Jake Tapper

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair, expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dan Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[3] Hi there.

[4] Hi, Lily Padman.

[5] Can you hear this?

[6] Yeah, I can hear that big time.

[7] I was tapping for Jake Tapper.

[8] Oh, that's a good way to really cement his name into your mind.

[9] That is today's expert, Jake Tapper.

[10] Jake Tapper is a journalist, TV anchor, an author, and a cartoonist.

[11] He has the funnest life story that lands.

[12] him at CNN, which we get into.

[13] He, of course, is the host of the lead with Jake Tapper.

[14] Also, he is on State of the Union on CNN on Sundays.

[15] And he has four books, the outposts, an untold story of American valor.

[16] And then three, which is a series, the Hellfire Club, the Devil May Dance, and the new one, all the demons are here.

[17] You'll get to hear how damn charming and fun Jake Tapper is and some behind the scenes stuff about vacationing with Jake, which is, hopefully, Amazing.

[18] Very fun.

[19] He was very charismatic that Mr. Tapper.

[20] We love Mr. Tapper.

[21] So please enjoy Jake Tapper.

[22] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[23] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[24] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[25] Where are you staying?

[26] I'm staying at the Hedry.

[27] We're both friends with Kimmel.

[28] That's how we know one another.

[29] Yes.

[30] Have you ever stayed at his house?

[31] I have.

[32] The barn.

[33] I feel like that's a great honor.

[34] It's a huge honor.

[35] It's very comfortable, yeah?

[36] It's so nice.

[37] So once you stay there, when you come back, aren't you inclined to go like, well, why am I going to go to a hotel?

[38] It's called Jimmy.

[39] Except, as you know, we're about to take advantage of his hospitality in the west at his fishing lodge.

[40] In a gratuitous way, too.

[41] We just come and we devour and then we leave.

[42] I am very appreciative and I'm constantly finding nice gifts to send him throughout the year to express my devotion and dedication and appreciation.

[43] For instance, there is a evil can evil poster that I bought in an auction.

[44] You will see when you go there to the lodge that they have had.

[45] He's already been presented this or this you'll be bringing it with you.

[46] I sent him a picture of it and said, I was going to buy this at auction, but I want to make sure it's something you like.

[47] And he said, who wouldn't like that?

[48] Right.

[49] Yeah.

[50] Evil can evil, baby.

[51] Well, he's a big evil -can -eval fan.

[52] As am I. And as is a character in your book.

[53] Yeah, Evil -Kineval's character in the book.

[54] You and Jimmy and PJ Clap, aka Johnny Oxville, your enthusiasm for him convinced me to make him a character.

[55] No, no, no, no. That's not the impetus for it, is it?

[56] Yes.

[57] The evil -can -eval thing completely passed me by.

[58] You're exactly my brother's age.

[59] And so really, you were pinnacle evil era.

[60] I was a little young for it, but my brother was so into it who was five years older than me that the toys were around and then I became obsessed with it.

[61] But did you like Kiss?

[62] I had friends who liked it, and I just kind of marched to the beat of my own drummer.

[63] They liked Kiss, and I liked Elvis.

[64] Oh, wow.

[65] I had friends who were super into Kiss.

[66] I remember when a comic book was published.

[67] Supposedly, the red ink was their blood.

[68] Yeah, yeah.

[69] And I don't know why the evil can evil thing passed me by, but it was thinking about, well, I need to do my next novel about the 70s and we're hanging out in Idaho with you.

[70] Well, but really quick, can I just ask, why did you say the next?

[71] Because this is a continuation of the previous two.

[72] The first book takes place in the 50s.

[73] Okay, so it's decade by decade.

[74] Yeah, the second book takes place in the 60s.

[75] And this book is the kids of the main characters from the first two books in the 70s.

[76] And I was going to bypass the 70s.

[77] But then a woman journalist slightly older said, you can't bypass the 70s.

[78] They're great.

[79] And I'm like, really?

[80] They seemed super lame to me. But she was right and I was wrong because the 70s are nuts.

[81] So the one thing I'm going to give Jimmy, I got him a copy of a river runs through it, autographed by Gordon McLean.

[82] And there are only 300 of them because he died right after the publication of the book.

[83] Last year, I did a painting of him holding a fish.

[84] Remember this.

[85] Yeah, I kind of put it up somewhere, and I don't think it's still there.

[86] I don't think it's still there.

[87] Well, you guys are a match made in heaven, then, because he also is the most thoughtful gift giver, I think of all time.

[88] He's just the most generous, kindest person.

[89] Nobody who doesn't know him would think that.

[90] They think he's like a frat guy, but he's not.

[91] He's the opposite.

[92] He's the sweetest.

[93] He is.

[94] Yeah, it's crazy.

[95] Okay, now back to you knew two years ago when we first met up there, that you were already working on the book, I guess.

[96] Yeah, something with the 70s.

[97] I knew one plot would be the plot with Lucy, the daughter, and that would be related to the Murdox.

[98] Because the 70s is the rise of tabloid journalism.

[99] That's when everything we're dealing with now first really came into the U .S. in 76, 77.

[100] 77 was the Summer Sam.

[101] So I knew that plot line, but I needed something else that was 70s -ish, and you guys loved Evil Caneval so much.

[102] And Jimmy has that New York Daily News front page.

[103] It's about Nixon pardoning Ford, but most of the cover is about Evil Caneval.

[104] screwing up Snake River, the Snake River jump at 74?

[105] Well, you know what's interesting?

[106] I don't know their unique interest in evil, but mine, and I think it's what you kind of hone in on in the book, which is I'm more interested in a guy who becomes a huge star, stays in his small town, and then just lets all of his demons run free.

[107] I'm more interested in the evil behind the scenes.

[108] I mean, by all accounts, a bully and an alcoholic and a rough dude.

[109] Wife -beater, anti -Semite.

[110] I can keep going.

[111] I'll stop that.

[112] Those are enough.

[113] Ran Ruxhaw over Butte, Montana, right?

[114] Funny enough, I may have told you this last year, but we were filming an episode of Top Gear up there.

[115] And I was like, you know, this town is so small.

[116] I guarantee everyone has an evil story.

[117] And turn up our waitress at this steakhouse.

[118] She was roughly my age -ish, maybe five years older than me. I said, did you ever meet evil?

[119] And she goes, oh, let me show you this picture.

[120] She had on her phone.

[121] She rode on his motorcycle in the Butte Town Parade.

[122] On the gas tank.

[123] No one's got helmets on.

[124] He's, I'm sure hammered.

[125] And I'm like, yeah, even this woman has written on the motorcycle.

[126] So many of the flourishes in the book are real.

[127] He really did have this cane and you would unscrew it.

[128] And there was like wild turkey in it.

[129] Like, that's real.

[130] And he lived at the Butte Country Club and right in sight of this giant Madonna figure that they built up there.

[131] You couldn't invent evil can evil.

[132] No. And the behind the scene stuff is even more fascinating than what was on TV.

[133] And he was jumping helicopters.

[134] Yeah.

[135] There's a scene early in the book where he's trying to jump over a tank of sharks.

[136] Oh, my gosh.

[137] But this was based on a real thing.

[138] He really did this and he really screwed it up before they ran it on TV.

[139] And this is like six or seven months before Fonz jumped the shark.

[140] Whoa.

[141] He invented that.

[142] So they got the idea from the actual.

[143] They must have.

[144] Yeah.

[145] They must have.

[146] I mean, he invented it, but not as a, this is a sign of the end of an era kind of thing.

[147] Probably the end of the era for him was the failure to jump over Snake River, that debacle.

[148] which was the pinnacle of his stunt devil dumb.

[149] Wait, where did you get the book?

[150] Do you, like, have auction sites, the one for Jimmy?

[151] How do you get this cool stuff?

[152] That I got from ABE Books.

[153] A -Books is like every used bookstore in the world on one website.

[154] Oh.

[155] And you can go onto it and you can search.

[156] Monica's horny for some early edition Harry Potter.

[157] Yeah.

[158] Oh, you'll find all that stuff.

[159] And there's a search engine on the left where you can do like first edition.

[160] autographed.

[161] Oh, my God.

[162] And then you can compare, you know, this store in Australia offers at this price and this store.

[163] But the other thing that's not great is, now they're all connected and they can all see what everybody else is.

[164] It's made prices go up.

[165] Yeah.

[166] Before A. Books existed, you could go online and just, like, go to a store.

[167] And I got this incredible letter that Jackie Robinson wrote to Leon Uris, who had sent him a copy of Exodus.

[168] And this exchange, I got it for like a few hundred dollars because I don't think the bookstore really had any true appreciation for the rarity of it.

[169] Yeah.

[170] Well, again, pre -internet, pre -synthesation of all the different outlets.

[171] How do you know what the marketplace is?

[172] Right.

[173] And there's one of them.

[174] Or there's two of them.

[175] Yeah.

[176] It's almost impossible.

[177] He's not a huge reader, Jimmy.

[178] He works harder than almost anyone I know.

[179] Yeah, he doesn't have time to read.

[180] Because like, I'll write a novel every two or three years.

[181] And he'll read that.

[182] And they'll be like one of like three books he reads that year.

[183] But anyway, I asked him if he read River Runs through it.

[184] Because it's in addition to being a beautiful movie, an amazing story.

[185] And he said he had.

[186] And he liked it.

[187] And I'm like, okay, good.

[188] I got my neck.

[189] I got a little gift.

[190] So I got a little gift.

[191] So I will.

[192] So I will.

[193] be giving that to him.

[194] I'm a Philistine.

[195] I've only seen the film, and only because Brad Pitt looked gorgeous in it.

[196] He looks gorgeous in everything.

[197] I know, but that one is pretty peak pit.

[198] And the notion that Redford is kind of passing the baton to him is the most beautiful man. There's a lot going on there.

[199] There is.

[200] You know, it's based on a true story.

[201] Gordon McLean and his brother really did die in a bar fight.

[202] In Montana?

[203] Well, that was the legend, although I think it actually, in the movie in the book, it was in Montana, but in reality, it was in Chicago.

[204] Uh -huh.

[205] But he did die in a bar fight, or he's found dead afterward.

[206] Anyway, sad story.

[207] Yeah, yeah.

[208] Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it down.

[209] No, it's fine.

[210] Can I just say also one of the greatest thrills of this week that we do when we go on this Idaho thing?

[211] One of the most fun eavesdroppings I ever had.

[212] First of all, I just kind of figured that you and PJ Clap, aka John Knoxville, were just like old friends.

[213] No, no. Two trips ago, he and I actually did finally bond.

[214] And it was over.

[215] And I was listening to it.

[216] It was the most awesome conversation I'd ever eavesdropped on in my life.

[217] What had happened is on the ride to the whitewater rafting, which is a long ride.

[218] It's like a 45 minute ride on a 15 passenger.

[219] van.

[220] We started getting into our love of Whalen Jennings and David Allen Coe, all this outlaw country stuff.

[221] And then I think it then segued into Bert Reynolds.

[222] Each of them had a Bert Reynolds story.

[223] They're both such recantors, right?

[224] They both have such storytelling skill.

[225] Again, I thought, I don't know why I thought it, but I thought you guys, you know.

[226] No, it makes sense.

[227] We were both on MTV.

[228] We're both dirtbags.

[229] Punked and Jackass.

[230] At the same time, roughly the same age, he's a little older maybe, like wife and kids.

[231] I just figured like these guys are best friends.

[232] And then I was just eavesdropping on their conversation, each one of them telling about their idolization and encounter with Burr Reynolds.

[233] And I just sat there with my mouth shut for like two hours, just listening to this.

[234] It was one of the greatest conversations I've overheard.

[235] I wish I'd recorded it, but then it's better in my memory.

[236] It probably is better.

[237] But I do think we need to lay a little groundwork.

[238] So as we're dancing around, we get invited.

[239] Jimmy has his fishing lodge.

[240] It's open to the public.

[241] South Fork Lodge.

[242] It's fucking beautiful.

[243] Everyone should try to go there once in a lifetime.

[244] And he shuts it down for a week and he invites a select group of his friends.

[245] There's events, right?

[246] You can sign up for like horseback riding, archery, this and that.

[247] My wife this year was like, do you want to this?

[248] And I'm like, hunt, I want to talk.

[249] I want to go there and sit at a table and talk to everybody.

[250] You're not doing any activities?

[251] I'm doing the whitewater rafting because I have to because Lincoln loves it.

[252] I took a beautiful picture of you and your family at the end of one of those whitewater.

[253] Honestly, one of the best photographs I've ever taken.

[254] You did.

[255] That's what I want to get to is so two trips ago was where, you and I first met.

[256] And I liked you immediately and I never get to talk to someone that's an anchor at CNN.

[257] So I had a lot of questions and curiosities and you're very open book and it was great.

[258] But then the best thing that happened from my point of view is we got stuck in a white water rafting boat together and you were at the front of the boat and I was at the very back of the boat.

[259] So you have no idea what I'm doing, but I know exactly what you're doing.

[260] This is a very enjoyable four deaths.

[261] So I don't know.

[262] Tell them from your point of view.

[263] Are you adventurous?

[264] I'm no Johnny Knoxville He's in a tricky sitch Because yeah Johnny Knoxville's there So he's clearly the craziest of everyone And then you've got your son with you So you've got to be a masculine man Who braves these rattles I'm there so it really is some intense rapids Right and you're not going to hurt yourself But you might get soaked The raft will go down And then it could get stuck And what Dax is doing is He's yelling, come on Jake Paddle And he just won't stop Exclusively Jake Just me I'm screaming from the back There's a good three or four people with the front of the raft.

[265] I mean, it's funny.

[266] I'm screaming, dig!

[267] Dig!

[268] Every time we got into the shit.

[269] It was legitimately hilarious.

[270] But I was the...

[271] Were you panicking a little bit?

[272] No, no, but I was the butt of the joke.

[273] But also, I got to say exactly what my dad always told me, which I truly believe in, is you only tease people you like.

[274] Yeah.

[275] I was so liked you, and I just wanted to be connected with you the whole boat trip.

[276] But here's the funniest part, because it's the scariest part of the river.

[277] So it is the part where they have a camera set up.

[278] Oh, sure.

[279] So the photographs come in.

[280] And there's like 30 of them.

[281] And because I'm the sucker.

[282] I download them all and send up to everybody else, right?

[283] And that is me digging and digging, doing everything Dax is saying, getting so.

[284] And all Dax is doing is holding the order.

[285] I think I've actually seen it.

[286] Yeah, we showed it on Kimmel.

[287] Oh.

[288] He's holding the oar up and flexing.

[289] That's what he's doing.

[290] For the camera.

[291] His pipes look good, by the way.

[292] I mean, he's a strong guy.

[293] He brings his weights with him to Idaho.

[294] So, like, he probably did a few sets before the ride.

[295] Of course.

[296] Pre -pump.

[297] He looked good, but there's no question about that.

[298] But it was so funny because he's literally doing no work.

[299] Yep, and screaming at you.

[300] And it was, and that was the look on your faces, working your ass off.

[301] Like, we might die.

[302] With my son next to my little boy.

[303] Yes, yes.

[304] And I've been back screaming and flexing and not doing anything.

[305] But it was very fun.

[306] That was a moment where I was like, I love this guy.

[307] Same, same same.

[308] I was like, I love this guy.

[309] This is so fucking fun.

[310] And when I wasn't yelling that at you, I was like flirting with our guide because he was so mancho, right?

[311] You're a blast on that, true.

[312] As are you.

[313] And of course, his daughters are.

[314] a joy, very, very different.

[315] Oh, my God, yeah.

[316] Yeah, but from an outsider's perspective, what do you see?

[317] It's so funny.

[318] One of them is a tough box of crackers, and the other one is a rainbow with sprinkles on top.

[319] Yes, glitter.

[320] They're both wonderful, and the tough box of crackers is proud of her toughness, and she should be.

[321] Actually, I don't know which one you're talking about.

[322] Lincoln is riding around on her dirt bike, wants to go on the whitewater rafting.

[323] Delta wants nothing to do with that.

[324] Delta is personality -wise, the tough one.

[325] in my opinion.

[326] Indominable.

[327] Yeah, so that's why that's interesting.

[328] Well, they're both tough in their own way.

[329] You got great kids.

[330] He has Alice and Jack.

[331] Alice has already written a book.

[332] What age does she write a book?

[333] 15.

[334] Oh, my God.

[335] She's 15 now.

[336] She noticed that the girls in her class had stopped raising their hand.

[337] And she said something about it to my wife.

[338] And then they brought it up at their Girl Scout meeting.

[339] So she pitched this idea of a patch called Raise Your Hand.

[340] And you pledged to raise your hand.

[341] And it is a thing that is studied in schools about like around nine or ten, girls just lose their confidence in class and boys just raise their hand for anything.

[342] Farts.

[343] You know, whatever.

[344] And I tweeted about the patch because I was very proud of it.

[345] New York Times op -ed editor CZAD says, would she work with us on an op -ed?

[346] She does.

[347] Penguin book sees that.

[348] Would she work with us on a children's book?

[349] She does.

[350] Oh, my God.

[351] Amazing.

[352] So now she's a published author.

[353] Now she's 15.

[354] She's actually working on her second now.

[355] Of course she is.

[356] In fact, I'm shocked it's not already on the shelves.

[357] And then Jack's just a dude.

[358] I was saying I need to steal that poster of World War II military for Jack because he is a World War II buff.

[359] Does he watch like World War II in color and all that stuff?

[360] He watches everything.

[361] He knows everything.

[362] The only thing I haven't shown him yet is Inglorious Bastards.

[363] It's the first act that I think would really upset him just because we're Jewish.

[364] The suspense is unbelievable.

[365] I've never been more stressed in my life watching something.

[366] Yeah.

[367] I just need to prepare him for it.

[368] But when we watched Band of Brothers together, that was like a religious experience.

[369] Has he tackled the rise and fall of the Third Reich?

[370] Because that is the book of all books.

[371] No, he's not there yet.

[372] Okay.

[373] He's 13.

[374] I mean, you know.

[375] He seems pretty deep into it.

[376] He is very smart.

[377] Do you mirror your children?

[378] I know that your dad was a doctor and your mother.

[379] In fact, I'm more interested in mom because mom worked as a psychiatric nurse at the VA in Philly.

[380] She had to see some shit.

[381] A lot of Vietnam veterans with serious drug dependence issues.

[382] Yeah.

[383] That was her bread and butter for years and years and years.

[384] But she would come home and not talk.

[385] about it really.

[386] They're both alive still.

[387] My dad is a pediatrician or was pediatrician.

[388] My mom was a pediatric nurse and then changed, got a degree, and then began a psychiatric nurse and worked at the VA for decades.

[389] She has to be incredibly tough, is she?

[390] She is tough.

[391] She moved to the south when she was a little girl, but she's from Canada and her parents were Canadian and there was just something of the stiff upper lip culture that she just came from that was just different.

[392] And I don't think my brother and I are like that.

[393] We're more emotive northeast Yankee Jews.

[394] Mom converted.

[395] Mom converted, yeah.

[396] Her parents were lovely people, Grammy and Grampi.

[397] I loved them so much.

[398] Grampi was in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II.

[399] Lost a brother in World War II.

[400] He was a tailgunner shot down by the Luftwaffe.

[401] Actually, the Germans kept such records.

[402] I know who killed him.

[403] No way.

[404] Yeah.

[405] Oh, it was that well documented.

[406] Yeah, all that stuff.

[407] What captivated your dad about her?

[408] I think she was gorgeous and smart, probably a bit exotic because at that point, she'd been living in Chapel Hill for a decade or and there was probably something just Southern about her.

[409] He was a Chicago Jew and family had been in Chicago for generations.

[410] I mean, her parents were academics.

[411] My grandfather was a physics professor.

[412] Oh, wow.

[413] And his wife, my Grammy, was insecure about her education, but she was just brilliant.

[414] She knew everything about Hemingway and knew everything about Churchill.

[415] So my mom was, I think, probably just academically, simpatico.

[416] Right.

[417] So obviously, if your dad's a pediatrician education is a priority, like, what's the vibe in the household?

[418] Are you supposed to be on a track to be a doctor?

[419] No, but I was definitely on a track to go to a good college.

[420] He went to Dartmouth and I went to Dartmouth.

[421] And his parents went to good schools too, Northwestern and University of Chicago, but they were of this generation that academic achievement was the ticket out.

[422] Because his parents were educated and had graduate degrees, but were still lower middle class.

[423] Oh, really?

[424] My grandfather was a lawyer and my grandmother was a teacher, but they weren't particularly financially successful.

[425] Right.

[426] Anyway, so my dad was the doctor.

[427] He went to Dartmouth and then Harvard Med. So it was definitely a vibe of get good grades.

[428] That's important.

[429] My brother and I did.

[430] That was important to us.

[431] And you would go to Jewish camp in the summer.

[432] We did, Ramah in the Pocono Mountains.

[433] Occasionally, we'd leave Detroit and drive to the Poconos and go camping.

[434] It's beautiful, right?

[435] Oh, it's unreal.

[436] It's so beautiful.

[437] What are some famous alumni from that camp?

[438] Are there some?

[439] There are.

[440] There's a whole bunch of Ramas all over the country.

[441] Inordinate amount of Jewish guests, I have, have gone to summer camp.

[442] It seems to be much more a part of childhood.

[443] Do you know the history of that?

[444] Why is that?

[445] I assume some of it has to do with having a place for Jews to go because we weren't allowed to go to a lot of places.

[446] That makes sense.

[447] Probably weren't allowed to join beach clubs and probably not allowed to join country clubs.

[448] So you'd start your own clubs.

[449] Yeah, start our own camp.

[450] The religion is very community -based, so I'm not surprised that that would emerge out of it.

[451] Although I didn't send my kids to this camp.

[452] Oh, really?

[453] They're not into camp.

[454] Their house is probably really nice and they don't want to leave it.

[455] Yeah, exactly.

[456] We didn't have a pool, so I was happy to go to camp.

[457] But that's a different vibe because my wife converted.

[458] she's from the Midwest.

[459] Your wife is so beautiful and wonderful.

[460] It's incredible.

[461] Well, back at you.

[462] Yeah.

[463] But you're all Midwesterners.

[464] And so we got a lake house.

[465] And I'm a beach guy.

[466] But eventually, she's just like, we're doing lakes.

[467] I'm like, okay.

[468] Yes.

[469] Have you taken to it, though?

[470] The lake lifestyle is so wonderful.

[471] 100%.

[472] We have a pontoon.

[473] We have a speedboat.

[474] We tube.

[475] They're there right now, actually.

[476] Where is the lake house?

[477] In Missouri?

[478] No, in Virginia.

[479] It's just two hour drive from our house.

[480] Oh, wonderful.

[481] But you'd think we're in a different world.

[482] Yes.

[483] There's like one decent.

[484] restaurant.

[485] Is it in the mountains at all?

[486] Is it getting to the mountain area?

[487] It's Lake Anna.

[488] It's a man -made lake near a nuclear power plant.

[489] Oh, wonderful.

[490] We're not near that part.

[491] It's seasonably warm all the time.

[492] Down there.

[493] The water down there and that part, and it's called the private part of the lake.

[494] That's where the nuke plant is.

[495] Oh, that's wonderful.

[496] Well, if we're going to convert from fossil fuels, we have to have.

[497] Yeah, that's right.

[498] I'm very pro -nuclear.

[499] Bill Gates has one that can't melt down.

[500] Let's bring it online.

[501] And it runs on old nuclear waste.

[502] Let's go.

[503] Look, something's going to get me if it's the nuke plant.

[504] You can't avoid it.

[505] As Mel Brooks sings, he has this great song, Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst.

[506] There's a line in that, live while you're alive, no one will survive.

[507] When I heard it for the first time, I'm like, that is so depressing and also very profound.

[508] Yes, yeah, as most profound things are.

[509] Well, yeah, no one will survive.

[510] Like, it's going to get you.

[511] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[512] No one escapes this fate.

[513] Back to the camp.

[514] This might not be my position to observe.

[515] But to me, it seems like Jewish camp's a great place to go if you're surrounded by a bunch of Gentiles with football.

[516] jock dads that it's a great place to go and explore your athleticism in a way that you're not encouraged to in a world where maybe jews aren't the best athletes in school it's not even that it's that you're a minority yeah in your public school and then you go to this camp where you're around all of your people it's true yeah yeah and there's a confidence building that happens there right away i think of zach brough he said i would go to this camp and i was just a star at this camp.

[517] And I think that's so powerful.

[518] I think if kids can have a taste of that confidence, I think it's really powerful.

[519] I guess I'm just curious if you observe this, that seems crazy.

[520] I think that's definitely part of it.

[521] But see, I went to a Jewish school also from sixth grade through 12.

[522] So maybe it wasn't the reprieve for you that it could have been for some other kids.

[523] So at the Jewish school, we participated in a private school athletic league.

[524] I think it's really has to do with the smallness of the school more so than who's there.

[525] Like if you have a Catholic school of 50 kids in a class.

[526] It's probably also going to be similar.

[527] Yeah.

[528] I definitely played more basketball at camp than I played in my entire life and definitely was better.

[529] I'm jealous.

[530] I really would have liked to have gone to camp.

[531] It was not anything I'd even heard of, to be honest.

[532] You know, it was fun for some of the years.

[533] And girls obviously become a big part of it.

[534] Yes.

[535] It's a co -ed camp.

[536] My kids don't miss it.

[537] It's a very Jewish thing.

[538] And because, again, my wife converted, but you don't like give her a personality transplant.

[539] For her, camps are not a thing.

[540] And she was like, why would you send your kids away for eight weeks?

[541] It's a little abstract as a parent for me to send my kids away because I work all years for this two weeks coming up.

[542] No, I agree.

[543] I don't want my kids to go away for eight weeks.

[544] That's crazy.

[545] Send me away in the winter.

[546] I'd love to get rid of them, you know, when I wasn't going to see them anyways.

[547] But then the other thing is the situation that we're in as people who are more financially successful than our parents, we have created this womb for them.

[548] Why would your daughters ever want to leave this compound that I'm in right now?

[549] I kind of like obsess about it.

[550] And then I just come to the conclusion, it is what it is.

[551] What am I going to do?

[552] But all you can do is make sure they appreciate it and that they understand that it's our responsibility to give and that like not everybody has the same circumstances and all that stuff.

[553] But why would I create a life for them where they want to go away for eight weeks?

[554] Yeah, you have the option to not.

[555] And I do too.

[556] Yeah.

[557] So they seem to like being around me, which is incredible, thus far.

[558] They are humans, though.

[559] And I do think humans adjust to their circumstances and then want something new.

[560] That's true.

[561] And I see that in the 15 -year -old, my daughter Alice, who is about to turn 16.

[562] But she's built for herself by rowing crew, this whole world of leaving home, hanging out with friends, going on trips.

[563] But she always returns.

[564] It's going to be interesting to see Delta and Lincoln as teens.

[565] Oh, yes.

[566] It's getting really exciting already.

[567] What was your wife like as a teen?

[568] Was she rebellious?

[569] Oh, God, no. She went to a private school, and she was always into singing and acting, and she was a good girl, and she went straight to NYU.

[570] And then I was a drug addict and a dirt bag and all that stuff.

[571] So quite opposite.

[572] So they could turn out to be anything.

[573] go, oh yeah, that makes sense.

[574] The sky's the limit for them.

[575] You guys are such a great couple, though.

[576] I have to feel like that the Michigan thing had something to do with it, though, when you met her.

[577] I think so.

[578] The first time I met her was at a dinner party, and she was ecstatic about the fact that she had gotten a 20 % off Bed Bath and Beyond coupon in the mail.

[579] It was all she talked about the whole dinner.

[580] And I thought, well, this gal is in movies and stuff.

[581] And she's this pumped about 20 % off.

[582] That feels very Michigan to me. I can relate to that.

[583] Okay, so you take an interesting in circuitous route from Dartmouth, you get a BA in history.

[584] I imagine your aspirations at that point were probably political of some type.

[585] No, I wanted to be a cartoonist.

[586] I wanted to be like the next Gary Trudeau.

[587] I wanted to do Dunesbury.

[588] I had done a comic strip for my school paper.

[589] So I was going to try to do that and everybody was going to law school or business school.

[590] So I went to film school.

[591] I had taken some film classes at Dartmouth.

[592] So I went to USC for a semester while trying to come up with a comic strip.

[593] And then I hated USC and that.

[594] not that it's USC's fault.

[595] I just wasn't in the right headspace for graduate school.

[596] And I had to pay for it also.

[597] Had you been to California a bunch at that point?

[598] I think when people would dream about going to school in Los Angeles, it'd be one fantasy.

[599] And then they'd realize USC is Adams and Hoover.

[600] Yeah, dead center.

[601] And this is right, and this is right before the L .A. riots.

[602] Do you feel lonely as hell out here?

[603] I felt so isolated.

[604] And that first year out of college, nobody warned me, nobody said you're about to be kicked in the nuts by life.

[605] Just experience it for a couple of years.

[606] You're not alone.

[607] And I didn't know what I wanted to do.

[608] And everybody else seemed to have it together.

[609] They were in law school or business school.

[610] I was working on this comic strip.

[611] Ultimately, I met with the head of the syndicate, but they didn't pick it up.

[612] And I didn't know what I wanted to do.

[613] So I went home.

[614] I went back to Philadelphia.

[615] And that's when I stumbled into politics because a family friend was running for Congress.

[616] It was the year of the woman in 1992.

[617] And she was a Democrat running in a Republican seat, which was super interesting.

[618] Had you had a prior interest in politics or just that experience lit you on fire.

[619] I was always interested in politics as a spectator sport.

[620] Some of my interest in it, I have to say, was probably from Saturday Night Live, from Mad Magazine, from satiric takes on it.

[621] I found it more interesting than sports, not in doing it, just in watching it.

[622] I never wanted to be a politician.

[623] So in this seven years between graduating and when you're kind of officially a journalist, that's a pretty big gap of time.

[624] To that point, you get into Dartmouth.

[625] Good boy.

[626] You've got great grades at high school.

[627] Good boy.

[628] You graduate magna cum laude.

[629] Good boy.

[630] Good boys are over.

[631] Like, you're a fucking adult now.

[632] Now what?

[633] Now what?

[634] There's no like obvious way to go get a good boy.

[635] I didn't know what I wanted to do.

[636] Yeah, you got to give yourself a good boy now.

[637] You got to figure out what you want to do and impress yourself.

[638] I'd have been a student journalist in high school, but I'd stopped in college to be a cartoonist.

[639] And then when the cartooning thing didn't happen for me, which by the way is probably a blessing because the newspaper cartooning world has been shrinking and dying ever since, sadly.

[640] When I finally met Gary Trudeau years later, he's like he tells people to go into animation.

[641] And, in fact, years later, the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine had me interview a Dartmouth cartoonist who was a student at the Daily Dartmouth, which is what I had been doing.

[642] And his name is Chris Miller.

[643] Lord and Miller.

[644] Lord and Miller, yeah.

[645] Wow, so you, Kimmel and Miller.

[646] But at least Miller's a successful animator.

[647] Kimmel and I are just losers sketching in our closet.

[648] But Miller and Lord, they went into animation.

[649] That was the right path.

[650] I just saw them last weekend.

[651] They're the greatest.

[652] We interviewed them.

[653] They're so fun.

[654] What a team they are.

[655] They gave the co -commencement address at Dartmouth.

[656] Oh, they did it together.

[657] They did it together, and it was fantastic.

[658] Oh, that would be great.

[659] I'll probably read it on the fact check.

[660] That's what I do.

[661] You'll probably play it the whole thing out loud.

[662] We've listened to Taylor Swift.

[663] I read it.

[664] Oh, you read it out of it.

[665] It was a long one, Jake.

[666] It was a good 12 minutes.

[667] It was a cold read, but I did do it.

[668] By the way, this is what we share in common, because I moved here in 95, and I didn't start working professionally until 2002 on Punk.

[669] So I had just seven, eight solid years of, oh, boy, everyone else I know is getting lake cabins and speedboats and they have careers.

[670] I remember freaking out one night.

[671] I was at a bar in New Jersey at the shore, and there was a kid that had been in my grade school class named Peter Simmons, who was at that time co -starring and I'll Fly Away.

[672] Do you remember the show, I'll Fly Away?

[673] Sam Waterston.

[674] It was about the South in the early 60s and racism.

[675] And it was beautiful show.

[676] Alfre Woodard, I think it was her first big break.

[677] And he was in there, one of the London twins.

[678] I forget if it was Jeremy or Jason, but one of them was.

[679] Oh, okay.

[680] And then Andrew Shoe, Elizabeth Shoe's brother, who was starring on Melrose Place.

[681] And he was two or three years ahead of me at Dartmouth.

[682] So these were like contemporaries of mine.

[683] I wasn't an actor.

[684] So I don't even know why it was freaking me out so much.

[685] They've realized their dream is what you're seeing.

[686] Yes.

[687] And all my other friends were like in law school.

[688] So they were going to get to.

[689] I'll fly away in Melrose Place.

[690] They were on their way, and I was just like, I don't even know what I want to do.

[691] How did you deal with the anxiety of that?

[692] Because I would have been an addict no matter what.

[693] But I will say that eight years of thinking I'm never going to do anything really was fueling.

[694] I needed relief.

[695] How are you getting relief from that?

[696] I'm not going to pretend that I didn't drink a lot in my 20s, but I don't know that that was the reason.

[697] I think I just kept trying different things.

[698] So I worked on a novel.

[699] And the novel didn't get published, but it did get me an agent.

[700] Oh, that's good.

[701] I was on a ski trip, and some guys were reading a piece in the New Republic magazine that was written by a friend of theirs.

[702] And a light bulb just went off of my head.

[703] People just write things.

[704] You don't have to be a full -time staffer at the New Republic.

[705] You can just submit something and write at freelance.

[706] That ski weekend and that light bulb set me on the path to journalism.

[707] And then you start the process I'm assuming is you write something and now you're submitting tons of places.

[708] It was just chutzpah.

[709] How about I write this?

[710] How about I write that?

[711] and I would carry around a little notebook in the back of my pocket.

[712] And any time I had an idea, and you know this, you think you're going to remember, but you never remember.

[713] And one time I was at a party and the house that the party was in, and this is just in D .C., and I'm working in PR or something.

[714] I don't even know what I'm doing at this point.

[715] I mean, I always had a job to pay the bills.

[716] Yes.

[717] But it was at this party, and the house used to be a bordello.

[718] And there are all these weird things about the house.

[719] It had obviously been a bordello for quite some time.

[720] I called off the Washington Post, and I called up Washington City Paper.

[721] City Paper was a free weekly bank.

[722] When Free Weeklys were like, a big thing in the 90s.

[723] Yeah.

[724] The city paper bought it.

[725] I would submit stuff to the Washington Post and they would publish it too.

[726] Little silly essays.

[727] I wrote one about how technology was changing the rules of dating.

[728] And the best part about it was the title.

[729] It was called Love and the time of Caller ID.

[730] Oh my God.

[731] Yeah.

[732] That was the big tech breakthrough at that point.

[733] Yeah.

[734] But all of a sudden, girls could see the boys that were calling them were like, oh, I don't want to take it.

[735] Right.

[736] And do you leave a message or do you call and keep trying to catch them?

[737] And not everybody had caller ID.

[738] They can't see that you've called 300 times or have they.

[739] You can't really cold call.

[740] There's no more like, let's get my foot in the door and turn the charm on.

[741] Maybe I can win her over.

[742] But you can't phone bank.

[743] You have to call once.

[744] Eventually, I had so many things that had appeared in Entertainment Weekly or the Post or the city paper.

[745] And then eventually I got offered a job from Philadelphia Magazine and city paper.

[746] And I just took the city paper job.

[747] Yes.

[748] And you were there for three years, maybe?

[749] Oh, no. It was like one.

[750] Oh, it was.

[751] But you were the senior writer there.

[752] Well, I think everybody was a senior writer.

[753] Oh, okay.

[754] Congratulations to everyone, I guess.

[755] And I took a huge pay cut.

[756] I was making like $33 ,000 in D .C. in the 90s at a PR job.

[757] And then I would think I was making like 22 or something.

[758] Is it weird to you?

[759] Because writing is obviously such a huge part of your identity.

[760] Is it weird that people don't know that about you?

[761] When I know you're doing a book, I was like, oh, he's writing a book.

[762] That's like when Comey wrote a book.

[763] Like, that's what it felt like.

[764] Weirdly, we just had Comey on.

[765] Is his mystery any good?

[766] I haven't read it.

[767] Totally.

[768] He's great.

[769] He's an interesting guy.

[770] He's phenomenally interesting.

[771] Similar thing.

[772] I was like, oh, yeah.

[773] Okay, cool.

[774] Jake's writing.

[775] But he really did do that as something different.

[776] Yeah.

[777] Whereas me, this was my root.

[778] Original.

[779] Yeah.

[780] People think I'm a TV anchor.

[781] They don't necessarily know that I can write.

[782] It is funny.

[783] It's also kind of like, oh, look at the monkey that can ride a tricycle.

[784] Right, right.

[785] Right.

[786] There's a little bit of that.

[787] Like, I thought it was just a monkey, but it can ride a tricycle, too.

[788] They can bang those symbols together, too.

[789] Look at that.

[790] Wait.

[791] And he has a little.

[792] monkey on his back.

[793] There is a degree of that.

[794] There is a degree of that.

[795] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[796] We've all been there.

[797] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[798] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

[799] But for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the classroom.

[800] ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[801] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[802] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[803] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[804] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[805] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcast.

[806] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon music.

[807] What's up, guys?

[808] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[809] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[810] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[811] And I don't mean just friends.

[812] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[813] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[814] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcast.

[815] But how do we go from writing?

[816] You're now an official journalist.

[817] How do you get to take five on CNN?

[818] So that's the weird part of the transition from print to TV.

[819] So after city paper, I'm a political writer for this website called salon .com.

[820] It still exists now, but it's very different than it used to be.

[821] It was definitely left -leaning, but anyone could write anything for them.

[822] They would have conservative writers, liberal writers.

[823] It was during the dot -com bubble.

[824] So they just flew me all over the country to cover the presidential race.

[825] So it was really exciting.

[826] And then I would start to do TV, just like free.

[827] TV hits because cable wants people to come on their air and talk for free.

[828] And then I guess CNN thought I was good and thought, oh, let's give him a show along with a bunch of other young.

[829] Is that something that was presented to you that you then embraced or did you already have your eye on that?

[830] I guess if I'm a journalist, it does seem like the next thing I want to do is ultimately do what you do.

[831] I wasn't aspiring to it.

[832] It seemed, oh, that sounds interesting.

[833] And it's once a week.

[834] I think it was like $1 ,000 an episode or something like that.

[835] This is 2001.

[836] I think.

[837] It lasted six months.

[838] The last episode was right before 9 -11.

[839] They were going to have to decide whether or not they were going to renew the show.

[840] I think we were on the bubble.

[841] And then 9 -11 happened.

[842] And obviously, we were completely irrelevant after 9 -11.

[843] Like, who wants to hear five pundits in their 20s talking about anything?

[844] We're just going to go live to Islamabad.

[845] So then 2003 is when it starts taking off.

[846] But there was a period in there that got really shaky.

[847] I was going to say, were you scared between 01 and 03?

[848] After a take five, I was like, okay, I like this TV thing.

[849] You can write.

[850] and say it on air.

[851] And you're discovering you're good at it.

[852] Yeah, I'm not bad on this.

[853] I can do this.

[854] You're not freezing in front of the camera.

[855] If you like being on TV, being on TV is fun.

[856] Well, it's high energy.

[857] For me, I really compare it to cocaine.

[858] I like anything that gets my brain working in a way that I can feel it accelerate.

[859] And certainly when you're on a live set and they start you and it's a half hour, it feels like nine minutes, right?

[860] The time warps.

[861] If you like it, you like it.

[862] Yes.

[863] If you don't like it, you don't like it.

[864] But I liked it.

[865] It didn't affect me with any of the side effects that cocaine might bring.

[866] Right, right.

[867] Yeah, yeah.

[868] You could go to sleep after work relatively.

[869] You know, you're not soiling yourself.

[870] No apologies to make in the morning.

[871] So then VH1 came.

[872] And this is in the era of pop -up video and behind the music.

[873] And VH -1 was legit.

[874] And they were like, we want to start a 60 -minute -type magazine show about pop culture.

[875] Yes.

[876] This is a great opportunity to learn how to do TV without having to move to I -Santi, Minnesota, or Omaha, Nebraska, or some smaller Watt station.

[877] So I moved to New York, and the weekend before I started, everyone who hired me got fired.

[878] Oh, yeah, aye, aye.

[879] Oh, yeah.

[880] So this is the first showbiz thing.

[881] So then they have me for six months.

[882] I'd sign the contract, and they're like, okay, well, let's start with this.

[883] So I did five shows, but it was a really weird experience.

[884] The first one, you can still find online, uncivil war, the Leonard Skinner story.

[885] I go and I explore what's going on with Leonard Skinner, because they supposedly, after the crash, we're supposed to have this rule where you cannot tour the country and call yourself Leonard Skinner, unless you have three original members of the band performing, and they only had two.

[886] It was really this exploration of all these grudges, and I got to interview all of them.

[887] Most of them have passed away, sadly.

[888] But it was fascinating, and I learned a lot about TV.

[889] Were you in Muscle Shoals, Alabama?

[890] Were they recorded?

[891] No. I did go to the forest where they're plane crashed.

[892] Oh, you did?

[893] And people don't know where the site is.

[894] There's still, like, pieces of glass and stuff.

[895] Oh, really?

[896] Dirt, yeah.

[897] But then the other four pieces, we did one about R. Kelly and his problems.

[898] That early.

[899] The Chicago Sun Times, there's a reporter who was on top of this from the very beginning.

[900] And we interviewed him.

[901] But that got pulled.

[902] There was a lot of, I did a lot of stuff that VH1 aired once.

[903] Well, Arkellie was still huge business for VH1.

[904] And we did one about Michael Jackson suing Sony, accusing Sony being racist.

[905] That got pulled.

[906] They all aired like once and then people complained.

[907] Well, I think people probably underestimate the amount of grit it's going to take to be a 60 minutes.

[908] They're like, oh, we'll do this.

[909] And you're like, no, you're going to piss off tons of people.

[910] You've got to have lots of lawyers.

[911] It's a whole infrastructure.

[912] And if you depend on the music industry, giving you free stuff and cooperating with you, you can't do it.

[913] I learned that pretty painfully.

[914] Did you feel defeated by that whole thing?

[915] Completely.

[916] You took it personal.

[917] I didn't take it personally, but it was just like, wow, this is just so inherently corrupt.

[918] Yeah.

[919] Why did you even bring me here to do this?

[920] And I've wasted a year of my life.

[921] It was six months, but yeah.

[922] We were working on one Chinese democracy had not come out yet, the Guns and Roses album.

[923] And it was about Axel Rose, and he obviously has some issues.

[924] And he was, like, living in Malibu.

[925] He had completely left everybody in Guns and Roses behind.

[926] That got killed halfway through taping.

[927] We'd already spent, we'd spent like $100 ,000 or $200 ,000 in just in shooting it.

[928] Whoever was putting out Chinese democracy and was still counting on this album to come out, called VH1, I don't know this for a fact, but I assume, and said, okay, no, we don't want this.

[929] Yeah, of course.

[930] That's still a mystery, Axel Russ.

[931] They were Led Zeppelin.

[932] He has issues of some sort, you know?

[933] I mean, like he started performing with Buckethead.

[934] Do you remember this?

[935] I don't.

[936] There was a guitarist who would perform with a Kentucky Fried Chicken Bucket if memory serves.

[937] And then my contract was not renewed at VH1.

[938] I went back to Salon.

[939] But by then I had enough tape from all my CNN hits and from VH1 that I had a reel.

[940] And I knew a guy, an editor at VH1, who just for the price of like a bottle of bourbon made the reel for me. So with the reel, I got a TV agent.

[941] And then ABC News hired me. Which is incredible.

[942] And now things take off and they accelerate pretty rapidly.

[943] But for anybody listening, that's a lot of months and years of defeat and angst and confusion.

[944] Well, you're 12 years out from your magna cum laude graduating.

[945] Yeah.

[946] Anytime I talk to young people, I'm like, I didn't even know I wanted to be a journalist until I was like 29.

[947] There's no overnight anything.

[948] Yeah.

[949] This was a slog.

[950] And there were lots of sleepless nights and lots of sleepless nights and, lots of, Jesus, I'm supposed to be successful.

[951] Yeah, I have very little advice to give, but one of them is stay flexible and listen to who's calling you to join them.

[952] You can miss that.

[953] You can be so singularly focused on this one thing, being a cartoonist, that you miss all these amazing.

[954] Well, imagine if I had done that.

[955] Imagine if I said, no, I'm going to stay a cartoonist until I'm a comic strip cartoonist.

[956] Ultimately, maybe I would have been able to, but you're asking for one of two jobs.

[957] Right.

[958] Like, what are there, three?

[959] Well, there was a point after that I gave up.

[960] the comic strip cartoonist idea that I started thinking, okay, maybe I can do a comic strip for alternative weeklies.

[961] If each one of them paid me like $10 a week, I could eke out in existence doing this.

[962] I had a list of all the newspapers from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, and I would mail these packets.

[963] The irony, of course, is you end up writing Capital Hell.

[964] You have a cartoon.

[965] I had a comic strip, yeah.

[966] Comic strip for a long time.

[967] Yes, I did for Roll Call, which is a newspaper, Capitol Hill, and I did that.

[968] It didn't pay.

[969] No, but you got to do the thing you wanted to do, ultimately.

[970] Yeah, and I had to quit it.

[971] I did it for like eight or nine years.

[972] And I think I probably made like $200 a cartoon or something.

[973] There you go.

[974] I'm saying if you follow the paths that are open to you, you might get to double back.

[975] Yes, absolutely.

[976] I think that's such a wise lesson.

[977] It's like what you tell your kids if they're being rejected from some click at school.

[978] Okay, they don't want you.

[979] What about these kids?

[980] These kids seem cool.

[981] Go hang out with these kids.

[982] Monica says it best.

[983] Love who loves you back.

[984] Love the thing that loves you back.

[985] ended up being that thing.

[986] And then years later, I was able, even though the first novel didn't work, I was able to do a new novel.

[987] And this one worked.

[988] And this was 2018.

[989] It took me years before I figured out I wanted to try the noveling thing again.

[990] Yes.

[991] It's just kind of ironic because you are one of the best to ever do it, the news anchoring.

[992] You're so phenomenal.

[993] So it's kind of funny to think that that's maybe third option or the latest thing you decided you might want to do.

[994] Maybe because of that.

[995] Maybe because you weren't still like.

[996] triangle holding it.

[997] Yeah.

[998] Yes.

[999] I think it's possible that that's true.

[1000] Donnie Deutsch said something really nice to me about how he sees my humanity and my anchoring.

[1001] And I thought that was like one of the nicest things anyone had ever said.

[1002] And I think that definitely comes from years of failure.

[1003] And understanding that this is tough, not TV news.

[1004] I mean life.

[1005] Life.

[1006] Exactly.

[1007] It's tough.

[1008] Yeah.

[1009] The four of us in this room right now are among the luckiest 0 .01 % in the world right now.

[1010] But the humanity part of it, I just think that's an important part of what we do as news people.

[1011] bring everyone up to speed.

[1012] Between 2003 and 2011, you're at ABC News.

[1013] You win lots of awards.

[1014] You become a very respected.

[1015] You're the senior White House correspondent.

[1016] You get to interview presidents.

[1017] You do the whole thing.

[1018] You go to CNN, where you've been since 2012, so I guess 11 years now.

[1019] First thing that must have been amazing is in 2015, you moderate the Republican primary debate.

[1020] Oh, yeah, that was nuts.

[1021] And that got 23 million viewers, which is the most in CNN's history.

[1022] And the second most of all, time for a debate.

[1023] Did you feel a title shift that week after?

[1024] Like you had gone on Johnny Carson or something?

[1025] You're talking about virtually 10 % of America watched you.

[1026] That's interesting.

[1027] Did you feel that?

[1028] No. I'll tell you what I remember.

[1029] So first of all, it was at the Reagan library in Seamy Valley.

[1030] We had 11 candidates at once.

[1031] We didn't make the main stage debate early.

[1032] It was preposterous.

[1033] Let's just call it what it was.

[1034] It wasn't up to us.

[1035] I think it was up to like the Republican National Committee or something.

[1036] But it looked like an open casting call for a reality show.

[1037] Totally nuts.

[1038] It was insane.

[1039] And I still hear the haunted cries of Jake, Jake, Jake, Jake, Jake, Jake.

[1040] Governor Kasich.

[1041] Governor Walker.

[1042] Jake, Jake.

[1043] I don't even know how you kept the fucking name straight.

[1044] At one point, I confused Cruz and Rubio.

[1045] And then Rubio made some cheap joke about how do we all look alike.

[1046] And I said senators, yes.

[1047] Yeah.

[1048] But obviously, people and Cruz look nothing alike.

[1049] Anyway, I remember thinking, this is so much fucking fun.

[1050] Oh, it was a blast.

[1051] I am a political.

[1052] junkie.

[1053] I have literally the best seat in the house.

[1054] No one has a better seat to this.

[1055] And it was a brawl, right?

[1056] Although they were still afraid to take on Trump.

[1057] Yeah.

[1058] I remember thinking that very early on, earlier in the day, Bobby Jindal, Governor Louisiana, he was in the children's table debate earlier.

[1059] He had said that he wouldn't trust Trump's fingers on the nuclear codes.

[1060] So I laid up that question to Carly Fiorina and to Jeb Bush.

[1061] How would you feel?

[1062] Neither one of them would take him on.

[1063] They both were like, well, it's up to the voters.

[1064] I was like, you guys do knock at it, this guy is going to walk away with the nomination.

[1065] And he wasn't softballing anything.

[1066] No. He was killing.

[1067] He was annihilating Jet Bush.

[1068] He was going after Jet Bush's wife.

[1069] I know.

[1070] It was crazy.

[1071] And I think at that debate, Dan Abash, he was my co -moderator, I think she tried to get Jeb Bush to demand Trump apologize to his wife, Columba.

[1072] And he wouldn't, he wouldn't demand it.

[1073] It's really hard to watch.

[1074] They were all, they were playing by 18th century rules.

[1075] challenge you to a duel.

[1076] Yeah, just pulling off these little finger of the glove.

[1077] You're making a whole meal of it.

[1078] How dare you, sir?

[1079] And Trump just has a flame -thrower.

[1080] Yeah, exactly.

[1081] I shall not leave until you have granted me in my visage.

[1082] It's like, what?

[1083] He just grabbed your daughter.

[1084] What are you doing?

[1085] I know.

[1086] Like he's running away right now.

[1087] I know.

[1088] Some little peaks and spikes over the tenure there at CNN.

[1089] One, and I was curious how you felt about this.

[1090] So your dust up with Kelly Ann Conway.

[1091] Oh, yeah.

[1092] So I've had the tiniest of tastes of this.

[1093] They're not at all what you experience.

[1094] But did you have any uneasiness about sparking vitriol against her?

[1095] If I were you, my fear would have been, there's people publicly saying they want to marry you over this.

[1096] Like, you're a knight in shining armor that's going to defeat the right.

[1097] As opposed to my, I'm really uncomfortable with all that.

[1098] Yes.

[1099] For me, I would been like, no, no, guys, don't get it twisted.

[1100] My commitments to the truth, right?

[1101] To the left.

[1102] Yeah.

[1103] No, I hate it.

[1104] I mean, it's funny.

[1105] when I have one of those moments, and I'm doing it to a Democrat, because conservatives and Republicans are so mistrustful of the media, they never do that.

[1106] They might like credit the appearance or credit to Jake Tapper.

[1107] No one's going to be like, you're with us because they hate the media as it is.

[1108] That's part of the conservative ethos and has been for decades long before Trump.

[1109] But yeah, no, I hate it.

[1110] Owning.

[1111] And the time that word owning the right or owning the left, when that's on the table, to me, it's like, this is just tribalism.

[1112] This has nothing to do with what was said.

[1113] That interview with Kellyan Conway, I thought it was respectful to her.

[1114] I didn't really go after her.

[1115] I went after like things that Donald Trump had said that were wild.

[1116] She was just the messenger, really.

[1117] Right.

[1118] I rewatch that, by the way, before today.

[1119] And I will say, you're brilliant in it.

[1120] You're thinking so fast.

[1121] You're in the zone.

[1122] She's great, too.

[1123] She's good at what she does.

[1124] She is juggling 3 ,000 data points.

[1125] Yeah.

[1126] Mind you, half of them are lies, but she still has to juggle them.

[1127] I found myself really impressed with how fast she thinks on her feet and how well spoken she is as well.

[1128] She was a huge asset to Donald Trump.

[1129] And she left before.

[1130] the election lying stuff.

[1131] So she didn't get tagged with that.

[1132] I don't want to be sitting here praising Kalyan Conway.

[1133] No, but I mean, she, like, found her way to, you know, her marriage obviously ended with George and all that.

[1134] But she worked on opioids and she found a way to do things that she felt like she was making a difference.

[1135] I don't agree with almost anything she has to say, but I can recognize a smart, talented human being who's really kind of good at their job.

[1136] Yeah, but you're right to pick up on how uncomfortable I am with stuff.

[1137] Being the mascot of the left.

[1138] You've blasted it.

[1139] everyone.

[1140] Everyone's felt the tap or scorn.

[1141] They did not like me on the Hillary campaign.

[1142] The Barack Obama's White House didn't like me. My job is not to be liked by these people.

[1143] Yes.

[1144] Okay.

[1145] Now, I don't want to even attempt to represent how you spoke on this issue.

[1146] But I know from two years ago when we first met, my interest in talking to you is I was airing out my frustration that I thought CNN had gotten so blatantly left, I couldn't even enjoy it, that I actually felt like some of the anchors were every bit as crazy as the Fox ones.

[1147] The thing I brought up in particular was I had been filming in a desert with no cell phone service on January 6th the whole day.

[1148] Oh my God.

[1149] I get back at night at like 10 o 'clock at night from filming my phones on.

[1150] I get all these six.

[1151] Are you watching this?

[1152] Blah, blah, blah.

[1153] So now I'm trying to play catch up from the whole day.

[1154] I've missed the whole thing.

[1155] Holy smokes.

[1156] And the very first thing I do is I turn on CNN and Don Lemon's on.

[1157] And he is talking about how all the guards just let the people in, that the cops are in on it too, that they're supporting Donald Trump.

[1158] And I'm watching 25 minutes of that.

[1159] And I'm like, I'm blown away that the cops are in cahoots.

[1160] And wow, maybe the military will stamp.

[1161] Like, I'm starting to panic.

[1162] Yeah.

[1163] That's going to be like a civil war between cops and yes.

[1164] Then I flip over just for fun to Fox.

[1165] And of course, it's a completely different narrative.

[1166] I don't really think I get a grasp of it until I watch this unedited thing.

[1167] And then I'm like, that wasn't true what either side were saying.

[1168] This is dangerous.

[1169] I only say all that to say that the network has seemed to now has a commitment to heading maybe back more centrist.

[1170] So I will say this.

[1171] I think that Donald Trump was a disruptor.

[1172] I mean, that's not like an original insight.

[1173] But some of the stuff that he disrupted was good.

[1174] It's good that there isn't like a knee -jerk support of every war amongst Republican circles anymore.

[1175] And that's because of Trump.

[1176] Trump changed that.

[1177] Maybe too much in terms of anti -interventionist for some people's liking.

[1178] Yeah, we should be supporting the Ukrainian, example.

[1179] But at least there's some rethinking of that subject.

[1180] and his tariffs against China, Joe Biden's kept them all.

[1181] Joe Biden's Mr. Union, right?

[1182] So there's a whole bunch of disrupting.

[1183] And maybe you like it, maybe you don't.

[1184] That's the policy stuff.

[1185] One of the other things he did is he disrupted every news organization because he made allegiance to him and he made lying and he made indecency into partisan issues.

[1186] So if you fact -checked him, you were all of a sudden the liberal.

[1187] The very first major fact -check I did of him was when he was suggesting that Ted Cruz's dad was responsible for the Kennedy assassination.

[1188] It's an actual thing.

[1189] Right.

[1190] No. He had some whoppers.

[1191] And I said, like, this is not a pro -cruz position.

[1192] It's not an anti -Trump position.

[1193] It's a pro -truth position.

[1194] That's the first time I did one of those.

[1195] Yeah.

[1196] But because it was in the Republican primary, nobody was tagging me as liberal.

[1197] But you start doing that for other stuff.

[1198] I'm liberal because I support facts.

[1199] Right, right, right.

[1200] But in that case, yes.

[1201] But I'm not liberal, though, because of it's what I'm saying.

[1202] In that time, it became, if you were pro -Trump, you were against facts.

[1203] So it did break down into that.

[1204] Trump made facts into a partisan issue.

[1205] Yes, he did.

[1206] Or in some cases, decency into a partisan issue.

[1207] Even if it was like, okay, you're making fun of John McCain's war wound.

[1208] That's indecent.

[1209] You're saying John McCain's not a hero because he was captured.

[1210] That's indecent.

[1211] And the only way to square the circle on that for Trump supporters is, well, then John McCain is a liberal, or Liz Cheney is a liberal, or Mitt Romney is a liberal.

[1212] They are more conservative than Donald Trump is.

[1213] All three of them.

[1214] So my point is just.

[1215] just like there was a disruption.

[1216] And you see the disruption in every news media.

[1217] For Fox, it was chasing Trump lovers to the point that they just had to pay a $787 .5 million defamation settlement to Dominion, and there's going to be more to come.

[1218] There's going to be some billions coming.

[1219] Yeah.

[1220] And I will say that there was some heat of war stuff that probably, you know, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, BBC, everyone could point to and say, I wish I could do that differently.

[1221] Can I just say even going back in watching some of these clips of you from just three years ago, I can feel how different the environment was, just how rabid we all were.

[1222] It was really intense.

[1223] You got to almost go back.

[1224] I can't watch myself from yesterday, much less three years ago.

[1225] Right.

[1226] This isn't even a criticism of you.

[1227] It's just like, oh, man, it was intense.

[1228] You can feel it.

[1229] Trying to imagine right now if President Biden, posit everything right now about any concerns you have about Joe Biden, how he's governed his age, et cetera, et cetera.

[1230] And it's all there in one big caveat.

[1231] Yeah.

[1232] But try to imagine if Joe Biden told four members of Congress who were Republicans, who were black or Latino to go back to the countries they came from.

[1233] And imagine that three of the four were from the United States and the fourth one had been a refugee.

[1234] He would never do that.

[1235] But if he did that, that would be like a month's long story.

[1236] He's losing his mind.

[1237] He's racist.

[1238] What is he doing?

[1239] The old school Democrat he was in the 70s, he's still the same guy.

[1240] It would be crazy.

[1241] That was like a one day story for Donald Trump when he did that.

[1242] Yeah, I don't even remember it.

[1243] And that was my take as I was like, guys, they're never going to stop coming.

[1244] It just became this addiction to what happened.

[1245] today.

[1246] It was moving so fast and everyone got so hungry for like, what will it be today?

[1247] It was wild.

[1248] And there also was like a thing about social media as a part of it where people would respond on social media.

[1249] I would respond on social media.

[1250] That's not healthy either.

[1251] People would attack each other on social media.

[1252] They still do it by the way.

[1253] But yeah, we are supposed to, and it's tough, be above it.

[1254] Right.

[1255] But I mean, again, let's say your news department's 100 people, including you, I don't know what it is.

[1256] But there's supposed to be 100 humans not affected by this insane bubble we're in.

[1257] Right, exactly.

[1258] It seems like a tall order.

[1259] All of that is to say, like, I hear you.

[1260] I don't disagree with the assessment that everybody, I think, got knocked off.

[1261] Well, everyone felt like they had to pick a side.

[1262] And by the way, that is one of the problems is that to be in the middle or to be rational or to have the single commitment to be the truth really opens you up to both sides.

[1263] To be in the middle is the most dangerous place.

[1264] Yeah.

[1265] It's the place where you have no inherent tribe.

[1266] Yes.

[1267] And I can see the attraction for some friends and colleagues at MSNBC or some people at Fox.

[1268] I could see the appeal of there's one side that's always going to support you, but that's not what we're supposed to do.

[1269] That's not where we're supposed to be.

[1270] And that's why doing what we're doing at CNN, which I think is very important and very crucial and critical, you need to be made of a little bit sterner stuff if we're going to be effective at this, if it's going to happen, if it's going to work.

[1271] Because we need to be the people that say, hey, this withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster.

[1272] Obviously, it wasn't planned well.

[1273] It speaks for itself.

[1274] And one of the things that's weird is I think that the echo chambers that we get from, partisan ideological media is it takes away critical thinking skills.

[1275] So they think, why are you interviewing Republicans?

[1276] What do you mean?

[1277] Why am I interviewing Republicans?

[1278] They control the House of Representatives.

[1279] Right.

[1280] Why are you doing town halls with Republican?

[1281] Why are you doing town halls with Republican presidential candidates?

[1282] Because they're running for president.

[1283] What do you mean?

[1284] Well, I was critical of the Trump one.

[1285] I thought this is ridiculous.

[1286] I'm like, okay, we're going to do this again.

[1287] We can talk about that as a separate thing because he is a separate.

[1288] I did the Nikki Haley one.

[1289] So I was talking about that.

[1290] The Trump one, let's have that kind of.

[1291] conversation if you want to have it.

[1292] Well, I just thought, has the left still not recognized that they made Donald Trump?

[1293] Have they not accepted that their outrage fueled 20 % of his voter base?

[1294] Just knowing that it was pissing off liberals, did they not recognize their role in it?

[1295] And are we going to repeat the exact same thing?

[1296] Are you calling CNN the left in that construct?

[1297] Yes, of course.

[1298] Well, I don't accept that.

[1299] Okay, great.

[1300] Okay.

[1301] But beyond that, you have to ask this question.

[1302] First of all, is it good for news organizations to have town halls with people running for president or incumbent president's running for re -election.

[1303] Is that a service of journalism?

[1304] Good for what?

[1305] Good for the democracy or good for good television.

[1306] As a principle without going into any specific candidate.

[1307] Knowing the candidates well in informing the voter, yes.

[1308] Okay.

[1309] Donald Trump is the leading Republican presidential candidate.

[1310] So if you're saying he is an exception to that rule, let's talk about what you mean by that.

[1311] Are you saying we shouldn't do it live and we should tape it and then like edit it?

[1312] Or are you saying that the people that we have in the audience should be different?

[1313] Well, I would argue A, the electorate knows Donald Trump.

[1314] So if our original mission was to inform the voter, we all know more about that man than we'll ever know about any politician ever again in the history of the world.

[1315] But there were new issues that Caitlin brought up.

[1316] Yeah, that he ignored.

[1317] He said a whole bunch of stuff about the classified documents case that Caitlin was very well informed on.

[1318] He said something more about E. Jean Carroll that has caused her to amend her defamation suit.

[1319] She's going to maybe get more money from him.

[1320] What I'm saying is, if the goal is to inform the voter so they can make an educated decision.

[1321] I believe everyone in this country has already made their decision and they already know that person.

[1322] And no one is going to have a new feeling about Donald Trump, period.

[1323] And then you factor in the fact that CNN makes $250 million less of profit a year post -Trump.

[1324] This is an unavoidable fact.

[1325] They were making a billion dollars of profit during the Trump era.

[1326] And now they're making $750 million of profit.

[1327] So when you see that the voters already informed and the network has a quarter billion dollar incentive to have him on the air, that's an issue.

[1328] That needs to be addressed.

[1329] I'm not CNN management.

[1330] Yeah.

[1331] I'm here to offer you that position.

[1332] But I will tell you, I don't think that it's lack of Donald Trump equals $250 million a year less.

[1333] I think that a lot of the stuff is cyclical.

[1334] Ad rates for everyone are going down.

[1335] There are layoffs of media organizations across the board and a lot of it is fears of a recession.

[1336] We can't ignore the balance that it is a business.

[1337] It's not a philanthropic endeavor.

[1338] It's not what the network news was, which is mandated by the FCC.

[1339] You have to have news.

[1340] That's why we're going to give you these airwaves.

[1341] Right, because it's cable.

[1342] I think if we acknowledge that a business is vastly more incentivized to have this guy around and have the electorate whipped into a frenzy, that has to be a part of our evaluating why you'd have a town hall with Donald Trump.

[1343] I think I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that we shouldn't have a town hall with the leading Republican presidential candidate.

[1344] I understand your concerns.

[1345] And I'm certainly open -minded to, look, we should do it on on tape, which is, by the way, what Hannity did, like a week or two later.

[1346] There's nothing wrong with that.

[1347] Bring it down to a more manageable length to take out the part where he's attacking the moderator, whatever.

[1348] Yeah, just being abusive.

[1349] We gave him an opportunity to do that.

[1350] I don't know.

[1351] My mind is open about that part of it, but there's a fundamental issue of fairness that I don't know that I agree with you on.

[1352] It's going to be some kind of a compromise of some sort, or we have to navigate it.

[1353] We're probably you and I are on different sides of that.

[1354] Yeah, I think so.

[1355] If the goal is to make it more a political or not one -sided, then you have to do things like this.

[1356] How many other Republican town halls had they aired before Trump?

[1357] In this election cycle?

[1358] Yeah.

[1359] Well, I did one with Mike Pence when his book came out last year.

[1360] But I guess that doesn't count because he hadn't declared himself.

[1361] Right.

[1362] I think Trump was the first one.

[1363] But we did Trump.

[1364] We did Pence.

[1365] We did Chris Christie.

[1366] I did Nikki Haley.

[1367] I don't want to act like you're not making a great.

[1368] point.

[1369] And look, we want to get DeSantis.

[1370] We want to get Tim Scott.

[1371] We want to get Asa Hutchinson.

[1372] We want to get everybody.

[1373] We want to get Joe Biden.

[1374] I think we had one for Biden last year.

[1375] But I mean, it is a public service, I think.

[1376] And Donald Trump is a disruptor.

[1377] Honestly, it's funny because I remember everybody got so mad that the crowd was cheering for Donald Trump.

[1378] And I get it.

[1379] I understand, especially in they're cheering when he's like belittling the woman who just won in court for a sexual assault and defamation case.

[1380] So I did the one with Nikki Haley a few weeks later.

[1381] And we were in Iowa.

[1382] And by the end, Nikki Haley had the crowd cheering for her.

[1383] And it's what happens.

[1384] You get a room full of 200 Republican voters and somebody gets to make their case.

[1385] Everybody has their own style and charm.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] But Nikki Haley charmed the room.

[1388] She said some things that some progressives found very offensive.

[1389] People were cheering.

[1390] Nobody cared.

[1391] Yeah.

[1392] I bring all this up to say that I actually find you to have tons of integrity.

[1393] And I do think before you're anything politically, you're very dedicated to the truth.

[1394] Well, thank you.

[1395] And I respect it and I think everyone can feel it.

[1396] It's very palpable.

[1397] It's annoying to people, too, I think.

[1398] Keep annoying them.

[1399] When I fact -checked them over dinner.

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] That's actually not what ironic means, but let's move on.

[1402] Okay, we don't have time for it, but I do want to just say that the, this is not justice story you wrote for the Atlantic about your father, who is the doctor of this accused and incarcerated kid is incredible.

[1403] CJ Rice, did you read that?

[1404] Thank you so much.

[1405] Yes, I think everyone should read that.

[1406] I encourage them after they read, all the demons are here.

[1407] but this is not just this is fantastic okay your books this is the third my third novel yeah yes first is the hellfire club then the devil may dance all of them new york times bestsellers and this now picks up and we touched on it earlier but you're moving through the decades i guess if you wouldn't mind amusing me and i most want to know about the inception of the hellfire club because that's what starts you on this path i wanted a mystery that takes place in dc because i know dc so well and i wanted it to be in an era that fascinates me, which was the McCarthy era.

[1408] And one of the reasons why that era fascinated me when I wrote the book was because Donald Trump and Joe McCarthy have a lot in common in terms of their larger their life personas, how much they scared the shit out of everybody in their party, how it didn't seem like they could be defeated.

[1409] And then ultimately, obviously, McCarthy was.

[1410] And I wanted heroes who were married.

[1411] That was important to me to have Charlie and Margaret be a couple that were in love.

[1412] Because I read a lot of thrillers.

[1413] Is that your chosen genre?

[1414] I do read a lot of them.

[1415] And they're great, and they're always a single man. I don't want to badmouth that, but I'm, you know, happily married.

[1416] I think it's more interesting in a way to have a couple.

[1417] So the first one takes place in the Carth era.

[1418] The second one, Charlie and Margaret are heroes, get blackmailed by Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

[1419] This is now 1962, to go out and find out, is Frank Sinatra actually mobbed up or not.

[1420] And this is based on a real story when Sinatra wanted JFK, President Kennedy, to come and stay with him at Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs.

[1421] at his estate, which he had been building up for a presidential visit, build a helipad and all this stuff.

[1422] And then ultimately, spoiler alert, this doesn't ruin the book for you, but just historically, Bobby Kennedy says, no way are you staying there.

[1423] We're going after the mob and that guy's mobbed up.

[1424] Sinatra goes batch it.

[1425] This is in reality and destroys the helipad.

[1426] Oh, really?

[1427] Oh, yeah.

[1428] It's crazy.

[1429] Oh, wow.

[1430] You're such a polymath and you have such a generalist infatuation with everything that it's fun to see how many different random things you point.

[1431] Like, you love pop culture.

[1432] Love it.

[1433] You know more about movies and actors and directors and everything.

[1434] When we sit around and talk in Idaho, I'm like, you know way more about this than I do.

[1435] By the way, I need to tell you that I'm always trying to get my son to like, Alice is going, I can't get her.

[1436] She's 15.

[1437] She doesn't want to.

[1438] But I'm always trying to get Jack to like a stuff I like.

[1439] Yeah, sure, of course.

[1440] And he loved idiocracy.

[1441] Oh, he did.

[1442] And you're so good in that.

[1443] Oh, thank you.

[1444] Thank you.

[1445] It's one of the few things that real life has almost outpaced, but not quite.

[1446] So good.

[1447] Anyway, so the third book is the 70s and, well, you're a motorcycle officinato.

[1448] I am not.

[1449] But I did.

[1450] put a lot of work to have the motorcycle parts of the book written.

[1451] I was curious about that.

[1452] So like when you're tackling things that might be outside of your base knowledge, like even Montana, in the vibe in Montana, in the bars and what was happening in the 70s.

[1453] And here's where we can get into the 70s.

[1454] Chris and I were just in Brooklyn, right?

[1455] We're walking through there.

[1456] And I actually said to her, I said, you know, I just get this weird son of Sam vibes.

[1457] Like we were getting into a shady area of Brooklyn, right?

[1458] And I was thinking of Son of Sam, you're like, wait, what was his thing?

[1459] And I go, I think he was, I I think Sam's the dog in this story, right?

[1460] His neighbor's dog was telling them the murder people.

[1461] And you're looking around and you're like, this was a gnarly fucking place.

[1462] I don't think people recognize how much ground has been covered since 1977 to now safety -wise and grime -wise.

[1463] It's crazy.

[1464] The amount of violence you could get away with on a daily basis and never have the cops come to your door.

[1465] I mean, it was a different time.

[1466] Yeah, no go zones.

[1467] And that's one of the reasons the 77 is so fun to write about is because it was so wild.

[1468] The summer of Sam, Elvis's death, Manhattan Black.

[1469] out.

[1470] Evil Knievel, UFOs.

[1471] I mean, there's just so much going on in the culture.

[1472] And we're really far out from World War II.

[1473] We've now lost in Vietnam.

[1474] Our whole morale has gone down at this point.

[1475] Jimmy Carter is the president.

[1476] He's weak.

[1477] There's a huge energy crisis.

[1478] The Republican Party doesn't know what they're going to do.

[1479] The Nixon Frost interviews were in 77 too.

[1480] It was very bleak, I'd say.

[1481] You're right.

[1482] In terms of outside my knowledge base, one of the things that I do is I read a ton to try to dive into the era that I'm writing about.

[1483] I read a ton about Montana bars in the 70s.

[1484] What source material?

[1485] I feel like I need to dip into some of this.

[1486] First of all, there's an amazing website called newspapers .com.

[1487] And they're constantly updating.

[1488] And they have newspapers that go back literally to the 1700s.

[1489] And you can search under Montana.

[1490] But also, there was just stuff online that I found.

[1491] For motorcycles, what I did was, because I know nothing about motorcycles.

[1492] And motorcycles are a huge part of this book, because of Evil Canebel.

[1493] And because Ike, the main male character.

[1494] Who's the son of your two.

[1495] And he's a motorcycle fiend.

[1496] He works on Evil King.

[1497] He's a Marine.

[1498] He's A -Wall.

[1499] Yeah.

[1500] And obviously you would know the history of like the Hells Angels.

[1501] Most of those motorcycle clubs were ex -marines, ex -special forces.

[1502] Guys who had been in the shit had some heightened sense of everything.

[1503] And then we're bored out of their fucking minds when they got home and started these motorcycle clothes.

[1504] That still happens.

[1505] You can see the motorcycle club membership correlate perfectly with every time we have wars.

[1506] Yep.

[1507] A guy I know who was in my Afghanistan book.

[1508] I was just killed in a motorcycle accident.

[1509] over Memorial Day weekend, just an awful thing.

[1510] A Marine named Chris Briley, really great guy.

[1511] I write the motorcycle scenes and then because I know so little and because it pisses me off when I'm reading a book or watching a TV show or movie about politics or journalism and they get it wrong.

[1512] Of course.

[1513] So I found this great motorcycle writer named Mark Gardner and I hired him.

[1514] I said, here's my book.

[1515] Please correct anything in here that's about motorcycles that would piss off somebody like you.

[1516] Did it cross your mind to hire me?

[1517] It did not I don't think I could afford you To be completely frank There is a Dakotian there though I know you're a big fan of Dakotians I am a big fan But I've had Harleys I've had all of them I'm obsessed with the Hells Angels When I was an anthropology student at UCLA I was going to do my ethnography On the Hells Angels I'm sure you read Hunter S Thompson's book Yes yes of course And the best is two can keep a secret If one is dead That's a great Hells Angels book By the way speaking of UCLA The UCLA crew team Has reached out to my daughter because she's rowing crew now oh really and so there might be a letter of recommendation you want us to ask you to write something okay great i might hit you up in a year or change happy to okay i just was over there helping teach a class so i'm staying in good standing with them it's like i just split never came back i've known alice tapper since i held her when she was but a six -month -old child i looked into her eyes and i said if i've ever seen a bruin this is a bruin and she's already living up to it.

[1518] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1519] Okay, so you get to tackle, and you do a similar thing because in the first two books, again, as you said, you have this married couple, but in this one, we have brother and sisters, so you get to accomplish the same kind of goal.

[1520] I just am constantly setting challenges for myself.

[1521] Can I do this?

[1522] For the first two books, they were written in third person.

[1523] Yeah, this is first person from Ike.

[1524] First person from Ike, and then the next chapter is first person from Lucy, and then the next chapter's first person, like back and forth, back and forth.

[1525] I just wanted to see if I could pull it off.

[1526] Had you read a book in that format?

[1527] I don't think I have.

[1528] Nope.

[1529] Is there a famous example?

[1530] I feel like you've done something kind of original here.

[1531] I'm sure it's not original.

[1532] Okay, but did you have anxiety about it?

[1533] Yes, especially writing for Lucy.

[1534] But I had a woman editor that I worked with very closely who was fantastic and would suggest like maybe Lucy could say something about wearing cute boots, something that would never occur to me. Cute boots.

[1535] But she was great with that Christina Kovic.

[1536] Also, I just decided to put since Lucy's a reporter, my most annoying reporterly traits in her, like correcting people when they misuse the word ironic.

[1537] I was going to say the knee -jerk thought would be like it'd be easier for you to write Ike, but in fact, probably you're more Lucy.

[1538] I'm definitely more Lucy than Ike.

[1539] She's a reporter.

[1540] I'm a reporter.

[1541] I'm a Marine.

[1542] I'm not a Marine.

[1543] Right.

[1544] And you probably have lots of opinions about the tabloid birth and explosion.

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] The guy in the book who's supposed to be Rubet Murdoch, Max Lyon, I try to get into his head.

[1547] That five -part Murdoch that CNN did?

[1548] Oh, yeah.

[1549] Fuck was that great.

[1550] Oh, my God, did I love that?

[1551] Yeah, he's a fascinating guy.

[1552] We have these figures throughout history.

[1553] And I'm like, I've lived through one of them.

[1554] I live through one that they'll be writing about for hundreds and hundreds of years.

[1555] Yeah.

[1556] You can't ignore the fact that he, and this is one of the things I try to infuse in Max Lyon, which is he thinks that the press talks down to its readers and the press doesn't listen to its readers and what they want.

[1557] I tried to make him a credible character so he's not just Mr. Burns and pure evil.

[1558] By the same token, okay, but his solution is outrage and anger.

[1559] Well, I hate to ask, but should people get what they want?

[1560] I'm not at my best when I get everything I want.

[1561] Totally.

[1562] And also, when you're trying to sell something, you're not necessarily giving them what they want.

[1563] You're trying to appeal to the part of them that will take out their checkbook.

[1564] Honestly, it's the definition of clickbait except for tabloid newspapers trying to improve newsstand sales or Fox viewers or whatever, which is I. I'm going to give you some more enemies.

[1565] Yes.

[1566] I want to give you some people to hate.

[1567] And whether it's Casey Anthony or immigrants or George Soros.

[1568] And it's a good way to get votes and it's a good way to get viewers.

[1569] Anger is motivating.

[1570] If there's a business structure built around that, that's how you end up with what we saw in January 6.

[1571] Yes.

[1572] So it's fun because you're probably initial interest in the Hellfire Club is lightly paralleling McCarthy and Trump because it's present.

[1573] And then, of course, even in this trip.

[1574] through 1977, we're pulling in obviously very modern day things that you're probably obsessed with today.

[1575] So evil can evil.

[1576] What do you think he represents for that period?

[1577] I think he represents in some ways what Donald Trump represents, which is a guy who's a showman who's able to get butts in the seats, a lot of bravado, a lot of anger, a lot of resentment, and a following, a real dedicated following.

[1578] And one of the things that I try to get into in the book is like, why would a mob follow a demagogue.

[1579] How does it happen?

[1580] And in this book, obviously, it's fiction.

[1581] But Evil Caneval is bringing this group of people across the country because there are injustices real and imagined.

[1582] And he's trying to tell them that he is going to solve their problems.

[1583] Yeah.

[1584] The book starts with a quote from him that is fantastic.

[1585] It's, I created the character called Evil Caneval, and he sort of got away from me. That's a real line.

[1586] Wow.

[1587] He really said that.

[1588] Wow.

[1589] Isn't that incredible?

[1590] It's honest.

[1591] It's shockingly honest.

[1592] Yeah.

[1593] Like there's a level of ownership.

[1594] He can see the big picture.

[1595] But you could see somebody else making that comment, couldn't you?

[1596] If they had that here, but I don't think they're a real narcissists, no. No. I feel like this is towards the end of his life, Evil Caneval.

[1597] But yes, he created the character of Evil Caneval and he kind of got away from.

[1598] It's so great.

[1599] It's so simple.

[1600] So tell us just roughly what journey.

[1601] Ike and Lucy come together.

[1602] Ike's at the bar, and she just shows up.

[1603] He was in Lebanon.

[1604] He was in a mishap, a U .S. military.

[1605] He was in Bethesda Naval Hospital, and then he vanishes.

[1606] His parents don't know where he went.

[1607] Lucy figures out where he is.

[1608] He is in Montana working for Evil Caneval.

[1609] That's how the book begins, and then he gets into a bar fight, and they have to flee.

[1610] And then the book backs up to before they met up at the bar in Montana, the Dead Canary, which is not a real bar.

[1611] It's a good name for a bar in Montana, though.

[1612] Can someone have that?

[1613] Will you give that?

[1614] If somebody wants to franchise it.

[1615] So yeah, and then the book is just about their different journeys which meet up in the middle at the beginning and then at the end.

[1616] There is a big scene on an island called Pitchfork Island where Charlie and Margaret are there with Lucy and Ike and all of the Republican establishment trying to figure out what's going to happen to the political party.

[1617] And it was very fun to write.

[1618] It's great is you have such knowledge of all this that everything that gets presented is semi -plausible.

[1619] This is the context in which this could happen.

[1620] And in fact, shocking this didn't happen.

[1621] The book has a, this is not a spoiler alert, but this victim.

[1622] run for president of evil can evil i'm kind of actually surprised that didn't happen yeah me too Mattel should have pitched that to him or something whoever made his toys you'd think that at one point he would have done something at least governor of montana i'm shocked that didn't happen a little low for him i would think yeah not spectacular enough well you're a great writer you're a very very fun writer if people have not read your fiction i'm sure people have read your editorial stuff and it's hard -hitting and wonderful but this is very playful and fun i can tell you're having a fucking blast writing it.

[1623] That's just the goal of it, honestly.

[1624] I know how tough it is to get people's attention.

[1625] You got like a million channels and like 30 ,000 different things on your phone.

[1626] It's tough to hold somebody's attention to watch a show, to see a movie all the way through, to read a book for sure.

[1627] I just want them to keep turning the page because they need to find it.

[1628] And they're having fun.

[1629] No, it's supposed to be fun.

[1630] Yeah, very fun.

[1631] You have a great sense of humor and it's very present in it.

[1632] Last two questions.

[1633] How on earth do you find the time to write these?

[1634] First of all, I'm obviously a little nuts.

[1635] Yeah.

[1636] Your own show five days a week and you're on another, your own show Sunday.

[1637] I think I'm kind of like a 33 and a third record that somebody just put on the 45.

[1638] On the 45 said, maybe even 75.

[1639] Maybe, I guess.

[1640] But I also just try to write 15 minutes a day.

[1641] Okay, great.

[1642] And is that in the morning or in the evening?

[1643] Wherever I can grab it.

[1644] I have a laptop with me at all times.

[1645] And I write a Google Doc.

[1646] So as long as there's a computer in the area, I can do it.

[1647] That's a good system.

[1648] For instance, I have two computers with me. I brought my work computer so I can do my show and then I have my Apple at the hotel.

[1649] And I'll write before I go.

[1650] to bad.

[1651] So that one computer is just dedicated to write.

[1652] It's just creative.

[1653] That's a creative thing.

[1654] 100%.

[1655] You're not going to read bad news on there.

[1656] You're not going to get distracted.

[1657] Try not to.

[1658] How do you deal with the internet?

[1659] The truth of the manner is I'm pretty good at like having weaned myself at this point.

[1660] If I need the news, I have the news on my phone.

[1661] Most of the stuff about like if I'm going to Google, search my name.

[1662] It's either going to be what I reported, which I already know, or just somebody insulting me, which I don't need to read.

[1663] And you can assume it's happening.

[1664] You don't need to see it.

[1665] Or it's Jake Tapper owns blah, blah, blah.

[1666] and I don't like that either, whoever they think I'm owning.

[1667] Yeah.

[1668] You own me today in that presidential debate conversation.

[1669] Maybe that'll be the headline.

[1670] I don't think so.

[1671] There are a lot of people that are going to listen that are going to agree with you.

[1672] I think we know who he is.

[1673] I think everyone knows pretty darn well.

[1674] Lastly, you sometimes will appear in movies.

[1675] Yes.

[1676] I don't go to a ton, but I do do it.

[1677] I know.

[1678] And I love it.

[1679] And I always talk to my father -in -law about this because he's a news director currently in Las Vegas at a network.

[1680] And he's been all over the country.

[1681] I'll propose to him, why can't we in show business make credible looking news.

[1682] When we cut to the news and movies, it always sucks unless you have decided to cooperate or some other good anchor has decided to cooperate.

[1683] Because we're on sets that cost millions of dollars.

[1684] I mean, that's, I guess that's part of it.

[1685] So my question is, how do you decide when you're going to do it, when you're not going to do it?

[1686] So if it's a friend, I'll do it.

[1687] Like David Beniof is a friend of mine.

[1688] So you were on it for Game of Thrones.

[1689] They cut to CNN during Game of Thrones.

[1690] No, but maybe I'm not a lot to talk about it, but maybe there's a future project.

[1691] Or Mindy Kaling is a friend.

[1692] So, like, she asked me to be in the movie she did.

[1693] Because of Dartmouth?

[1694] That's how I know Mindy.

[1695] Okay.

[1696] So, and David Benyoff, too.

[1697] So, for instance, if you were working on something and you wanted me or Kristen, it has to get approved by CNN and CNN might go back and forth with them about what we're not going to have him.

[1698] They got to see what you're going to say.

[1699] Yeah, it has to be credible.

[1700] It has to, like, you know, I can't be like the bad guy.

[1701] I've given Dan Abbas shit because she's in the Batman versus Superman movie.

[1702] I wasn't in it.

[1703] And no one asked me to be in it.

[1704] And that's fine, whatever.

[1705] But I will tell you, I will tell you that she spouts some.

[1706] seriously anti -superman propaganda that I found objectionable.

[1707] Okay.

[1708] What's the biggest movie you've been in?

[1709] I bet the residuals would shock you what she's getting.

[1710] Oh, well, how about Wolf in the last Mission Impossible movie?

[1711] The guy peels off Wolfblesters face and it's...

[1712] That's the ultimate nod.

[1713] Oh, God.

[1714] You got to get yourself in a mission.

[1715] That's a cameo.

[1716] He got to meet Cruz and everything.

[1717] Fuck.

[1718] All mine are just in studio.

[1719] Right.

[1720] You bang it out on a break, basically.

[1721] Exactly.

[1722] And even one I did that was in a Tom Cruise movie.

[1723] Do they just keep you in your wardrobe, you're already wearing?

[1724] Yes, I get nothing.

[1725] I mean, I probably get like a hundred bucks or something, but he's living the same day over and over with Emily Blunt.

[1726] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1727] With those squid monsters.

[1728] Yes, edge of tomorrow.

[1729] So I'm in that at the very beginning, but I didn't even get to meet him.

[1730] They just CGI'd him onto my set, which was like, what the fuck?

[1731] I don't even get to.

[1732] Sanjay was a contagion.

[1733] That's a good one.

[1734] That's a win.

[1735] When you guys get together, wherever the fuck you guys mingle, White House correspondent's time, I'm guessing.

[1736] Does it come up who was in what movies?

[1737] Is that like a fun thing to talk?

[1738] Wolf brings it up because he was in the highest grossing James Bond movie and the highest grossing Mission Impossible movie.

[1739] Oh, he's the golden ticket.

[1740] But he throws it at you like a question.

[1741] Do you know what the highest grossing?

[1742] It's like a whole 10 -minute stick he does.

[1743] Oh, my God.

[1744] And he goes to know who was in both those movies.

[1745] Yeah, there's a follow -up question.

[1746] You know who's in both?

[1747] With Tom Cruise?

[1748] No. He wasn't in whatever the James Bond movie was.

[1749] Yeah, the only connective tissue is me. Wolf Blitzer.

[1750] I think the biggest movie I was in in terms of the feedback I get was Pitch Perfect 2, but that's probably just because all my daughter's friends have seen it.

[1751] Did you know your dad was in Pitch Perfect 2?

[1752] Claim to Fame.

[1753] I think that's it, though.

[1754] But, you know.

[1755] You're open to a pitch if we bring you one.

[1756] I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't have been in, you know, any, uh, chips.

[1757] Written and directed by Dan Shepard.

[1758] You didn't ask.

[1759] I assumed you would have turned me down.

[1760] I did have that moment one time I was talking to Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica.

[1761] I got to be around him and go to a show and stuff.

[1762] And I was saying how I had really wanted this song and hit and run.

[1763] And he said, well, why don't you ask?

[1764] And I go, well, my assumption was there's no fucking way you guys would let me have a song.

[1765] And he goes, we probably would have.

[1766] We only do the ones we like.

[1767] But if we do it, then we don't even charge.

[1768] And I was like, are you telling me I could have potentially, you know, whatever one of these million -dollar songs.

[1769] Anyway, so now that I will always go to him.

[1770] And now that I know it's about you, I will always go to you.

[1771] Maybe just do a buddy picture.

[1772] with me and Lars.

[1773] Oh, my God.

[1774] This sounds great.

[1775] He's from Philly.

[1776] He's a Newmark.

[1777] He's a Denmark rock and roller.

[1778] Yeah.

[1779] Together there.

[1780] The best friends.

[1781] Well, Jake, this has been a blast.

[1782] I'm very excited that we are mere days out from our lover's retreat.

[1783] Right now, I would be going through like, uh, I have to leave.

[1784] This is bumming me out.

[1785] No, this is the appetizer.

[1786] It's bumming me out about Monica.

[1787] Yeah, you have to come back.

[1788] But I do get to see you in a few days.

[1789] Yeah.

[1790] And we will be with the whole brood.

[1791] And I'm on.

[1792] your boat.

[1793] I got myself specifically.

[1794] I waited to see when you signed up for the whitewater rafting and I signed up for the same one.

[1795] I'm sure I'll be in the front and you'll be in the back.

[1796] Well, maybe we should flip the script this year.

[1797] Maybe you should bark orders at me. I'll still be flexing at that point in the river because why else do I work out?

[1798] Your pipes are big.

[1799] You know what I was thinking is I might find you at your bus.

[1800] My bus.

[1801] Yeah.

[1802] And do some pumping.

[1803] I'll be bringing the whole gym as I always do.

[1804] I might do that.

[1805] There's not a lot of gym options out there.

[1806] There's none, which is why I bring everything.

[1807] Yeah, I might.

[1808] And my son is now weightlifting, too.

[1809] He's huge.

[1810] Oh, let's have a fucking group pump.

[1811] We'll do it.

[1812] I like it.

[1813] Because then we can still achieve my primary goal, which is to chat the entire time we're there.

[1814] That's fine.

[1815] I love it.

[1816] And you'll also be the strongest one there, which is I know important to you.

[1817] Well, I don't need to be the strongest.

[1818] I just need to look the strongest.

[1819] If given the option, you got the both.

[1820] You got the both.

[1821] Or be very strong and skinny.

[1822] You got both.

[1823] But we're just like DC nerd.

[1824] So just be nice.

[1825] All right.

[1826] Well, I adore you, Jake.

[1827] And I can't wait to spend a week with you.

[1828] Thanks so much for coming in.

[1829] I hope everybody buys all the demons are here, reads it.

[1830] In fact, you might want to start with the first two books because it just all seamlessly works together.

[1831] They can just do all the demons are here.

[1832] And then if they like all the demons are here, go back.

[1833] Go back.

[1834] Yeah.

[1835] Okay, great.

[1836] The sky's the limit.

[1837] Jake, thanks so much for coming.

[1838] This is a joy.

[1839] Can I just say also?

[1840] I'm a fan of the pod.

[1841] Thank you.

[1842] You are to Spotify, what Stern is to serious XM.

[1843] Joe Rogan might disagree, but thank you so much.

[1844] Well, no, for me, for me, thank you so much.

[1845] got Spotify because of armchair expert.

[1846] I hope that means something.

[1847] It does.

[1848] I'm consuming all your stuff.

[1849] So if you're consuming some of ours, that makes me really happy.

[1850] I can tell you which ones are my favorite.

[1851] Of course I want to know.

[1852] I really like the Seinfeld one.

[1853] You did.

[1854] I really like the Seinfeld one.

[1855] Why?

[1856] Well, tell me why.

[1857] I like the Letterman one too, but the Seinfeld one was interesting because it was just like he was just giving you advice.

[1858] I've never heard him talk so openly about depression before.

[1859] I thought you were going to enjoy it because he really just shut me down.

[1860] every five seconds, and that you might have enjoyed the guy from the back of the boat.

[1861] No, no, no, no. He didn't shut you down.

[1862] He just wasn't going to play the game.

[1863] He was just going to answer the way he wanted to answer.

[1864] I liked it, too.

[1865] Yeah, I thought it was just interesting.

[1866] And the book he read about the chemistry of the brain and how you need to do something every day, whether it's exercise or, I guess, stand up for him, whatever the other thing was, you need to do something.

[1867] I was just like, I need to get that chemistry of the brain book.

[1868] I did like the Letterman one, though, too.

[1869] I mean, like all of them.

[1870] I'm friends with a few of these folks.

[1871] friends with Paul and I'm friends with Jake.

[1872] But I learned things about Jake that I didn't know.

[1873] Oh, Jillen Hall.

[1874] Yeah.

[1875] Oh, that's nice.

[1876] And also his quoting Engley, something like, we pretend so we can tell the truth, something like that.

[1877] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1878] Anyway, I'm a fan.

[1879] You have an incredible memory.

[1880] The main thing is just like, I really do love this podcast.

[1881] It brings pleasure to people's lives, obviously millions.

[1882] Well, thank you.

[1883] Well, you see the hits, but you don't see the pleasure.

[1884] That's true.

[1885] That download and that download and that download.

[1886] Those are all Jake Tapper sitting somewhere being like, this is bringing me pleasure.

[1887] Oh, good, wonderful.

[1888] I'm going to try to bring you a lot more all week, so buckle up.

[1889] Okay.

[1890] All right.

[1891] Love you, Jake.

[1892] Love you, too, man. Stay tuned for the facts so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

[1893] I'm going to do it.

[1894] And action.

[1895] I have numbers.

[1896] Me, Tuesday.

[1897] Me, too.

[1898] Good morning.

[1899] Good morning.

[1900] How was Los Angeles?

[1901] It's a little warm?

[1902] Yeah, it's hot here.

[1903] It's very hot.

[1904] hot finally happened finally and that's the thing i can't really complain because i complained all year the whole time it was yeah a little chilly and i do have gratitude i prefer this even though it's miserable to the other thing right have you been sun worshiping at all as you like to do when it's like this out yeah i don't have very many places i was going to sun worship yesterday for honest birthday at the beach oh did she have a party uh -huh she had a birthday party at the beach and I thought this is a good opportunity to worship, to pray.

[1905] To go to church.

[1906] To my son, God.

[1907] On Sunday.

[1908] I mean, it all made sense.

[1909] And did you do that?

[1910] Okay.

[1911] I started driving there.

[1912] Uh -huh.

[1913] And I remembered something.

[1914] The last time, it was her birthday and she did the beach.

[1915] You know, she said, Will Rogers Beach?

[1916] Great.

[1917] I put that in the GPS.

[1918] It takes me somewhere completely wrong.

[1919] Uh -oh.

[1920] Like 20 minutes wrong.

[1921] Will Rogers State Park maybe instead?

[1922] No. just another part of the beach.

[1923] To Will Rogers' home.

[1924] Yeah, it did.

[1925] So that, and that was so annoying.

[1926] I remember I have PTSD because I ended up, I was like, I'll park and just walk.

[1927] And then I walked in the wrong direction.

[1928] And you don't have service is all disastrous.

[1929] So I remembered this once I started driving and I texted them, hey, what's the address to put in the GPS?

[1930] Because this happened.

[1931] And she was like, oh, I think it's fine.

[1932] we just put in Will Rogers Beach.

[1933] We'll let you know.

[1934] In like five minutes later, she was like, oh, yeah, it took us to the wrong thing.

[1935] When we get there, we'll send you a pen.

[1936] I said, great.

[1937] Then about 15 minutes later, they were like, they're turning people away at Will Rogers.

[1938] It's too crowded.

[1939] Oh, my God, it was too crowded?

[1940] Yes.

[1941] Whoa.

[1942] Because I'm not the only sun worshipper.

[1943] No, California's chalk full of them.

[1944] Yeah, I'm not unique.

[1945] Terminal uniqueness.

[1946] Yeah, that's what we suffer from.

[1947] So anyway, at this point.

[1948] Earmark PTSD.

[1949] Let's just earmark that, okay?

[1950] Okay.

[1951] All right.

[1952] So they're turning people away.

[1953] Yes.

[1954] And I already am sort of reluctant because this is already, it's an hour.

[1955] Right.

[1956] To get there.

[1957] The drive is an hour, traffic.

[1958] And so all this is happening and I decide to abort.

[1959] Okay.

[1960] Was that a hard decision since it was her birthday?

[1961] Was it hard to make that call?

[1962] or you were, you felt fine about it?

[1963] It was hard.

[1964] I did want to show up for her birthday, but we have celebrated her birthday.

[1965] We celebrated on our trip and her and I go out all the time.

[1966] I felt okay and I, I told her I was sorry, but I also had to work and I, I won't have time.

[1967] You know, I started to get panicky.

[1968] Mm -hmm.

[1969] So I came back and, uh...

[1970] Put away your beach gear and your shovels and buckets and...

[1971] Umbrellas?

[1972] Yeah, I did.

[1973] So I didn't get any sun.

[1974] Bummer.

[1975] Although I did because I walked to Coval to work and I was kind of in the sun a little bit.

[1976] Okay, but you've got to maintain that savage base you picked up in Palm Springs.

[1977] I know.

[1978] I don't know.

[1979] You're losing it.

[1980] What should I do?

[1981] Where do I go?

[1982] I'm not positive you could play black right now, just so you know.

[1983] I know that woman thought so.

[1984] But then again, she caught you on a Florida trip.

[1985] So you might have been at darkest point.

[1986] Peak.

[1987] No, but at that time in my life, I was I was working extremely hard to be as white as possible.

[1988] So I don't think so.

[1989] You were avoiding sun back then?

[1990] Yeah, if like we were at the beach, but I would, you know, put towels on my body.

[1991] Oh, wow.

[1992] Oh boy.

[1993] Yeah.

[1994] Okay.

[1995] I'd be towel, towel girl.

[1996] Okay, PTSD.

[1997] So we go to the beach here every day and we get Sandy, of course.

[1998] And then, lucky enough, there's an outdoor shower right off of the bedroom.

[1999] And so the girls and I always shower.

[2000] Yeah.

[2001] And you get so much sand in your suit.

[2002] Well, seaweed and sand because the waves are good.

[2003] They'll churn you.

[2004] In fact, Delta got a good churning, and I went and plucked her out of it.

[2005] Oh, no, that's scary.

[2006] Yeah, so did you get scared?

[2007] Yes.

[2008] I was so glad that you were watching.

[2009] I'm going to be your baby the rest of the day.

[2010] I was like, you can be my baby the rest of your life.

[2011] Yes, she's your baby forever.

[2012] She felt really good that I had been monitoring it, I think.

[2013] Because she thought she was just on her.

[2014] She didn't think I was watching, but then I was when it counted.

[2015] But at any rate, that's the inadvertent brag.

[2016] Anyways, we're back washing.

[2017] And, like, as I take my suit off, there's seaweed everywhere, right?

[2018] And so I introduced Lincoln to, I said, listen, get that soap going, PTSD.

[2019] Oh.

[2020] And she said, what's PTSD?

[2021] I said, pits, tits, slits, and dicks.

[2022] You told her that?

[2023] Well, she knows every one of those words independently.

[2024] Slits.

[2025] I bet slits was new.

[2026] But she knows she has a vagina and a buck crack.

[2027] She knows about her slits.

[2028] So she really laughed.

[2029] Really hard.

[2030] And then we were at dinner at Ted and Mary's house.

[2031] And she out of nowhere aimed for the fences.

[2032] She goes, guys, I just want to say when you're showering, don't forget to wash your PTSD pits, tits, slits, and dicks.

[2033] Oh, wow.

[2034] And they had heart attacks laughing.

[2035] Wow.

[2036] I'm so glad it's getting passed down the pipe.

[2037] Me too.

[2038] Me too.

[2039] It's fun for them to be getting old enough to have a similar sense of humor.

[2040] Ooh, another update, Lincoln and I, I thought it was going to take 45 minutes for everyone to be ready to get in the car to go wherever we were going.

[2041] So I popped on a little Grand Poudabette Hotel.

[2042] And she sat down and she started watching it with me. And she goes, oh, this movie's so weird.

[2043] And I go, yes, this director is known for being very unique and eccentric and weird.

[2044] And I was like starting to explain about the set design and how it always starts.

[2045] and these wides and then these inserts.

[2046] And so she was, like, very interested and intrigued.

[2047] And she's like, I want to watch the rest of this with you.

[2048] And I go, oh, my gosh, Hunt, he has so many great movies.

[2049] We need to sit and watch all them.

[2050] And then I was like, are you kidding?

[2051] I'm at the point where I'm about to educate Lincoln on Wes Anderson and what makes him so brilliant.

[2052] That's awesome.

[2053] And she's truly interested.

[2054] Very cool.

[2055] And perfect timing because you guys can go to the theater because he has a new movie, Asteroid City.

[2056] Oh, he does?

[2057] I didn't even know that.

[2058] Yeah, everyone's in it.

[2059] Oh, of course.

[2060] He gets the very best cast.

[2061] It's ridiculous.

[2062] Yeah, so, and it's perfect time because they're shooting a lot of movies here and editing them.

[2063] Oh, they are.

[2064] Yes, and this funny thing is presenting itself, which is they're all slowly realizing that Delta is the funniest person on planet Earth filmed.

[2065] Oh, oh, oh, oh, okay.

[2066] Hold on.

[2067] Back up, back up.

[2068] When you say they're making a lot of movies and editing them.

[2069] you mean the children on your trip yes who did you think i was talking about like the city of martha's vineyard oh no no no the girls the four little girls are making a lot of movies uh -huh yeah they do this a lot this is common on our trips they make movies they edit them it's very cute and they're totally nonsensical and they suck you know that's just the base but they're getting better and better as time passes they're getting better and better lily's getting really good at editing and music selection and doing like freeze frames she's starting to get her own little style which is really cool.

[2070] But for me, Delta wanted a pair of sunglasses, and she picked out these sunglasses that are virtually Oakley Blades.

[2071] When she puts them on, she looks ridiculous, and her name is Rick when she wears them.

[2072] And so she's created a whole backstory for Rick.

[2073] And there was, uh, they shot a movie about Rick.

[2074] He had to go somewhere.

[2075] He was on the move.

[2076] And he was making moves.

[2077] And it's just, she invented a run for Rick that was preposterous.

[2078] And I was like, okay, this is all coming together.

[2079] Lincoln, if she wants to be a director, she's got this incredible actor just sitting at her disposal that cannot help but be hysterical, you know, and I told them, you know, it's really cool when siblings have a band like the Avit brothers.

[2080] But what might be really neat is that if Lincoln, you were a director and your star was your sister and you made a million movies with her.

[2081] Anyways, that was fun.

[2082] That's very fun.

[2083] I mean, Delta has been in the biz since she was two.

[2084] Yeah, you made her the star of your movie some eight years ago.

[2085] That's right.

[2086] And she killed it even then.

[2087] For people don't remember, you and Kristen made a movie called Baby Director.

[2088] And Oswalow was making chips.

[2089] So you guys had access to everything at Warner Brothers.

[2090] And she drove around in a golf car and she had already had a hit movie.

[2091] And she went on Jimmy Kimmel, which is the most amazing part of the movie.

[2092] She walks out from the big psych opens and she walks out onto the couch and climbs up it.

[2093] Oh, my God.

[2094] It was so fun.

[2095] We did it in secret because we wanted to surprise you.

[2096] I mean, this took months and months and months of us shooting and editing and we took all these big swings.

[2097] We asked all these people to be in it.

[2098] Bradley and who else?

[2099] John Favro.

[2100] Keith Morrison narrated it.

[2101] Yep.

[2102] At the time we were watching the Americans and we were obsessed with Martha and we asked her to be in.

[2103] I mean, it was so funny.

[2104] And Martha was in it.

[2105] Yeah.

[2106] It was incredible.

[2107] I love her.

[2108] I think one of the best jokes I've ever written ever was a baby director.

[2109] Which one?

[2110] So when we had these like cameos, they basically came in because it was a documentary.

[2111] It was a documentary about baby director.

[2112] This hit director, but who was also a baby, but she was phenomenal.

[2113] Yeah.

[2114] So everyone was sort of weighing in as if it was a movie about like Stephen Spielberg.

[2115] And so you'd have these like testimonials from actors and stuff.

[2116] And directors that were jealous.

[2117] Like Fabro.

[2118] No more night night.

[2119] Is that what it was?

[2120] It was no -night -night.

[2121] No -night night -night.

[2122] It was her first hit movie, yeah.

[2123] Yeah, because that's really all she could say at the time.

[2124] Yeah, she didn't have any words yet.

[2125] When we asked Bradley, we wrote him a part where he did a testimonial, Bradley, and he said, you know, I wanted to work with this director so bad and I would do anything.

[2126] At the bottom it had his name, you know, Bradley Cooper.

[2127] actor.

[2128] And I told them, I'll do anything.

[2129] I would do craft service on this movie just to be a part of it.

[2130] So she did.

[2131] She hired me for craft service.

[2132] And then the Chiron turns to Bradley Cooper Crafts Service.

[2133] I'm proud of that, Joe.

[2134] Oh, it's phenomenal.

[2135] This place, I'm telling you, there's something so relaxing about it.

[2136] There's nothing to do, right?

[2137] All you can do is go for walks and go swimming and go to the beach and maybe go get an ice cream.

[2138] And that's all there is to do.

[2139] And the weather is, it's been like thunderstorms and moody, but always like 78 and super balmy like Hawaii.

[2140] It's just incredible.

[2141] I was also thinking how weird it was that those pilgrims and all the early settlers took these boats across the world.

[2142] And when they landed, it looked just like England where they had just left.

[2143] I think it's such a weird, like the fact that they didn't land in California or land in one of the many environments that's so different from England.

[2144] In fact, most of the country is different from England.

[2145] But all of this, New England, looks just like England.

[2146] Yeah, that is funny.

[2147] Isn't that weird?

[2148] Interesting.

[2149] That's Sim.

[2150] Yeah, that's a bit sim.

[2151] Also, where they like, boy, that was a long trip to end up exactly where we just left.

[2152] Yeah, maybe they thought they just went in a circle.

[2153] It's probably some of them probably got off and we're like, what happened?

[2154] We went in a circle.

[2155] They thought that.

[2156] Let's burn some witches.

[2157] It's got to be their fault.

[2158] First step.

[2159] Speaking of off for the summer, SAG has decided to strike since the last time we spoke.

[2160] Oh, good.

[2161] So we should explain this to people because I saw a lot of questions in the comments.

[2162] Oh, they did?

[2163] Okay.

[2164] The Liz Banks episode.

[2165] Because we specified for her behalf, really, that she had done that before the strike.

[2166] So just so people understand, if you're on strike and your SAG, it means you, A, you can't do any film work.

[2167] You can't do any TV work where there'd be a SAG contract, right?

[2168] Even if you go on a talk show that has a SAG contract, not to mention all those shows are on hiatus because the writers aren't writing because they're on strike.

[2169] Correct.

[2170] And then I guess, which is interesting, this is new to me. Actors are asked to not promote the projects that they're in because it benefits the studios.

[2171] Now, this one's, this is a big ass.

[2172] Like, as you've spent, let's say you've spent, fuck, like Oppenheimer, those people spent a year of their life trying as hard as they could to make a movie that everyone would see.

[2173] And now they're at the stage where they should be out selling it and telling everyone to watch it.

[2174] And they have to, you know, really punish their year of, work to inflict some harm on the studio.

[2175] Yeah, I mean, it's tricky because they, well, first of all, I think Oppenheimer specifically, this also happens in unions and strikes and all these things.

[2176] You're ready for it.

[2177] You know what's happening.

[2178] So they did a big push.

[2179] Yeah.

[2180] Before.

[2181] And so part of it's like all those people got paid for their work and it sucks.

[2182] Although a lot of their pay is linked to the success of the movie.

[2183] This is the huge issue.

[2184] For sec. With streaming now, it's like you can have this huge movie, even though huge movies are rare.

[2185] Rare and hard to come by now.

[2186] Because they all get moved quickly to streaming services.

[2187] And then most people on these movies don't get paid anymore for those streaming.

[2188] And that's why Tom Cruise is a gangster because they tried to release Top Gun over streaming during COVID.

[2189] And he was like, fuck that.

[2190] I own 20 % of this movie.

[2191] And it's not going to generate any money according to you on streaming.

[2192] And it does, though.

[2193] It does, yeah, subscribers.

[2194] It creates money for the studio.

[2195] It just doesn't create money for anyone else for the writers, for the actors, for anything.

[2196] I mean, I, and I'm in such a privileged position because we have this.

[2197] Mm -hmm.

[2198] But I, as a SAG member, didn't even, I didn't qualify for my insurance last year.

[2199] Uh -huh.

[2200] And I should have based on residuals purely alone.

[2201] Mm -hmm.

[2202] And that sucks.

[2203] That's where most of us make our money, because it's hard.

[2204] You know my tiny kitchen cookoff show?

[2205] Yes, of course.

[2206] With my tiny food.

[2207] Yeah.

[2208] That's on Hulu.

[2209] Uh -huh.

[2210] And you don't get any kind of...

[2211] Zero.

[2212] I didn't even...

[2213] I found out it was on Hulu.

[2214] No one told me. Okay.

[2215] And I get zero dollars for it being widespread.

[2216] Well, great.

[2217] So let's explain a little bit, too, for people, the history.

[2218] What the actors have fought so hard for over the years is to make sure that you get paid to film an episode of friends.

[2219] Great.

[2220] That's what you agreed to do and you know it's going to air.

[2221] Well, if they air it nine more times, you didn't really agree that they can air at nine times.

[2222] So you have a residual each time it airs and it goes down.

[2223] The first time it re -airs at some percentage of your original check.

[2224] And then, you know, to eternity, it just dwindles and dwindles.

[2225] But the whole mechanism was you could tell when it aired.

[2226] you knew what commercials were sold.

[2227] Like, it was all trackable on streaming, anything, Netflix, Macs, all these platforms were all watching everything on.

[2228] They pay you once, that's it.

[2229] They could run it a trillion times.

[2230] It could be the biggest hit ever.

[2231] They could re -release it on different platforms and still pay you nothing.

[2232] They could make money on it many times over, and you can't.

[2233] That's not acceptable.

[2234] Agreed.

[2235] So I'm picketing tomorrow morning.

[2236] Oh, fun.

[2237] Who are you going with?

[2238] Anthony.

[2239] Okay.

[2240] And what?

[2241] studio, are you going to blast?

[2242] Disney.

[2243] Oh, yeah, that's a good one.

[2244] For a few reasons, but one mainly because Anthony said it's the best walk.

[2245] Oh, okay.

[2246] But also Bob Iger's being ridiculous, so I feel fine about that.

[2247] We could probably add that Disney is generally regarded as the cheapest of the studios.

[2248] Yeah, it is.

[2249] Even though they have those theme parks that generate a $a trillion a year based on all the IP that the writers and actors created.

[2250] Anywho.

[2251] Well, one more thing, because I heard something interesting today that the CEOs of networks used to make 30 times more than their lowest employee, which like is a ton and also makes sense.

[2252] Like CEOs make a ton of money.

[2253] Yeah.

[2254] But now is 400 times.

[2255] Yeah, I saw that too.

[2256] You know, of course, that one doesn't trigger me as much.

[2257] And I'll I'll just, yes, I'll tell you why.

[2258] No one will like that I'm saying that.

[2259] Look, I think the people at the bottom should make more money.

[2260] But to say that we should cap how much someone makes, here's how I look at it.

[2261] It's a marketplace.

[2262] If there is one person, we could use Bob Iger as a great example.

[2263] Look at the stock price under Bob Iger, then look at the stock price when he was gone.

[2264] What you can clearly see, I mean, it's black and white and quantifiable.

[2265] Bob Iger's worth billions of dollars to Disney.

[2266] The value of the company is dramatically different when he's, running it and when he's not.

[2267] So if the Disney company is going to generate billions more based on his stewardship, why isn't he getting that?

[2268] And if many people could do it, they would hire those people for much less.

[2269] But if someone's established themselves as being able to run a enormous conglomerate like that into mass profitability and there's billions of dollars generated on their work, well, then I think that person too should get their fair pay.

[2270] I don't think we should take away the fair pay of other people to support or protect our fair pay, if that makes sense.

[2271] But they're saying it's like one pot, right?

[2272] So if it's one pot, he can only be successful based on the people underneath him.

[2273] You can't just have a CEO.

[2274] No, agreed, agreed, yeah.

[2275] But you can see that he's five times as good as the person that replaced him.

[2276] Sure, that's fine.

[2277] I'm not saying he's not an amazing CEO, but the wealth gap is too big from the bottom to the top.

[2278] It is.

[2279] It's not about him.

[2280] It's about the big space in between.

[2281] Some of it has to get filtered back down.

[2282] Yes, yes.

[2283] It just, it does parallel when people are critical of Shaquille O 'Nell making $35 million to play basketball.

[2284] I'm like, well, what would you prefer that the bus family make the $35 million?

[2285] Because he's the one that creates the $35 million.

[2286] The bus family doesn't.

[2287] No, that's the opposite of what.

[2288] Well, no, it's not.

[2289] Because Iger creates the billions of value that other stockholders benefit who don't do a fucking thing.

[2290] They just bought some stock 10 years ago.

[2291] Like, they actually don't do anything.

[2292] But a man comes in and triples their money.

[2293] I think the people who do nothing have to cut into that personally.

[2294] But Shaquille O 'Neal, in this case, to me, is the talent.

[2295] Is the actors, the writers, the people actually performing.

[2296] making it exciting and profitable and good.

[2297] And the bus family is that it.

[2298] Those are the people that are like putting it together and seeing the big picture.

[2299] And to me, that's more akin to a studio head.

[2300] There is talent there.

[2301] And they should be paid.

[2302] Without Bob Iger, the place almost collapsed.

[2303] So he is the human talent.

[2304] And then there's the corporation.

[2305] Now, I don't care about the corporation.

[2306] I don't care about Disney Inc. in the shareholders and all that.

[2307] But a human talent is what has generated all that value for that company.

[2308] Him and all of these people.

[2309] All of these people.

[2310] Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[2311] I'm only saying I think Iger is like one of the brilliant actors and creators that works for the company.

[2312] I believe that the discrepancy cannot be that huge.

[2313] It's just too much.

[2314] That is crazy.

[2315] Right.

[2316] I mean, it's just a morality question, because we can parse out all the reasons why he should make that.

[2317] And it's not, again, it's not about him making that.

[2318] It's about people making nothing and people not getting compensated.

[2319] And they're also saying, like, we don't have the money.

[2320] It's like, yes, you do have the money.

[2321] You're just allocating it in a very specific way.

[2322] It's really about whether the company's able to bank the billions of dollars from the merchandising and all the IP and the, you know, should they have some war chest, this fake thing, a company, should they?

[2323] And that's to me where the argument needs to be had.

[2324] There's not even a person involved.

[2325] Like, Disney's not a person.

[2326] At one time it was, and it hasn't been for 60 years.

[2327] Oh, but we didn't really even finish the thing.

[2328] So actors can come on the podcast.

[2329] They just can't promote a studio pitcher.

[2330] So say someone had a book they wrote, they could come on.

[2331] So we're not terribly discouraged.

[2332] We're hopeful that people will still be.

[2333] coming on and hopefully it won't have too much of an impact on the podcast.

[2334] Yeah, we'll see.

[2335] Hopefully not.

[2336] And hopefully this gets resolved sooner rather than later.

[2337] Everyone wants to get back to work.

[2338] The writers have been striking for over 70 days.

[2339] There's another unique thing about both these strikes is that when the sanitation workers strike, you notice it on Monday.

[2340] When the MTA strikes, you notice it in the morning when there's no bus to get on.

[2341] When actors and writers strikes, the effects of it aren't felt for a year.

[2342] Exactly.

[2343] Like, I think if everyone in America's TV shut off 70 days ago, I think America would be much more rallied around the actors.

[2344] But nine months from now, you're not going to have content.

[2345] Yes.

[2346] That is, I think, the reason behind the mandate to not promote.

[2347] It's for the studios to feel it immediately.

[2348] Yes, yes.

[2349] Yeah, agreed.

[2350] Anywho.

[2351] Anywho.

[2352] Okay, so that's that with the strike.

[2353] I'll let you know how picketing goes.

[2354] Okay, please do take picks at the picket.

[2355] I will.

[2356] Take picket picks.

[2357] It could be a part of nothing to see here.

[2358] Maybe this should be the first outing with your film crew.

[2359] Oh, I don't think I'm allowed.

[2360] Oh, you're not allowed to film it.

[2361] Oh, no. Look at this trap we've sat.

[2362] If I showed up with a film crew.

[2363] Oh, my gosh.

[2364] Making a non -union reality show.

[2365] Oh, my God.

[2366] Oh, that's the end of miniature mouse, if that happens.

[2367] Asked to leave the guild promptly.

[2368] There is something that feels very old school.

[2369] Uh -huh.

[2370] And communal.

[2371] Yeah, it does.

[2372] Like, there's something kind of beautiful about all these people out for a cause, literally marching around, fighting.

[2373] You don't actually get the sense that, well, first of all, such a competitive field.

[2374] The rarity of feeling that solidarity and that you're all in the same team is so rare.

[2375] It's a great reminder.

[2376] Like, no, no, we're all trying to make a living off of being artists.

[2377] Yes.

[2378] And it's hard for all.

[2379] Well, it's not hard for some of us.

[2380] It's very hard for most of us.

[2381] Yeah, yeah, 95 % if not higher.

[2382] Eric was like, this stuff's not going to affect you guys, right?

[2383] Like, none of these actors, they're not going to be affected.

[2384] I'm like, no, you're right.

[2385] Like, if I go do a TV show, I have a quote.

[2386] That's something.

[2387] I said, but, Eric, 95 % of the people that work in the industry are on sag minimum contracts every time they work.

[2388] Every guest star you see is on a sag minimum contract.

[2389] Which means you get like $1 ,000 for work that day.

[2390] Again, normally that ends up being sort of worth something because they'll re -air it and then you'll get more and more pieces.

[2391] Yeah, and you cobble together 40 or 50 guest stars over a career and you can kind of live, you know, you can live in the lean times from those residuals.

[2392] Yeah, and mostly you can't.

[2393] You have to be a server and you have to have to have another job and you have to.

[2394] I mean, it's so hard.

[2395] It is so hard.

[2396] You have to start a podcast.

[2397] Do it.

[2398] Do it.

[2399] Speaking of getting lucky, I took a walk a couple days ago and I ended up walking for an hour and a half.

[2400] You did an hour and a half?

[2401] Yeah, I just kept going and going.

[2402] Oh, my gosh.

[2403] Were you nervous you were getting so far away that you weren't going to be able to make it home when you turned around?

[2404] No, because I walk in circles.

[2405] On your block.

[2406] Yeah.

[2407] I kept going and going.

[2408] And the reason I kept going, I was filled with gratitude.

[2409] Oh, really?

[2410] And that kept you going?

[2411] I had had one margarita.

[2412] Oh, perfect.

[2413] You know that song?

[2414] Give them one margarita and chelope in her legs.

[2415] Oh, I just.

[2416] Yeah, I barely know that, but it did filter to me. Yeah, so now it's given one margarita and you'll have gratitude.

[2417] Oh, yeah, that's good.

[2418] That would be like if the liberal had led that chant, right?

[2419] But yeah, I was on this walk and I don't know what happened, but you know, this sounds so woo -woo.

[2420] But you know when you see like on a beautiful autumn day when like a leaf gets like blown up from the ground and like up in the air for a bit and then.

[2421] brought back down.

[2422] Yeah, it takes a little flight, little dance.

[2423] Yeah, I felt like that's the space I was in.

[2424] Like, I was lifted up and floated for a bit.

[2425] You're having some good chemistry.

[2426] Do you think, have you figured out, do you have a theory on why?

[2427] I hope it's not a tumor.

[2428] No, no, no, no. Don't go somewhere negative.

[2429] I know, but of course, I do feel, I feel that.

[2430] I feel like something's weirds going on and then I worry.

[2431] You know, I worry.

[2432] Yeah, don't worry.

[2433] Get excited.

[2434] Okay.

[2435] Maybe your, like, hormones are leveling off and you're getting your whimsical life back.

[2436] Maybe.

[2437] I had acupuncture on Saturday.

[2438] Oh, and you had a sound bath.

[2439] You got to tell us about the sound bath as well.

[2440] Oh, my God.

[2441] Yeah, that was my day of wellness.

[2442] I had acupuncture and...

[2443] Did you feel different after acupuncture?

[2444] No, it takes a bit.

[2445] Okay.

[2446] I think I'm going there to try to do everything I can to increase my egg quality.

[2447] Right.

[2448] Okay.

[2449] That makes sense.

[2450] Before I do another round of freezing.

[2451] Uh -huh.

[2452] So I think I'm going to go, I'm going for a couple months weekly.

[2453] I had a few bouts of panic.

[2454] Acupuncture makes me feel a bit panicky.

[2455] Oh, it does.

[2456] But she has this button that you can, like, call her.

[2457] So I would just kind of held on to the button, and that was reassuring.

[2458] You didn't ever have to hit it?

[2459] No, I didn't.

[2460] Just knowing you could hit it.

[2461] Yeah.

[2462] Because she puts the needles in you and then she, what, she takes a walk?

[2463] She gets out of there.

[2464] She leaves the room.

[2465] She goes into the other room.

[2466] Partly because, you know, I have this sense that, like, what if I have a seizure in there?

[2467] Oh, with all the needles.

[2468] That's what you get.

[2469] Of course, yeah.

[2470] So, you know, but it was fine.

[2471] It was good.

[2472] I'm going to keep going.

[2473] And then later that day, I went to a sound bath, which was in the valley.

[2474] And I've never been to one before.

[2475] Me neither.

[2476] But it was cool.

[2477] I mean, you lie down and she guides you into the same.

[2478] space, then starts all these sounds.

[2479] And it's a real journey.

[2480] Oh, I want to do it.

[2481] It's cool.

[2482] I think you'd like it.

[2483] It has some, to me, it has some...

[2484] Mushroomy quality?

[2485] Yes, exactly.

[2486] Some semblance of psychedelic.

[2487] Right.

[2488] It's cool.

[2489] Calming or invigorating?

[2490] For me, it felt cleansing.

[2491] Mmm, that's nice.

[2492] I'd recommend it.

[2493] I want to do it again.

[2494] I'm going to do it.

[2495] Okay, I'd do it.

[2496] I'm going to do it tonight.

[2497] I'm going to put up.

[2498] an ad on Craigslist, if you know how to do sound therapy, come over.

[2499] Anywho, so that was Woo -Woo and Witchy.

[2500] Yeah, Salem, which trials of Salem.

[2501] Ding, ding, dingles.

[2502] Pilgrims.

[2503] Okay.

[2504] Facts.

[2505] Yeah, let me get some facts.

[2506] Where are my facts?

[2507] Okay.

[2508] This is for Jake Tapper.

[2509] Lovely Jake Tapper.

[2510] Since we recorded that, we had that most fun trip together.

[2511] Exactly.

[2512] And I wanted to check in on that and ask about whitewater rafting and if a similar situation happened.

[2513] We did it again.

[2514] In the photos this year, I'm actually digging and his son is flipping off the camera.

[2515] Oh.

[2516] Yeah, which was very funny.

[2517] And he sent to me promptly.

[2518] But I will say that Jake and I, we had a lovely trip together.

[2519] We connected even more on this trip.

[2520] Yeah, really, I had so much fun with them.

[2521] Now, the Kiss comic book, there's a rumor that it had their blood in the red ink.

[2522] Mm, uh -huh.

[2523] Yeah, it's true.

[2524] It's true?

[2525] It says, in 1977, when Marvel Comics issued the first super special Kiss comic book, the band did not want to pass up on a strange marketing opportunity to sell more issues.

[2526] As Jean Simmons recalled, as the Kiss comic book project moved along, someone came up with the idea of putting real blood in the ink.

[2527] Maybe it was Bill or Sean.

[2528] We got into a DC3, one of those big prop planes, and flew up to Buffalo to Marvel's printing plant where they poured the ink and make comic books.

[2529] A notary public actually witnessed the blood being drawn.

[2530] Sure enough, Kiss members allowed their blood to be drawn during a concert stop and they later flew up to New York to be photographed adding their vials of donated blood to a barrel of red ink.

[2531] Well, what's interesting, though, is doesn't blood turn brown ultimately?

[2532] Like, it comes out and it's real red, and then it turns brown.

[2533] Do you think it's...

[2534] Well, it's blue in your body.

[2535] Yeah, people say that, but I don't believe that.

[2536] It's blue in your body.

[2537] No, I don't...

[2538] People say it's blue in your body and turns red when it hits oxygen, but I don't believe that.

[2539] I believe it's red in your body.

[2540] But, because look at this way.

[2541] When you fill up a bag, it never hit the air.

[2542] It comes just directly out of your vein into the bag.

[2543] No airs.

[2544] There's oxygen in that bag.

[2545] Red.

[2546] There's oxygen in there.

[2547] All right.

[2548] It's blue.

[2549] But, yes, it's mixed with ink.

[2550] So it's not just their blood.

[2551] Right.

[2552] Of course.

[2553] I'm just thinking that maybe they would have been better off adding their red blood to a batch of brown ink.

[2554] Oh, interesting.

[2555] Knowing that it would have eventually caught up with that.

[2556] True.

[2557] It's not as good of a story.

[2558] Right.

[2559] And they weren't worried about any blood pathogens either, I guess.

[2560] That was pre -COVID.

[2561] Yeah, pre -everything.

[2562] pre -abola pre -hepsi pre -bird flu pre -onca it was pre -prayanka okay now sorry jake uh -oh he didn't claim this as a fact really so it's okay he just figured because he was talking about jumping the shark and something evil caneval and the thought is oh that's how they got the idea yes well hold on no just to clarify for him i think what he was saying we all know that the term comes from Happy Days.

[2563] Right.

[2564] But I think he's suggesting the Happy Days writers got the idea from the failed Knievel stunt.

[2565] I think that's what he was suggesting.

[2566] Oh, interesting.

[2567] Okay.

[2568] But you know, a lot of people might not know that the origin of jumping the shark.

[2569] It's a good one.

[2570] Yes.

[2571] The phrase was coined in 1985 by radio personality John Hine in response to a 1977 episode from the fifth season of the American sitcom Happy Days in which the character, or Fonzie jumps over a shark while on water skis.

[2572] It's a pejorative that's used to argue that a creative worker entity has reached a point in which it has exhausted its core content and is introducing new ideas that are discordant with or an over -exaggeration of its original purpose.

[2573] Yeah, I think another example is, and I don't remember it exactly, but I think on Roseanne, they won the lottery at one point.

[2574] In the original Roseanne and people, that was a jump to shark moment.

[2575] You know, sometimes they'll throw a murder and a show that does not deserve a murder.

[2576] That can be jumping the shark.

[2577] Sure, sure, sure, sure.

[2578] Okay, I was just looking up more to see if Knievel's last leap in the spotlight was a Jaws -inspired gimmick that would help spawn the phrase jumping the shark, implying that somebody's or something's best days are behind them.

[2579] I don't know.

[2580] Yeah, I'm going happy days.

[2581] I mean, happy days is definitely what it is.

[2582] But maybe you're right.

[2583] maybe it was inspired, but how will we know?

[2584] Oh, wait.

[2585] Well, this is a dot -org.

[2586] Oh, okay.

[2587] Word Origins .org.

[2588] The Happy Days episode was inspired by an attempt by Daredevil motorcyclist, Evil Knievel to jump a take filled with 12 sharks.

[2589] Okay, so maybe then Jake was dead on.

[2590] Maybe, or half -right, or all right, or not right.

[2591] He's one of those permutations of rightness.

[2592] Okay.

[2593] I'm scared to fact -check you on something because I think you might be.

[2594] Okay.

[2595] Here we go.

[2596] Here we go.

[2597] My hunch is like when you set it up like that, it's probably something I'm saying pretty frequently.

[2598] Not the case?

[2599] I don't know.

[2600] I don't know actually.

[2601] I don't know how often you've said it.

[2602] Okay.

[2603] But you said that the January 6th.

[2604] Capital riots.

[2605] The insurrection.

[2606] Capital riots.

[2607] You were filming all day.

[2608] Yeah.

[2609] And then you got home and...

[2610] I was trying to catch up.

[2611] You were trying to catch up.

[2612] Yeah.

[2613] But...

[2614] You weren't.

[2615] How do you know that?

[2616] I remember being with you that day.

[2617] Because me and you were talking about it.

[2618] Like, I remember me and you talking about it as it was happening.

[2619] Like, I think I read something and then I was like, this is happening.

[2620] And so we did look it up on like CNN during that time.

[2621] And then I was like, maybe I'm wrong.

[2622] Maybe I'm wrong.

[2623] I looked it up on our calendar and we recorded that day.

[2624] Huh.

[2625] Is it possible we were recording all day, and that's why I didn't it?

[2626] I wasn't abreast of it all.

[2627] We recorded Common.

[2628] Okay.

[2629] And then we recorded Armchair and Dangerous Bigfoot.

[2630] Okay.

[2631] So we did have six hours in the attic.

[2632] We did.

[2633] But I think what happened is in between Common and Bigfoot, I saw.

[2634] Okay.

[2635] And then we like kind of looked in on it.

[2636] But maybe after at night, you really, really started catching up on the whole thing because we had briefly looked at it midday.

[2637] Yeah, I just remember that I had a million texts.

[2638] That part I remember.

[2639] I thought I was shooting Top Gear, but clearly I wasn't.

[2640] We were just recording all day.

[2641] Yeah.

[2642] Isn't that kind of fun, though, that you can check your cow?

[2643] Right, that there's a record of your life for better or worse.

[2644] Yeah.

[2645] Okay.

[2646] In his new book, he switches back and forth, narrators.

[2647] Right.

[2648] First person narrators.

[2649] Yeah.

[2650] And you wondered if he was the only person that had done that?

[2651] Yeah, I can't imagine.

[2652] I mean, I really don't imagine he is, but just I also am curious.

[2653] I'm sure there's a lot.

[2654] But what pops off the top of my head is the book Candy House and also visit from the Goon Squad.

[2655] Each chapter is a different narrator, first person often.

[2656] Oh, okay.

[2657] All right.

[2658] It's a high recommend those books.

[2659] You brought up Son of Sam.

[2660] David Berkowitz.

[2661] Yeah.

[2662] David Richard Berkowitz, also known as the Son of Sam and the 44 caliber killer, is a an American serial killer who pleaded guilty to eight shootings that began in New York City on July 29, 1976.

[2663] During his killing spree, he sent letters to New York newspaper signing them Son of Sam, a reference to a demon he believed lived inside the black Labrador retriever owned by his neighbor Sam Carr.

[2664] Mm -hmm.

[2665] The dog was telling him to do it.

[2666] So weird.

[2667] Yeah.

[2668] Oof, oof.

[2669] Axel Rose did perform with Buckethead, who wore a kid.

[2670] Kentucky Fried Chicken Bucket on his head.

[2671] But Buckethead was actually in Guns and Roses.

[2672] Oh, okay.

[2673] For a period of time.

[2674] For a little spell.

[2675] All right.

[2676] Well, I regret to say that I don't think I have time to do what I wanted to do.

[2677] Which was?

[2678] Read Lord and Miller's commencement speech.

[2679] Oh, well, can we earmark it?

[2680] I'd like to hear it.

[2681] Yeah, maybe we earmark.

[2682] Okay.

[2683] Oh, great opportunity for me to correct something from about 17 months ago.

[2684] But when we had Kelly Clarkson on and I was saying, that I thought they filmed Urban Cowboy and Billy Bob's.

[2685] Many people in the comments pointed out that it was actually another place, Gillies or something.

[2686] No, I did that in the fact check.

[2687] Oh, okay.

[2688] All right.

[2689] Well, then that's been handled.

[2690] Remember the purpose of this whole thing?

[2691] I already did that.

[2692] Okay, great.

[2693] Congratulations and good job.

[2694] So for those of you who wrote that, you should listen to the fact check.

[2695] Well, but they're probably hard to read.

[2696] They're not listening right now.

[2697] I know.

[2698] This is a catch 22.

[2699] Somebody who is listening to the fact check, please write back on those comments and say, hey, you should really listen to the fact check guys.

[2700] Oh, that's a way to do it.

[2701] Yeah, because if I wrote it, it'd be a little snarky.

[2702] Yeah, I don't think you should be involved in those.

[2703] No, no. Anywho, wow.

[2704] Well, that's pretty much it.

[2705] I mean, I loved Evil's line.

[2706] I created the character Evil Caneval, and it kind of got.

[2707] away from me. Yes, I love it.

[2708] Love it.

[2709] Like, I could have a poster of that.

[2710] Yeah.

[2711] And I think a lot of it, we don't need to be evil -can -eval to know that we've created a character that got away from us.

[2712] I know.

[2713] I don't know if I told you this already, but my dad had a request.

[2714] Oh, I would love to make any request of a show come true.

[2715] Remember when we called my dad?

[2716] Oh, God, I wonder if I even kept this in.

[2717] We called my mom and dad.

[2718] I think I did.

[2719] Because I wanted them to kind of list what Biden had done.

[2720] Oh, right.

[2721] Yes, his many accomplishments.

[2722] Yeah.

[2723] And they didn't really do that good of a job.

[2724] And I was angry.

[2725] Yeah, yeah.

[2726] But then my dad told me the actual answer to that is a video of Gavin Newsom on Sean Hannity.

[2727] Okay.

[2728] Defending Sir Biden?

[2729] Yeah.

[2730] Sean Hannity has Gavin Newsom on and is also trying to entrap him into like betraying Biden.

[2731] It's all, it's actually such an interesting.

[2732] interview and so awesome that Gavin Newsom did it.

[2733] And he kills it.

[2734] He knows so much.

[2735] He knows every fact, every piece of information.

[2736] He pokes all the holes.

[2737] Like Sean Hannity keeps trying to give him these papers of graphs saying everyone's left California, like all the jobs have left.

[2738] And he's like, no, no, no, no. And he like just fully says why that's wrong.

[2739] It's so good.

[2740] Hmm.

[2741] I want to watch that.

[2742] And he does say a ton about what Biden's done and his capabilities and all these things.

[2743] But it's really good and it's definitely worth watching.

[2744] Well, you tell your dad, I'm going to watch it per his request.

[2745] I will.

[2746] He brought it up many times.

[2747] Did he send it to you?

[2748] He was very taken by Gavin Newsom.

[2749] Oh, wow.

[2750] That shocks me a little bit because Newson's very slick.

[2751] That's what I said.

[2752] So before he watched this, I know my parents said they thought he was too slick.

[2753] Yeah.

[2754] To run.

[2755] He was like, I don't think he'd win because he's California and he's slick.

[2756] He looks like he would be a hedge fund manager or something.

[2757] Yes.

[2758] But once he starts talking to that, this is my dad's point, he said yes, but that's why I think if he ran and, you know, was out there, he's like he'd win immediately.

[2759] Oh, he's got easier dad's, uh, Amy Klobyshire now?

[2760] Yeah.

[2761] He's out with Amy.

[2762] He's out with Amy.

[2763] In with Gavin.

[2764] What a shakeup.

[2765] Yeah, this really changed his mind.

[2766] Well, send it to me. Did he send it to you or he just gave you a description?

[2767] You searched it.

[2768] Yeah, searched the YouTube.

[2769] I'll search it.

[2770] Okay, I'll search it too.

[2771] I think that's pretty much it.

[2772] My walk of gratitude.

[2773] All right.

[2774] We'll put a pin in Lord and Miller commencement speech, but I will be reading that at some point.

[2775] Please look forward to that.

[2776] We should have a spinoff show of you reading people's graduation speeches, spin -off podcasts, where you could just read commencement speeches one a week.

[2777] That'd be cool.

[2778] Maybe I should do it at the picket.

[2779] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, just do a performance.

[2780] give them something they want you can't do any acting while you're there no i won't i'll be really me it'll be me straight reading okay i wish we had more time we and we don't because we've been talking for so long but i really wish we did because i had just listened to a couple dailies on clarence thomas and i wanted to talk to you about it oh i got to listen well i got to listen to them first okay there's two well there's one on clearance thomas on his affirmative action stance and the other one is a group of people who are affected by affirmative action, negatively and positively.

[2781] So listen to both of those.

[2782] Okay.

[2783] And then that's another pin.

[2784] So many pins.

[2785] So many Easter eggs.

[2786] Tune in next week.

[2787] No, tune in, tune in this week.

[2788] Monday.

[2789] Tune in three days, four days.

[2790] Yeah.

[2791] Okay, for all the pin marks.

[2792] Okay.

[2793] All right.

[2794] I love you.

[2795] Love you.

[2796] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2797] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[2798] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.