The Bulwark Podcast XX
[0] Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast.
[1] I'm your host, Tim Miller.
[2] It's Tuesday, June 4th.
[3] I'm here with Representative Richie Torres, Democratic Congressman from the Bronx.
[4] He's a former member of the New York City Council.
[5] He was elected to Congress in 2020.
[6] I'm pumped to have him here, but wanting to do this for a while.
[7] How are you doing, Congressman?
[8] It's an honor to be here.
[9] Happy Pride.
[10] Let's do it.
[11] Happy Pride.
[12] I've got some pride questions for you coming down the pike here, about halfway through.
[13] But first, I just wanted to talk a little bit about Donald Trump.
[14] I don't know if you've heard of him.
[15] you grew up in public housing in the Bronx across the street from the site of what was once a garbage dump that then was developed into a golf course with the Trump's brand name on it.
[16] And so my question for you is sometimes do you feel like you're in like a Dickens novel where there's a buffoonish, greedy villain that haunts your entire life?
[17] Yes, I feel like the ghost of Donald Trump has been haunting me at every point in my life.
[18] So as you said, I grew up in a visual tale of two cities.
[19] I grew up in Throgsnack houses, which is a public housing development right across the street from what was formerly Trump GoffCourse.
[20] And I kid you not, as the Goff Course was undergoing construction, it unleashed a skunk infestation.
[21] So I tell people I've been smelling the stench of Donald Trump long before he became president.
[22] And then the ghost haunted me when I became a member of Congress.
[23] If someone had said to a 50 -year -old version of myself, you know, Richard, you're going to become a member of Congress during a global pandemic.
[24] and witness an insurrection against the U .S. Capitol and then vote to impeach the host of the celebrity apprentice.
[25] And all of that would happen within the first two weeks.
[26] I would have said that sounds like a movie written by George Santos.
[27] So, uh, and then what about if they said that your colleagues would then nominate that same reality TV star that did the insurrection?
[28] They would support him for president again three years later.
[29] I would have had trouble imagining it until I actually served with these crackpots.
[30] What is it like?
[31] I mean, you've kind of strayed from your party on a few things, or maybe not from the main body of the party, but for some on the left, you know, you've kind of made alliance on various issues with some Republicans.
[32] What's it like serving with these guys now?
[33] I mean, when you're talking to them, is there any kind of awareness that what they're doing right now is absolutely insane?
[34] Like, have you broken any of them, you know, gotten any of them after a few gummies to admit the truth to you or anything?
[35] Look, unlike the far left, which remains a friend, You know, Donald Trump is representative of the Republican base.
[36] Like, he is essentially the Freudian id of the Republican Party.
[37] He is a repository of their basest, desires, and impulse.
[38] And so I have met House Republicans who will secretly acknowledge to me that Donald Trump is an albatross around the neck of the Republican Party.
[39] But these people live in fear of it.
[40] Are they still there?
[41] Are they like the Mike Gallagher's that are telling you secretly?
[42] now they're all leaving.
[43] There's a much wider universe of people who live in fear of Donald Trump.
[44] Well, I guess the New York delegation.
[45] We don't need to start naming them.
[46] I have a few suspicions in the New York delegation, let's just say.
[47] Well, look, we no longer have a two -party system because you have a normal political party like the Democratic Party.
[48] But the Republican Party is no longer a traditional political party.
[49] It's become a cult of personality around Donald Trump, right?
[50] The Christianity of the Republican Party has been replaced by Trumpism.
[51] Trump is the new Lord and Savior.
[52] Watch out.
[53] MTG is going to get mad at you for that.
[54] Well, she already accused us of banning Christianity.
[55] Yeah, that's true.
[56] He came back to your district for the event in the Bronx.
[57] He brought a couple of rappers on stage who are out on bail for gang activity and murder.
[58] Chef G. Not one of my favorite rappers.
[59] I've got a few others I prefer.
[60] But some of the polls show, I don't know that that absurd strategy is working, but some of the polls show there is some backsliding among working class black and Latino voters, particularly men towards Trump.
[61] Like, are you seeing that at all back in your district?
[62] Like, what's your sense of that?
[63] The honest answer is yes, but at the margins.
[64] I mean, the Bronx is overwhelmingly Biden country and will remain so in November.
[65] But Trump has made gains at the margins.
[66] He did so in 2020, and he may even make further gains in 2024.
[67] But, you know, keep in mind that the communities of color have never been monolithic in their voting patterns.
[68] You know, in the 2000 election, George W. Bush won 40 % of the Latino vote.
[69] And the Latino vote in America is highly variegated.
[70] Latinos and, you know, Puerto Ricans and Tibetans in the South Bronx are qualitatively different from Venezuelans and Cubans in Florida, who are qualitatively different from Mexicans in California, who are qualitatively different from Mexicans in South Texas.
[71] And so I know people are shocked by Donald Trump's support in some elements of the Latino community, but it's actually in keeping with the historical pattern.
[72] like yes you know there's there's trends that come in and out with these voters with all voting groups right coalitions change but it's a little alarming you know at this moment given the nature of the threat do you think there's something that the democrats are doing wrong there's something that Biden is doing that is not resonating with this community something that you could do that the party could do differently over the next five months to maybe stem some of the exodus or exodus is overstated that stem some of the bleed you know among that voting population Look, I feel like the president has to focus on the bread and butter issues that matter to voters of color in places like the Bronx.
[73] There are going to be members of the Democratic base for whom abortion and democracy are the pivotal issues that will motivate him to go to the polls.
[74] But that's not true of every voter, right?
[75] You know, if you're a single mother in the South Bronx and you're struggling to put food on the table and pay your bills, you're concerned about.
[76] about public safety or concern about the cost of living, the cost of groceries, the cost of gasoline.
[77] And so those are the issues that have to be addressed in order to sustain support among working class voters of color.
[78] Going back to the Dickensian thing, I do feel like sometimes like it's missing.
[79] Look, I used to be a Republican.
[80] So this populist economic messaging is not really, you know, my sweet spot.
[81] But I look at the Democrats right now, it's just like it seems like there's huge opportunity.
[82] And this is a guy that screwed over working class people, his whole career, you know, as a businessman on economic issues, like the Project 2025 plan is cuts to snap, cuts to public services, extending tax cuts for rich people.
[83] Like, where is the energy around that message on the left right now?
[84] Like, it feels a little bit absent from Democratic Party talking points.
[85] And they talk about it.
[86] There's lip service paid to it.
[87] But isn't that the way to kind of reach some of these voters?
[88] Look, I agree with you.
[89] And as you know, we in the Democratic Party are a motley crew.
[90] And at the moment, we're divided against ourselves.
[91] And we seem to be so divided against ourselves that we have forgotten.
[92] The enemy is Donald Trump.
[93] And we have to coalesce around a message, a unified message against Donald Trump.
[94] I mean, he is benefiting from the divisions that have taken hold within the Democratic Party.
[95] Before October 7th, the Republican Party was divided against itself.
[96] The Republican Party was self -destructing after the vacate of McCarthy.
[97] But since October 7th, it feels like we are the more divided party and it's operating to the benefit of Donald Trump.
[98] I definitely think there's a divide in the Democratic Party, you know, when it comes to Israel.
[99] And that's like the most obvious statement ever.
[100] Is that affecting voting behavior, though?
[101] Like, do you really think Joe Biden's losing votes over this on either side of the sector, either on the pro -Israel or, you know, more critical of Israel?
[102] side.
[103] People lose votes no matter what position he takes.
[104] But do I feel like it's the issue that's going to decide the outcome of the election?
[105] No. But I do feel like the media coverage of the divide.
[106] And by the way, the divide in the Democratic Party is exaggerated because the overlying majority of Democrats have a clear position on the issue.
[107] But the media coverage of the divide and the media coverage of all the disruptions that the president has had to face, right, I feel has a crowding out of fact on a unified message against Donald Trump.
[108] For listeners who don't know, so you've taken more of a pro -Israel stance.
[109] I watched a video of you the other day, talked about how you're a Zionist and supporting our ally Israel.
[110] How do you assess how the president has done on that issue?
[111] I feel the president is the most pro -Israel president in history.
[112] I mean, he was the only president to go to Israel in a time of war.
[113] He sent out one but two carriers to the Mediterranean to deter Hezbollah.
[114] you have to consider what a president does relative to the circumstances in which he finds himself.
[115] And there's no one who's had to find himself under more challenging circumstances than Joe Biden.
[116] You know, Israel's waging a war in Gaza under the microscope of 24 -7 cable news and social media.
[117] And so the scrutiny has been overwhelming.
[118] The international pressure has been overwhelming.
[119] And in spite of it all, the president has stood firm where it matters most.
[120] at the level of policy, George W. Bush, a Republican president, pressured Israel to end the Second Lebanon War after a month and to keep Hezbollah in power, which has led to the present security crisis in the north.
[121] It was also agreeing with the election of him.
[122] Right.
[123] Whereas Biden has sustained his support for Israel for more than eight months in the face of a massive backlash from the far left of his own party.
[124] And, you know, the lack of gratitude and appreciation that he seems to receive is just shocking to me. Well, we're totally aligned on that.
[125] So you don't have any issues with the ways that Biden has tried to distance from BB at times?
[126] I might disagree with some of the positions he's taken and some of the pronouncements that he's made.
[127] But I look at, you know, I don't miss the forest for the trees.
[128] Speaking of people that miss the forest for the trees, so I said we get back to pride.
[129] And there is, there's a tie in here.
[130] So just bear with me for a second.
[131] So you, for people who don't know, we're in the first congressional class with non -white, openly gay, LGBT members of Congress, you and your colleague from New York, Mondare Jones, who's back running again, are both black and openly gay.
[132] Well, I guess, hold on.
[133] It is Pride Month, so I shouldn't cut the asexuals out of the LGBT plus community.
[134] And so we should give some acknowledgement to Tim Scott as well.
[135] But you're a groundbreaker on this.
[136] And despite that, you had pro -Palestine, anti -Israel activists tear down like a Tore.
[137] pride, kind of flag, and put up a flag instead honoring queer Palestinians.
[138] What do you make of something like that?
[139] So the Fire Island Pines Property Association chose to honor several people, including myself, you know, whether you approve of my position on Israel or not, the fact is that I am objectively a trailblazer, right?
[140] I'm objectively gay.
[141] I'm objectively gay, and I'm the first black and the first Latino LGBTQ member of Congress in American history, blazing a trail that had never been blazed before.
[142] And so the association decided to honor me, and it had majority support, but there were a few agitators who took it upon themselves to vandalize Trailblazers Park and remove the flag honoring me and replace it with a flag in honor of queer Palestinians.
[143] Obviously, I welcome a celebration of queer Palestinians, but what is left unmentioned is the fact that Hamas with which these activists show solidarity is a barbaric oppressor, a murderous oppressor of queer Palestinians, right?
[144] I know there's an organization known as like Queers for Palestine, Queers for Hamas, I can assure you the love is not mutual.
[145] It is a tale of unrequited love.
[146] This is the thing I don't get.
[147] I mean, I am probably more than some of my colleagues and maybe more than you in various ways.
[148] I'm concerned about the humanitarian issues in Palestine feel like Bibi is mismanaging the war a bit.
[149] Don't feel like Bibi has an end game.
[150] Criticism of Bibi has a safe space here.
[151] Criticism of Israel or constructive criticism or opinions about that are welcome here.
[152] It's this thing that really bugs me, though, here in Pride Month.
[153] And it's like, there's this free Palestine message.
[154] And, you know, it's like, okay, I'm for free Palestine, but just like Bibi doesn't have a path for Gaza post -war, there's no path for a free Palestine for women and queer people.
[155] You know, you can have a Queers for Palestine sign, and that's fine, but there's no endgame here, even if Israel just put down their arms right now, where you come out of it, where women, gays, lesbians, trans people are living in Gaza or the West Bank as citizens with rights.
[156] The disconnect there and the self -righteousness when making that argument is very frustrating to me and has to drive you up the wall at times.
[157] Look, is Israel perfect now but it is objectively true that there is no place in the middle east where it is safer to be LGBTQ to be gay than the state of israel it is far more protective of minority rights far more protective of women's rights far more protective of LGBTQ rights than the rest of the middle east the rest of the arab world the rest of the muslim world where the standard is autocracy that's the hard fact yeah there's some concerns on internet and twitter seeing some things, you know, people are coming after you.
[158] I guess you were hanging out with, you know, one of Trump's PR people, kind of a far right pro -Israel advocate in New York.
[159] And, you know, we're just, people are just checking in and making sure that you're not, you're not getting red -pilled over this.
[160] You haven't been tempted to hang out with any MAGA.
[161] You know, go go down the MAGA rabbit hole over this.
[162] He has the life of an elected official, right?
[163] I'm at a meeting.
[164] There are dozens of people there.
[165] There are people want to take picture with me. I don't necessarily know every person who has taken a picture of me. If I take a picture with you, it does not mean that I necessarily agree with you.
[166] So the gentleman you're referencing asked me to take a picture with his daughter and him.
[167] Am I going to say no?
[168] Like I don't, you know, what am I to do in those circumstances?
[169] Was he wearing like a t -shirt or like were there any public signifiers that, you know, there was a Q -Anon?
[170] Was there a WW1, WGA?
[171] There was no red flag on his apparel.
[172] Or hat, red hat on his...
[173] I reject the game of guilt by association.
[174] I feel like we as elected officials should be judged by what we say and do.
[175] So hold me accountable for the votes I cast.
[176] Hold me accountable for the statements that I've made, and I'm crystal clear about where I stand on the issues.
[177] I do not shy away from a clear expression of where I stand.
[178] But to pounce on me for a photo just strikes me as ridiculous.
[179] I've met thousands of people.
[180] I take thousands of photos.
[181] Believe it or not, I'm fundamentally a nice guy.
[182] So when someone asked me to take a photo, I will say yes.
[183] It kind of relates to another thing I want to talk to you about.
[184] You've written and talked a lot about how you're kind of an introvert.
[185] You suffer with depression, mental health issues.
[186] Back when I worked with Jeb, Jeb is also an introvert unlike his brother.
[187] I think it explains a little bit about their electoral success, but maybe that's for another day.
[188] But, you know, he liked to talk about that.
[189] And I would see, I would be moved by the way that it would bring people out of their shell sometimes when he would talk about it.
[190] This is not, I don't know if you've been able to tell, but I'm not an introvert.
[191] So I kind of don't.
[192] I sometimes struggle to like relate and connect on that level.
[193] But I could tell that he could.
[194] And I appreciate that he talked about it.
[195] And I appreciate that you've written and talked about it.
[196] So I like to hear you talk a little bit about what is what's it like like being a politician in these situations.
[197] People are asking you for pictures.
[198] People are asking you for your opinion on everything.
[199] People are up in your grill.
[200] You know, you got to get up every day and do it no matter, no matter what.
[201] whether it's a good day or bad day, and how you, like, navigate that as somebody that's had mental health struggles and is not naturally an extrovert.
[202] Yeah, life is a political burden for introverts.
[203] And, you know, as you know, there are common misconceptions about introversion, right?
[204] Introversion does not mean a lack of sociability.
[205] It means a lack of energy that we tend to be exhausted rather than energized by social interactions.
[206] And we have a need for, you need to replenish ourselves.
[207] You know, for me, the textbook extrovert in American politics was Bill Clinton.
[208] If you could tell that social interaction was the air he breathed, that he needed to be around people.
[209] Whereas Barack Obama, you know, who's the most brilliant order of his generation, feels to me like an introvert, that he's a person who needs personal space to be contemplative and reflective.
[210] And so even the most dynamic, charismatic communicators, right, can be introvert.
[211] I remember when I first ran for public office, I had a fear of public speaking.
[212] I had to drink a glass of wine before every speech.
[213] But, you know, the more I did it, the better I became.
[214] You know, practice made perfect.
[215] And I feel like I've become something of a master of my craft.
[216] And so I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be an elected official as an introvert.
[217] And certainly not as someone who had a longstanding struggle with depression.
[218] You know, more than a decade ago, I was at the lower.
[219] point of my life.
[220] I had dropped out of college, found myself struggling with depression.
[221] I attempted suicide.
[222] I even underwent hospitalization.
[223] I felt as if the world around me had collapsed.
[224] And so I never thought, you know, about seven years later, I would become the youngest elected official in America's larger city and then several years later, I'd become a member of the United States Congress.
[225] I would not be in Congress.
[226] I would not be alive or not for mental health care and the stability that it gave me. I'm sure that, you know, when people hear that, you hear from other folks that have, that are going through dark times that have, you know, contemplated suicide.
[227] Like, I mean, there's obviously cliche advice for everybody, but have something that's been there?
[228] Is there anything from that experience that sticks with you that you like to share with people that those of us who have not gone through it might not, you know, might not think about?
[229] Or one, a secondary question is like, somebody like me, if I hear somebody say that, that they're having suicidal thoughts, they're going through deep depression.
[230] Like, what was helpful to you?
[231] First, I would tell them, you know, never lose hope.
[232] There's no telling where life will take you.
[233] And it's possible to overcome struggles with mental health.
[234] And I stand as living proof.
[235] But I would tell people to seek care.
[236] You know, mental illness is nothing of which to be ashamed.
[237] Like, if you're struggling with depression, you should seek care just like you would see care.
[238] care if you were struggling with diabetes, right?
[239] It's not a failure of willpower.
[240] It's not a failure of character.
[241] It's a condition that requires treatment, that requires psychotherapy and medication.
[242] Every morning, I take, well, Butrin XL 150.
[243] I take the same antidepressant that I've taken for more than a decade.
[244] And I feel no shame in admitting it.
[245] And I will tell you that it enables me to be the best version of myself, to be a productive public servant in an extraordinarily demanding and draining political environment.
[246] I assume you had a support network.
[247] Were there folks from the outside that, is there anything that stands out for you as something that was particularly helpful?
[248] My greatest hero is my mother, who raised three of us on minimum wage, which in the 1990s was $4 .25 in the most expensive city in America.
[249] So she is my hero, and she's achieved mission impossible for me and my brothers and my sister.
[250] And when I won my primary in June of 2020, and when I knew that I was going to be the member of Congress.
[251] I publicly said that before I was a congressman or a councilman.
[252] I'm first and foremost the son of Deborah Baselette, my mother, Deborah Boscelot.
[253] And for me, the greatest satisfaction of public life is the honor of representing the South Bronx, which is full of single mothers who have sacrificed and struggled and suffered so that their children and grandchildren can have a fighting chance at a decent life.
[254] like those are the people whom the Democratic Party should represent first and foremost because they are the unsung heroes of our country.
[255] Amen.
[256] Single mothers one weekend alone with my child and I was just like, oh my God, how do single mothers do it?
[257] It is absolutely unbelievable.
[258] I just throw myself on the ground and just throw flowers at every single mother in my life.
[259] It is an unbelievable skill that they have and an unbelievable challenge.
[260] And they deserve all our praise and support.
[261] You're right.
[262] Again, this goes back to the initial question.
[263] I'll let you go.
[264] Like, centering those folks, centering single mothers, centering working class people, like that was traditionally a democratic strength that I do feel like the party sometimes gets away from a little bit.
[265] And I think that part of the question of a little bit of slippage among working class people in communities like the Bronx is because they see the Democratic Party as being, you know, some of the more frivolous, you know, social justice kind of more.
[266] privileged faces being put forth, you know, rather than people like your mother.
[267] I don't know.
[268] Do you think that there's, you have any thoughts on how the party can re -center, you know, people like your mother?
[269] Look, I feel like we have to make a concerted effort to speak to people like my mother.
[270] I do worry that the activists and the academics often have outsized agenda setting power in progressive politics.
[271] But we have to return to our roots as the party of FDR and speak to the working class.
[272] to the lowest -income communities of color because we are the only party that represents their interests.
[273] We have the only party committed to defending the social safety net from the far right of American politics.
[274] Cheers to your mother.
[275] Do you have any, what do you listen to these days?
[276] Do you have any Pride tunes?
[277] I'm sending people out with Pride tunes this month.
[278] Do you have one?
[279] Do you have a wreck?
[280] I'm the worst person to ask.
[281] I'm like the...
[282] You just listen to podcasts?
[283] You're just listening to it's grinded on podcasts all day?
[284] I have a friend who said, Richie, you're utterly lacking in any fashion sense.
[285] So you obviously heard of the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
[286] He calls himself a straight eye for the queer guy because I have no fashion sense.
[287] So you need music wrecks and fashion wrecks.
[288] Do you have any traditional gay traits?
[289] Do you have any, like are you into knitting or anything?
[290] Do you have any tradition?
[291] Apart from enjoying men, I have no Broadway.
[292] Not, you know, when I'm invited, I think the last Broadway show I saw was pretty serious.
[293] That was parades.
[294] Okay.
[295] Well, you know, the Only qualification, actually.
[296] This is an important part of gay life that some people don't realize that want a stereotype from the outside.
[297] Liking other men is actually the only qualification.
[298] So you cross that bar.
[299] Thank you for the time.
[300] Much love to your mother.
[301] Congressman Richie Torres.
[302] Hopefully we can do this again soon.
[303] Up next, we got Ben Smith.
[304] We'll see you soon, buddy.
[305] Take care.
[306] And we're back with my old friend Ben Smith, editor -in -chief of Semaphore, host of the Mix Signal Pod with Naima Raza.
[307] Previously, he was media columnist the New York Times and founding editor -in -chief at BuzzFeed.
[308] His latest book is Traffic.
[309] It's out in paperback.
[310] You can go find it at, I don't know, a Barnes and Noble near you.
[311] What's up, Ben?
[312] Thank you for all the plugs, Tim.
[313] It's very nice to see you.
[314] Dude, I'm plugging.
[315] I'm plugging away.
[316] Okay.
[317] I want to start here.
[318] You know, there are a lot of media conversations over the last nine years.
[319] You're probably bored with this conversation about how one deals with Donald Trump.
[320] But I think that a lot of times there are various inflection points that can make us think about it.
[321] And I've been thinking about it a lot this week in the wake of the trial verdict.
[322] I know it's something you're talking about on the new pod.
[323] And I'm just wondering, like, how you would grade how we're doing here broadly in the media.
[324] Because I look at this.
[325] I just think it's, I think that Trump is still, you know, kind of playing a lot of people like a fiddle.
[326] You know, it was a very strange situation for the bulk of the trial.
[327] Like, we're down here in Lower Manhattan, and it's two blocks from here.
[328] And I was, like, unable to find parking for my Kia Niro because it's such a circus, like a legit media circus of live trucks and cameras.
[329] And yet there was like this sense.
[330] It felt like during the trial that like the journalists weren't really sure whether like the wires were connected, like whether anybody was listening on the other end of their stories about this trial of the century.
[331] I guess I thought that the actual coverage of the verdict.
[332] Like this is a big historic story.
[333] The president getting convicted and it felt that way and the coverage felt that way.
[334] And I think now the question is, you know, one of the challenges is, you know, one of the challenges is that political coverage in general, a lot of the decision -making about what's covered is made by the campaigns.
[335] And the Trump campaign was totally ready to come out of this, say that it was, you know, persecution and send him to a UFC fight, and they knew exactly what they were doing.
[336] And the Democrats really, like, had no plan.
[337] I think a lot of them thought he was going to be acquitted or was going to get a hung jury.
[338] And then the White House, in particular, seems to have basically made a decision to talk very little about it.
[339] And so the sort of normal, hacky political routine of, well, Donald Trump says he's innocent, but Joe Biden says he's guilty, is replaced by Donald Trump says he's innocent.
[340] And Joe Biden gave a long speech about the Middle East.
[341] Yeah.
[342] How is it that we haven't figured out how to deal with this by now here in the middle of 2024?
[343] Because we don't have as much power as we think we do, I think is the fundamental answer.
[344] Like deal with this what?
[345] Like if only you tweeted something a little better.
[346] No, I just mean deal with not buying like Donald Trump's snake oil bullshit so easily.
[347] I mean, I was like, a number of people who've been out saying, oh, I don't know.
[348] Do we think this is going to help him?
[349] Like, is Trump and all his people are pitching about how it's going to help him?
[350] And it's like, really?
[351] I mean, you cannot even conceive of a universe in which Hillary gets convicted of felonies for her emails and people are on TV.
[352] the next day being like, you know, this could really be a big boost for the Clinton campaign.
[353] Yeah, that particular strain of analysis, I agree with you, was, you know, was just on its face pretty dumb.
[354] I guess how do you think about this at Semaphore?
[355] Don't you think it's just like, it's very challenging to figure out with how to, how to think about the flood the river with shit dynamic with him.
[356] On the plane home from New York, I was watching a documentary about the 76 campaign.
[357] And it's like, Jimmy Carter's big scandal was telling Playboy that he cheated in his heart and Gerald Ford's big scandal of that campaign was like on a debate stage where he tried to be a little cute and say that Russia, Soviets aren't really dominating Eastern Europe and he was trying to be like, well, he's not, they're not dominating the people, the people are still free, but he sounded really dumb explaining it.
[358] Those were the big scandal.
[359] So it's just like, I mean, if Donald Trump had said one of those things in the Bronx, like it wouldn't even appear in the semaphore write up the next day, you know, like how are we supposed to deal with that as we look forward to the rest of the year?
[360] Right, with a campaign in which one of the candidates, I mean, and this is an old story about all these right -wing populists, not just Trump, that the things that they say that are outrageous and that the media's reflexes to scold them are built to travel through our scolding.
[361] And that Trump is saying things that are offensive or outrageous or sexist with like the express intent that we get upset and amplify them and that people on Facebook get outraged and share them.
[362] I think the answer is there's not a simple answer.
[363] And for a while you saw this reflex, which was, we're just not going to cover these outrageous things.
[364] We're not going to get played.
[365] And then somebody noticed like, hey, did you notice that during that speech he said he was going to, you know, use the National Guard to deport millions of people in his first hundred days?
[366] Like, maybe we should cover that.
[367] I mean, I guess to the degree that I think there is sort of a smart, responsible way to cover it, I think being focused on what he actually says he is going to do as president is the most important part of the coverage.
[368] but I don't think that really gets you away from like do you know do you cover his visit to the UFC event which is a pretty interesting political phenomenon right the extent to which sort of masculinity has become the center of the campaign or do you not because it's a stunt aimed at distracting from the fact that he just got convicted of 34 felonies that's a good question what is I don't know what's the answer that question I don't think if there was like a really simple obvious answer you know we would know yeah and the UFC guy in the post game press conference is talking about how great Trump is, you know.
[369] And so there's this whole ecosystem out there where people are getting those clips and that's like absent from the mainstream commentary, almost.
[370] Yeah, no, I think that's right.
[371] Me and Olivia were talking about those, me and Olivia and Nuzzi, because when I was at, we were at one of these TPUSA events and, you know, it's a kind of thing that you send Wigel to.
[372] And, like, they were really kind of interesting.
[373] We don't send him.
[374] We can barely talk him out of going.
[375] Exactly.
[376] We reject those expenses, but he still does.
[377] Yeah, it's a, kind of thing that like, you know, in 2017, people are like, wow, this is fascinating.
[378] It's like an alt C -PAC that's even crazier and a bunch of people went and, you know, and then it's like 2023 and it's only Yagle and Olivia and me. Like, nobody else is there.
[379] And we're like, well, haven't we overcorrected the other way here?
[380] Like, isn't it a little concerning?
[381] Like, if Trump wins again, these are the people that are going to be running things.
[382] Yeah, and I guess I think those are the stories that are really obvious to tell and smart to tell this project 2025 stuff where they're really trying to lay the groundwork for an administration run by Cash Patel or whoever.
[383] Like that's real like reportable stuff that you can try to figure out.
[384] Although of course there is also a layer of everybody at TPUSA is going to tell you that they're going to be the Secretary of State in the hopes that you'll quote them, Trump will see it and learn their name.
[385] It's just a very strange ecosystem of which the media, you know, is part, but maybe a smaller part than we used to be.
[386] Yeah, no, there's no doubt about that is something that I think about.
[387] at those things where it's like even me they kind of even want to talk to me and I'm like I'm like I'm being used because they want like a fight with me is good you know in some way it's a tough challenge there was an exchange over the weekend by my quasi colleague george conway my quasi podcast colleague he has a really well rated podcast with sarah longwell and uh and scott jennings my old colleague from the jeb campaign where george is basically like you're a liar stop lying like why is CNN paying you.
[388] And that Casey Hunt justizes him.
[389] You know, we are good.
[390] We were back to the same old debate.
[391] Like it was in 2016, it was, CNN was having Jeff Lord on set, giving an absurd, you know, defense, everything Trump did.
[392] And then in 2020, CNN, like, swung to the Zucker model of, you know, oh, righteous indignation.
[393] And now, now we're like, we're back to square one.
[394] What would you do if they had you replaced Chris Lict?
[395] The thing is, Jeff Zucker is a brilliant television programmer and did the only possible thing from a business perspective, which is that like there's a limited set of people who watch cable television.
[396] Every day, some of them die of old age.
[397] And you're not going to find new people.
[398] It's over.
[399] But there's a bunch of people over at MSNBC.
[400] This is what Zucker saw.
[401] And our biggest pool of like still living cable news viewers is over there and we have to go get them by being more anti -Trump than MSNBC.
[402] And that is what he did.
[403] And then there were all sorts of highfalutin theories about like, well, maybe we can get the people who were watching HGTV, who just wants some fair news coverage.
[404] Like, nope, they tried, didn't work.
[405] Cable television is a, you know, slowly but genuinely collapsing ecosystem.
[406] And, you know, some of the people are there to be mad at Joe Biden, and some are there to be upset at Donald Trump.
[407] And there aren't other people.
[408] And so you can serve one of those two communities, or you cannot devote your life to cable television.
[409] I think it is a very good paying job, so I don't know.
[410] But I do think that this is sort of a story with the business of this very strange media that had its 20 years of dominance and is dying.
[411] And when you try to answer it in sort of moral terms or even journalistic terms, you're missing the way people who make television shows are actually making decisions.
[412] Somebody sent me the stats on the median viewer of these networks age.
[413] The median is like 68.
[414] Right.
[415] Median.
[416] So for every person under 68.
[417] There's an older first.
[418] It's a pretty old crowd.
[419] And Foxes is older and they sometimes run into issues with the ratings that they stop rating, like the rating, the number stops at a certain age.
[420] And so it's hard to develop averages.
[421] That was good from a business standpoint.
[422] This is your media businessman now.
[423] No, I don't mean to be cynical.
[424] I'm just trying to like to explain the decision making.
[425] No, no, that was good.
[426] There are two parts to this.
[427] And that was a very cogent explanation of the decision making.
[428] Now the question of, okay, the journalistic and integrity question, which is there's a legitimate debate here.
[429] I don't, I don't want to talk about going to go to the loit.
[430] There's like a legitimate debate.
[431] One is like, we need to have a conservative viewpoint represented here if we're going to cover what is happening in politics.
[432] The other side of it is, okay, but what if you can't find anybody that offers that point of view that can do so without blatantly lying constantly in defense of Donald Trump?
[433] Maybe there's not a good answer to that question either.
[434] Isn't that fundamentally what CNN's doing with?
[435] Yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, like I guess I just reject the idea that we should be looking to cable news as a sort of journalistic load star, that that's where the most important ethical decisions in journalism are made.
[436] I mean, I think there are two different kind of important kinds of stories.
[437] Like, there is the, I think, totally legitimate kind of reporting that's like, what is happening?
[438] What motivates Donald Trump supporters?
[439] What motivates right -wing populism?
[440] I think there was some very dumb stories written out of diners that people like to make fun of, but actually that kind of journalism is totally legitimate.
[441] Like you do want, and what motivates people who are protesting Gaza, like leaving social media, talking to people who are committed and engaged in politics trying to figure out what's going on, I think that's really valuable and useful.
[442] That's not Jeff Lord, right?
[443] That's somebody who likes Jeff Lord's podcast.
[444] And then the other is, I think it depends to some degree, like, do you believe that there's a huge realignment, political realignment underway in which at some level, like the Bernie people and the Trump people are moving into one party, and both parties are fighting really hard to make that their party, by the way, right?
[445] And that the sort of, you know, J .D. Vance on bills with Democratic legislators and Josh Hawley on bills with Democratic senators that we're going to see more and more of that and that is our politics now and that whether it's Donald Trump, you know, who knows, but that that kind of right -wing populist movement is real and is something that is going to be a major political force, I think it's pretty hard to argue with, honestly.
[446] And I think that you can't be dismissive of it.
[447] I mean, these are people who maybe you think shouldn't be on television because they have insane views about the 2020 election, but are, in fact, co -presenting bills with Democratic senators on important issues.
[448] No, I agree with that.
[449] And that's really more.
[450] It comes down to maybe they shouldn't have 18 -person panels, you know, analyzing the political things, and that's the problem.
[451] Yeah, exactly.
[452] And just interview the newsmakers on there, because I think that's totally legitimate.
[453] Anyway, that probably doesn't rate as well, which speaks to the problem.
[454] But are the 70 -year -olds that are dying changing the channel?
[455] Maybe that doesn't matter.
[456] I don't know.
[457] I once asked Chris Ruddy, you know, Newsmax is really the most sort of extreme version of this of just treating its viewers like their morons and manipulating them, particularly around the election.
[458] And I asked Chris Ruddy, like, isn't it an issue that you're on Channel 973 or whatever?
[459] But he said apparently older people now just all talk to their remotes and just so it's fun.
[460] I think that is true.
[461] I didn't know that.
[462] I learned.
[463] And I last night talked to my remote a bit.
[464] When I moved into this house, I have a very nice neighbor, elderly woman who has lived in the house for like 60 years, who is when I walked down the street the first time she saw me, she was like, you're the boy from 7.
[465] 128, whatever the channel is.
[466] I was like, yeah, that's me. We have a nice little exchange now.
[467] One thing, I wonder, as you think about the new pod and media coverage in general, I've just made this mistake I'm about to ask you about, which is like there's this obsession with what's going on in the dying platforms.
[468] And meanwhile, increasingly between YouTube and TikTok, like the amount of political news that people are getting that is just totally almost unnoticed by the DC, New York media is pretty astonishing.
[469] I mean, I go on Brian Taylor -Cohen show all the time.
[470] He gets like a million views, a YouTube thing.
[471] You know, there's destiny.
[472] There's a right -wing media monitoring universe out there.
[473] But, you know, every once in a while I'm scrolling through TikTok and, like, I'll come up on something and, like, the person I've never heard of, you know, it'll have a million views.
[474] How are you guys thinking about that?
[475] It's interesting.
[476] Because the thing that kills me about that is there's so little, like, original reporting and new information being provided by that ecosystem, but a lot of opinions.
[477] That's a great point.
[478] You know, I think the big story right now of media in general.
[479] It's a very hard one to cover is just fragmentation.
[480] The biggest stuff, like the really big, big, powerful, important stuff, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, whatever, is mostly getting smaller.
[481] The New York Times, Washington Post, smaller, not going away, but doesn't have the power it once did.
[482] And then there's a lot of medium, small and medium -sized stuff that's kind of getting bigger, but it's not going to be as big as those things were.
[483] It's just, and so you have this ecosystem that's like very, very fragmented.
[484] The most interesting stat in this is that there was a pew to to survey a couple years ago about podcasts and they asked people, you know, what's your favorite, who's your favorite podcast host?
[485] What's your favorite podcast?
[486] And obviously everyone, the majority said you.
[487] But of everybody else, the number one was Joe Rogan.
[488] But the most interesting thing was that number one slot was just 5 % of people who say they have a favorite podcast host.
[489] So that's an unusual market where the top shares 5%.
[490] And we're used to markets like search where Google has 99%.
[491] And so it's this very, very fragmented universe where people are getting information from a vast array of different places and you don't know where the other people are getting information from and it's hard to generalize.
[492] It shows how tiny most of those are that Joe Rogan, despite your kind comments, is like 100x me. It's a very interesting market in that there is app Joe Rogan at 5 % and then there's like a cut down to another group of people, you know what I mean?
[493] And then it's true.
[494] And most of the consumption is happening kind of in the middle of the tail.
[495] Yeah.
[496] I think really for better and for worse, like we're coming out of this world where really we were all on one of two giant platforms.
[497] all seeing the same stuff.
[498] If somebody was like on Twitter in the height of the 2020 election and I looked over their shoulder on the subway, they were like reading the same tweet I had just read.
[499] If I'm on the subway now seeing somebody listening to something, I have no idea what it is.
[500] And is that healthier or less healthy?
[501] I don't know.
[502] The last time around did not work so good.
[503] So this takes me kind of one of the book topics I wanted to talk to you about.
[504] So, you know, the book traffic was, you know, kind of a about the downfall of this model of, we're trying to get as many eyeballs as possible.
[505] It was a race to go viral.
[506] You know, we're going to pay for this via advertising dollars by the, you know, just unbelievable amount of eyeballs that we're getting.
[507] And as you flip that to a model now that is more fragmented and subscriber -based, right?
[508] Where people are, in a lot of these cases, people are paying, you know, the individual, you know, platform or the individual content provider that they are interested in, the one that they're a super fan of, right?
[509] And I just, I was just saying today, I was like, I just thought today, even MSNBC is doing this now.
[510] I got to promote today.
[511] Like the MSNBC Plus, we've been doing it for a while, the Bullock.
[512] And so doesn't that eventually lead to its own kind of problems?
[513] Yeah, right, right, right.
[514] That as we swing toward a ecosystem where media is paid, that all the free stuff is garbage and that you can pay for quality and otherwise you get garbage and misinformation.
[515] I think that's to some degree where we already are.
[516] That's happening.
[517] You don't have deep thoughts on that?
[518] That's just our reality.
[519] I do think that we who are in the business like to think about the supply side.
[520] But actually, in fact, as there was a survey where they offered people in Boston free subscriptions to the Boston Globe, and nobody would take them.
[521] The barrier to people reading what we think of as quality news is not always money.
[522] Like, people pay for Spotify.
[523] They pay for things they want.
[524] And a lot of people don't consume what you and I never did think of as quality news.
[525] Meanwhile, do watch local television, which from time immemorial has just kind of ripped off the front page to local paper and read it out loud, which is great.
[526] So it's a little complicated.
[527] I mean, I do think more broadly in the media business, there's an impulse to say, like, subscriptions are immoral because they shut out the population or advertising is immoral because it is corrupting and melts your brain or whatever.
[528] But actual functioning successful media businesses tend to find models where they do some of both and have some of stuff that's available for everybody and build these pretty complicated mixed models.
[529] So I don't know.
[530] I'm not that ideological about it.
[531] This is kind of depressing, though.
[532] The demand side argument.
[533] and I had Derek Thompson on last week.
[534] He made the same argument about the demand side problem is that people want controversial, people want conflict, and that's what they're drawn to.
[535] Yeah, they want to be entertained.
[536] Yeah, so, but my question is, in an old world, if people on the demand side wanted to go buy tabloids, if they wanted to, you know, watch wrestling or whatever, like they were still just by the nature of the limited number of options, like being forced fed vegetables at certain times during the day, you know, whether it be the local news or whether it be Tom Broca or whatever.
[537] And it's like now they don't have to be ever fed vegetables ever.
[538] I know you get brought to these little media confabs where Goody Two Shoes people try to solve that problem.
[539] Like is there a solve to the demand side problem in a world where there's unlimited supply?
[540] I don't know.
[541] I do not know.
[542] I mean, I guess I think that when you add up all these small podcasts and shows, some of the TikToker commentary is very good.
[543] I think that one way or another, a lot of people, a majority, want to be informed.
[544] It may not exactly be the thing that you and I want, but it's also, they don't want to be lied to.
[545] I think you can underestimate the kind of intelligence and curiosity of regular people who aren't necessarily into like this podcast and this style of podcast or into 1 ,000 -word articles.
[546] But this whole system of ours really fundamentally depends on the intelligence and curiosity of some decent number of our fellow citizens.
[547] And I do think if you look, I mean, I think Joe Rogan's a decent example.
[548] It's not like my favorite program.
[549] And there he says some stuff, I think is nuts.
[550] But it's also largely kind of long form interview.
[551] He's curious.
[552] He's curious.
[553] He's in his way trying to be fair.
[554] He has sometimes quite interesting people on talking about interesting stuff.
[555] I mean, it's not perfect, but the person who's listening to that isn't saying, I want like a, you know, like a 14 -second montage of violence.
[556] or please lie to me right like there's another impulse there i worry less about please lie to me is maybe a little more of like please explain to me why all the people i hate are wrong that's the impulse that i think is hardest to to break in that cycle i think and maybe i'm horribly optimistic i think the sort of peak social media of like 2016 2018 was really like perfected that because the thing it turned out to be best at was finding the like most grotesquely accessible expressed view of your enemy and bringing it to your attention.
[557] It's like these new formats that are now popular, newsletters and sudden podcasts and surprisingly long YouTube shows actually aren't really built that way.
[558] Like they tend to leave some space to breathe and to have reasonable disagreements.
[559] I don't know if I share your doy -adrosy optimism there, but I like it though.
[560] We'll leave it.
[561] We'll leave on that.
[562] I want to ask you about one news item today.
[563] I always pronounced it the epoch times until I wrote a long -form article about them and realize they call themselves the epic times i think maybe it's a little bit of a translation an epic by the way meaning like an age right like an era yeah yeah like an epic yeah like an epic yeah bill gwan the publisher of epic times was indicted on monday on charges of participating in a massive money laundering scheme 67 million this is another example of one of these things right that it's it's like the epic times is everywhere and it's advertising in the subways advertising on YouTube, they had newspapers that were going out everywhere.
[564] You know, there was some oversight from time to time.
[565] People would write articles about it, but kind of outside of the view of the mainstream political culture was like advancing a lot of kind of kooky, wild -eyed views.
[566] It turns out to have been a grift, I guess, which was pretty obvious, anyone that was looking that closely.
[567] Do you have any big thoughts on the Epic Times?
[568] I mean, only that this is just one of the great weird media stories ever.
[569] I mean, because it's not, I mean, honestly, the notion that their real revenue stream was allegedly stolen phone cards or something?
[570] I mean, it just seemed totally, cryptocurrency.
[571] I read the indictment and I'm still confused, but it didn't seem like it was media -related fraud.
[572] The revenue stream wasn't from the ads or from subs?
[573] They were laundering money from some other, basically they had some other criminal enterprise, and the media business was like a restaurant through which you launder your money from your, you know, gambling and prostitution operations if you're the mafia or whatever, or drug dealing.
[574] like the media front was just the like storefront and what a weird storefront and because it was yes it was it was trying to make itself as kind of like the pro -Trump new york times and really more deeply than that the anti -china new york times because the other thing to know about the epic times is that it is i would take i've written about this and it's complicated people have written controlled by or run by but i think linked to is maybe the right way to say it falun gong which is this dissident chinese spiritual practice, which the Chinese government claims is a cult and has cracked down on incredibly brutally, and is in exile running a pro -Trump anti -China newspaper, because why not?
[575] And also, allegedly, doing some money laundering.
[576] The whole thing is so bizarre.
[577] Even before the money laundering story, it was bizarre.
[578] The thing about this whole operation is it just screams, like, people who believe that the ends justify the means.
[579] But I've totally lost track of which are the ends and which are the means here?
[580] Like, are they really deeply pro -Trump and allegedly committing crimes in order to get back at China?
[581] Or is that actually the facade and there, do that facade is in order to get the money through the alleged scheme?
[582] Very, very, very confusing and amazing.
[583] I feel that way about Miles Guo, the guy that was funding all of Bannon's.
[584] What incredible story.
[585] Yeah, because he's also, he's a Chinese dissident supposedly, but then it's like, it's not 100 % clear if he's a real Chinese dissident that was taking money from expat Chinese and feeding them to Steve Bannon to attack China, or whether he's like a double agent pro Chinese asset who was like using Steve Bannon to foment unrest in the American political environment.
[586] Like it literally could be either or neither.
[587] It's real like John LaCarray stuff, just sort of game of shadows totally unclear what people's motivations are.
[588] There's an amazing New Yorker piece on Guo, like including maybe unclear to Guo day to day.
[589] like maybe he's just living in the moment surviving fascinating we'll put a link to that one in there i'd read part of that one and i think got distracted as i sometimes do on the internet and my epic times the epic times thing i did like these ads you have to watch it's like children of the corn ship their ads and it was very strange um lastly my last thing for you i've been dying to ask you this you're running semaphore we're running a media outlet here what is the point of it why there are a lot of media outlets out there what are we serving i don't know what you're serving.
[590] And I think there's space for many different kinds.
[591] And I'm saying as somebody who's doing a startup media company, this is a question we ask ourselves.
[592] And I'm saying now I'm asking it to you.
[593] No, I appreciate it.
[594] And I actually think one of the nice things about the media environment we've been talking about is that there's space for a lot of different kinds of things in a way that's a bit new.
[595] I mean, for us, like I think we're trying to talk to an audience who is deeply engaged with the things we write about with global politics, U .S. politics, finance, technology.
[596] media and often reads or watches or listens to stuff in the establishment media and is sophisticated enough to know like feels in some way that it's not totally on the level that the publication for sort of formal traditional reasons can't just come out and tell you what it thinks that the writer is sort of harboring certain views and a lot of expertise that they're keeping out of it and there's sort of a blurring of fact and opinion and I think we're trying to do an opinion and they call me it's like when one of these journalists calls me and they're like will you give a quote for the thing that I think about this thing so that I can put it in the article.
[597] Yeah.
[598] This is the standard article.
[599] It's like, who, what, one, or why, journalists theory disguises fact, quote from Tim Miller restating that.
[600] Right.
[601] And so I think we're trying to sort of pull that apart, say, here are the facts.
[602] Like, we're sophisticated enough and you are sophisticated enough to be able to say, these are the facts.
[603] Here, I've been covering this long time.
[604] Here is my view.
[605] But also, Tim Miller has a totally different view.
[606] I'm including his quotations calling me an idiot.
[607] Because you're going to actually trust me more, not less, if you know that I'm open to the possibility than I'm an idiot.
[608] So, So we're trying to be transparent in the way we present news, trying to keep it at a pretty high level and trying to take a global view, because I do think most of the big stories in the world, including the rise of right -wing populism, are kind of hard to understand if you don't see them globally.
[609] Yeah.
[610] How do you feel like that model has worked just like, not like the business model, but the straight article, you know, the deconstruction, if you will, of the article?
[611] People like it.
[612] Yeah, the feedback is good.
[613] Yeah, the feedback's been really good.
[614] broadly good, I don't know, some professor told me he's teaching it to his students, which made me kind of happy.
[615] That's nice.
[616] I'll tell you, as a consumer of it, what I like is sometimes I really just want to know what Dave's view is.
[617] Yes.
[618] You know, Dave Wigle's view.
[619] And so I'm like, I know the facts, but I'm like, Dave is actually there and following this stuff.
[620] So I'm just looking for his view on this.
[621] The only time I don't like it is sometimes it feels like the reporter has to give a view.
[622] I feel like you need to evolve it to an option or it's like the reporter's like, you know, I don't really know about this.
[623] And maybe that does happen.
[624] Sometimes I just didn't read that article.
[625] You know, it's funny.
[626] We do, we in various ways, often we'll just sort of quietly remove the view section because, yes, of course, often you reports the facts, they have no idea what they mean.
[627] Maybe we just have a checkmark that's just sort of like a shruggy emoji.
[628] Yeah.
[629] Yeah.
[630] It's a Dave's view on this.
[631] Shruggy emoji.
[632] Come back for more.
[633] I feel like that so often.
[634] Same.
[635] Ben Smith.
[636] Thank you so much, man. It's always good to see you.
[637] The new podcast is Mick Signals.
[638] Mix signal or mixed signals Mixed signals Mixed signals With Naima Raza And you know Go check out Semaphore He's got a newsletter A bunch of other people have newsletters And we'll be talking to you again soon See you brother Thank you Tim Yo We off the block this year Went from a load to a lot this year Everybody man at the rocks that I wear I know where I'm going And I know where I'm from you here Locks in the air Here we at the airport out D blocks from the block Where everybody air force out With a new white T, you fresh.
[639] Nothing phony with us.
[640] Make the money, get the man to bring the hoodies with us.
[641] I'm still, I'm still, Jenny from the block.
[642] Used to her movie scripts to all the six, the J -load of this headline clips.
[643] I stay grounded as the amount's rolling.
[644] I'm real, I thought I told you.
[645] I'm real leaving.
[646] Oh, no, bro.
[647] That's just me. Nothing for you.
[648] What you get is what you see.
[649] You're being fooled by the rocks that I got.
[650] I'm still, I'm still, Jenny.
[651] from the park the bulwark podcast is produced by katie cooper with audio engineering and editing by jason brown