Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds.
And a new California oprohibits using AI as a basis to deny insurance claims. We have such a great show for you today as we start to come back from our vacation called me a journalism review Daily newsletter editor John also examines how journalism is changing going into twenty twenty five. But first we have the Lincoln Projects. Rick Wilson will join us to discuss what Mike Johnson's rule over the House will look like.
Rick Wilson, Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Hello, Molly, how are you today?
I am good. We were on television together last night, which was incredibly fun.
It was fun. That was a good hit.
It was good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean an incredibly weird moment to talk about American politics. Why is this such a fucking horrible moment in American politics?
Because he shouldn't have won and he did, and people have yet to figure out how we work that problem. It is an unsolvable problem for a lot of Americans right now.
You know what I think is the reason why this moment is so hard, and the moment and it's that weird period between the election and the inauguration, and it always is bad because you have a moment where you think either I think the enemy of all political discourse is hope. Right. Sure, sure for either party where you think this is going to be it, they're going to
get in there. They're going to you know, even like I think about the Biden Edman, you know, there certainly were things done, legislation that was blockbuster passed, but there were many things that a lot of us hoped for, especially Democrats, that were either not doable or not done right. I think that's fair.
Look, I mean, I think we've come down to this point, and you made this point last night on TV. There were a lot of things that Joe Biden accomplished that were extraordinarily popular and to the net good of the country. They were completely unsold to people. People didn't get it, They didn't like a lot of the things they thought
were happening. They didn't know about the things that they should have liked that were happening, and so you know, we ended up in this really grim spot where you know, Biden, as they said, you know, he couldn't win for losing, and Harris had a limited porch to you, a momented window of time to sell that stuff, a short porch, as they say, to sell those things. And I think we also underscored and I think this is also the source of some of our misery as a country. We
underscored the role of celebrity in our society. And as much of a shit, tear, horrifying celebrity as Trump is, he's still a celebrity, and I think that really messes people's heads up.
Well, he also was not burdened with the truth, right, he was able to say things that a lot of us knew were undoable, absolutely, And I mean, like this is the big, the crux, crux of the problem that Trump will likely have if we continue, you know again, we'll probably go back to the Trump and Earth one and Earth two scenario. Right, So on Earth two, uh, you know, on Earth one, groceries will still be you know,
there will still be inflation. But on Earth too, Trump will say, you know, I've done this, I've done that. And again he I mean, you couldn't be a politician and go on television and say I'm going to make things cheaper because there was no path to it except price controls, which American corporations hate.
Right to be honest. As a country, we don't have a super record with those working out. Yes over time, I mean good in theory, but problematic in execution. I also think that, and this is something I've been a lot over the holiday, you know, taking some time and thinking about, like the whole scope of what's been happening. Americans want the good guy to win, and now we
have the anti hero in charge of everything. And this anti hero is is a bad candidate, a bad leader, a bad person, a bad American, a bad human being. And yet he won, and people are scared he's going to abuse the power he's been given. He will. People are are also, I think, in a weird way, nervous because he reflects something about the country that we've become something not great, something dark. We left to look in
the mirror a who we are as a country. And I think a lot of people are unhappy about that. And a lot of people are like, you know, why did evil triumph over good? Why is this guy going to be president? It's hard for people to accept that. They don't like it, they don't want it. Or like it. And man, the more I've thought about it the last couple of days, it's like, we feel guilty that this guy got elected. I do. I feel guilty he got elected. I worked my ass off to not make to make
sure he wasn't elected, but he got elected. And I think there's something in that that is painful for America and we don't like it. We're not happy about it.
Yeah, I mean, I would add that people didn't show up for her, right. I mean when you look at the numbers at the math like they did. The anti Trump coalition that showed up for Joe Biden in twenty twenty refused to show up for Harris in twenty twenty four. That's how we.
Got here exactly. And man, you look at it and you're like the defiance of the political gravity that everyone looked at, you know, everything from Trump's criminality to January sixth, to the fact that he's just an evil piece of shit and people people know it. They know looking at this guy, he is not ever going to be the good guy in the story. He's always going to be the villain. He's always going to be the asshole, He's always going to be the abusive boyfriend. He's always going
to be the monster. And they worked hard and they and they lost and for whatever set of reasons, we lost this fight. We've talked about this a lot. I think it really has left people feeling bitter and unhappy and distraught and imperiled in a way that we understand how bad he can be, we understand the bad things he can do, and so people are rightly sort of sick to their stomachs that we couldn't get to the finish line.
Yeah, I mean, here's a question for you, though, is like I also think this was one of the big problems with this. I mean, look, there were a number of problems, but one of the big problems was voters did not truly believe that Trump was going to do a lot of the things he said he was going to do. Now, I think the reason this moment in American life is so profoundly awful is because there is a spark of hope that a lot of us have that perhaps he won't do the kind of stuff we
know he will, and it is a very depressed you know. Look, I mean I think there are people out there who really deeply and I am one of them. I would love him to just not do a lot of the really scary stuff. I mean, prove me wrong. I would love it, I mean, but I don't. Unfortunately, I don't think that's how it's going to go. And I think that is a very scary you know, I mean, what
does this mean? We don't know, right, we don't know what Trump is going to be able to do, but we do know that he has a lot more people sort of gaming out ways to do it in a way he did in twenty sixteen.
One hundred percent, and the absolute loyalty of the people this time around. There aren't going to be Gymatisis and Gary Codes and Rex Tillerson's out there or even Jared and Ivanka's out there in the background saying let's he's off on this, boss, let's not do this or that. Let's let's let's not you know, do X or Y. I think those people are are you know, in short, supply the suck up crew is going to be there
in droves, and I'm worried that that those people. They have a perspective now that defying the Great Lord and Master is a recipe for political and personal disaster.
I agree, and disagree. Okay, So I would say Susie Wilds is obviously a mitigating force. She may not mitigate this the way that Jem Mattis did, but she obviously and she may have an ambition that is not the same as protecting norms and institutions, which is the ambition I would like her to have. But she does in her way, and perhaps it's to his benefit. She is able to enact some degree of control over Trump, right, I mean, clearly we've seen that.
Look, I would not get your hopes up too high on that. I would be very cautious about getting yourself in a frame where you think Susie will save us.
No, I don't think anyone will save us. But I also don't think Muller will save us.
Well, yeah, now, I here's that.
I think more of the question is, clearly there are people behind the scenes who for example, here's what I'm thinking of. On Friday, Donald Trump whipped votes for Mike Johnson. Okay, he was calling. He called Nancy Mayce. Nancy Mayce put him on the phone with people who weren't going to vote for Mike Johnson, and he whipped those votes. That does not happen if Donald Trump is left to his own devices. That happens if someone who is politically savvy is telling Donald Trump what to do.
Yes, And I do think I do think that Donald Trump. We have to recognize that Trump has a feral sense of self preservation, and that sense of self preservation kicks in sometimes when you look at the options. I mean, it should speak to a lot to how bad the party is. That Donald Trump recognized that Mike Johnson was the best possible.
Option, right, I mean, yeah, that's.
The kind of thing that you know, motivated him because he recognized that if you have a hard maga freedom Caucus person in charge of the House, it will be complete chaos at all times, and that Mike Johnson is the best of the best of the worst options, right, Which really says that Susie is telling Trump and counseling Trump like, you need at least a little bit of sanity in this picture. And somebody that that you know
will eventually be a patsy like like Johnson. You know, he's not a He's not a sympathetic character by any means. He's also not going to be a guy that that is as crazy as Marjorie Taylor Green or whomever.
Yeah, I mean I also think even so, I just think that it's interesting to watch. Mike Johnson is is known to be liked. I think his problem is that he cannot with votes, but I think he can't do math. But his larger problem, and again this didn't happen on Friday, so who knows, is that he has not been able to pass any legislation without Democrats. So now he has a smaller majority, that's right, And Donald Trump has this
wildly ambitious legislative agenda. Again, I'm going to use Donald Trump and quotes here because obviously Donald Trump legislative agendas is a metaphor. But you know, they want to pass tax cuts, they want to do it in reconciliation, they want to do whatever else it is they want to do. You know, I'm not sure that Mike Johnson is your man for that. He makes Paul Ryan look like Lincoln.
The tightness of the Republican majority, the tenuousness of the Republican majority, gives you a perspective on the fact that Mike Johnson can't win without compromises. He can't rally a critical mass of the Freedom Caucus without Donald Trump. On the phone, banging their heads in with a baseball of that.
And if he's not able to have those people immediately obedient to him and immediately cooperative with him, you know, you end up in a moment where it really is it really is more tenuous and more and more dangerous, because look, Donald Trump will whip votes when he has to, like actually whip votes. He would much rather be on the golf course. He would much rather be doing any other thing under the sun.
Yeah, and now we have this question of shokuanaw Right, So Trump is promising shokanaw What do we think that means.
Well, we think it means a wave of executive orders. And that wave of executive orders is going to is going to focus in the beginning on I think two major areas. One will be the terriff plan, which he really believes is an economically viable strategy, which is going to be fantastic.
It's real Herbert Hoover staff, by the way.
Yeah, it worked out so well the last time we had massive tariffs, and.
Herbert Hoover really did when you read the history of it, Herbert Hoover really did believe that he knew something no one else did.
Uh, huh yes. And the other part of it's going to be the mass deportations immigration stuff, and he's going to try to, i think, use those executive orders in the shock and off as to get the Democrats to take the bait. What they want is outrage. What they want is Democrats to be screaming in the streets, how dare you treat these immigrants this way? They want the Democrats to play the role that they that their audience expects them to play. I agree on the politically correct
how dare you you racist? Racist? Racist? They want the Democrats to play.
The take the bait.
Right the maiden fainting on her fainting couch and screeching and losing it. I really think there's an opportunity here for the Democrats to not walk into and play the role that Trump wants them to play. And that's going to be tough, it's going to be non trivial, but I think it's going to be something that is an opportunity for Democrats to say, all right, Donald, this is on you, bro, go for it, do it, get your
people to pass it. They should take amy work. In my in my view, a calmer, steadier, more like you want a clown show. It's going to be yours, buddy. We're not doing any of this in a bipartisan way. You're not getting any help. You're not getting any any you know, my honorable colleague, bullshit from us. This is all stupid. We're not playing your game. Pass it with your own people because they can't well.
And that, I think is it is what we saw earlier with the cr right. We saw Trump wanting Democrats to get in there and fight, and in the end, you know, it was Republicans who wanted to shut down the government and other Republicans who wanted to keep it open.
Hm, keeping the government open. This is like the four thousandth time I've said this to people every single time that we look at the party that shuts down the government is the party that takes the hit. Republicans know this, and yet here we go, they're going to do it again.
You think they're going to do it?
I think I think that that narrow majority if you're Chip Roy or Thomas Massey or Victoria's Sparts, or if you handful these other weirdos.
I can't think about these people without laughing, because it's like there are magots who are like intentionally insane. And then there are people like Victorious Sparts is it Sparts or spats.
Sparts spurts spats by I got nothing and.
She gives these speeches. I mean, this is like in beyond continue.
Oh it's cuckookachew. I mean, these are folks who, no matter what you think the silliness and the weirdness is, it's one hundred times worse. So every time we have a debt ceiling crisis, we're going to have these people do this. Every time we have a budget crisis, We're going to have these people do this. Every time there's a bill up. They're going to throw out as many of their red herrings and as many as their crazy statements, as many of their ludicrous demands as they can, because
that's all they've got, right, that's all they've got. They know that there's not a majority in the country that wants to kill Medicare, Medicaid and social Security, not even close. There's not a majority in the country that wants to shut down FEMA or or do one hundred percent immigration ban or deport the dreamers. They know this. So this thin edge of the wedge is going to be in a position where they have enormous power over and over again.
Right, it's interesting to me to see. I mean, the other thing about executive orders is they're just not you know, there's only so much who can do with them?
Yeah, there is. They are bounded to a great degree.
Yeah. Now I think also, and we're almost out a time, but I just wanted to talk about John Soon for two seconds. He's the new Mitch McConnell. Trump really wanted Rick Scott in there. Rick Scott would have been Mike Johnson. But there is no Rick Scott in there. So now explain to us what the difference is. I think John Thune is a big difference.
Well, I mean, let me say this, if I may quote the great Lloyd Benson. I knew Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell was a friend of mine, and Dohn Thune is no Mitch McConnell. I'm quoting the Benson thing. I'm not. But look, John Thune is a smart guy. He is not, traditionally speaking, a hypermaga lunatic.
No not, Yeah, which is good.
But I will say he also does not have Mitch McConnell's portfolio of legislative superpowers, because whether you all love or hate Mitch McConnell, that son of the bit.
Yes, yeah was.
And as Harry Reid said to me, I've told the quoted on the show before. As Harry Reid said to me one time shortly before he passed, when we had a conversation that there were three Masters of the Senate in his lifetime. One of them was Linda Johnson, he was the other, and the other was Mitch McConnell. And McConnell could be a Master of the Senate even in the minority. Yes, as we saw, is a that is a singular power that John Thune to date has not demonstrated.
Yeah, no, agreed. And Thune has a real majority, he can't lose more than three, but he does have an opportunity here. I also think he doesn't necessarily have the same you know, the Republican Party is not Trump, and Trump is not this Republican Party, even they do not have the same desires.
Well, I think that's one of the things that's important to understand for a long period of time that where McConnell was so very, very successful, he had a pretty unified caucus. They were largely Reagan Bush Republicans, and they were pretty unified. Right now, John Thune has a faction in the Senate that are essentially the same kind of characters that are in the Freedom Caucus in the House. So you've got arguably eight or ten Republican senators who
are just there to burn shit down. They're just there for the chaos. They're there. Yeah, well they're the Ted Cruz is there, They're the Cindy Hyde Smith's, They're the Tommy Tubberville's. Ted Cruz looks like a statesman compared to Tommy Tubberville. So all these people in the House are in the Senate are now they now look a lot more like the like the people that Mike Johnson has to contend within the House. And it's not a pretty.
Picture for sure. Rick Wilson, thank you for joining us.
As always, my pleasure. Happy New Year, and I will see you very soon.
John also is the editor of the Columbia Journalism Reviewed Daily newsletter.
Welcome to Baz Boldeck's job.
Thank you so much for having so.
I wanted to talk to you about where we are right now, coming into Trump second administration. Reporting has sort of done amazing things already with Trump's second administration. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you've seen.
Yeah, it's kind of interesting, right because I think in the wake of the election, there was this great, big throwing up of hands among many mainstream media people and people who consume mainstream media that was like, Oh, we're totally irrelevant. No one listens to us, no one takes us seriously, we have no influence. It's all about Joe Rogan now or the Milk Boys or whoever. I think
that was always overblown. Personally, I don't want to say there aren't real challenges with the media's reach and relevance and how people are going to pay for it, and the fragmentation of the information environment all the rest of it. It's a big problem and something obviously that fine minds need.
To think about.
But just on the sort of most basic level of are the stories that mainstream news organizations doing having impact. We've already seen that that is the case for this second Trump administration. Before it's even started. There's been a slew of damaging reporting on the people Trump has nominated to serve in his top team when he returns to power.
Matt Gates one example.
Of course, Pete Hegseth another Gates ended up dropping out of the running to be Attorney general forty five minutes, I believe, after CNN contacted him for comment on a story that was previously unreported about his alleged past sexual misconduct.
Right, wasn't there a second girl?
Yeah, well, I think you'd have to check this. I think it was the same person, but a second incident maybe. Anyway, it was a news story. And obviously we don't necessarily know that that was like, you know, the main thing that caused him to drop out, but the timing seems pretty clear that it was a factor. You know, it was at least the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were loads of reporting on Hesuth as well.
And and so even if journalism, mainstream journalism doesn't.
Necessarily have like a mass audience anymore, or you know, the audience for journalism is contested, it seems like it's being paid attention to buy people in DC and by Trump itself of course, who love's watching TV as we know, and gets annoyed when there are bad stories on TV about people he's appointed. So it seems like, you know, there is a kind of influence that is that is ongoing. And yeah, there's been some there's been some great reporting during this period.
For sure.
It is funny to me, not funny ha ha, because we're all gonna die, but funny ironic that Trump loves, loves, loves television and really does love mainstream media in a way that that older generation does. And even the administration like this is one of the leakiest administrations ever. Right there are people right now leaking stories about each other. I mean, just talk about the leaking from that.
I think generally what you're talking about is like the big contradiction of Trump, right he has sort of I don't want to say he's done it single handedly. I think that might be a bit overblown. But you know, as ushered in this era of intense threat to press freedom, intense rhetorical bashing of the press, he's exacerbated and existing problem of media mistrust no end. And yet you know, loves to dish to Maggie Haveman, loves to talk to people at mar Lago who write books about him, loves
to be the sort of center of all attention. Actually, you know, saying it out loud, I don't really know if it is a contradiction, right, I guess it's sort of like an intense relationship he has where he doesn't like to be spurned by the thing that he spends so much of his time consuming in a kind of old school way. But get on the leaking front. I mean, his first administration, as you rightly I think alluded to, is was incredibly leaky.
You know people would.
I mean in ways that I mean, we've never seen Biden world do.
Well, No, exactly right. I mean there were stories, weren't there. I think a couple that I remember reading in the earlier years of the Biden administration, which were like reporters off the record saying this is pretty boring, And yeah,
the Trump administration was leaky like a SIEV. We had loads of things to write about, and they were always you know, doing it for self interested reasons mostly, but they were all stabbing each other in the back in public right by our journalists and settling scores in you know, the pages of the New York Times or whatever. And the Biden folks don't do it, you know, that's not how they operate. And so we don't really have much
to talk about. And I think, you know, a more serious manifestation was that, you know, whatever the truth of it is, there were not There were some stories, but not a ton of, like particularly well sourced insider stories.
I don't think on the effects of Biden's age, for example, you know that prior to that debate, when it when that became a huge story because it sort of all played out publicly, Right, I don't think something like that would have necessarily happened in the Trump administration because I think that his advisors we see him every day, would have been leaking to reporters. It doesn't seem like the Biden folks were doing that, at least not in the
same kind of chaotic way. So, yeah, no, it's there. Incredibly, they seem like an incredibly leaky bunch. I guess it'll be interesting this time to see because it is a slightly different cast of characters around him, right, whether that carries on The indication so far suggests that it might well be the case.
Yeah, I'm thinking about leaking, and I'm thinking about the transition team was leaking about each other. Right, we saw Howard LATINX. Stories leaked out about Howard Lutnik trying to pedal influence. If, by the way, if influence pedaling is a problem in Trump role, then somebody has really missed, has misinterpreted how all this is going to work. They do seem to settle scores, right.
Yeah, there was this incredible story about Boris Epstein as well, allegedly asking for money to sort of broker people's introductions to Trump right in this transitional period. But I think that was based on a legal report that was compiled like inside the Trump campaign or sort of inside Trump well somewhere. That was a pretty extraordinary story as well
that obviously played out publicly. I feel like recently I saw I can't remember exactly the context, but a quote from someone who was, you know, quoted anonymously as being like a source close to the transition team that said something to the effect of, we can't say this publicly, but we're concerned about pteg Seth thought or whatever it was, which I don't know, I just thought. I looked at it and I was like, no one is making you do this, right, you could just quit, Like it's just
not a situation you've been like bossed into at gunpoint necessarily. Yeah, I guess we could expect to see quite a lot more of this, which I imagine a number of journalists are breathing aside of relief about Yees.
So no, right, because this is the other problem with I think reporting and Trump world is that these people legal out of stuff, but some of it's not true.
Yeah, and a lot of it again is like transparent score settling. I mean, I remember a debate that went around in the first Trump administration in the final year of it, when I.
Think it was at the Washington Post.
Could be wrong about that, but there was a story basically taking aim at Anthony Fauci in a way that was just very explicitly like I'm using anonymity to crapple over this guy in public. And like, I'm not one of those media critics who thinks that anonymous sources are like, you know, inherently evil and that we should have a use. Then I think that they are obviously a key part of the way journalism works, and if they used to get instances of wrongdoing or things that need to be
scrutinized out to the public, then that's good. But yeah, clearly there's another side of it, which is using them to settle scores Dodge accountability law, the misinformation, and I think that those are all and always have been very much par part of the kind of Trump media experience as well.
Yeah, there is a sort of darker thing that's happening in Trump world too, which is and this is perhaps Trump perhaps more of the Ronda Sanders Heritage Foundation crew, but it does feel like they are also targeting journalists.
Right, Yeah, And well, I mean, I think what we've been discussing, and I should clarify the one I says journalists are breathing a sigh of relief. I don't mean like about the whole current situation in the incoming administration, most definitely not, and I fact, I know that's not the case. I just meant very very specifically about having sources who will leak them inside of stuff to the extent that some reporters mostly trade in that well, that's what they care about.
But no, the sort of broader picture, it's a very menacing one.
Yeah.
I mean, obviously we don't know exactly what the second Trump term is going to look like yet on really any count, but you know, from a press freedom perspective as well. But you know, we all know that the first Trump administration was marked by a kind of rising rhetorical fusilaid against the press, which obviously did feed true into growing distrust and disapprobation on the part of you know,
a huge part of the public. That served to sort of inoculate people against being told that blatant lies like the fact that the twenty twenty election were stolen and things like that, you know, where blatant lies that that was obviously a very very big problem at the time that did you know, occasionally spill over into actual physical violence or threats against members of the press, and you know, a bit less discussed, but it was revealed during the
Biden administration that I think Trump's Justice Department subpoenaed the phone records purporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post and I think at CNN is part of a leak investigation, not the actual contents of those messages, but you know, the sort of records of who was calling who.
Yeah.
And then obviously now you know, you have people being nominated or tapped for senior positions in law enforcement and judicial sort of roles who are on the record as saying they're going to come after journalists they think existing sort of legal precedents and protections for journalists are wrong and something needs to be done about them. So again, we don't know exactly what's going to happen. That these
threats are incrediblys blicit. People who follow these characters closely say they're worth taking seriously, and I think it would be foolish not to take them extremely seriously.
You know, It's funny because it's like, so much of Trump is this kind of throwback to Nixon, right, like so and George Wallace, and you know, so much of George Wallace is it? You know, these are all history rhymes, right. But one of the things when Nixons are attacking the press was that the press was such a trusted you know, Americans had a lot of feelings, but they really trusted their media. That is not true anymore. Who do you think Americans trust?
I think it's also worth pointing out, of course, that the Nixon era and the so ccumstances of his downfall also sort of birth this generational sense of purpose and this kind of journalistic imaginary that then was replicated in the Hollywood and sort of said the archetype for like what journalists are as public figures, I guess, and you're right that trust in that sort of brand of journalism has just decreased and decreased and decreased. I mean in
terms of like who Americans do trust. Obviously, there are lots of surveys on this kind of thing all the time, which I firstly cannot just regurgitate off the top of my head and won't try to. And secondly, I think some of these, like surveys which say the media is incredibly distrusted or is like the lowest rank of all the professions, sometimes they like specifically should be taken with a little bit of a grain of salt, Like often, you know, the media is a category that might include
Fox News, for example. So if you're a Democrat and you don't trust Fox, you might say I don't trust the media because that's what you have in mind. I think it's it's a bit of a fluid thing. That said, as we've discussed, there's no doubt that you know, trust in the media in sort of the broad sense in which we mean it. You know, trust in fact based reporting is going down. And what's it being replaced by. Well,
I guess it sort of depends on who you are. Right, in such a fragmented and divided country, it really depends on who you are. People still tends to trust media in the very broad sense of that term. That tells them what they want to hear. Clearly, lots and lots and lots of trub supporters trust him and his acolytes when they spin absolutely outrageous the sky is green lies.
A big part of the problem is there isn't sort of one source of authority that is universally trusted and that is providing good, credible information.
Now, I don't want to sort.
Of suggest through this that there was some glorious golden era in the past where everyone trusted institutions and those institutions were worthy of that trust. Clearly the picture is enormously more complicated. People being skeptical of authority. Yes, including the media is good, but you know, and obviously not when that leads them to believe while conspiracy theories.
That's clearly a huge problem.
Right, And it seems like there are two problems, right, Trust is one, and then backs and truth are another. Talk to me about America's truth problem.
How long had you got Well, it's it's you know it began with Walter Lippman in nineteen the nineteen twenties.
No I won, obviously won't go back that far. I mean, there is sort of a.
Good point to be made here, right, that the truth is not a simple thing to find out. It's expensive to find out, it's difficult, it's contested. It always has been, and obviously that's like a key part of what the work of journalism is. So to the extent that sort of finding out the truth and getting people to believe
it is complicated, that has always been the case. Now I do again want to push back against these kind of Falcian conceptions of you know, the sixties and seventies, is this wonderful age of everyone watched three networks and you know that as people were totally responsible gatekeepers who didn't shut out any you know, any sort of perspectives
that Merritt had being heard, YadA, YadA, YadA. But yeah, you know, it is to some extent a new situation when shocking numbers of people believe that an election that was obviously not stolen was stolen. And I think that we're in this really weird moment where because Trump won again, people seem to be having a really hard time computing how to deal with January sixth and the fallout from it, right, And that's really troubling because it did happen. Trump winning
an election does not just expunge it. And you know, I think it remains the sort of most singular incidents of the entire Trump era in terms of its consequences, but just also in terms of how much of a disgrace it was, frankly, and yeah, obviously, when you have, when you have, you know, I think I've seen surveys in the past suggesting like a majority of the Republican Party or people who a self self identify as Republicans certainly believe that I still believe that election was stolen.
I think that being said, though, we shouldn't necessarily interpret Trump winning again as like, oh, well, you know, the truth is dead. No one cares about the truth and majority has spoken and they don't care about the troops.
It's way more complicated than that.
No, No, agreed, agreed.
Yeah, First of all, this was a pretty close election. It's some people, especially early on, you know, when the results were still coming in and votes were still being counted, were referring to it. You know, as if it was
this giant landslide, which it clearly was not. You know, it was very close election, and I think a lot of the post election commentary has been sort of very definitive and decisive about saying what it means, as if it didn't happen in a country which is essentially still fifty to fifty, right, it was, this was a couple of percentage point side away do not a huge mandate or majority make, and yet that those are the terms in which we're talking, you know, first of all, Also,
though you know, it's very clear that like I think that most people did not like January sixth, that most people do not believe the last election was stolen, and that people who who sort of swing voters, if you will, or be the sort of irregular voters, many of them who put Trump over the top are not crazed ideologues who voted him to put Adam Schiff in prison, right for example. These are people who voted based on the economy, their standard of living, what they believed about that they're
sort of individual lives. Now, there is a conversation to be had as to what it says that a guy can behave like they did on January sixth and in and around that time and still get re elected in terms of what people prioritizing what they care about, right.
For sure, that is a conversation.
Yeah, but it doesn't mean that everyone believes what he says about it unchallenged or thinks that he behaves well that day, and that, you know, by extension, doesn't mean that the people who put Trump over the top in the election voted him in to behave like a dictator. I think it would be a mistake to think that they did.
So.
Yeah, I don't think it's like the country is lost or anything, but I think this election has revealed it to be a much more complicated to country than maybe many national media types it imagined it to be in And obviously working out the ways in which that is true is difficult and murky and painful.
At the moment, it so sucks. Tell me something that is working in the mainstream media or the partisan media. Just tell me something that's working well.
As we discussed earlier, just on a basic level, journalists are still going out reporting true things about the world. I mean, I've been a you know, a critic of coverage of Trump for a long time. But the reaction to Trump winning again was not on the whole, oh my god, we're all going to get sued into oblivion, or you know, the dictator is going to bring down his cronies on us. We must shut up and you
know obey. That's not to say that you know, the coverage has all been great, or hasn't dealt in sort of tropes that I don't like, or you know that some people or institutions might not be thinking in those terms. I think we've seen evidence of all of those things being the case. But the sort of bagship institutions and more importantly, the journalists who work within them, have just
carried on doing what they do right. They've reported on the people that Trump has picked to be in his top team, and they've done it, I think, pretty aggressively and pretty quickly, and they've had an impact in doing it. That to me is a good and promising sign, and it's to be hoped it continues once this administration comes into power. This isn't necessarily within journalism.
But also America.
You know, if any country is going to go down this kind of authoritarian road in terms of media protections, America is very well it's coming from a very good starting point, right, It's coming from a starting point with excellent libel laws from a journalist's perspective, and those laws are almost certainly going to be in the hands of a Supreme Court that is dominated by right wingers. But I'm not convinced it's dominated by right wingers who want to get rid of those libel standards.
I mean, that's an ongoing conversation and we'll see.
But there's only a couple of them who have explicitly said that they want to sort of take this on. And I don't think it would be a you know, sure thing if this if this did come up in a case and that was kind of then debated by the justices. That's again, that's that's sort of an independent mechanism to what the incoming government's going to do. You have the First Amendment, which is a pretty big deal, you know, I'm pertition. I think there are journalists around
world who would love the First Amendment. There are entrenched defenses the journalists will be able to rely on that will not make it easy for the most cartoonish we're going to come and hunt you down people to succeed. I think that is a good institutional sort of place to be to be coming from. There are lots of bad things, but in the media as well, of course, but those are a couple of good ones.
Yes, well, you were just needed one good thing. Thank you, john Thank you so much. Rick Wilson, what is your moment of fuckery?
My moment of fuckery this week was the entire Maga media enterprise, from Fox on down to the Jack Psobiac, Benny Johnson dipshit types, all of them screeching before there was any information in that the American citizen who was born in Texas, who was a former US Army member who conducted the New Orleans bombing across the border an eagle pass, an y illegal immigrant in the open border of jew Biden, and it was all a lie. It
was all bs. This counts as my woman of fuckery this week because it's so egregious that their reflex action in every single thing is always to try to frame it back into the one thing that unifies all the Republican Party, and that is this border panic they constantly
engage in. And I thought it it diminished the seriousness of the actual crime that was committed by this guy and diminished the idea that we've got to look in turn at risks like that, not just imaginary caravans and imaginary military men crossing the border.
I know it works with their base, which is why they do it, but it's just so crushingly and it's dangerous.
This is a dangerous phenomenon that this guy represents. And if we treat it like just something so that Fox News can do another segment on the caravan or what have you, it cheapens it. It takes away from the seriousness of it, and it makes us less safe as a country because we have to face this kind of thing. It's a real problem.
Yeah, exactly. Rick Wilson, thank you, Molly.
John Fast thank you as always.
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