Thom Hartmann

I think that there's a uh, it's it's kind of a confluence or a mixture of great dread and great hope. I'm I'm seeing um and you know, given this is uh, my biased perspective on things, but it certainly seems to me that the GOP and the conservatives in the country are doubling down on basically fear and and you know, fear of other fear of immigrants, fear of black people,

fear of gay people, etcetera. UM, and and hate that that is so often associated with fear at the same time, and trying to block democrats from having any successes legislatively. At the same time, we have, for the first time in my lifetime, or at least not not in my lifetime, but at least in the last forty years, we have a president who is openly rejecting neoliberalism, and I think

that's a huge and important thing. Um that President Biden is is calling out trickle down economics or economics, whatever you wanna call it, and the damage that it's done, the fifty fifty trillion dollar transfer of wealth from the middle last to the top one over the last forty years, the loss of sixty factories overseas. I mean, you know, so, I think there's a lot of hope that things can be done to put this country back together. Um, it's it's a it's an extraordinary time, uh, you know, a

time of great conflict and great potential. Okay, what we learned in two sixteen is I hate you words use the word elite because it's now become a pejorative. But the elite news media, the New York Times, the Polsters were completely out of touch with the sentiment of the country. And in addition, people tend to live in their own bubbles. Someone like you talks to people from both sides. So the question becomes are the Republicans those on the right

just more vocal or how strong are their numbers. I think that the the the hardcore uh conservatives within the Republican Party are are probably a relatively small percent of our population. What they have going for them that the Democrats don't have is that over the last forty fifty years, they have built out a massive media infrastructure. Um, you know, Ruper Murdock and Fox News. Of course, you've got a billionaire with a billion dollar, multibillion dollar company that reaches

millions and millions of people every day. Um, you've got fifteen hundred right wing radio stations in the country. There are now some three hundred Spanish language right wing radio stations in the country doing Spanish language versions of Rush Limbaugh as it were. Um. There are literally thousands of conservative publications on the internet, in many cases hundreds of them each coming from you know, single companies and individuals.

Um A. You know. The simple fact is, if if you're a billionaire and you're interested in not paying taxes and you want to you know, hang onto your wealth and all that sort of thing, and you and you don't your company to be facing consumer regulations or environmental regulations, um, you know, going to the right or supporting the Republican Party you're supporting this kind of stuff makes sense, it's

an investment. Um. And so there's uh, you know, and and going back to the early days of Charles and David Coke, there has become this really large network of right wing funders for things that that amplify these voices. So I think that the the appearance of right wing is um as it were, in the United States is probably larger than the actual existence of it among average people. UM. But that's not to diminish its impact on our politics or on our nation. Um. On the left wing. You know,

it's it's a whole kind of different thing. It's you know, there's not a whole lot of billionaires out there who are saying, yeah, tax me moore um. And although there are a few, and God bless them, but you know that's my sense of Okay. So, and I hear from these people all the time to say we have the guns. Just wait. Yeah. So the question becomes and really it's centered around Trump over we can say that he tapped into something in America. Is this something we must fear

not only a vocal right, but an active right. Trump said last week that, uh, if he is penalized legally, you better watch out as people are gonna be angry. Is that a paper tiger? Is that real? I think it's both. Um, there's you know, a small number of people who have a large number of guns. Um, when you start looking at people on two or three more more than two or three guns, the number becomes very small.

But the number of guns some of them on is you know, like, uh, I get it that there has been a stirring of the militia movement over the last a few decades. When Tim they blew up in Oklahoma City, it was supposed to be a call to arms to these folks. He was running off the Turner Diary, which continues to inspire that movement. The Turner Diaries is a book in which a patriot blows up the federal building. In this case, I believe it was the FBI building in the book, as I recall, it's been a couple

of decades since I read it. And in response to that, the government clamps down on gun ownership and on the right wing movement. And in response to that, the good white patriots rise up and and and there's a civil war, and they kill all the black people and all the Jews and you know, everybody that the right likes to hate on. And in the end, you know that it's now a white Christian country and they're standing there in the in the in the in the blood and the Mud.

But they've rescued their nation and that and campus Saints, this French book you have become the Bibles of this movement. Um. Like I said, Tim McVeigh thought everybody was going to jump in behind him. He badly miscalculated the time. And in fact, for the next decade the militia movement really took a hit because it was associated with Tim McVeagh. So, um, then you know, after nine eleven it started, they started

getting their mojo back. There was a common enemy, uh, you know, Muslims and brown people and foreigners, and uh, that was a huge opportunity for the white racist, the white supremacists to jump in and say, now we're the ones who will save America, where the patriots will take

care of this. We're going to arm ourselves. And the Bush administration kind of looked the other way, even though their FBI came up with this extraordinary report in two thousand eight on the right wing hate movement in the United States and how dangerous it was becoming when that report was issued in the first months of the Obama administration, you recall by the FBI after they had issued during the last year the Bush administration a similar report on

left wing through the Dangers of the left wing Extremism. But when the one on the right wing extremism came out, it's so inflamed the right and the Republican Party that Obama pulled the report. Um so we've been kind of flying in the dark, and I think it's just in you know, basically since January six that the government you know, certainly during the during the Trump years, there was no support for anybody in the government who would be seriously

looking into this. The FBI had backed off, and uh so, I think it's just really been the last year and a half that our federal government is starting to take seriously this this threat to America. Whether it's the kind of threat that we should all be worried about, or whether it's just the kind of threat that people like you and I in the media, politicians, people the high profile people need to worry about. I don't honestly know.

In the last the last killing in the media was the America's number one progressive talk show house back in the eighties. I believe it was Allen Burg, you know, who was gunned down by a couple of skinheads in the parking lot of his radio station in Denver. As I recall, they made a movie about it called Talk Radio. Whether you know that kind of stochastic terrorism is going to happen again, I think that that's what Trump is

trying to encourage his calls to arms. I'm certainly hearing a lot of rhetoric that sounds not just from Trump, but particularly from Trump, that sounds like an open encouragement

of stochastic terrorism, of lone wolf terrorism. Um. But whether it's going to materialize, and I mean obviously it already is in many areas in many places, Whether it's going to materialize in a way that you might call a civil war, that you might call a you know, a civil disturbance, I still think it's a very open question. But Okay, So, since there's been an ongoing analysis of who really is making up the Republican Party, let me

go a little bit further. Yes, rich people who don't want to pay taxes have historically been Republicans, not all of them, but a great number of them. But at first when Trump won, there was the belief that it was the dispossessed and the disadvantage who had moved to Republican Party from Democratic Party. Then the word came out, no, really, it was people with money, and the analysis of January six was no, these were middle and upper middle class people.

They had means. Then we have St. Louis, the people with the guns on their on their porch during the march. Needless to say, they were notorious litigants, but they were also upper middle class. Who is really in control? Is this a lower class movement or a middle upper class movement?

By movement you're talking about the GOP are you talking about Yeah, well, you know there's the like you said, the natural constituents of the very the more midley rich, as I refer to them, um, you know, who want to just stuff their money bens um who I think you know, some of whom are probably suffering from the mental illness O c D, A variety of O c

D that's called hoarding syndrome. You know, had had they not been born um generally white and upper middle class or even wealthy, uh, they might be living in an apartment that's Florida ceiling newspapers and tin cans. Um, so you've got that constituency. The Republican Party has done a good job over the last forty years since Reagan, um of branding itself Reagan, you know, on his horse and all that sort of thing. Really Um, the you know, bringing in Nascar and and and these kinds of of

totems almost for the Republican Party. Um, you know that was that was the Democratic Party's brand in the fifties, sixties and seventies, I would argue, Um, so you've got a lot of kind of Joe six pack types across the country. Part of that, I think is also the fact that in most states in the United States there literally is not a single radio station carrying progressive talk radio.

You have to get it off serious six and and yet there is not a single part of the United States where there's not at least one and typically two or more radio stations carrying right wing talk radio. So there's this is some hobby horse of mine for years, and it sounds self interested, but um, it's really not that. I think the Democratic Party has ignored this media disparity

for years to their disadvantage. And you know, when we were on air, America Are America was carried on on fifty four Clear Channel stations, and then Mitt Romney's company took over Clear Channel, and suddenly Clear Channels ations of dropping their America left and right until to the point where America couldn't sustain itself any longer. UM. You know, so there's that UM I mentioned earlier. Now there's these Spanish language right wing stations there. There there's an aggressive outreach.

Ralph Reed's group, Americans for Faith and Freedom I think it's called UM just today announced that they're spending over fifty million dollars reaching out to Hispanics, specifically on the issues of hating on gay people and on abortion because so many Hispanics are Catholic that that's a natural topic

for them to flip them Republican. So uh. On the other hand, I think on the on the Democratic side, you're seeing you know, the growth of both Union movement, you know, among young people, people under thirty, there's a huge take up of the Democrats. But but it seems to me like the Republican movement UM does not largely clue the people we were talking about a moment ago. You know, the militia movement types. Um, although you know Trump is embracing them, I'm not sure that most other

Republicans are. I'm not sure if that's if that was what you were asking, Bob. I think that I think that ultimately covered enough. Let me go to the next topic. You happen to mention Reagan. You and me live through that era, and there was a conscious effort by the Republicans to lionize him, canonize, rename everything he is God. Now recently we've seen something, you know, it's nowhere near the size of the effort to do the same thing

with Obama. And there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with Obama, and he got the A C A past. But this was a guy who was trying to compromise with a party that did not want to compromise. And I think that some Democrats are lost in the pass. What is your view about the Obama administration in those years. Well, first of all, with regard to the Legacy project, the Reagan Legacy Project was well funded. I mean, you know

a number of very very wealthy people stepped up. Their goal was to have a building named after Reagan or a statue made to him in every county in the United States, uh, Andy, in every country in the world. And they've met that goal. Um from re rate you know, renaming Washington's National Airport to you know, putting statutes and all of the place, renaming buildings, um to the best

finaledge is not something comparable around Obama. There there may be an effort to promote him as a as a great president or something like that, but I'm sorry, we've got f fifteen or firty fives or whatever they know. But there's been a lot of that going on. These military jets have really picked up in the last a few months. I have a feeling that has something to

do with what's going on overseas. In any case, UM, my sense of the Obama presidency was that he was um so sensitive to being called the angry black man that he was very averse to any kind of conflict. And as a consequence of that, you know, a lot of things that should have been called out never did get called out. And like you said, you know, he

was constantly trying to compromise with Republicans. Um. He also was unwilling to to reverse or call out neoliberalism, and you know, which I think was a great tragedy because I think certainly by the time that he was re elected in America was getting very close to this tipping point where uh, we were ready as a society after after almost forty years of the Reagan experiment, of the

neoliberal experiment, to reject it. And and frankly, I think that's what put one of the things, along with the little help from Russia to put Trump at the White House in was that he explicitly campaigned against neo liberalism. Trump's Trump was lying through his teeth on most of these things, you know, saying he was going to raise taxes so much that he'd get a nose bleeding his

friends who refused to talk to him. That he was going to bring back union labor, that he was going to have a healthcare program that gave everybody in the country better healthcare than they've got right now for free or for very little costs. That he was going to make college affordable again, That he was going to help support union activity. That he was going to bring back our jobs to overseas. Every single one of those things were absolute wise, but people bought them in. And you know,

because Trump basically appropriated much of Bernie Sanders message. Had Obama done that four or eight years earlier, I don't know if he would have had success or if the country wasn't quite cooked enough. You know, I hadn't seen the results of liberalism enough to to go along with the repudiation of it. And uh, and the issue of race, you know, complicated. A tremendous President Obama. I think he's a good person, a good and decent man, and I

have a tremendous respect for him. Um. You know, I was there at his inauguration, in fact, just about fifty feet away from him when he was sworn in. It was a great honor, and uh, you know, visited the White House afterwards. But I really think that Joe Biden is going to be the guy who goes down in history as the as the person who finally turned us away from the direction we've been going in the last forty years. Okay, for the uninformed, can you give us

a brief definition of neoliberals. Yeah, neoliberalism. First of all, the word liberal is means a different thing in Europe than it does in the United States. Here in the United States, it means what we might call progressive in Europe. Liberal means what you might call conservative here or even libertarian neil or liberal economics in Europe is leslie ferrets.

You know, hands off government, hands off, low taxes, no regulation, no labor unions, no no, basically no government support of anything other than you know, the courts, the army and

the police. And so in the in the forties, a group of economists, including one American Milton Friedman, led by ludrig O Nisus and Frederick Hayak, got together in Switzerland and thought, you know, they were trying to figure out how to how to harden the democracies of Europe and the United States all around the world, but particularly the democracies of Europe, so that they would never again either flip communists like Russia had done with the Soviet Union,

or flip uh fascists like Germany, Italy and Spain had done. And being economists, they kind of fulfilled the old Abe Maslow quote. You know, he said the famously said that when the only tool you have as a hammer, every problem in the world looks like a nail. Um. They figured that economics would solve all things, and so they came up with this idea of the new liberalism, the neo liberalism, and basically here are the major bullet points for it. Number one, that the market should be the

ultimate decider of basically everything. That is a billion decisions being made in the marketplace every moment of every day. As we're speaking right now, Bob, there's probably a thousand people who are trying to decide which brand of orange juice to buy. All those all that data, all that activity, UM is something that is so far beyond the ability of any politician or bureaucrat to understand or have or know that they could. You can never you can never

replicate it. So therefore the market has the wisdom and the market should be making the decisions number one. Number two, because of that, a government regulation, which is an interference in the marketplace, should be absolutely minimized to the point of virtual irrelevance. UM. Deregulation is a massive part of neoliberalism. One of the reasons that Reagan tried to gut the Environmental Protection Agency by putting Neo Corsus just mother in charge of it. I mean, she ended up in a

terrible scandal I think involved bribery or something like that. UM. But you know going after that. Another is that labor unions are an interference in the marketplace, inappropriate interference in the marketplace, and therefore labor unions should be basically turned

into social clubs. Another is that corporations should be able to seek the cheapest labor anywhere in the world rather than just anywhere in the country, and therefore we should not have national borders when it comes to the ability of corporations to do that sort of thing, which is

generally known as free trade, so called free trade. Another is the social safety net programs, medicare, social security, unemployment benefits, that these are all interferences in the free market and distortions of the free market, and therefore we should do

away with the social safety net. Another is that any any function the government is doing outside of the military, and even the military and police functions and court functions, even those should be privatized the extent they can, which is why today half of our defense budget goes to private corporations. Privatize everything you can. Another is that monopolies uh in business and that massive wealth inequality are actually symptoms of an economy that's working the way it should.

They are signs that those who have made it through the Darwinian process in the marketplace and proven their worth, their brilliance, their competence, are succeeding. They should be congratulated. And then the corollary to that is that taxes should be very very low on those who are the winners, the ones who have succeeded. And this is why today the average billionaire in America is paying about three percent income taxes, and you know, by half of your major

corporations in America paying nothing in taxes. These are all the symptoms of forty years of Reagan and neoliberalism he adopted that they started selling in the fifties. The major sales person in the United States is Milton Friedman Um. And Reagan was the guy in eighty one who basically said we're going to reject Kanzie economics, Adams Smith economics, and uh and we're going to go with with Milton Freeman's neoliberalism. Okay, let's focus on one specific element, which

is globalization. Certainly under Clinton, that train left the station. So what do we know. There's been proven time and again that Americans are cheap. Okay, they'll buy the ticket on Spirit airlines with no perks, and they'll run to gain on the plane and they'll fight to put the stuff on the top, and then they'll bitch about it. Or certainly there are add ons with concert tickets, and stub Hub experimented with a final price as opposed to putting all these add ons at the end, and they

lost business. So the question becomes, you know, there's so many items. Remember this first with VCRs, VCR was a thousand dollar item, and then not long before their ultimate obsolescence, there were less than a hundred dollars. So if you tell people, you know, if you do all this manufacturing in America, yes, that would solve theoretically if pay was high enough the income status of those people working there,

we create jobs. But is the public willing to pay that much more money for their products in order to build local business. Well, it depends on you to find that much more. I mean, you and I are both old enough to remember what America was like before we had neoliberal trade policies, and you know, Walworth was full of cheap stuff. I remember in the early nineteen eighties, we've moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and there was a brand new Walmart down the street. And there was a giant

banner on it made in the USA. That was Sam Walton's big selling point, and it was filled with cheap junk that was made here in America. Labor is not that much of the cost of most manufactured goods. Uh. You know, it might add to three, four or five, maybe as much as six or seven percent to the cost of or be the you know, percent of the costs of things. But but labor is typically not and and and the costs are complying with environmental regulations is

not that great. The bottom line is that corporations, by manufacturing over offshore or overseas and you know, using two dollar an hour labor labor or whatever it may be instead of fifteen or twenty or thirty an hour labor here in the United States, have been able to massively

inflate their profits. But there's you know, I don't believe that bringing manufacturing home is necessarily going to make American enterprise is uncompetitive, although I do agree with Alexander Hamilton that the way to and with the Chinese, that the way to do that is and with the South Koreans and the Japanese and the Europeans, is that the way to do that is with a tariff based um global trade system. You know, Alexander Hamilton's eleven point plan was brilliant.

It built America. It was abandoned, uh, you know the nighties and and and you said, you know Clinton, with Clinton, that train left the station. I think it's important to note that it was Reagan who was advocating free trade from the get go, because it's part of the neoliberal agenda. It was under Reagan that the Gentel Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was negotiated. I believe, um they produced the gap that led to the World Trade Organization. It was

under the Reagan Bush administration. Ultimately, the George W. Or hw Bush administration finished the negotiations, the negotiated NAFTA. That was not Bill Clinton's invention. That was George Herbert Walker Bush. Um. Clinton just signed on for it. And and in large part, I think, frankly, he had no choice. I mean that was that was the point at which the Democratic Party had been defunded by Reagan's destruction of labor unions in

the United States. And so you know, there is an interesting history there that we can get into if you want, Bob. It's kind of a discursion, but um her digression. Let's just stay on Clinton for a second. Did Clinton had he no choice but to undercut the social safety ned or was that just a choice he made for political advantage?

I think both really step back a little bit. In In nineteen seventies six, the Supreme Court, in the Buckley decisions, said, for the first time in the history of the United States or any developed country, that if billionaires want to owned politicians want to give politicians enough money that basically those politicians are beholding to them, and those politicians vote for things that the billionaires want, or even introduced legislation

on behalf of them. That's no longer called corruption or bribery. That's now called free speech. And that money is no longer considered to be money. Money is now considered to be a form of speech. That was a radical decision. Two years later, in a decision written by Louis Powell himself, the first National Bank versus Frank Billatte decision, the Supreme Court said that that also applied to corporations. So when that happened, the Democratic Party was fat and happy. They were,

you know, a third of America was unionized. Roughly the unions were washing cash and they were the major funders of the Democratic Party. The Republicans not so much. So the Republicans just jumped into that with both feet, and Ronald Reagan floated into the White House on a tsunami of oil industry and and and other big, big corporate money,

but particularly the fossil field industry. He then took an axe to the unions and over the next twelve years cut unionization in the United States so much that in ninety two when Clinton was looking at running for president, and al From writes about this in his book You Know where he talks about him going down to Arkansas and hooking up with Bill Clinton saying, let's let's figure this out. When he was going to run for president. There just wasn't enough money from the unions to support

that kind of thing. So basically Clinton, you know, the Democratic Party was at a crossroads. The Internet was not around, at least not the way it is today, so they couldn't raise money on the internet. Direct mail would never have worked to raise enough money to run for president. So the Democrats decided at that point, okay, you know, the unions aren't here for us like they used to be we'll start taking money from corporations. We'll just do

it from the clean corporations. We'll get in bed with banks and insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, and we'll leave the steel and the chemicals and the and the oil companies to the Republicans. And you know, as part of that, basically this whole new Democrat movement. The third way that Clinton and al from came up with was that the Democrats would embrace neoliberalism, they just make it a slightly

friendlier and neoliberalism than the Republicans were embracing. And so you know, Clinton just also was promoting the that list of tenants of neoliberalism that I gave to you earlier, and obviously one of them is is dial back the social safety net. He wasn't willing to kill it altogether. He five year term limited essentially, which produced an explosion

in childhood poverty down the road. Uh. And but he did, as as you point out, you know, declare, this is the end of welfare as we know it, and this is the end of the era big government. And you know, these were the neoliberal statements. I think that at the time Clinton believed that maybe neoliberalism actually wasn't. Maybe it would work. You know, it really had only been tested in Chile's Pinochet Pinochet's Chili, and that was you know,

everybody said, well, that's an aberration. The guys that dictator. Of course, he's going to kill people to get his thing going. So it was still unknown. Okay. Steve Jobs famously had the distortion reality field such that he got you to listen to him. You could see no other way in your particular case, even someone who follows these topics very quick closely. You have a very convincing way of making the argument, illustrating it with points from history,

from points from books. Why is there no equivalent politician? It certainly isn't. Schumer Pelosi is a little bit better. AOC has been somewhat ostracized. Bernie's Bernie has been great in terms of getting the message out, whereas on the Republican side, whether they're saying truth or falsehood, they have a whole narrative that we just don't hear. On the left, Yeah, Sheldon white House actually is doing a great job of

exposing a lot of the structure on the right. But I think that the whether this is the point you're trying to make Bob or whether you're just awakening this in me. I think that storytelling is the key to the whole thing we are as human beings, We are story machines. We love stories. We learned through stories. The way the culture has been transmitted in human society's for three hundred thousand years, as long as we've been on this planet has largely been through stories. And before writing,

oral traditions were entirely story based. Um. You you go back and look at some of the old Native American stories, like, you know, the one from the Abenaki that I learned when I was in her mad about you know, a little boy who went out the woods and was going to solve all the world's problems with a magic stick and he ends up, you know, having an interaction with

a skunk. And there's all. It's a whole long story, and I'm not going to go through it right now, but the bottom line was that built into that story was the idea that you must always know where you are, how not to get lost, how to know directions, how to you know what to do if you get sprayed by a skunk. Um, I mean, there's just like all these cultural stories built into it. And we have these, you know, we've been passing them down for for a

long long time. The little boy who cried wolf that you know, the little boy who I identified, the King with no clothes. Um, these are the ways that we learned. These are you know, story is just so important and your Republicans have been pretty good at telling stories for years and donk ats frankly, I think the need to get better at it. Um. I tell a lot of stories in my books on my show. UM, I think

that it's an important way. Anytime you can wrap a lesson or a point in an example which is a story, um, and and and expand that to the point that you know it can be there's some ability to identify it. I think you're going to do a better job of communicating that, but not just communicating, and communicating in a way that it will be remembered. Because people remember stories, they very rarely remember data and details. Okay, what do

we know? The ratings for twenty four hour news channels on cable are insanely low, despite all the publicity about them, Network TV News, Appointment News, Although they're appealing to a very elderly audience, although that audience does tend to vote at a higher percentage rate than those who are younger. So prior to the Internet, there was this incredible power most noted although I've been forever most noticeably harnessed by Rush Limbaugh. What is the power of talk radio today?

Less versus TV, but visa the the Internet. Well, on the Internet, talk radio has been largely reinvented as podcasts, And I mean, you know, this is the space that you're that you're living in, and I think it's very powerful. I think podcasts have become a major piece of our of our cultural fabric in one of the ways that people people will get a lot of information and learn a lot of things. Talk radio itself, Uh, you know, don't get me started. Um Limbaugh was was a genius.

I mean he was brilliant at doing talk radio. Michael Savage is brilliant at doing talk radio. There's a there's a there's a couple of people out there who are Glenn batt is very good at doing talk radio, brilliant. And they're all storytellers. That's what they do. They tell stories. And when we started our show back in two thousand three,

we we spent a lot of time. I mean, you know, dozens and dozens of hours listening to all the talk radio, all the right wing talk radio we could find it, and trying to break down, you know, every hour, what are these people doing? How are they doing? And what are they do? And and there's actually a formula to it, and um, you know, and it's a it's a it's

a fascinating one. Um, but I'm not seeing I'm seeing less and less good competent talk radio being done, both on the right and the left, frankly, and more and more because talk radio is such an interactive environment. It's such a you know, I'm talking to you, it's like a phone call. It's it's it's not. You know, television is this cold medium. And Marshall McLuhan wrote about this, Television is cold medium. It's like you're you're looking at

somebody's picture window. You know, you're it's warrior is in Essentially, radio is not. Radio is a very hot medium. It's right here, it's right in your ear. It's it's it's it's I'm, you know, one person having a communication with another. When I go on the air, i am I always imagine I'm only talking to one person. That person changes from minute to minute, you know, and call her to caller.

But I'm only ever talking to one person, and increasingly I'm I'm hearing you know, people on the right talk radio hosts who are just you know, doing polemics and talking points, people on the left who are doing the same or just doing the interview radio, which is not talk radio. Interviews were great on podcasts, um, which is

a slightly different medium, but we talk radio. I think that the the basic tenets of the medium which were developed in the nineteen thirties by father Kauflin originally, and that Limbaugh reinvented for the eighties after you know, the death of Alan Berg, who kept him going through the sixties and seventies. UM, those those talents of talk radio are still very powerful. And if you do it well, and you and you tell stories and you talk to individuals,

you can build a fairly powerful medium. And like I said, i'd right wing talk station talk stations all across the country and some very effective talk hosts on the right. Um, don't don't underestimate the power of this to influence American politics. Okay, let's take a snapshot today though, because Tesla's if I haven't right, come without a M receivers. Although AM may go away and everybody be on FM, but we have

a younger generation who wants everything on demand. And I know in your case you have all your product on demand. But it's talking specifically about radio. Is this a growing or shrinking market? Does it have to be reinvented to beyond demand or is it just old people listening to real time talk radio? Well? I think that, you know, radio has historically been a listen to it in the car medium, and uh, an awful lot of talk radio is moving off AM stations and onto FM stations, by

the way, Um, just you know, it's just happen. I probably half the stations I'm on our FM stations and and the same as happening, you know, even in the heartland. Although uh, you know, most people in Wyoming are not driving tests driving Ford pickup trucks and they've got AM radios, I guarantee it. So I don't know if that answers your question or if I mean speaking you know, if we look talk about music, which is inherently short form, and the days of DJ's telling long stories, creating theater,

the minor long gone. There are occasional exception. Okay, younger generations statistically do not listen to terrestrial radio. They're used to getting what they want on demand, and there are a lot of advertisements. Is this a dying medium? And if you have a voice, you ultimately have to segue whether it be the podcast or some other means of distribution on demand or is the marketplace irrelevant w R

to M ref M, is it still strong? And is it only strong with older people or young people adopting Those are all great questions, and I would, uh, first of all, referring to Michael Harrison, who publishes Talkers magazine, who's probably could cite chapter in verse and statistics right at the top of his head. I don't have that, but my sense of it is that talk radio took a big hit with the advent of podcasts in the internet. UM Limbaugh came out with his Rush Limbo dot com

website and his Limbaugh podcast. UM, I'd have to go back and look. I don't recall when, but you know, at least a decade decade and a half ago, um and figured that out. And I think most people who have any of an audience on talk radio or doing the same thing. You know, certainly I do, UM so that you can hit multiple markets. But I think you're I think you're right that that radio has diminished as

a market overall. UM. That said, I've you know, our our our audience, I think over the last few over the last decades, certainly has been fairly stable, if not grown significantly. UM. So you know where the industry is going. I'm not sure, but uh and and I think that you know when you're looking at UM, I think demographically that slicing and dicing of it is really important that that if you're looking at rural areas, radio is still

very very strong. If you're looking at urban areas and suburban areas, probably radio is a much smaller factor outside of the commute, outside of rush hour, and even there you're seeing podcast. Take a take a good white out of radio. Okay, let's talk about you specifically. Your distribution is almost incomprehensible. You're on commercial stations, you're on serious

x M, you're on public stations. What is going on? Well, when we started the show back in two thousand three, we were on a little network that was owned by the U a W. At the time was called uh I e America Radio Network and we were on twenty seven stations and Serious X down or a Serious at that time, Serious Next Time we're competitors. And as they

that network went away after a couple of years. But as the show grew, UM, we wanted to add the ability of people to expand the ability of people to hear the show, and so UM I think probably around two thousand six or two thousand seven, UM, we started offering the show to nonprofit station, community radio stations, community TV stations, UM, uh NPR stations, whatever, you know, any

any nonprofit station who wants that. We bought a second automation system for our studio so that we could have a clean stream that didn't have any commercials in it. We insert, UM, you know, nonprofit compliant content where the commercials are so I at the top of the hour, I do a book report for example, just read an excerpt from somebody's book. Um, and while the commercials are playing on the commercial side, and you know, we got

pretty good pick up. We got syndicated through the pacifica network, which is substantial. It's got hundreds of affiliates. Were on the Pacific Audio Ports. So that we're available to any any Pacific station. UM. Then, as podcasts started picking up, and this was maybe a decade ago, UM, we added a staff person to chop the show up and put it up as a podcast and and got on Apple

Podcasts and other podcast platforms. UM. About maybe fifteen years ago, I'm not sure when um, the CEO of Free Speech TV dropped by my studio to talk to me about something completely unrelated and it was about a nonprofit that he wanted me to be on the board of and we had to talking and he said, uh, you know, why don't we try stick in a webcam you know, here in your studio and putting it on TV and

see what happens. And at that time, free Speech TV only had one live show, which was Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. Everything else was, um, you know, documentaries, and

it was a fairly small audience. And so we stuck a webcam at my studio and suddenly caught an audience, a TV audience, And then you know, free Speech TV started growing and they added Randy Rhodes's show, and they end and Stephanie Miller's show, and they added you know, a bunch of other programs and so and the TV network has grown and it's now on you know, Roku, and it's on Hulu and it's on TV and it's got its own web presence and it's ondish and it's

undirect and you know all satellite receivers and uh so it's just it's just been you know, Bob, over the over the over the nineteen years we've been doing this. It's like every time it seems like, hey, there's a market we should be in. You know, American Forces Radio was looking for a balance to Rush Limbo because they were getting complaints from soldiers who didn't want to hear just right wing radio. And so you know, they carry

an hour right wing programming. They carry an hour on my show and have for I don't know, well over a decade um. So it's like, you know, you look for opportunities and you know, it's it's a it's a business. I'm running a small business. Okay, so let's a business. Their economics of the business. What are your personal economics? I mean, you know someplaces, you know, it's fascinating if people listen to on a commercial station, they'll hear ads.

But if they listen to the streams after the fact, certainly on public stations they won't hear at So what are the economics of the business. Well, it's it's uh, it's it's operating on a whole bunch of different levels. Obviously, on the commercial side, you know, we make money selling advertising. Um, that's probably half of our total revenue of how we guess.

On the nonprofit side, uh, with regarded free speech TV, we we get a small percentage of the fundraising that they do on our show that I do with the pictures that I do for them. UM, so that's not a loss to us that that you know. In fact, we've got a full time video guy now that covers you know that that covers so that we can provide them with a television quality product. Um. With our podcasts, we sell advertising on the podcast that's a revenue source.

Are nonprodud. The only area that we don't directly monetize our the Pacific or radio stations because there's really no

way to monetize them outside of doing fundraising. And for those, we've got a Patreon channel where you can get the station to get the show and uh, you know, we've got enough donors through Patreon and we explicitly say right on it that this is this supports our ability to deliver this show to our nonprofits radio stations, the Pacific radio stations, and the revenue from Patreon covers those expenses

and a little more actually, which is great. So you know we're able to pay our employees well and do a good program. We're not you know, I'm not rolling my money been here, but I'm not complaining. How many Patreon subscribers do you have and how many people on your payroll? I don't know how many Patreon subscribers we have. I'm sorry. My my webmaster handles that, and I haven't frankly even looked at the Patreon page probably two years. Um, it's probably a couple of thousand. I just don't know.

Um with regard to uh or it might be over a thousand. Frankly, I shouldn't even throw numbers out because I'm so disconnected from that. Um. What was the other question? How many employees? Oh? We have? I have three full time employees who uh Sean who produces the show and does runs the Audioboardinate who does the video production, and me Um. I have a part time employee another producer

who works on guests and putting stuff up. We have a couple of people who work force part time down in Texas who cut the show up for the podcast. I've got a web master in Tennessee who does the technical end of the of the of this. Uh you know that that we pay every month. We've got a webmaster in London who is an old friend. He's worked with me for over thirty years now. We used to run forms and compy Serve together. Nigel Peacock who handles all the content of our web and runs Tom Hartin

dot com and hartminer Court dot com. I've got a person who publishes our daily newsletter, which has a list of every story that I talked about on the air. It's free, it's advertising supported. It's over at Tom Hartman dot com. That's so. She lives in the UK. Also she used to work with us and compu Serve and and uh. And I've got an engineer who you know who I pay. Um. All those people are basically part time or or kind of a piece work kind of thing.

I'll early or whatever. But so that's that's our stuff. It's been well established that most people are living in silos today. Certainly the New York Times become a pejorative. Even though the right tends to get all their basic news from the New York Times. Tend the New York Times, they won't read it, So everybody is listening to their people will only read the New York Times. Do you feel that you're preaching to the converted at this point you've been doing in a long time or do you

see it as job? Do you ever feel like you're banging your head against the wall. What's your personal viewpoint? Well, all, welcome to our business right, but uh, no, I know that UM largely on certainly on the Pacific stations, I'm preaching to the convertaive, I'm talking to people who have I've looked for a left wing outlet and are listening to it. On Serious ex M, it's a very different animal.

I mean, you know there are there are two or three conservative channels on Serious XM, and there's one liberal channel and uh and then the Urban View, which largely serves as an African American audience, which tends to be more progressive. But UM, people are channel flipping on Serious ex M and I get a lot of conservative callers there, and it's been fascinating over the years how many of them have stuck to me, have stuck to the show, and some of them are still calling in and arguing

with me, which I love. My my favorite thing in the whole world is debating conservatives. And uh, it's getting harder and harder because increasingly the high profile conservatives are no longer come on my program. They used to all the time. You know, I get even more and and uh, you know John Bolton and all these guys on the you know, the last five seven years, they just won't do it because they've got such a great echo chamber of their own. You know, why bother trying to go

beyond that? UM on our terrestro radio stations, the AM stations, it's it's a little bit of both, although it tends to be more of a of a progressive audience. And on the podcast, I'm assuming that I'm talking to people who are more aligned with me, but I'm not really certain. It's not a medium that gives you that much feedback. UM. So, can you change somebody's mind? Or do you believe you're changing anybody's mind? I I think I'm doing a couple

of things. Um. Number one, I'm providing people with validation. You know, you know you're not crazy. Um, here you know I agree with your worldview, and here let me give you some some details to fill that. So number one, I think a lot of people tune into my show and to any podcast or radio show, but it's political looking for validation of their world Um. The second is I think I'm giving people ammunition to win what I

call the article or wars. Um. You know, they've got the guy who sits next to them at work, who listens to Limba all day, who wants to debate where they've got you crazy Uncle Ralph who comes to the Thanksgiving dinner and can't stop talking about politics. And they want to have you know, the one liners to shut them down, or they want to have the deeper understanding of the issues so they can get into a meaningful discussion with people, and and I try to provide that, um.

And then probably number three would be that you know, I'm hoping to change people's minds. And I put that at number three. I mean I would put it at number one if I thought enough people who aren't progressives who are listening to me. But I put it at number three simply because you know, most of the conservatives who listened to my show do so by accident, you know, like I said, the channel flipping um and uh so

you know, the opportunities to change minds are much more limited. Okay, you say you love arguing with conservatives, what do you love about it? I find that debate is and and and you know, let me just say right up front. I I my favorite activity in high school was debate class after the extracurricular debate um and and part of that is my dad. My dad was a historian. He

wanted to be a history professor. I came along and he had to drop out of college and ended up working in a tool and die shop his whole life. But he had twenty thousand books in Spaceman and most of them probably a third and more history books. He was a complete history junkie. And my and he was a Republican. Told the day he died. In fact, when he died, I was sitting with him in his living room.

And as he died and and and I looked at over across him and there were these his two favorite pictures on the wall, me shaking hands with Pope John Paul. The second and George W. Bush on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln under a mission accomplished banner. Um. My dad and I when I was a teenager, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. First of all, when I was fourteen, we went door to door for Barry Goldwater. Well, I

guess I was thirteen in nineteen sixty four. Um. And uh, my dad never left that world, you know, I did. By the time I was sixteen, I had become an anti war hippie and a liberal. UM. And my dad and I used to get in these knockdown, dragged, knocked down, drag out arguments when I was sixteen and seventeen. UM. And through that because we both loved each other and

we're both well informed people who don't take debate lightly. UM. Through that we learned, both of us, and my dad taught me this, and we used to watch the Joe Pine Show together. We used to watch Fire in Line together with William F. Buckley. Um. We learned how to have debates where there was not blood on the floor when we were done, you know, debates that you could

walk away from and shake hands. And it's a it's almost an art form as much as a skill as much as a science, and I've been able to bring that to my show, and I think fairly uniquely. I don't think that there's a lot of liberals out there who who go out of their way to try to debate conservatives. I mean, it was the hallmark of my show, probably for the first ten years of the show. Three days a week, I'd have conservatives on and we'd get

into long, long form debates. I probably said it's gotten much much more difficult to get anybody who is wanting to come on the program anylonger. But um, I just I love it. I you know, part of it probably

echoes back to my childhood with my dad. Um. But I do think that if you want people to understand issues, spectators to understand issues, listeners to understand issues, one of the best ways to highlight issues is to have a debate, to have both sides present everything they can bring, all their ammunition to the table, present all their arguments and all the history for their arguments, and and then you know, the let the audience decide who won the debate. I'm

not so interested in whether I win or lose. My My interest is in informing people educating people and and you know, not that I'm some high flute educator here, but that's my goal. My goal is for people to walk away from listening to a debate that I've had or an argument, whether it's with a caller, which happens more and more of these days, as opposed to guests, sadly or a guest you know, with more information, um so that they can then you know, bring that into

their lives in a way that's useful. Okay. When we were growing up in the sixties and seventies, the issues were really debated. Whereas Trump we can see with the Latitia's filing just the other day, he's just lying, lying and lying, and the people who are aligning with them

are lying. So what are you doing a debate If the person is just telling untruths, you call them out just to say, I'm sorry, that's bs, you know, back that up, give me, give me, give me something to to to to, you know, to believe that what you're saying is true, because it doesn't make sense to me. That's pretty straightforward. But okay, so let's go back. The problem is that the people who rely onlines, you know, the Trump's, they will not engage in it, They will

not participate. I mean, you know, Trump goes out of his way to have any any protesters removed and beating up. It's like it's the antithesis of debate. Okay, but let's say we're in that uh classic situation you referenced earlier. It's a family dinner, it's Thanksgiving, You're gonna be around each other a few hours. What do you tell your listener how to debate and engage that uncle. Now, for years and a lot of people say no politics on Thanksgiving,

but certainly there are people go there anyway. So assuming someone from your audience is encountering that situation, what would you tell him? I would tell him that family is more important than than politics, and that and that love is more important than winning an argument. Um that. Uh, you know, when I debate politics with neighbors or with family,

because people are constantly trying to bait me. Basically, Um, I'll make my point, I'll make it gently, and uh if they go on a rant trying to knock down my point, and it's a b S rant or whatever, or it's a rant that I don't think has much of validity, rather than humiliating them by pointing that out or embarrassing them, I'll just say, you know, I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this, and you know, from time to time I'll even do that on the air. Again, I'm trying to to to role

models for people as well as I can. Okay, my experiences, no one will change their viewpoint during the debate, but they might go home and think about it and change their opinion. As you said, the majority of your listeners lean left. But if you had the experience with anybody's debated on the year, whether it be a politician or someone who calls in where they you connect with them later. So who you know, I've really thought that, you know,

maybe you're right. I have a handful of regular callers, probably a dozen or two who over the last a couple of years. Uh, three of them I can think of, just in the last three or four months who called in because they were listening to right wing radio on Serious ex M. In most cases, one of them was on our Chicago affiliate and um, you know, looking for right wing stuff, they found my show. Um, they found

it interesting. They called me up to argue with me. Um, you know, I had debates with them that were respectful. I mean, occasionally somebody will just be so offensive that you just slapped them down, but generally not And um, and now they call the show regularly. A number of them, i'd say, all but one of them no longer call themselves conservatives or Republicans. I've you know, I've seen them change, and I'd like to think that it's because the information

that I'm presenting is actually factual. I will not go into a debate unless I really know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to present information. I mean, maybe this is the author in me. You know, I get editors who are you know, your line editor goes through your book, and you know, every single point I make, I have to back it up or the publisher will not put it out. And and uh so you get pretty rigorous

about those things. Um. But you know, I I will hope that they are becoming regular listeners and are changing their politics, not just because I'm very persuasive, but because I've actually marshaled truth or what they've perceived is truth. Okay, let's talk about party affiliation. There's certainly die in the world.

Democrats died in the world Republicans. But I have found, certainly since the rise of the right wing, that the vast majority of people who call themselves independent are really Republicans. They just don't want to be in the debate. What has your experience been, It's been the same as yours, Bob. Of the people who calling to my show and say, I'm in the parade, I just vote for the person.

I don't vote for the party. I don't damn about the Republican partyment, but them damn immigrants and yeah, yeah, absolutely, they're they're bashful Republicans. Yeah the when was the last time you voted for Democrat? And they go, they can't think of one. You've led quite a peripatetic life and career. How did you end up in talk radio and staying with talk radio, because if you look at your career, you tend to jump, you know, from advertising, therapy to

all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm I'm a probably because I'm an a d h D person, I said. I wrote a couple of books about it. Actually, I have been a serial entrepreneur throughout my life, I Louise, I have started a number of businesses, five of them that

were you know, consequential and did fairly well. And uh because back when we were first married, uh, we were reading the novels of John D. McDonald's at the Travis McGee Novels, and you know, his whole thing was, I'm not going to wait until I retire to enjoy my life. I'm going to take my retirement while i'm young in pieces and so are. The agreement that we had and we got married was that, you know, every five years or so, we would take a year off and and

explore the world. And you know, thank god, we've been able to do that. We build a business up, we sell it off, we live off that for a year and there's enough left over to start another business. And you know, we did that up until ninety seven. And in ninety seven I sold an ad agency in Atlanta, and Louise and I had built and on a seven year buy out and so we had a real cushion, you know, a seven year cushing plus some retirement funds.

And I figured that's a bit. You know, I'm retired now, I'm gonna write books and just have a good time. And then George Bush became president, and by two thousand three, I was convinced that he represented a threat to our democracy. That his policies, you know, his his going after Iraq and Afghanistan, on inappropriately unnecessarily lying US into the war in Afghanistan. Um, torturing people, Um, you know, just breaking American law. Just it just maybe nuts. And so I

wrote this piece. I wrote this article in the in early either late two thousand two or early two thousand three, and published it on Common Dreams. I had started publishing op eds on Common Dreams starting around two thousand and one. Common Dreams is a well known progressive website, common Dreams dot org. And um, you know these these short op

eds rants as it were. And in two thousand three I wrote one called talking back to talk radio and it was about how you know half the country is democratic, half the country's republican, all of the radio stations are republican. Why is nobody programming uh democratic radio? And um uh showing you need to drop me who were venture capitalists in Chicago called me up and said, hey, uh, this

is an idea. This is great. We would like to use your article as the initial business plan for a new radio network that we want to call our America Radio can you come out to Chicago and talk to us. Well, a little bit slower because a lot of people say it just happened. Just to be clear, you just published one article, someone tracks you down, that's it. You were not putting out feelers. You did not say in the article, I want to be in the radio game. Just somebody

called you out of the blues. That the way it really went down that act. Actually, yes, Now in the article, I did point out when I was young, I did radio. I I when I was sixteen, I was you know, I started in radio at sixteen in commercial radio on w I t L on Lance and I was a DJ at a country Western DJ for a couple of years. I did rock and roll, I monster around a few radio stations. I ended up doing news back at w I t L for seven years until and so I knew,

I know radio, I knew the business. I know how it works. And I said that in the yard, and uh so, you know, it wasn't like I was just some guy who wrote a piece. I mean, there was some credibility there. But anyhow, they came to me and they you know, and I flew out to Chicago and I told him that I had some problems with their business plan, and uh, but they were looking for proof of concept. So Louise and I called the all fourteen

or so of the radio stations in Vermont. We were living in Mont period at the time, and said, uh, you know, wait, wait just one second. As someone who went to college Vermont, spent a lot of time in Vermont, why Montpulier, we just wanted to live there. Those are Mont Peelier is its own backwater in Vermont. It's the capital city. You know, it's in the north. You know what you you just I mean mont Pelier. If you think about living Vermont, that would not be the first

place most people would choose. Well, actually, we first moved we bought an old B and B in Northfield, way back in the woods, had a half mile long driveway up the side of a mountain. There was dirt road. Um. And then we sold that after a couple of years and moved into into into town in aunt Pelier because we were just missing, you know, being able to walk to a restaurant or something. And the winners they are

pretty pretty brutal. But anyhow, so we called, you know, all the radio stations in Vermont and we we found this one station in Burlington that where the guy said, yeah, I'll give you. I'll give you two hours on a Saturday morning if you want to do a test runt on progressive talk radio. I mean, that was my pitch. I you know, I'd like to I'd like to prove, you know, this proof of concept and if it works, you know, you can carry the show. And if it doesn't,

you know, nothing ventured, nothing gains. You can still adds on the show and maybe I can get your audience for you. And so he put us on. Bob written his last name. He put us on after the after the swap meet. So about half the calls I'd get were you know, is that John Dear three twenty still available? Um? But it was good practice and uh and ed Asner was kind enough. We had a mutual friend and uh. In fact, he blurbed my book on healthcare a little

while ago, um before he died. Um. Ed Asner did an interview with me and we took that and some of my rants and we sent it off to that network that I was telling you, I America Radio Network, and they picked up the show. And that was when we went from being this little tiny thing on this one station in Burlington, Vermont that had probably thirty five people listening, who half of whom were piste off at the swap Meeat wasn't still on to actually be in

a radio show. It took Air America a couple of years to get their act together and get their network going. And during that period of time, I was just building my show. So that's you know, and it started. It wasn't we we funded the entire thing ourselves for the

first four years. We didn't. We didn't break even until about the third or fourth year, um and and and you know, over the years we've made that money back, but that was coming out of our retirement money and or what was intended to be our retirement money, because I thought it myself was retired and I didn't expect it to last more than four or five years at

the very most. I you know, I was just trying to prove that it was possible to do if you follow the rules of talk radio, and they're not complicated, and they've been around since the nineteen thirties. If you follow the rules of talk radio, you can be just as successful as a Democrat as you can as a Republican. Given there's enough radio stations to carry you. And that's the big kicker right now, is that the big networks.

I had I said at the office of the United States senator with the billionaire owner of one of the big three radio station conglomerates, you know, the owner of about nine d radio stations, and the senators said, you know, why don't you put some progressive radio on your stations. You've got three stations that are carrying right wing radio. And the guy said, uh. And I've never seen a

senator literally had their mouth fall open. And when somebody says the guy says, I'm never gonna put anybody on there. I wants to raise my taxes, just like It's just that simple. And yeah, So you know, we've got a we've got a structural problem in terms of progressive or democratic talk radio. But there's no there's no question that you can successfully do progressive talk radio. I've been doing

it for nineteen years and I'm making money. Okay. If one looks at your website and follows through, you're doing three hours of radio a day, You're writing opinion columns, you're writing books. What is your schedule such that you can accomplish all that well and let me have the pandemic has helped. Um. My schedule is Louise and I get up at five thirty in the morning and we

put together that day's show between five thirty and roughly seven. Um. You know, uh, Sean may have booked a guest, if we've got a guest, and you know, we'll do the research on that. But basically we're going, you know, we just will read ten or twenty news sites and come up with what are the what are going to be the main themes for each hour and you know, what are we going to talk about? And I, you know, I go into the studio and we go on the air at nine. This is all Pacific time. We go

on the air at nine and we're on until noon. Um, you know. For the next half hour, I do you know, I'll read ads for sponsors and just do whatever needs to be done, you know, to to clean up the the business. And then I leave the studio. Sean and Nates stay there and Nate produces all of our stuff for YouTube and everything, and Sean puts together stuff for the podcast. I come home and from one until five every day I write my bed that we published at

heart and report every morning. Um and uh. And then my I write books on weekends, Um, all day, all day Saturday, all day Sunday. Uh. You know, I'll take a break for meals or to visit a family and things like that. Um and and you know I've written. I've been writing all my life, and I've been writing for publications since the mid nineties, and so I'm pretty good at it, and it, you know, it works. I've been I've been these this new series of books, the

Hidden History series. The new one is the Hidden History of Neoliberalism. There are thirty five th word books, that's half the size of a normal book, and so banging one of those out of every six months is kind of the equivalent of writing one real book, one major book, you know, a nine hundred thousand word book a year, which is what I used to write, and I've always been able to produce one a year kind of in my spirit time. Okay, you talk about writing your O

bed from one to five? Hey, how much is that as research? And I consider research just reading the news. You know, you might also ultimately go to check facts or to find certain information out. And to what degree is it a chore to write every day or every day you say, you know, I got a formula, get myself in the right mindset, and I can just bang

it out, you know, I I have to. This is kind of one of our our rules of life for for my wife and I is that you know, we do what we love doing, and when we stop loving doing it, we don't do it. It's just um and and so it's the same way with the writing. I mean, I've got to write about stuff that I really am inflamed about, that I really care about. And I think that that's you know, just wise anyway, because otherwise you're not going to produce something that lights anybody else, you know.

So when I come home, Louise and I have lunch, you know, typically a twelve thirty and um, and then I come up here to write at one and you know, our job during that thirty minutes just to figure out what the topic is going to be for my op

ed that day. We have a little uh web based uh wiki page on which we keep all of our ideas for future op eds, and we still see articles and stick come on there, We'll have a conversation and we'll stick that on there, you know, on our smartphones, um, And so we'll refer to that page and we'll look it over, and we'll look over the news because we've been doing that all day with the show, and figure out, you know, what's the rent today going to be about.

And then I come upstairs and typically the first hour or so before I start right, you know, I'll outline my piece, what are the major points I'm gonna make, and then I know what I need to know to back up the points that I'm going to make. And so, you know, from one to two, basically I'm doing research, um, you know, bouncing around the Internet or looking through books that I've got or whatever whatever sources I need to find. And sometimes that takes two hours. Sometimes it only takes

twenty minutes. It depends on the topic. There are a lot of topics that I can write literally off the top of my head. There are others where I really have to do a lot of research. I did a piece three or four weeks ago about how militious are illegal at every state and the Union and have been since, uh you know, the eighteen eighties, and nobody's enforcing those laws and private militias, and that took probably three hours of research and that day I was writing until six o'clock.

I missed Chris As show. So oh and then you know the rest of the day, you know, after after I get done writing, I go downstairs. Louise usually has dinner ready at five, and we'll watch chriss As on MSNBC, and then you know, Alex or Rachel after that, and then we knock off. We go upstairs and we'll watch some show on you know, Netflix or something, or or read, uh you know, or or visit people and uh, you know, it's just you know, I turned off my phone. I'm sorry,

I didn't turn off my watch. I don't know how to do that. Um, so that's our day. Any uh specific Netflix or other streaming show you're hot on. Uh, we just finished watching The Sopranos, because there's you know, the old Sopranos, which you never saw because we didn't have a TV back then in the in the late nineties, um in early two thousand's, and and because I guess there's a sequel coming out that we were curious about. But you know, I've got a list of this on

my phone here that I can my binge watching. In the last year and a half, or two years. We've watched the Sopranos, Silent Witness, mcguyber FBI One, n C I s I, Yellowstone, Snow Piercer, Monk, Yellowstone, Hawaii five O, the Original, Uh, Colombo, McMillan and wife. We went back and watch those. Um what we do in the Shadows, Person of Interest, Bones, Secession, Silent Witness, Good Fight, Billions, Father Brown, Death in Paradise, The Finder, C s I, Miami.

I mean it's kind of Game of Thrones, Outlander Killing Eve, Magic City, Dot Martin, Blacklist. Yea, we get an idea of your taste. Going back to books, Although you get a certain amount of publicity, except for the huge bestsellers, historically books sell very few copies. What is your experience been? Is more of a labor of love? What's the motivation? I uh, that's a really good question. Bob I ernest him anyway once said, ah that I don't remember the

exact quote. It's been so many years since I even thought about it, but he once said, basically, UM, as an author, you gained a certain little bit, tiny little bit of immortality. UM. Sometimes I think about my writing as the stuff I hope my grandchildren will discover. They probably won't, but you know, I mean I used to. After my dad died, I discovered some of the letters that he wrote home when he was in the army during World War Two, and it just tore me up,

and I realized how much I had lost. I wish I had had those kind of insights into my grandparents and even great grandparents. So, you know, in a way, I think I'm I'm writing for posterity, as it were. In a way, I've got things that I want to say that I think are important, and writing a book is a great way to do that. Um. You know, it's it's provided me with some income over the years. A couple of books have done very very well. Um. You know, I've got a couple of books that have

been print for literally decades. One of them is in print in nineteen different languages. Um. You know, it's sold a lot of copies. Um. So, uh, you know, it's something I like to do. It's something I'm good at. My mother was an English major at m s U.

And she was a frustrated writer. She tried to write children's books when I was young and kind of modeled for me the self discipline of writing and um and I often think of her, you know, sometimes I think I'm writing to her, um so and and In fact, my parents gave me a portable typewriter when I was ten years old, and my dad, when I was thirteen, first year of junior high school, demanded that I take

a typing class because my typing was so atrocious. And I was in this class with like twenty eight girls in me, which was just humiliating, embarrassing. Um you know it was, and but it was the best skill I ever learned. I'm so grateful that my father forced me to do that. So now I'm much more effective. You know, I can write, I can type really fast, and I can write better. But I just love doing it. I really love writing, just like I love doing radio. I

had the same experience with typing. I mean, especially computers came in knowing how to type some believable So in our conversation you've mentioned it asner, You've talked about politicians. Are you okay? In Los Angeles? It's a world of networking. Traditional fiction authors tend to be isolated. Where do you sit? Do you like the incoming people track you down? Or do you go out of your way? To have relationships with Ed Asner, You famously have a relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio.

With politicians, where do you sit on that. I'm an odd duck, although I think that I'm probably the norm for radio, but I'm definitely the exception for television, and that is that I'm an introvert. I'm basically a shy person. I don't speak up. I'm intimidated by crowds. I get panic attacks in in cocktail parties. I hate cocktail parties. Um, you know, you put me in a room with thirty people, I can't deal with it. Put me out of stay in front of five thousand people. I have no problem.

I can do that well. I have learned how to pretend to be an extrovert. Um, But if I've got to make small talk, I don't know how to do it. We went to an h O A meeting here in the neighborhood where I live a couple of nights ago, and I basically ran out of there as soon as it was over. And I'm on one of the committees. I should have stuck around and played politician. I can't do that. I make a lousy politician. I don't know how to shake hands with people and and and do that.

It frightens me and intimidates me. So and I think that that's common in radio. I got to know Larry King before he died, and he was another, you know, in an introvert who knew how to pretend he was an extrovert. And I've heard that Russia Limbaugh was like that. I know for a fact that Michael Savage is like that. I don't know him, but I know we have friends

in common. Um. So, my my social circle is really quite small, and I have never tried to network with anybody, you know, to advance my show or my books or anything else. The friendships that I've made over the years that might appear to the high profile, you know, like Ed Asner or Leo DiCaprio or whatnot, Um, we're kind

of accidental things that that. You know, Leo read one of my books and his mother reached out to me, for example, and uh, you know, I invited him on my show and and and we just kind of hit it off, just the two of us, you know. So I'm probably to my detriment that I'm that incompetent in that area of being, you know, the gland handing networker. Let's talk about Ed or Leo. You have a moment of connection. They're doing the show where there's a project.

Do you have any social contact beyond maybe once a year? How you doing? That's that's largely it. I mean, you know, Leo and I have worked together on I think six projects, three three or four short little ten fifteen minute uh YouTube videos that live, you know, little movies that on YouTube, and three or four larger longer you know, full length. These are all about climate change, um. And so you know, when you collaborate on those things, you get to know

people a little bit better. UM. But mostly it's you know, if I'm in town, hey, how are you. I've become very close friends with his father. I think of George DiCaprio is one of probably my ten best friends, you know, in the world. And you know, like I said, my

social circuit was very small. George and I talked regularly, UM, which has nothing to do with Leonardo UM, just because you know, we we have We're kind of really similar people in a lot of ways, and I just you know, sometimes you just strike it off with people, and you know, with Ed um when he was married to Cindy. You know, we used to get together when I come to Los Angeles,

you know, for business whatever I had to do. Um, But you know, I don't think we've probably had dinners together more than I don't know, ten or fifteen times. But you know, we keep in touch. You know, there's a few other people who are real high profile. I'm not big into name dropping, but you know that I that I stay in touch with largely because they reach

out to me from time to time. How about politicians, same story, Yeah, yeah, I mean Bernie was on my show every Friday for eleven years, and uh, you know I got to know him well as a consequence of that, but we were never social friends. Bernie is all about business, you know. Uh, and God blessing for it's I think it makes him effective right now. Ro'canna and Mark pokaner

on my show regularly. They you know, we have conversations and email from time to time, but you know we're not I'm not networking with them or nor are they with me. I don't think. Um, we're all about the mission, as it were. Okay, so you do your show very frequently. You know who your audience is. Anybody who's in doing a performance that frequently tends to know what their audience wants. To what degree or you beholden, which I know is a strong word to your audience, or to what degree

do you say, Man, it's my show. I'm gonna do whatever I want. Where do you sit there going this maybe a little much from my audience or and then I'm not gonna want to hear this. Are you talking in terms of topics or are you talking in terms of you know, styles slash uh production. I'm talking topics. Oh okay, well you have I mean, you know, the basic rule of any any kind of media is never violate your audiences expectations, or if you do, do so

in a way that is ultimately satisfied with them. So i'd say in that regard, you know, I'm i'm largely you know nine well over holding to my audience inasmuch as if I lose my audience, I'd have a show. Um that said, my audience is largely ah, thinking the same way I am. They're just looking to me for data and entertainment, presumably, um and uh yeah, I mean there are times that I'll bring topics up. For example, I'm I'm fascinated by spirituality. I was really into spirituality

when I was young. Um. I took acid when I was fifteen, and it changed my life. I mean it just And I got real into into this one particular church in my later teenage years in early twenties, and even got ordained in that church. I I just you know, I was into the esoteric philosophers, into um kind of New age stuff. I went through a aread of meditation, transcemental meditation. I still meditate, you know, I although now I use a uh near feedback headband to meditate. Um.

But it's a big deal for me. It's a big topic. It's a big part of my life. I literally pray every morning. And you know, occasionally I'll go off and ran about that on the air, and in particular on my affection for Jesus's words in Matthew, you know, the parable of the sheets and the goats and the and the Sermon on the Mount and uh. And I love it when, particularly when some conservative will call in and try to promote their vision of Christianity has been consistent

with Donald Trump or something like that. And and I can I've read the Bible four times cover to cover I did it, frankly, as a way of getting to sleep. I've always had trouble sleeping my whole life. And I if you got these through the Bible in a year Bibles, you know where it's predivided into three sixty five slices and you read one every night. And I found that they just put me to sleep. I mean, you know,

it's it's just perfect for me. It unwinds me. And so for four years in a row back in the in the in the eighties and the early eighties, I read the Bible cover to cover, so I can I can argue those things pretty effectively. Um. So you know that's not progressive talk radio at all, although I think Jesus was the original progressive so arguably it is, I suppose. Um. You know, I don't talk very much about my drug experiences as a young person on the air, although I

acknowledge them. I'm not ashamed of it. In fact, I think, you know, it was a good thing for me. Um, but I'm not recommending it to anybody else who's certainly the age I was done. Um. So you know, I guess my answer is kind of wishy washing your bob. But um, but I think that you have to keep your audience in mind. Certainly, it's not just you know, this isn't I don't have a radio show just so I can, you know, yell into the into the void. Let's go back to some of the issues. Let's talk

about the war in Ukraine. Needless to say, many people thought that uh Putin in Russia would just run right over your Ukraine. That did not happen, however, And these scenes change every day, so it'll be a week before people will hear this, and you never know something major could happen. But I mean, is like Putin literally losing power. We saw how these things happen overnight, and there have been all these protests and he's conscripting people now. But

Putin historically doesn't want to lose face. So relevant of Ukraine's cap capabilities and successes, one might say Putin is never gonna tuck his tail between his legs and say, I love, how does this play out? I don't know. I mean, I'm very concerned about this. My my sense of it is that Putin, very much like every other dictator run who runs on narcissism um, knows that if

he loses or if he's seen as being weak. Basically, the thing that keeps him in power is that everybody's afraid of him, and that he's and that he's perceived as being essentially infallible. Um. This was the engine on which Mussolini ran, Hitler, ran Franco ran To, Terita ran are Towan is running right now. Um. I mean this, this is the dictator's playbook. Is You've got to have people afraid of you. You know, they can love you and respect you, but fearing you is the most important thing.

And people only fear you if they see you as essentially omnipotent or or you know, unbeatable and so Putin I think has already passed the point where the image of him as as this uh invincible man on horseback,

bear chested, has been shattered. And I don't think he's going to recover from this, whether his own government, you know, whether he's going to face a palace coup, whether he's going to decide okay, it's time to check out and I'm just going to retire to my datcha with by mistress and had a billion dollars, or whether something you know, far more terrible is going to happen to him, or whether he's gonna like Hitler did in his last days. I wrote an not bet about this. Actually a couple

of weeks ago. Um a good friend of mine, a dear friend of mine, armand Lehman Arman and I m back when Louis and I own an ad agency. I used to travel the world teaching advertising and marketing in the travel industry, and Armand was doing that. We both worked with the same company. And uh, you know, we've probably been to twenty countries together and spent a lot of time on airplanes and hotels. And one day and Arman had this German accident. And he's about fifteen years

older than me. And one day Armand uh It took me aside and said, I'm I think I'm thinking about it writing a book about my experience as a young person, and I wanted to tell you about it. I haven't talked to anybody about it, So what is it? And he said, well, when I was sixteen years old, I was drafted into the Hitler Youth and it was and I was the courier who hand delivered the note to

Adolf Hitler that the war was lost. If you've seen the movie Downfall, that little kid who comes in, a sixteen year old kid who hand that was my friend Armand and and and and that began a whole brand new kind of conversation between arm and. Armand wrote his book. You can find it on Amazon right now. It's called

In Hitler's Bunker. And Armand has now passed away. But m Armand told me those stories of the Hitler's final days, and that Hitler in the you know, when it became evident to him that he was losing maybe a few weeks or a few months out, he actually welcomed the Allied destruction of Germany. He felt that the German people had let him down. He at that point he hated the German people because they had failed him. He hated the German army because they had failed him. He had

ordered his army to blow up Berlin. You know, at least a cording to army. I mean, I haven't checked this with history, although years you know, we lived in Germany for a year in the eighties, and I've read the Assurer's book The Rise and Fall the Third Reich. I just don't remember the details of that. But um, I'm concerned that Putin might have that same mentality of I'm going down in flames and I'm going to take

somebody with me. You know, this is this is what you see with these people who go out and kill ten people and then commit suicide. I'm going to go out and blaze of glory. Um. You know the kid in Newtown. It's the same mentality. It's this, it's this deep psychopathic narcissism. And if Putin decides that he's going to go down in flames and bring a whole lot of people with him, that might mean nuclear war. And that's the thing that makes that wakes me up at night.

That's the thing that concerns me the most. Okay, recently there have been elections and the right made as they used the term populus, which many people used to think was a left term. It is now certainly a right wing term. In Sweden, they've made progress. In Italy they made progress. They're threatening in France. Certainly, we have our own situation in America. What do you think explains this? And are we going to come out the other side?

Never mind Orbon and Hungary, but what's happening here? Well, I think actually Orbon and Hungry is instructive because Orbon built his political empire. I was in Hungary the the year that Orbon came to power. Um Orbon built his political empire on trashing brown Skian immigrants coming to Hungary. His slogan was, you know, build the wall, make Hungary great again, and a campaign down building a wall on

the southern border to keep up the Syrian refugees. And by the way, he did, he built that wall and it's heavily militarized right now. So uh, I think you know the like for example, about Sweden, most people don't realize. Um, just day before yesterday there were three bombings in Sweden. That's there have been more than five hundred bombings now in Sweden in the last in the last five years. It is a crisis in Sweden. And almost and and and shooting. Sweden now has more shootings than any other

country in Europe. And almost all of this is coming out of the immigrant community that was welcomed when when you know, the Arab spring happened and then you know, uh, what's his name, bushsher Al Assad was you know, well, actually what started the whole thing was climate change drove all these farmers off their land in northern Syria. They came into Damascus, started demanding food, assad started shooting at them. Suddenly you've got a civil war, and now you've got

this refugee crisis going into Europe. The ability of a society to absorb people who are not recognizable by other people in that society, either because of how they look, or how they speak, or or how they how they dress and live is limited. I mean, there's been a lot of good research on this. You know, a society can absorb one or two percent a year of people who are quote not part of the society and integrate

them into the society. But when you start absorbing three, four or five, the society starts to reject that that you get this backlash, and that backlash takes the form of what looks like racism, and in many cases it is it's just playing all avert racism or xenophobia. But you know, it might not have been there had there not been or it might not have been taking that form had there not been that that influx of new people.

And I don't think that we're any in close to those kinds of threshold numbers here in the United States of refugees and migrants. But Fox News and the right are doing their best to try to convince people that were at that point. You know, there's a caravan coming right. Every election, every two years, there's a border crisis because it will stir up you know, fear and hate, and fear and hate are great motivators to get people to

the to the to the polls. So I think that there is um a crisis that has to do with this issue, this immigration issue um or the refugee issue. I think it's going to get a hell of a lot worse over the next five years as climate change continues.

I mean, we're seeing Guatemalan refugees on our southern border because you know, a measurable and significant percentage of that country has desertified in the last decade, has turned in from farmland into desert because of climate change, and people are being pushed off subsistence farms and there's no place to go, and they go into the cities, and the gangs just you know, make mins need out of them, and so they flee to the United States or they

flee into Mexico. Mexico is dealing with a huge influx of crisis level influx of migrants from Central America. So I think that this is this is going to be a longstanding issue, in a longstanding crisis. I don't see

any easy solutions to it. It fractures societies, and it plays into right wing narratives and stimulates because it frightens people, it stimulates uh, you know, right wing political movements which are typically based on fear or on hate and uh and and very often hands victories to right wing movements as it just didn't sweep. Okay, the Republicans are all on the same page. They line up. We certainly have seen this with Trump. People said Trump was the worst

and then cow tow to him. Democrats they say, it's a big tent. So we have a president who is essentially eighty okay, uh, not even a boomer pre boomer. And on the other extreme we have someone like AOC. Now, of course we have to look at AOC is elected as a representative in a district in the state of New York. But she is very verbal and vocal. In the last major election cycle, she said, if you leave me in control, I know how to deal with the Internet.

I know how to stimulate the younger generations to vote. Now, not all the examples were in her favor. What do you tell because we have traditional Democrats, as I mentioned earlier, Schumer and Pelosi, who are trying to go to the center, and the narrative created wherever is you must run to the center. Never mind, the center is further right than it's been in our lifetimes. But do we follow AOC is it about the youth? Do we move to the center or what are your thoughts? I think it's important

to do both. I think that we have to acknowledge that there are people in what might be called the middle who are concerned about crime, who are dealing with homelessness. I mean, we're certainly we've got this problem here in Portland right now, and it's it's radicalizing the city. Um, the homeless crisis and which has become now a crime crisis. I've even seen it. You know, we had homeless people try to break into our house. Um, this is something

that you can't deal with with slogans. You've got to deal with policy. And and that policy isn't oh, you know you poor people were going to uh, We're gonna let you do whatever you want. Um, which could be perceived by some people as kind of a right wing position. I think it's a little more pragmatic. Um. And I'm not offering specific policy instructions here other than to say, it's just you can't have people camping on the streets of cities. UM. So we've got to come up with

something better than that. But there are people out there, oh no, no, almost rights, right, And I agree almost people should have rights, but not to camp in the city or in the streets of the city, and and and crap them on the curb. So you know, that's that's about as far right as I But you know, we have to acknowledge that, um, and and that you know,

there are those kinds of concerns. And then on the other h on, you know, on the left, I think that um, you know, issues of civil rights and women's rights, human rights, I think right across the board. Uh, I think broadly speaking, often these are winning subjects. The Republicans have found little niches that they can amplify into great big things. Um. You know, so called critical race theory um,

which just got blown all out of proportion. Um. The very very small number of trans kids who want to compete in girls sports, trans you know, trans girls who want to compete in girls sports. Um, that they're exploiting. And I would not argue that the Democratic Party should put those issues front and center. They still need to stand up for the rights of those people. But you know, the Republicans are going to be campaigning on those things, so you know, we have to figure out how to

deal with that. I don't see easy answers, Bob. I. I think that Alexander Cassio Cortez is is her generations Bernie, and she's going to go a long, long way, and she's got a lot of good people with her, you know, the other members of Congress squad um. But there's others in addition to that. But you know, there's also you know, you've got Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and some you know, some very older people, people their sixties and seventies who also have, you know, things to say and things to

contribute to the conversation that are not inconsistent or incompatible. UM. I'm very pleased that the Democratic Party seems to be coalescing around basically four issues around abortion, guns, the environment, and the threat to democracy that the Republican Party represents. I think those are winning issues that from the far left within the Democratic Party to the to the neoliberal right within the Democratic Party. The Josh Gottheimer's and the

Democratic Party. Um, there's a there's an agreement, a spectrum of agreement, and and that's a good thing. Okay. I'm someone who voting absolutely every election, although I've had some hope with recent events. Certainly we have this Kennon decision that was just overturned by an appeals court. Two of the judge were Trump appointees. But we know the Supreme Court. I'll make it very mild leans, right, So what do we know? The Republicans are willing to do things. It's

so far the Democrats have not. So if you undermine the system, it is hard to succeed. Why should I have hope? You know, we talked about this little bit, you know. You know, I look at this. The electoral power is balanced to the advantage of right. The Senate is balanced to the advantage of right. Never mind jerrymandery, and I want to go deep into that. Look what's happening in North Carolina. Look at the ultimate arbiter is biased,

you know. And all I hear from politicians is vote, vote, vote, And it's hard for me to get excited about that. You know, I just don't see it that way. That's enough. I'm not sure where your question is. My question is to those of us who've been in the system for a long time and the young people, how do we have hope that there's gonna be systemic change? Oh? Yeah, well, I I am hopeful that the Democrats. I I thought that the Chuck Schumer should have blown up the filibuster

on day one. There's been so much good legislation that came out of the House that could have passed the Senate. Um, Chuck Schumer has been a big disappointment in many ways. Now that said, he's running the Senate and I'm not. And I'm willing to assume that he knows things I don't know. But UM, I'll leave it at that. UM. I think that you either have faith in democracy or you don't. You either believe that in the end, the

good guys you're gonna win, or you don't. And I'm just not willing, and I have never been willing in my life to embrace the level of cynicism necessary to say screw it. You know, we're doomed. It's not going to work. Um. I I realized that the Democratic Party moves slower than I would like. Um. You know I've been banging on their doors since uh two thousand three, on the radio and in print since the nineties. UM,

railing about it. I used to, you know, beat up Harry Read on there all the time, make jokes about how, you know, they should steal Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is when Schwartzenerger was governor of California. How somebody should stand outside his house, you know every month when the testosterone mail delivery arrives and steal it and go shoot up Harry Read with it. You know, come on, Harry, get

a spine, you know, fight back. Um. He was always so nice and so friendly and oh, we can't do that, and that would be too far. Um. Yeah, he was a good man in retrospect. And you know, I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but um, the Democratic Party has, all throughout my lifetime, has always been the party that says we're going to do things the right way, We're going to do things the appropriate way.

We're going to do things, UM carefully and and and in so many cases slowly, to make sure that the outcome is strong and all it and that there's a consensus around this. We're not just going to grab power for the sake of power. The Republican Party is pursuing that ladder, grab power for the sake of power and

get whatever you can done quickly. And now they've overreached, you know, particularly with abortion, but I think they've overreached frankly with neoliberalism as well over the last forty years, although Democrats have their fingerprints all over that too, and um and I think it's going to blow up in their face. I don't know if it's going to blow up in their face in this election or over the

next few years. But I really think that the era of Republican dominance of American politics, or more appropriately to say conservative dominance and now neo fascist or as Biden was say, semi fascist dominance of our of our politics.

I really think that's over. I think there's something to be said for you know, Stanley church In's notion of these forty year cycles within the context of Strausson House eighty year cycles in politics, and I think that we're at the end of a forty year conservative cycle and we're going into our beginning a far more progressive cycle. Okay, Biden gets an office, first six ten months are great.

Then the works are gummed up and the approval ratings go down, and his whole party does not rally around him. The right has been on this program from the beginning. He's old, he's senile, all this other stuff. The left was silent. And now two years later, Biden has some victories, his numbers are going up, but the people in Washington are still not supporting him vocally. What do you think

is happening here? I've been hearing a fair amount of support for Biden, you know, recently, particularly going into the election. Maybe some of its pro forma, but but I think, you know, a lot of it is it's Sincere Um. Yeah, when he when he couldn't Yeah, you know, I think I was piste off about this. I think at the Democrats were when he couldn't get um Joe Mansion and Kristen Cinema to go along with freaking voting rights for

God's sake. Um, you know, at that point, I just can't imagine Lyndon Johnson doing that as president or as as in Chuck Schumer's position as leader of the Senate, the Democrats in the Senate. I mean, you know, Lynnon Johnson would have gone in there and and picked picked Joe Mansion up by the by the throat and slammed him up against the wall and said, okay, buddy, here's what you're gonna do for me, And here's what I'm gonna do for you, and no, and advanced. You know

what he was gonna what he was. You know, you're gonna get a bridge named after you and a brand new power plant, and you're gonna give me this goddamn bill. I mean, you know that That's what Lyndon Johnson would have done. And and Frankly, that's what Franklin Roosevelt. And uh, you know there's a lot of us who would very much like Joe Biden like that and a Chuck Schumer like that, but that's not how these guys are whired. So you know, we've got what we've got. I guess, okay,

let's talk about Newsom. I live in California. I've certainly met him. Thought he was an empty suit. I mean, I you know, like my grandmother would be fine if Roosevelt was president forever. I felt that Jerry Brown could run the state forever, but needle to say the law does not allow him to. However, Ever, since the incident during uh lockdown when he went to the restaurant and a couple of other faux paws, he has become very aggressive, not only in his own state but with deciantis, etcetera.

This is sort of a three part question or as many parts I'm gonna whip out here. Is Biden gonna run? Could Newsom win? And his Newsom the of the candidate. I'm assuming the Biden is not going to run just because of his age. O. Wait, so that's but that is your belief that he's not going to run. That's my belief. I mean, I don't talk about it much on the air because I know that once a president, once it's clear that the president is not going to run,

he starts losing power and becomes lame duck. And that's why Biden's not going to acknowledge that. But I'd be surprised if he runs again. And I think his age would be a a problem for him if he runs again. Um, with regard to Newsom, I you know, whether he is the kind of Justin Trudeau, of of of the United States, because there's been a lot of comparisons there. Um. You know, time will tell I don't live in California, so I don't know him as well as you know I know,

for example, politicians in Oregon. And I'm not talking about personally knowing, but just you know in the in my newspaper every day. Um. But the thing that I Knewsom has figured out, which I think is brilliant. Uh. And and it's you know, something that most good politicians know is that it is a lesson that I learned when I wanted to write novels. I've written probably seven or eight now was two and more published. They're just terrible.

I'm a lousy fiction writer. But um, I attended a workshop in Hawaii back in the seventies on how to write novels. And this this famous New York Times bestselling novelist got up and he said, your hero is not the most important character in your book. Your hero is not where you need to spend most of the time. And this is the biggest mistake that people make, is spending all their time on their hero. He said, Uh, your hero is only as good as your anti hero.

You're good guy can only be as good as your bad guy, and the goodness of your good guy is literally defined by your bad guy. Clarice, you know, in the FBI would have been just another FBI agent if it wasn't for Hannibal lector Superman would have just been a guy who stops robberies at the seven eleven, if it wasn't for the Joker, or you know, you filling

the the anti anti hero. So the you know, and this this is true in storytelling, but it's also true in politics that you know, you can only be as good as your opponent is evil. And so I think, you know, if Newsom has picked out the most evil Republican out there who actually has a chance of playing in the political game for some time, I think Trump is out of the picture now, and that's de Santis,

and I think that that's a proper evaluation. And then has decided, Okay, I'm going to pick a fight with this guy, and I'm gonna I'm gonna beat him because and I'm going to use him as my foil to demonstrate my goodness against his evil. Then I think that's brilliant politics, and I encourage him to do more of it. Okay, to Sciantis, just siantis evidences his education. He seems to be thinking about what he's doing, as opposed to even somebody like Ted Cruz has elite degrees but is not

in touch with reality. Everybody who deals with on the inside said, he's not unlikable, as you did. If you take Trump off the table, is the Santis a viable winning candidate in urans? I think it's possible. I don't you know. Again, I don't live in Florida, but you know, I've certainly been observing to Santis a lot lately. My understanding is that he's a little bit of a of a kind of an aspect kind of character that you know, he doesn't pick up social cues very effectively. He's not

socially very competent. Um, he's brilliant. He lives in his head. He's got a super high i q. Um and that therefore he's not doing what he's doing out of a fire in his belly. That he's doing what he's doing out of carefully constructed calculation. And UM, I'm not sure how far that can take you. I I think it will get you someplace, but I'm not sure how long it will last. Um. Trump did a really good job of adopting or or holding you know, his racist rants

and stuff about immigrants and things like that, black people, etcetera. Um, he had the fire in the belly. Bernie Sanders has the fire in the belly. Um. Gavin Newsom, I'm assuming has the fire in the belly. He certainly seems like it. Although like I said, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to him until the last year. Um, So you know, whether to Santus it's just a cipher, you know, whether he is just the the robot du jour. I mean.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the right wing policy positions, outside of the ones on race and immigration, which are both really a whole about race, Outside of the racist fire in the belly stuff on the right, most of their policy positions don't make any sense or are so unpopular they don't want to talk about, you know, ending abortion, more tax cuts for billionaires, more deregulation of industry, more air air pollution from from fossil fuel. Um.

You know, they literally don't make sense. On top of being unpopular, and so you know, the fire in the belly races and stuff sells really well, and you know, ever since Richard Nixon declared a Southern strategy, that's been the go to place for the gop um and and

that'll carry you a long long way. Um Whether to Satis is doing this because he really feels that or because he just thinks that's what he has to do, that's what he has to say, and hey, you know, we'll pick up some immigrants and brownskin people in Texas and send them to Martha's vineyard. Uh. I don't know, but my sense of it is that he's running a script, that he's that he's that he's running a program, as it were, and that I think is a is a

weakness of fallibility and a vulnerability. And I guess we'll have to wait and see if if my my analysis is right. Okay, let's talk about Trump. Trump's in trouble in Georgia. Trump is in trouble about the classified documents a maral Lago. There's January six. It's civil uh information which is quite damning that was released by New York just recently. But that's not criminal. Is he indicted criminally? Will he be convicted? Will he ever serve a day

in jail? And what will be the result of all those things come true, I think the answers are yes, yes, no, and nothing. Um. I do believe that Donald Trump will be indicted criminally. I do believe that he will be convicted. UM. And I would be very surprised if he goes to jail. Um. We have a real reluctance in this country to send wealthy or powerful people to prison. It happens very rarely. And when it does happen, um, you know, like Martha Stewart,

who was not all that powerful or that rich. Um, it tends to happen way down on the food chain of rich and of wealth and power. And so frankly, I I think Trump is just going to fade into obscurity. UM. I could be wrong, but I I think that, you know, the jig is up. Okay, so we have the primary with you know, primaries are long off, but starting in the spring, people start to run, and many prognosticators, many educated, say, if he runs, he gets the nomination. You do not

agree with that, Trump, Yeah, uh, yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't think that. Well, let me let me recalibrate that answer. If he was running in a Republican primary, that where the entire Republican Party be on just the rabid, fanatic, racist, neo fascist base was voting. I think that, you know, there are a couple of politicians to Santa's at the top that list who could give him a run for his money. I think to Santa's can still give him a run for his money. Um. The way that are

the way that our primary system is set up. Um. And you know, particularly given the primary elections typically don't happen in the in a in a in an environment where anything else of consequences on the ballot. Uh. Thus only the real true believers and the the hardcore fanatics show up. Works the Trump's benefit. But I would be astonished if he runs. I think that, um, he's he would have to in order to comply. I mean, this guy is raised a half a billion dollars since he

left office. He's got all these routes who are just throwing money at him, um, many of them, probably most of them really, and he's just draining their banks, bank accounts. It's the most successful, profitable grift he's probably ever run in his entire life. And he would have to stop doing that if he runs for president. He would have to. He would have to clean up his act. He'd had to start being accountable to the federal to the Federal

Elections Commission. Um, you know, there are rules, there are laws, there are things you have to comply with. He got away with not complying with them last time, in large part because nobody took him seriously. The Obama administration wasn't

prosecuting him for his FEC violations. Early and then throughout his presidency, he basically controlled, you know, the government, and the Federal Election Commission has three Republicans on it that are so hardcore that they just, you know, they just froze the FEC throughout that four years, they were incapable of doing anything. And I'm not sure to what extent that that's still the case. But um, you know, I I just don't think he's willing to give up his

grift to run for president. I think he's going to continue to talk about it because it gets him money. But I think that that that by by the end of next year, and certainly by by early uh, we will know whether my analysis is right. But I just don't think that he's going to be the guy. Okay, Nate Silver famously called the election accurately. Since then, despite

their protestations, the polls have been wildly inaccurate. Someone will say, well, it was in the margin of error even though Biden one there was stronger support for Trump than the polls said. We've been listening to this canard that the party in power always loses seats in Congress in the mid term. Yet we have the a portion. Now they're saying, well, you know, the polls are accurate. What is you were feeling about the mid term elections, primarily in the House

and Senate. My sense of it is that it's going to be a Democratic blowout, in large part because of because of abortion, and because of a large number of women and young people who are signing up to vote right now. Um, with the head of polls, you know, I know that polls had faced a real challenge. Um. You know, my phone, I have it just set so that if somebody calls, it's not my contact, it just

doesn't ring. I mean, you know, it's getting harder and harder for pollsters to do their business and uh and and find you know, a genuinely representative cross section. And so you know, I get it that they're they're kind of in a crisis. But my but you know, no analyst for polse But but I do think that the Democrats are going to do really well as fall knock good and finally, and you know, it's amazing power of one person who challenges the legitimacy of the presidential election.

There's been all these voters suppression laws and you know, taking away the rights of the people as we don't have to delineate them one by one, but not every Republican. There was a story in the New York Times two days ago. It was a little confusing. They said these Republicans would not guarantee they would accept the results, although some literally just didn't respond. What do you anticipate happens

when Republicans lose in this cycle? Well, they walk away like the Democrats did historically did in Virginia last cycle. Or is this become a big war. Well, we've seen several candidates now that are doing the sort of loser routine. Um, you know, I would expect more of that, But I don't think it's going to be consequential, Bob, I you know the problem. I think it's going to be more with the election officials who are who are coming in office.

Who are clear partisans, and they're basically saying, if our party doesn't win, then there was cheating in we're gonna we're gonna refuse to validate the election. I'm I'm far more concerned about UM, you know, the Secretary of State of Arizona or the local election officials in the various counties than I am about Carry Lake, you know, pouting if she loses the election. So, assuming that those fears, do you think if those fears are real, well, will

those fears activate and become consequential. I think it's possible. I think it's very possible. I don't think it's going to be a national crisis. I think it's going to be hyperlocal. I suspect it's going to happen and probably four or five states and maybe more. UM and Uh, there's gonna be a lot of pushback, and I think ultimately it's going to work to their disadvantage in a

big way, much like the Dodd's decision. It's going to be you know, the visible overreach, the clear sort of losersm UM is over time going to harm them and tarnish their brand rather than help them. I mean, you know, they'll do well with their true believers, their small base of true believers. But uh that basis I believe shrinking right now rather than growing. Tom. I want to thank you for taking the time. You've certainly made me think and we're aligned politically and great to hear who you

are underneath the surface. I know you have to write your opinion piece. You have another radio show tomorrow, so thanks again for taking the time to talk to me in my audience. Bob. It's been a pleasure and and it's rare that that I'm interviewed by somebody who has the insights, the thoughtfulness and the depth that you have. And I've enjoyed it. I hope it's useful for the people who listen to thank you. I'm sure it will be. Until next time. This is Bob left sets