Bongino Show
Trump Rocks The Swamp And Dems Hit Rock Bottom (Ep. 2436)
It is a mandate, and I'm going to explain why. And I don't mind the question, but let me be very clear. I'm no supporter of Trump. I'm a supporter of truth and the facts. And here's the facts. The man won every swing state. He increased in terms of his voter turnout in his favor from the standpoint of blacks, Latinos, and young voters. He increased his numbers in that regard from 2020.
The Dan Bongino Show
Trump Rocks The Swamp And Dems Hit Rock Bottom (Ep. 2436)
89% of the counties shifted to the right. That's a mandate. We can sit up there and play around all we want to. In 2020, Trump didn't win the popular vote. He didn't win the electoral college vote. A matter of fact, the Republicans had won the popular vote, if I remember correctly, since 2004. But they did this year. So 20 years after they last won a popular vote, they won the popular vote.
The Dan Bongino Show
Trump Rocks The Swamp And Dems Hit Rock Bottom (Ep. 2436)
They won the electoral college vote. The man won every swing state and on top of it, 89 percent of the counties shifted. I don't understand how people can look at that and say there's no mandate. There's a mandate.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
You're listening to DraftKings Network.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
Yeah, I mean, so we can start with the legal stuff first and then go into the NFL investigation. But, you know, for the first story, we spoke with a number of legal experts just about like what the realm of possibilities were.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
And, you know, they all pretty soundly said that because of the state statute of limitations, both civilly and criminally, there was very little legal recourse for these women.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
Even if these allegations had come forward within the statute of limitations, there's also, unfortunately, a lot of the gray areas around what exactly would be the charge for some of these alleged actions and stuff like that. It's not an easy thing to prosecute criminally or civilly, is what several people told us. But regarding the NFL investigation, I mean...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
The biggest precedent that we have with this is the Deshaun Watson case, which ultimately kind of resulted in initially a six game ban and then was eventually led into an 11 game suspension and a $5 million fine of some sort that Deshaun Watson's lawyers worked out with the NFL. So, you know, that is kind of the main precedent that we see right now. There
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
does seem to be an overarching policy now of like when the allegations are serious enough, it would result in a six game ban. But obviously Watson's case shows that that's fluid. So it really does remain to be seen about what the NFL investigators find. And then from there with, I guess, likely with Tucker's team and his lawyers, what negotiations they can go into to decide what's best.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
You know, yes. And it's also really interesting about how they go about this investigation process, because most of the NFL's security team and the investigators that they have on this are former professionals. prosecutors in some way, they might be former legal experts, former FBI. So they really do hire people with strong backgrounds for this type of work.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
And then also when they go into the investigation in the Watson case, they also literally hired former federal judge that was jointly, you know, agreed upon between the Players Union and the NFL to be deciding what to do about this case. So, you know, they do genuinely go about it in this model that's similar to our court system, it seems.
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
Can I jump in for a second? Yes. You know, another thing that we we so Julie and I have heard back from many of the massage therapists who we spoke to about their reactions to, you know, as this news coming to light and as more and more alleged accounts are coming forward and something that they are.
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
Most of the women I spoke with said, and I think also most of the women Julie spoke with said, is that they're really bothered by this notion that people are saying, oh, well, they just want money. Why are they coming forward now? Everyone I spoke with made it really clear, like, this isn't about money for them. They don't have legal recourse right now.
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
They're coming forward because there is now like a critical mass for them to do it and to not just be the one person doing it. if that makes sense, and that we took the time as reporters to come and find them.
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
And the safety in numbers and the fact that we were willing to sit down and listen to them and take their accounts as credible and as something that should be looked into is really what gave them the comfortability to come forward now. And I think that a lot of there has been backlash online. A lot of people are distrustful of these claims.
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
A lot of people are making a lot of accusations about, well, you know, like, what would you expect as a massage therapist and different things like that? And I think that's honestly been really painful for the women.
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
And it's something that has made them, I think, even more both confirms that they were really happy that they came forward as a group versus coming forward as like one individual at a time.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
You know, I think how we look at this is that when we are able to when you have such serious allegations, right, it's something that's going to take a lot of vetting and a lot of reporting to verify. So what we did as a team is each time we would have a woman who felt comfortable
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
discussing her allegations with us, we would then go and corroborate her story with the spa owners, with coworkers she worked with at the time, with family members or partners from the time to be able to make sure that all the details were aligning. And so I think that where our role is as journalists from being able to have such confirmation of that is it's not necessarily about
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
activism for us, you know, it's kind of a line that is not exactly where journalists walk. What it is is about being able to help vulnerable people tell their stories and be able to tell that in the most accurate and fair way possible. And I think that's really what our focus on in the story. We're not here to editorialize. We're not here to put our own narrative on it.
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
It's really about making sure we're telling the people who are brave enough to talk to us what they're saying in the most accurate and truthful way possible.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
Yeah, I mean, I think that the most broad overarching pattern across the allegations that we would see is oftentimes these women were pretty young, pretty new massage therapists, you know, sometimes in their first couple massages or their first couple months of working. And, you know, a common pattern that they would allege is that over a couple massages, there would be, you know,
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
alleged behavior from Tucker that he, you know, and how explicit can I get on this radio show?
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Hour 2: The Justin Tucker Allegations
Yeah, I think this might be a question that It would be best to answer just because she while we tag team talking to the victim, she talked to the most of them. And not only that, but she also really took the lead and being so careful about how we wrote about this and was explicit with it. Is that okay?
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Local Hour: Are The Titans Soft? Feat. John Amaechi
You're about a tad bit away from being compared to Ben Simmons. It's starting to look that bad. Now, let me tell you something right now. You bring up the injuries and all of that stuff. I look at the disinterest on his face, and that was before it got cracked, okay? I look at the disinterest, the lack of enthusiasm, whatever. Now, we can talk about his injuries, and fair enough, Perk, right?
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Local Hour: Are The Titans Soft? Feat. John Amaechi
But here's the problem. You injured last year. You only played 39 games. In the playoffs, obviously, you got bounced in the first round by the New York Knicks. You didn't look that way in the Olympics. Looked pretty damn happy. but pretty damn happy playing in the Olympics, okay? And then inexplicably, you ain't ready to go come this season, all right?
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Local Hour: Are The Titans Soft? Feat. John Amaechi
And I'm looking at that, and I got this list of injuries here just so y'all know. It's not a fracture. Foot, knee, health protocols, back, hand, face, ankle, shoulder, calf, hip, elbow, ribs, injury management. That is why I was against your assertion to sit him down because I'm going like this. He's always hurt. This brother will get hurt going to the bathroom.
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Local Hour: Are The Titans Soft? Feat. John Amaechi
I got to use him when I got to use him because I never know. Just because you don't play him don't mean he ain't going to show up hurt. Evidenced by him playing in the Olympics looking just fine. Two months later when the season starts, there's nothing. He's injured and it's like, what the hell happened?
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Hour 2: Mina Kimes and Greg’s Eyebrows
Stephen, I'm going to let it slide. I'm going to be a good teammate. I'm going to let it slide. Everybody's at ESPN because had you not taken the route you've taken, I would have lit their ass up. But I'm going to let it slide. You know what, guys? Congratulations, Ohio State. You won the game.
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Hour 2: Mina Kimes and Greg’s Eyebrows
But, hey, if we're going to be on the same team, if we're going to work for the same network, don't do that. Kirk, Chris Fowler, I promise you, if you ever mention anything, any platform that I'm on again and talking about, I wonder what they're going to say in negativity, I promise you, ESPN ain't got enough bosses to keep me off y'all for what I'm going to say.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 2: Mina Kimes and Greg’s Eyebrows
So I'm going to let y'all slide today. I'm going to turn it over to Dio before I get myself in trouble. But don't play with me. Go ahead, Dio. Damn. I got to follow? I got to?
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Hour 2: Mina Kimes and Greg’s Eyebrows
This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stoogatz.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 8
I have profound respect for the late Johnny Cochran, God rest his soul. But it might be the cockiest thing that I've ever said. Christopher Darden and Marsha Clark did an absolutely horrendous job as prosecutors. Because if it were me, there's no way in hell Johnny Cochran would have beaten me with that evidence that they had. I'm telling you right now, I'm not even a lawyer.
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Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 8
There is no way that you would have put 12 jurors in front of me with that evidence and I would have lost it, even to Johnny Cochran. I would have won that trial. I've often said that.
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Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 8
They're showing you, you can believe in them, but you can't depend on them. See, that's the problem. Champions, it's both. You believe in them, and you depend on them. Wannabe champions, you can believe in them, but you can't depend on them. This is a diminished LeBron James.
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Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 8
Who on Cleveland hates to lose? LeBron hates to lose, but even you have lamented he may not hate it enough. Golden State may not have lost, but they've tasted the champagne. And because they've tasted the champagne, you sort of like hate losing in reverse. You love the champagne so much, you don't want to know what life feels like without drinking it.
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Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 8
Their chances of winning this series is zero as far as I'm concerned. The only reason the 8% is up there is because you're giving human beings a chance. After all, Steph Curry could have food poisoning or, you know, might get kidnapped or Klay Thompson might get injured or, you know, somebody might have diarrhea. So I don't know.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 8
I look like I want the finals for LeBron James more than LeBron James wants. You do. I agree with that. Based on what we saw particularly last night. That's deep and true. That is correct. I don't get it. I don't understand it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Hockey Show: Playoff Madness
Roy, go ahead and take your guess. A Scent of a Woman. Scent of a Woman is what he has guessed. But there's two. Roy, he's trapped you because the difficult one was not the first one. You jumped into the breach. You're like, I got it, Dan, and then you had no number two.
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The Hockey Show: Playoff Madness
Going tonight. Chuck, you got your stick back.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Hockey Show: Playoff Madness
How do you know? Because I played hockey. That's a damn lie. Skate hockey, not on ice. Oh, street hockey. See what I'm saying? Here you go, Shaq. You got the angle. I feel comfortable commenting on this. What are you doing? Why is that? Because of that right there. Wow.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Du willst nicht in Miami-Dade kaufen? Jetzt ist der Zeitpunkt, Mann!
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Headline of Bloomberg News is Trump's Migrant Crackdown adds to Miami's real estate woes. So in addition to the skyrocketing insurance costs and condo maintenance fees, higher mortgage rates, soaring property prices and a post-pandemic, we could call it housing boom correction, also a glut. Vielen Dank.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
The New Pope? Yes, the New Pope. Congratulations. Congrats on the fourth round of voting. Mazel tov to the New Pope.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Investigation or cover-up? That is always the question in this town when they're investigating public corruption. Time for a Because Miami exclusive. They never bothered to interview at least six key witnesses. Miami-Dade State Attorney Catherine Fernandez-Rundle, our top cop in the community since 1993, since Janet Reno left for the Clinton administration. Can't get rid of her. Can't.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Just unbelievable. Like cockroaches, crocodiles, twinkies and Fidel Castro. They live forever. So, Cathy Rundle has to repeatedly recuse herself from local public corruption cases. Why? Because she's involved in all the corruption. When you've been an elected official in this town for over three decades, you are part of the incestuous cesspool that is Miami politics.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And so she has to keep recusing herself from it. So what has to happen is the governor has to reassign it to Harold Pryor, the state attorney in Broward County. And he has done... Not a goddamn thing. In fact, after arresting Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz-Laportilla and him being removed from office, a year later he let him go and said, actually, our bad. He didn't do anything wrong.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Those charges of bribery, those charges of money laundering, of campaign finance crimes. No, no, it seems like that was totally, totally kosher. So you have somebody who is either incompetent Or outright corrupt and covering up for this. And now, Broward County State Attorney, Harold Pryor, has cleared Miami Commissioner.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
In a close-out memo published just a couple weeks ago, Assistant State Attorneys Alexandra Weil and Julio Gonzalez, who is Chief of Browards Public Corruption Unit. I'll give you a guess where he used to work before that.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Catherine Fernandez Rundles' office. Oh. Okay, so he used to work for the woman who had to recuse herself from this case for a conflict of interest, despite the fact that the very first paragraph of their close-out memo identifies, quote, Commissioner Carollo's actions regarding ball and chain owner Bill Fuller, end quote, as the number one impetus for this inquiry.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
You know that you have been targeting my business. Everybody in this city knows you've been targeting my business. They never interviewed Bill Fuller. They never even contacted. This close-out memo reads like a cover-up. It flagrantly ignores vital testimony that was given under oath and available in trial transcripts, in depositions, and even in public media reports.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
You'll remember, Roy, Bill Fuller and his business partner Martin Pena, property owners in Little Havana, including they own the historic Ball & Chain nightclub on Calle Ocho, they successfully sued Joe Carollo and won a federal civil... Guess what?
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
You've got 17.9% of pending home sales in Miami fell through in March, which is up, actually, basically 18% of home sales is what you have, having fallen through. So, like, you've got this kind of apocalyptic scenario in Miami real estate, which, by the way, That's our whole industry in Miami, if not the entire state of Florida.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And they failed to interview their attorney, Jeff Gutsches, who has spent over six and a half years gathering evidence and successfully trying that federal civil corruption case that ended in a 63 and a half million dollar verdict. He was never contacted by Broward for any of the information and evidence that he has compiled through multiple litigations, dozens of witnesses.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Tausende Pages von Evidenzen und öffentlichen Rekorden. Die Browers Staatsanwaltschaft in ihrer sogenannten Korruption-Investigation gegen Joe Correia, auch nie kontaktiert. Former Miami-City-Manager Emilio Gonzalez.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And former Miami Police Chief George Kalina.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
E-Mail-Evidence and records, exhibits that appeared at the successful federal civil corruption trial against Joe Correo, they were never contacted or interviewed by the Broward State Attorney's Office in this corruption case. But they themselves have first-hand knowledge, they witnessed events and have actual physical documentary evidence of this corruption. Never contacted.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
The complaints that attorney Jeff Gutsches has drafted, they read like... Rico, like racketeering indictments that could be blueprints for a possible criminal indictment. But it doesn't even appear that the Broward State Attorney's Office ever bothered to read them or even look at them.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Nor did they convene a grand jury or subpoena witnesses when they know that they are dealing with a well-documented environment of threats, intimidation and abuse of power. So I know of several Potential witnesses who would testify, who would cooperate and give interviews, but they're not going to volunteer because they're so scared of retaliation and revenge here in Miami.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And the state attorney's office in Broward, who of course has subpoena power and could talk to just about anybody about anything that they want, never bothered to do it. So they've now botched. the two major duty public corruption cases in Miami of our time here, Alex Diaz-Laportilla and Joe Carollo.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
It's not because they're not corrupt, it's because the people who are supposed to hold these public officials accountable are either incompetent or corrupt.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
It could be and. And or. Oftentimes, by the way, the incompetence begets corruption when they try to cover up their own incompetence. But Harold Pryor, the Broward County State Attorney... Seine Assistenzstaatsanwälte, Alexandra Weil und Julio Gonzalez, der Chef der öffentlichen Korruption-Unit. Sie sind entweder unkompetent oder korrupt oder... Und oder. Beide.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Weißt du, wer sie nicht interviewen durften? Wer war das, Billy? Der ehemalige Chief of Staff, Jose Suarez.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
In Mas Miami Mafia Mierda, just a week or so before the Broward State Attorney's Office released this bullshit closeout memo, not saying Joe Carollo didn't do anything corrupt, but that the corruption apparently doesn't rise to criminality because they can't find sufficient evidence, despite the fact they never bothered to find sufficient evidence. Suarez had filed a sworn declaration.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
What I mean is that as the real estate industry goes and particularly the condo market goes, so too goes our economy. And we'll get into that. And it's going to be a problem nationwide. But remember, in Florida in 2007, a year before the Great Recession. Florida's economy started to slip. So we are the canary in the coal mine. We are the bellwether for economic trends. And this is a major one.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
that he witnessed Joe Carollo allegedly blackmail city manager Art Noriega during a phone call.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Blackmail, by the way, would be a crime. But despite the fact that I had actually broken this news online prior to the Broward State Attorney's Office closing out this corruption case, they never bothered to call Jose Suarez. who not only witnessed this alleged blackmail attempt, but alleged a litany of malfeasance.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Jose Suarez says he was present during a tense telephone conversation between Mr. Carollo and Mr. Noriega. During that call, I witnessed Mr. Carollo threaten that if Mr. Noriega did not do what Mr. Carollo instructed... Carollo would reveal to the public incriminating information he had about Mr. Noriega.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
The incriminating information Carollo held over Noriegas head, like a sword, that's what he wrote, was that Mr. Noriega had previously committed fraud on the court and upon his ex-wife by lying under oath and claiming that he had no ownership in a property in Miami-Dade County, when in fact he maintained a secret ownership interest in that party.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
effektiv ein Versuch zu verstecken, oder ein erfolgreicher Versuch, von seiner Frau zu verstecken, während des Verbrechens. So, diese Begründung wurde in yet another lawsuit from the Ball and Chain Guys against the so-called Carollo Cabal, which consists of not only Joe Carollo, but city manager Art Noriega, disgraced ex or fired city attorney slash mob lawyer Tricky Vicky Mendez.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
as well as various other department heads at the city of Miami, who allegedly conspired to weaponize the city government against these private business owners to violate their constitutional rights.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And so what's happening is that the city manager, Artin Riega, and Tricky Vicky filed a motion to dismiss, I guess, the case against them, because the city of Miami taxpayers, Roy, have had to hire over a dozen people defense attorneys to defend all of the corruption going on in the city just in this one case.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
So Jose Suarez filed this declaration basically saying like I have more evidence of malfeasance here that could conceivably prove the culpability of the city manager and the city attorney. And here are some of the highlights from that sworn declaration. These are direct quotes.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Although Mr. Carollo never articulated to me directly a specific directive or plan to punish these individuals and businesses, I was present for countless hours of him ranting about them and often as he looked at documents related to them and their businesses. He was so consumed that he even began referring to them as the 8th Street Boys.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Mr. Carollo's rants would often occur while I was in the car with him, traveling along Southwest 8th Street to observe what might be occurring at the business owned or operated by Mr. Fuller and the others. This happened on more occasions than I can count.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Carollo also regularly directed other staff members to drive him along the corridor where Fullers businesses were located so he could monitor what they were doing day and night. It did not matter. Mr. Carollo would regularly allege some of those businesses were a front for Venezuelan money laundering.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
When Mr. Carollo was unable to get the administration to go after Mr. Fuller and his partners, Carollo enlisted City Attorney Victoria Mendez to do his bidding. Mr. Carollo would often meet with Ms. Mendez in our office or at a few fast food restaurants near City Hall or his commission district. I believe that was a Wendy's, but his favorite is Burger King.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
It became apparent, according to Mr. Suarez, to me that Ms. Mendez went out of her way to appease Mr. Carollo, who had the ability at any time to call for the commission to vote for her removal. It was common knowledge that at least one, possibly two other commissioners, as well as Mayor Francis Suarez, were not happy with Ms. Mendez serving as city attorney.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
My impression was that Mr. Carollo used the possibility of terminating Ms. Mendez as a means of ensuring she carried out his wishes. Although Ms. Mendez was Carollo's primary enabler, Mr. Carollo would also rely on Mary Lugo to get city employees to provide documents or other information he could use in his vendetta against Mr. Fuller and the others.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And we have with us Michael Smith, co-author of that book. Artikel. He's a national reporter for Bloomberg News, headquartered out of their Miami office. Even though you wouldn't know it, it looks like he's in Guantanamo. If you can see him on the video here, he has a beautiful view of a gray wall with some peculiar electronic devices on the wall. It's all very unpleasant.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
I viewed Mr. Carollo's use of Ms. Lugo as a way of circumventing the city charter, which prohibited commissioners from directing city employees to undertake any actions at their request. Ms. Lugo was uniquely qualified to assist Mr. Carollo, since she was one of the top officials in the union that represents general employees in the city of Miami. Mr. Carollo hat Noriega als Alli betrachtet.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Als er der Exekutivdirektor der Miami Parking Authority war, vor Jahrzehnten, hat er viele von Carollos privaten Events gesponsert. Und so hatten sie eine interessante und komplizierte Beziehung. Und Carollo hat damals öffentlich für eine nationwidee Suche nach einem neuen Stadtmanager geholfen.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
But he had always intended to vote for Art Noriega and help install him into office because he knew Art Noriega would play ball with his shady, corrupt and possibly illegal schemes. Mr. Correo leveraged the change in managers in February 2020 and the COVID lockdowns that began in March 2020 to gain control of city government.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
During this time period, there was a noticeable increase in how much power Mr. Carollo was wielding, both on the dais and within the administration, seemingly fully seizing power as Mayor Suarez became focused on cryptocurrency and the tech industry.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
In contrast to the city imposition of violations against Fuller, Mr. Carollo operated with impunity and began to disregard the city's own ordinances. Again, despite all of these allegations in a sworn statement.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
The Broward County State Attorney's Office has never talked to this man or any of the five other key witnesses that I discovered had never been contacted by the office in their so-called corruption investigation. And that is why the Miami Mafia is undefeated. This month marked the transition into the real ID system.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
That would be helpful, certainly. It also marked, by the way, months of days-long waits at DMVs in South Florida, such that they're changing all kinds of rules and laws now, because there were people who were selling reservations in places in line, and they're now trying to outlaw that, which is a, making it easier for people to get appointments, but b, not making the waits any shorter.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Jetzt ist es wie ein klassischer, wie ein old school Ticketmaster. Erinnert ihr euch, wie ihr die Nacht vorher mit einem Tailgate-Tent oder ein paar Beach-Chairs oder so? Das ist, was die Leute machen. Die Leute zeigen sich die Nacht vorher an der DMV an und reisen sich für etwa zwölf Stunden oder mehr, um in die DMV in Südflorida zu kommen. Nur um zu sehen, wie es geht.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Well, not everybody is having such an easy time. Ja, genau. Miami Beach was a sundown town. We've talked about that on this show many times. Sundown town means that people of color were not permitted on the barrier island of Miami Beach after sundown, after dark, unless they went to the police department and actually got their picture taken with a special photo ID, had their thumbprint on it.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
I hope there blink twice if you need help, Michael. We'll send somebody for you. But Michael, tell us really what you're saying here. The thesis of this article is that There's a compounding effect here when you have a community like Miami, which is 50 percent foreign born.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And that was only if they were working at like a nightclub or a restaurant or a hotel that required them to be in Miami Beach after hours. But they would most certainly get pulled over for traveling or driving or being on a bus while black in Miami Beach after dark. And then they would have to show the police, I've been tagged, I'm allowed to be here.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Well, there was a 76-year-old retired postal worker who has lived in Miami without incident for 55 years. Und sie hat jetzt ein kleines Problem, zu beweisen, dass sie geboren wurde und dass sie sogar existiert.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
When you have people from other countries, Canada, South America, Europe, who ordinarily come here both as tourists and with their flight capital to establish either second residency, temporary residency, full time residency. That ain't happening right now because of Trump's immigration policy. So tell me what impact that appears to be happening here. auf dem Miami-Markt.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Okay, so it's only the buyers and the sellers then. It's only the sellers and the landlords who are concerned about selling or renting to immigrants and the immigrants themselves who are concerned about renting or buying. But otherwise everything's fine, is what you're telling me. So you've cited some anecdotal evidence here, but there is some data Das ist ein nationaler Trend.
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#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Jeder Markt, Real estate oder der Markt, der auf Tourismus oder Außerirdischen basiert, wie Florida, ist das nicht. Und lasst mich klar sein. Die Real estate Industrie generiert fast ein Quartal von Floridas ökonomischer Aktivität. Mehr als in jedem anderen Staat. Und es gibt viele Realtors in dem Staat von Florida und besonders in Südflorida. Aber übrigens.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
When we say it generates a quarter, this is right from Bloomberg's story, from Michael's story, almost a quarter of Florida's economic activity, I believe that just refers to real estate specifically.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Then you have obviously a domino effect from there, because these people who are buying this property and moving to Miami, what that does for the sales tax base, what that does for local businesses, what that does for... We're bringing people here, growth being sort of our only industry here. If that stops happening, it's not just the real estate industry that collapses. It's every industry.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
It's real estate. It's hospitality, entertainment, restaurants. It's construction and designing and architecture and all of the businesses that revolve around this. But Michael, get me into the numbers here. What are we seeing decline-wise in Miami? that seems to bear out that we are uniquely f***ed?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And it's not getting better, I have to think, right? Anecdotally, at least.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
But we may never have that kind of granular data ever. But I will say, you said 17%, it is closer to 18%, because it's like 17.8 or 17.9, which again, six times the national decline. That is in the Miami metro market. A market that has how many real estate agents, Michael?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
It's still a big number. I remember Peter Zalewski from Condo Vultures had told me, around the time of the Great Recession, 2007, 2008, there was about 20,000 and change registered real estate agents in the state of Florida. And now it's over 60,000. So that is tripled in less than 17, 18 years. It's remarkable.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Also we're dealing in a state here where despite growth being like our sole industry and whether that's tourism, whether that's real estate, we have a legislature and a governor, Ron DeSantis, who have been, as you guys put it, augmenting federal immigration efforts with one of the toughest state crackdowns in the nation. Just this past week,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Taskforces consisting of federal, local and state law enforcement have arrested over 1,100 suspected quote-unquote criminal immigrants. So you have a generally unwelcoming kind of atmosphere in a state where we rely almost solely on that outside income. So how is that contributing to the fear factor here?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
We're here in downtown Miami, right near the Brickell neighborhood. And anecdotally, what's happening right outside of our window, according to your article in Bloomberg.com. One Miami real estate agent told you that in recent months, two thirds of his clients in the high rise luxury market in the Brickell district have scrapped plans to buy. Two thirds.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Another said that demand isn't only down substantially among visa holders, but supply is also growing because some owners who don't have permanent residency are, as you said earlier, looking to sell their homes here and then buy in Europe or Latin America instead. Are we headed for a total... Now, by the way, one would argue in this... Miami has always subsisted on these boom and bust cycles.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
And it seems that the pandemic boom almost artificially kind of extended this last boom. So you can argue that we're overdue for a correction, as the kids say. But does it seem imminent?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Jetzt, dass mit den Trends, wie sie gehen und der Exacerbation der Immigranten-Krackdown in einer Gemeinschaft von Immigranten, in einer Stadt und Staat, die sich auf dieses Außeneinkommen und Tourismus basiert, ist dieser Verlust unvergesslich? Und was scheint es nationwide zu zeigen?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Michael Smith, read him at Bloomberg.com. This is going to be one to follow, because obviously you're going to follow it right down. We will spiral with you, Michael, and continue to follow this and check in with you. Thanks so much for joining us.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
How depressing. Auf der anderen Seite sind die Preise endlich runtergekommen. Ich denke, ich sollte glücklich sein.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
#BecauseMiami: A Miami Mafia Update
Schau dir das an! Magotov! Schau dir das an, Roy. Wir haben gute Nachrichten für die Lokalisten.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
I suggest that he be happy with the things that I haven't brought up. I never brought up really and never really discussed why you were not at Kobe Bryant's memorial service.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
Bad part.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
Well, we can just watch this. I am pleading with LeBron James as a father. Stop this. Stop this. We all know that Bronny James is in the NBA because of his dad. And I turn around, and he's right here in my face. He said, yo, you got to stop talking about my son. You got to stop with my son. That's my son. That's my son. And I was like, what? I thought it was weak.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
And, you know, I'm half joking, but I kind of mean it. I mean, I have no desire to be a congressional figure or a senator. But if you came to me and you told me I had a legitimate shot to win the presidency of the United States of America, I would definitely consider it. But I, here's the problem.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm a moderate. I'm a centrist. And I'm the kind of person that, do I believe that if I committed myself to knowing politics the way you and others know it, do I believe I could win a Democratic nomination? Hell yes. Particularly the state of affairs that exists, I think it would be a cakewalk. I think I'd take them all out. I really, really believe that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign
I really think I could take them.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
My ears were caught recollecting. He said the Knicks suck. That's what I thought.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Right. Meanwhile, Frank Vogel get fired quick. Darvin Ham get fired quick. Y'all bring these boys in because they what? Darlings, media darlings. And look what they do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Right. Storming out the interview.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
My big dog, salute to the stinkiest fan in the world, the Knicks. My dog, Josh Smith. What's happening, dog?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah, that boy was a pure shooter, but that's all he was.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Damn. At least my boy got the slit back hair down pat, you feel me? At least it ain't going no down wear. Moving on, bro. I got to say, Knicks versus Celtics, dog. I imagine the Celtics, like, it's not going to be as easy as I thought because that Magic skit series got me a little... I don't know. It was certain games where the magic was looking a little too much at certain times.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Being the Knicks ass. I thought it was going to be maybe like, what, 4-5 sweep, damn near a gentleman sweep. But now y'all might push them to six if y'all play right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
bro just answer the question just answer the question the best big but can you call just answer the question just answer the question who's the best big in the east life the miles turner goddamn we we know we know his cat so oh but i don't know evan mobley evan mobley come on come on come on come on now who's the best point guard left in the east come on i'm just asking questions jayden brunson bro michael jayden brunson
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah, they Colin Wayne style. They delicious to go through. You feel me? Lemon pepper. Lemon pepper sprinkles salute the Rick Ross.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Man, how you feeling about these playoffs, bro? Jalen Branson, the cat that became damn near a tiger at this point. What you think, bro?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Right, right. He contributed in the season whenever everybody was hurt. Y'all relied on that boy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
I just feel like Drew Holiday, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, Porzingis, they're going to have something to say about them Wingstocks. You can do a lot on the point guard, but y'all going to need more than just a point guard. Cat going to have to get in that paint if he really want to. Get the job done against the Celtics.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
All that three-point shooting shit, go out the window with the Celtics because they're going to go right down the court and shoot the same. You're going to have to really bang or get somebody in fire trouble. And I just don't see Cat being that fierce no more. Like, he show flashes that he can. But then at the end of the game against Detroit, you see he hit them long-ass threes.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
And I think that's going to come back to bite them, you feel me, in the latter rounds because – But you can't just rely on that. You missed that shot when New York turned on you, sir. And he ain't never had New York turn on him like they turned on Julius Randle.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Bro, sixth man of the year, Peyton Pritchard, bro. Respect on that man's name, bro.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
You tripping out. Deuce, bro. Come on, bro. Deuce barely seeing the flow, man.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Tibbs don't even believe he better than Peyton Pritchard, bro.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah, they're going to have to get the job done. I predict Celtics in five. I would say Celtics in six. Matter of fact, Celtics in six. I give y'all six games you did because I see y'all being fierce enough, but y'all have to show me because that Detroit series wasn't enough for me. Y'all look too... 2-pie in certain scenarios, bruh. And I don't trust Tills more than you don't trust him.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
But good. But yeah, keep playing them boys like that. They're going to run out of gas.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Hell yeah, Tills will say that to that boy, man. That's his problem. Tills ain't never had nobody just talk to him like that. Bro, this ain't working. Let's move it on. You dig? He going to do what he want to do. Run Miles Bridges into the ground. Y'all lucky, Miles. Bro, y'all so lucky, Miles. Bridges be hitting them little cone of threes. Bro, that's what I'm saying.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Y'all the luckiest team in the league thus far. He's going to run out of gas.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
That ain't no confidence saying Knicks in seven. You confident you talking about some Knicks in seven. Boy, I'm confident. The Celtics in five. Damn, Knicks four.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
There we go. There you go. Excuse the machine. Crank it up already. You feel me? NY, stand for next year already. We see it. You dig it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah, that is a W. What you think for him to come up next with these Celtics versus Knicks? You feel me? Because I ain't going to lie to you. Knicks looking good right now, but it's just something about that Knicks franchise that always had me thinking, y'all going to find a way to screw it up, man. What you thinking, bro?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Look, nah, we not healthy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Come on, bro. We healthy right now, bro. We healthy enough to clean up the Knicks. Is the Knicks healthy? Is Jalen Brunson going to follow? Madison Square Garden got holes in the flow. Let's talk about that. Dead spots in the Madison Square Garden. The Mecca hurting your boy. You feel me? Ain't even nobody touching him. He getting hurt by the damn flow.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
You feel me?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Y'all boy playing on the damn rec lead flow, man. Come on, bruh.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Yeah, man. Moving on, man. We already understand. Josh said Knicks in seven, which is pretty rich to me because I say Celtics in four, five, maybe six. You feel me? Just according to what's happening. We ain't going to argue all day because you already know. He think the Knicks are whoever he think they are. They're not that, though. Like, just look at him in his eyes.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
If you're at the house, punch your fingers and your hands towards the screen. Say, get well soon to my brother, Josh. Send a prayer because we already know what that NY stands for. Next year, you dig it. And nothing changed this year.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Alley Oop 8 | Knicks Take On The Celtics, Predictions, and Non Predictions w/ Josh Smith
Tibbs looking at it like, bro, he beating them players, running them in the ground these days, bro. What you think? All right.
The Glenn Beck Program
Democrats Exposed Their Worst Side During Trump's Speech | Guests: Stephen Moore & January Littlejohn | 3/5/25
Well, it is a mandate, and I'm going to explain why. And I don't mind the question, but let me be very clear. I'm no supporter of Trump. I'm a supporter of truth and the facts. And here's the facts. The man won every swing state. He increased in terms of his voter turnout in his favor from the standpoint of blacks, Latinos, and young voters. He increased his numbers in that regard from 2020.
The Glenn Beck Program
Democrats Exposed Their Worst Side During Trump's Speech | Guests: Stephen Moore & January Littlejohn | 3/5/25
89% of the counties shifted to the right. That's a mandate. We can sit up there and play around all we want to. In 2020, Trump didn't win the popular vote. He didn't win the electoral college vote. A matter of fact, the Republicans had won the popular vote, if I remember correctly, since 2004. But they did this year. So 20 years after they last won a popular vote, they won the popular vote.
The Glenn Beck Program
Democrats Exposed Their Worst Side During Trump's Speech | Guests: Stephen Moore & January Littlejohn | 3/5/25
They won the electoral college vote. The man won every swing state. And on top of it all, 89% of the counties shifted. I don't understand how people can look at that and say, there's no mandate. There's a mandate.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
It is a mandate, and I'm gonna explain why. And I don't mind the question, but let me be very clear. I'm no supporter of Trump. I'm a supporter of truth and the facts. And here's the facts. The man won every swing state. He increased in terms of his voter turnout in his favor from the standpoint of blacks. Latinos and young voters, he increased his numbers in that regard from 2020.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
89% of the counties shifted to the right. That's a mandate. I don't understand how people can look at that and say, there's no mandate. There's a mandate.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Chief Justice's Rare Statement on Impeachment, Astronauts Back, Gaza Strikes Resume: AM Update 3/19
The Alien Enemies Act, which was passed into law by the founding generation of this country, was written explicitly to give the president the authority to repel an alien invasion of the United States. That is not something that a district court judge has any authority whatsoever to interfere with.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Chief Justice's Rare Statement on Impeachment, Astronauts Back, Gaza Strikes Resume: AM Update 3/19
I went and decided I would bring them into Treasury, give them a year to investigate the wrongdoing that's going on at the IRS, and then they will go back in. Mr. Shapley will serve as the senior deputy for investigation and enforcement. So we'll have them in Treasury. We'll learn what's been going on. At the IRS, what's been wrong? How could this Hunter Biden nonsense have happened?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Chief Justice's Rare Statement on Impeachment, Astronauts Back, Gaza Strikes Resume: AM Update 3/19
And we're going to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone again, whether they're Republicans, Democrats or independents.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Chief Justice's Rare Statement on Impeachment, Astronauts Back, Gaza Strikes Resume: AM Update 3/19
That is not something that a district court judge has any authority whatsoever to interfere with.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Elitist Maddow Smears MSNBC Bosses, and Culture Shift on Biological Reality, with Batya Ungar-Sargon, and Marcellus and Annemarie Wiley | Ep. 1013
LGBTQ rights and all of that stuff, I'm in full support of that. But when transgender athletes, men, are transitioning to women and they're competing in female sports, that's a different animal to me. That's not just about LGBTQ rights. That's about prying on the rights of females out there everywhere who were born female and they're at a decided disadvantage.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Oh, shoot, it's East or West, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Three.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Liberty Hangout TV, Ben, thoughts?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Well, first of all, let me say this. I got love for Megyn Kelly and stuff like that. So I'm here to help. I'm here to help. Here's the deal. You're not a sports person. And you still doing better than me. And you still doing better than me. I got less than 30% of my bracket right. So I am in no position to judge you negatively at all. I've been awful.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
But I did pick Florida and Duke to meet for the national title. And I'm still in play for that. I got Duke winning it all. I get a chance to watch maybe about college basketball 5% of the time because I have to spend so much time watching the NFL and the NBA and stuff. I don't get a chance to watch a lot of college basketball. So other than those elite teams, I'm guessing just like you. Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I will. First things first, you say you grew up near St. John's. I went to Thomas Edison High School. I went to Thomas Edison Vocational Technical High School right across the Grand Central Parkway. I studied electrical installation. So we're siblings in that regard, so let's get that out the way. Number two, Clemson, they just didn't show up. They didn't show up in the first half.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
They forgot how to play basketball. They were awful, and that's what happened to them. Number three, St. John's, when you look at St. John's with Rick Pitino and those guys, they couldn't shoot. They shot 9%, 2 of 22 from three-point range. They shot 28% from the field. They were awful. They were an elite defensive team. Offensively, they struggled shooting. And then their star, R.J.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Lewis Jr., Rick Pitino inexplicably benches him. for the last several minutes of the game, which is a huge, huge story because it's something that you just don't do. Now to get to your question about in terms of why you've got mid-majors 0 and 6 in this NCAA tournament, no Cinderella's winning. NIL trade portal. Here's what happens.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Because there's money out there for the college athletes now, Megan, what happens is, is that
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
if you are a program even if you're a mid-major and there's somebody that's lower than you you got more money to offer that athlete to come to your program if you're a big time program you've got money over you ain't got they don't have any money for you at this institution we got about 250 million 250 000 for you from the trade you know for the nil you can come over to us
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
So those individuals that had talent that were at mid-majors or lesser schools are having an opportunity to upgrade their stature in terms of the programs they get associated with because those programs have money that the smaller programs don't have, NIL and beyond.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And that is what has compromised it because you, I just said today on First Take, my show on ESPN, I said, let me tell y'all something. if this continues, is going to be the death of college basketball because at this point, college basketball is all about March Madness.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And if you can't look at a Cinderella, if you can't look at a team that would come up with an engine that could, per se, if you don't have that because athletes are departing from those programs to go to bigger programs, okay, then college basketball is going to cease to exist the way we know and love it as it pertains to March Madness. That is where your problem lies.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
If I remember correctly, I think that's who it was. What's that? I think that's who it was, but I'm not sure.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I can't remember. Drew Timmy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Well, it's Cooper Flagg. But when you look at Proctor, he can really shoot. Hit 9 of 10 shots yesterday, 7 of 8 from three-point range. He was absolutely sensational. But Duke overall completely outclassed Baylor. Baylor was just not in their league. That's number one. Number two, remember that Cooper Flagg really injured his ankle, came down really hard.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
in the ACC conference tournament had to miss the semifinals and the conference championship games, which Duke ended up winning without him. So Coach Jaya has succeeded Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Coach K, as he's affectionately known. And he's really, really kept this program on a level we're accustomed to seeing Duke's program. So that's major, major props to him. But Flagg is something special.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
They've been talking about him for years. We've watched him. His game is pure. He's got a J. He can get to the hole. He doesn't look big with a lot of girth, but he's strong. He can get to the hole. He can finish at the basket. He's got all the requisite tools. He's expected to be the number one overall pick. in the upcoming NBA draft.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And so when you look at his size, his skill set, his ball handling skills, passing ability, shooting ability, et cetera, and you're going to look at him, he led the team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. That's what he did for Duke this year as a freshman. And he's a freshman. That's what he brings to the table. And so he's legit. And then... The marketability, you'll appreciate this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Get ready. You know what I'm saying? Because, again, and not to make light of it, you know, our president with the assassination attempt, remember, he's got blood trickling down his face. He gets up. And one of the things I said at the time was, that's the American flag behind him. You can't get a better photo op than that. It's impossible. It's impossible.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
OK, well, flag, what have they already started doing? Not that they're feeling off of the feeding off of that. I certainly don't mean to imply that. But when they talk about this kid because of his name, you see promotional and marketing tools with him behind the American flag. Flag. Flag behind him. They're going to market this boy. And he's going to live up to it because he can play.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And it's smart on their part. It really, really is. Because he's going to be somebody that typifies and personifies the American Green. You don't hear about big-time college players coming from Maine. He does. And he's going to bring a game to the table because he can play.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Well, they're not as good. They're not as good. I will tell you this, though. I think that Carmelo Anthony, the great Carmelo Anthony, used to play in the NBA, one of the great, great scorers in NBA history. His son is going to Syracuse next season, four-star player, got a lot of skills, considered probably the best player in New York. He's going to Syracuse.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
So I think that you'll see somewhat of a resurrection. I'm going to tell you what really, really disappoints you about Syracuse without you even realizing it. Those days that you're talking about, Megan, they were in the Big East. That's not the case anymore. What happened in the Big East? It was Georgetown. It was Villanova. It was St. John's. It was even Providence, for crying out loud.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I mean, Big East was the place to be. That Syracuse being at another conference just doesn't feel right. And I think from a recruiting standpoint, they've been somewhat compromised in that regard as well, because you're looking at them and you're saying, this ain't the team. This ain't the program that had Dwayne Pearl Washington, the greatest show in the history of college basketball.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I'm talking about a showman. This brother could dance on anybody. OK, they had Carmelo Anthony. Back in the day, they had Billy Owens. They had Derek Coleman. They had Sherman.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
There you go. Okay. Billy just texted me about a month ago or so. I hadn't spoken to him in years.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
They were like, you're kidding. Everybody's coming. You see teams, you see basketball programs, they're having like 12, 13,000. You go to the Carrier Dome, 30, 40,000. 50,000 people watching a basketball game. That's what the Carrier Dome and the Syracuse program gave to you. And I think them being out of the Big East somewhat compromises their allure to some degree.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
It's just my opinion, but I think it's an educated one.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
That's a valid point. That's a valid point. And it was the hypocrisy of the NCAA. And they sort of compromised college sports where it's harmed, particularly the sport of college basketball at this particular moment in time. Here, certainly, guys were getting paid back in the day or whatever. But you're talking about you having a star player. And you know what?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
He couldn't go home and get some money to go home to see his family for the holidays when you know he couldn't afford it. Or he could go in a bookstore and there's jerseys in his name or whatever. And if somebody gave him a free jersey, it was an NCAA violation, even though he's generating millions of dollars for the program. This is the ridiculousness and the hypocrisy of the NCAA.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
that reigned supreme for many, many years. So now that their comeuppance has arrived, when we're talking about NIL, when we're talking about the trade portal, when we're talking about players being paid, when we're talking about agents being involved where coaches feel embezzled, for crying out loud, by these agents and stuff like that,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
It's something that the NCAA brought upon itself because for so long they took advantage of guys that came from depraved environments or poverty-stricken environments. You knew that you said, okay, they're at our mercy. You gave them a scholarship and called it a day while you were collecting a boatload of the benefits that they generated. And so ultimately that change has come.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And as a result, these folks are taking full advantage of it. But in the process, the real authentic people feel that you had the purity of the sport itself and what you loved about it most seems to be evaporated before our very eyes because of it all now.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
On the Supreme Court. And here's a little more for you from the Spring Breakers down someplace south of the border.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Well, I think that... Here's the problem. I mean, when we think about it right now, you have a very successful show on Sirius XM. We follow you on YouTube, stuff like that. Me, YouTube, you got all of these outlets and everybody's got a podcast and everybody's got something going on, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And I think that unlike years in the past where you had to go to school, capture an education, and find a way to finagle that into building a prosperous life for yourself, something that could sustain and hopefully elevate your quality of life. I don't think you have a lot of kids looking at that today. The late, great coach John Chaney from Temple University
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
lamented decades ago that we're living in a microwave society. Everybody wants something now. So they don't prioritize learning. They prioritize getting by so they can get there somewhere down the line. sooner than later. That's the America that I think that we're living in. That's the America that I think a lot of people are leaning on.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And they're not looking at the forest from the trees and they're not looking at the marathon instead of the sprint. That's just their mentality. And that's the challenge that we have as a society. That's what we got to look forward to. And I think that somebody such as yourself, who's been, you know, everybody looks at you as hosting this show.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
They don't realize what an outstanding reporter you've been throughout the years. They don't look at it that way. They don't see it that way. They don't see somebody like you or me who've been in the business for decades and built something. They want it now. You understand? And with your kids, my kids, anybody else, you see everybody, everything's about now. Nothing's about waiting.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Nothing's about working it through. Nothing is about failing and falling and getting back up and persevering and understanding there's trials and tribulations with everything. Everything is about now. And the world is going to come to an end if we don't get what we want now. So we're in school. Let's have a good time. We here to have a good time.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Yeah, we got to go to class, but we really want the parties. We really want to hang out. We really want to enjoy ourselves. Like, that's the purpose that you have in going to school. This is their mentality. And they view us, parents, supervisors, bosses, adults, et cetera, they view all of us as the problem. We just don't get it. We're archaic. We don't understand.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
what it is that they have to endure what their life is like and so they co-mingle with one another and they feed themselves this kind of nonsense and ultimately they got to find out reality they're going to run into reality sooner than later but it's always the case and it it doesn't matter race ethnicity whatever the case may be none of that matters it seems to be something that's going on universally and it's just a challenge that adults in the room have to face
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
It's not popular to say, and most men are scared to say these things, I'm not going to be. I'm going to give it to you straight.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
First of all, as men, we are physical creatures first. We're not limited to that. But that's where we start. We covet what we see. So what happens is when you're young, you're coveting what you see. The reason why I somewhat disagree with you about the quote unquote hot young ladies and how it eventually ends. Yes, that's true. but it ends sooner than later.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And the reason why is because even when she's hot while she's young and that young dude wants to get with her, once he gets with her, he's looking for the next hot one in a lot of instances. right there at the time that she's young. It's not like she finds out when she gets older. She finds out when she's in college.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And so it hits her relatively quickly. So the challenge at that particular moment in time is, are you going to embrace the fact that There are individuals that can be that way, and that's who you wanna ward off, and this is how you ward them off, or you so caught up in your ego that you're gonna say, on to the next.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
We live in a society, back in the day, you had young ladies, they're not sitting around and like, you know, okay, I'm just going to go to the next guy and I'm gonna move on with my life. They sort of lick their wounds to some degree because they're hurt and they want to be respected and what have you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
In today's society, even though you have a lot of young ladies that may feel that way, in the same breath, we live in a society that, you know, this cover. And there's always somebody to uplift her spirits and allows her to believe that she might be right and him to believe he may be right when he's hanging out with his boys. And there's very, very little accountability.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And that's really where it comes down to because, OK, he doesn't find me good looking. He doesn't find me to be the greatest, but I can go on to the next and I'll be just fine. And you're not thinking about how that's going to affect you morally if you keep getting rejected and you refuse to look at yourself until it's too late down the road.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
The more introspection you do at a very early age, the more lethal you are when you're older because you're not going to fall for the foolishness the way you once did. Ladies usually learn that a hell of a lot quicker than the fellas. But because the fellas don't learn it quick enough, you find problems wherever you go, which elevates the frustration of women.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And that's why you have so much dissension a lot of times because you keep running into the same problems because the fellas don't learn till later. The ladies learn earlier.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I'm not considering it. I was recently in the news for agreeing to a new contract extension with ESPN. My life is pretty damn well. I really don't need politics. I don't need that headache. I'm not thinking about it at all. And I've said that I think it's ridiculous that I am a candidate. But the more I think about it, I understand it. The Democratic Party is an absolute mess.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And they are devoid of leadership on a national level. I am a fan of Governor Westmore of Maryland, Josh Shapiro, who I had the pleasure of interviewing on my podcast during Super Bowl week for Pennsylvania. I respect these guys and what have you, but I'm talking about a national voice, meaning somebody in the House or the Senate or somebody in the business community that resonates on the left.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
No, there's none of that because they've been pulled too far to the left. And, you know, it's not popular for me to say because primarily I voted Democratic throughout my life as I have never been shy about articulating, particularly for the presidency. But, you know, right is right. And I watched you, Megan, leading up to the election. And I just had to say I was finding myself like, damn.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
She's right. She's right. I'm looking for something to disagree about. And I'm like, I'm going to get you eventually. You know, she's on them. You know, she's on them. You know, and so I look at things and I'm a moderate. I'm a centrist. And I'm the kind of person that do I believe that if I committed myself to knowing politics the way you and others know it, do I believe I could win politics?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
a Democratic nomination? Hell yes. Particularly the state of affairs that exists. I think it would be a cakewalk. I think I'd take them all out. I really, really believe that. I really think I could take them. And maybe in three years from now, I'll feel a bit differently. I just can't imagine that's going to happen. I'm not a politician.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I'm not knowledgeable enough about all the intricacies that come along with politics.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I can't stop. So I watch people like yourself and others on both sides of the aisle. I read, I pay attention, but I'm no aficionado. But it's just so bad on the left right now. And I tell you, I do believe that I'd be a formidable candidate because I know I know how to debate. I would look forward to going up against folks on the right and the left. And I would be about common sense.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And I would be about, you know what? We're not going to sit up there and look at, I don't care if it's Trump. I don't care if it's Vice President Vance. I don't care if it's Rubio. I don't care if it's Hegseth. I don't care who the hell it is. I don't care if it's Megyn Kelly. Damn it, if you're right, you're right. What's the crime in saying, that's a good point? I got to think about that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
You got a good point there. That would be so disarming. And that you do the same in return if we're going up against. But I think that they completely surrendered themselves to the extreme. or think about MAGA right, the fact of the matter is whatever they were saying about MAGA right, they were no better on the left. It was embarrassing. It was a disgraceful performance.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
You are absolutely right when you were pointing out how they hoodwinked the public. We all knew there was slippage. And if you remember when I called out President Biden at the time, it was a year before the debate. A year. I said, yo, Something's missing. He's not there. He's not going to make it to the Democratic National Convention, okay? You got to get another candidate. I was excoriated.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I was raked through the coals. Who the hell is he? What does he know? Stick to sports or whatever. But look at you now, because I was right. I was right about that. I was right about Kamala. I was right about you leaning to the extreme left. Woke culture, cancel culture, and all of this stuff in between. You were focusing on transgender. First of all, you didn't even focus on the LGBTQ community.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
You literally focused on one element of that community with transgender folks, which make up less than 1% of the population. You're talking about the borders and it's no problem, even though even Obama himself deported more people than Trump did.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And so for Biden to go completely against that, for Kamala Harris to sign off on it, there were so many elements and increments where I'm looking at the right and I'm saying I could have some problems. with some of the things that they're suggesting. I can look at certain things and say, yo, I'm not vibing with that. That's not what I want for this country.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
But with what the left did, they were in no moral position to say anything. Yet they tried to act like they were. And you know where the proof is about how sad things are, Megan? The election is over. The man has been in office for months. And they are still acting like they're on the campaign trail, spewing the same old stuff they were doing during the campaign.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I think the man won every swing state, elevated his votes in the black, the Hispanic and young voters. OK, he's increased in every possible category imaginable. He won a popular vote for the first time for the Republicans since 2004. You would think they would say, man, we got to change up. Instead, they're walking around talking about there's no mandate. There's no mandate at all.
The Megyn Kelly Show
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I'm like, really? We have that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
It is a mandate, and I'm going to explain why. And I don't mind the question, but let me be very clear. I'm no supporter of Trump. I'm a supporter of truth and the facts. And here's the facts. The man won every swing state. He increased in terms of his voter turnout in his favor from the standpoint of blacks. Latinos and young voters. He increased his numbers in that regard from 2020.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
89% of the counties shifted to the right. That's a mandate. I don't understand how people can look at that and say, there's no mandate. There's a mandate.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I think so. I've known Whoopi for years. You know, I look at The View. They're my colleagues. We all work for the same company. I root for them. I will never root against them. But we're not going to lie to each other. And I'm not going to sit up there and let them lie to themselves. You know, because there's a mandate. Now, understand what I mean by a mandate, Megan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
I'm not saying that that means that Trump gets to do whatever he wants to do, whatever way he wants to do it without a complaint or any level of skepticism or anything like that. What I mean by a mandate is that they're more interested in what he's doing than what you were saying you wanted to do. Don't come and act like the American public wants to flow with you. They don't. They don't.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Because they're sick and tired of what you've been doing. They're sick and tired of how you've been doing it. They're sick and tired of how you hoodwink. We got to a point where people were worried about their jobs if they didn't pronounce the right pronoun. You have any idea how ridiculous that is? Of course you do. It's a rhetorical question.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
You would know that better than me because you cover this stuff every day. I'm sitting there and I feel like I've been pulled into this because of how utterly ridiculous they are. What happened? And this is the same party that raved about Bill Clinton. Well, what happened with Bill Clinton? Takes office in 1992. 1994, Newt Gingrich in the House. They do their thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
They collaborate and they work together. Yes, he departed with a surplus, but that was from assistance from folks on the right. Newsflash, that means going across the aisle and working together. That means finding compromise, not just from a policy perspective, but from the psyche of America.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
i'm talking about like if i look at you i got into this argument with with sean hannity the other day i said this is the problem that i have with some of y'all i said you might have inside information and i had this issue with bill o'reilly too you might have inside information you may know something and because you know it's okay well guess what Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Captain America. Captain America. I can't believe it. My jaw's on the floor.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Absolutely. I think it's I think it's a beautiful moment. I really, really do. And I think I was at the UFC event when John Bones Jones won a fight at Madison Square Garden. And, you know, he started doing the Trump dance, per se, and what have you. But, you know, the bottom line is this weather.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
people want want to accept it or not the 47th president of the united states of america is donald trump and when you are doing something on behalf of america and you see your president in attendance there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing what that individual did period
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Some people that didn't vote for Trump, that can't stand what he stands for, et cetera, et cetera, they'd have a problem with it. Okay, it's one thing for you not to say, it's one thing for you to say, well, I wouldn't do it because I didn't vote for him. It's another thing entirely for you to have a problem with any young man, any American.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
that would choose to do that for the president of the United States. It's respecting the office. And it's something that I think that we have forgotten about. Now, just as an aside, got to remember something. I have several issues with some of the things that I see Trump doing or some things that he may have done in the past. But I knew him before he ran for the presidency, Megan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
uh we used to go to his boxing events at trump casinos we used to see him at madison square garden uh i saw him one time where he introduced me to bill o'reilly for crying out loud um and some of the problems some of the the things that you hear people saying about him black and otherwise we didn't say that about him then he had no problem with him whatsoever
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
But somehow, some way, now that he's in the position that he's in, we want to come up with every incendiary thing that we can muster. And obviously, to some degree, he influences that because you like him to behave better. But the politicians on the opposite side certainly influence that rhetoric against him. And too many people fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And as a result, we engage in vitriol as opposed to looking at them and saying, excuse me, I don't want to hear that. You're an elected official. Figure out a way to work with him anyway. Don't play that with me. Yeah, I can complain. They didn't send my behind up to Capitol Hill as an elected official. I didn't campaign and ask you to elect me. You did. Figure it out and work with him.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And far too many occasions, people are not doing that. And I'm not letting them off the hook on that. He's the president. You got to work with him. Period. Get over it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
Anytime for you, Megan. I love your show. I love listening to you. I love watching you. I'm always here anytime you want me. And by the way, I see you upping your knowledge in sports. Don't come take my job, please. Please don't do that. I like my job. I like my job.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
You're good. Nothing to fear, literally. Thanks again.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And I could hear the footsteps approaching. So I jumped out. I was like, boom! With the arms up. Big body motions. Loud. It wasn't them. It was like some 40-year-old man with a bald head who was like, ah! And then he and I were just staring at each other, wondering why I had just done this to him, looking at each other.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And he started laughing and then I started laughing and we both wound up doubled over laughing. So funny because it's a perfect stranger wondering. I don't know if he knew who I was or what, but he was clearly wondering why the crazy lady was trying to terrify him as he boarded the Delta flight. And then my family had the extra bonus of having seen it all because they were next.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
And they watched exactly what I tried to do so terribly and artfully.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Clooney Lectures About Journalism, and Dems Lean on Bernie and AOC, with Ben Shapiro and Stephen A. Smith | Ep. 1033
He's right. It's so hard. Now more than ever, I'm needed.