Welcome back to Carol mark Wood Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today, Eli Lake, repressed columnist and the host of the Breaking History podcast.
Hi Eli, it's so nice to have you on.
It's great to be here, Carol, thanks for having me.
So I've read you for years and years, and I don't know your background or how you got into this thing of ours.
I'd love to hear more about that.
Sure, Well, I grew up in Philadelphia. I wrote kind of always.
Sorry Dallas Cowboys fans, I have to boom whenever we mentioned Philly, you know, fair enough.
I actually have an uncle who moved to Dallas, and it was a funny thing in my family. But I guess, you know, I was always interested in writing. I grew up my parents, you know, had a lot of kind of intellectual friends, so there was an emphasis on learning and and so forth. And at the same time, I didn't really feel like I had the personality to do years of grad school like my wife, so I wanted to. I like learning, but I'm and I like kind of
being a dilettante. So I think journalism is the ultimate profession for somebody who is a quick study. And but also, you know, doesn't want to kind of go into years of their of their twenties, and you know, in the politics of graduate school, which is kind of almost like one of the last bastions of feudalism in our society, and that you know, you're basically kind of an intellectual slave until you get your tenure track position and there's okay, you know, anyway going to that. So I sort of
decided that like that wasn't for me. And you know, I had like a year where like I did all kinds of jobs, like at one point I was doing like opposition research, and then I finally got a job working in Washington for a newsletter that covered the Environmental Protection Agency, and it was a great I found it. I really liked it, which is that some people like deadlines or can handle deadlines. Nobody really likes deadlines.
I need deadlines. If I don't have a deadline, I'm never I'm never doing.
It me too, So it's like there, so they're very smart people who kind of wash out in their first job in journalism because there's an enormous amount of pressure to just kind of get it on the page and get it, get it up, and some of us kind of thrive in that environment. For sure, I've thrived on it, and it kind of, you know, went from there, and you know it kind of you know, you sort of realize that you sort of have a talent for it,
and obviously there's a lot to learn. I feel that writing is one of those skills that you're it's it's you're constantly kind of getting better at it. You should always try to get better at it. So I look at it like that, and then, like you know, over time, I guess I kind of got my first break out of what's known as the trade publications by getting a job with someone called the New York Sun. Sorry, now that was before.
The time the New York Sun. Yeah, I was.
I was one of the OG's from the New York Sign. But I actually before that, I was at the Forward, which is the oldest Jewish newspaper in New York. And that was when Seth Lipsky was still the editor, and Seth became a mentor, and so I had that job. And then the workman circle booted Seth Lipsky and he started the New York Sun. And then I in that kind of interregnum, I was the State Department correspondent for UPI,
which is an old wire service. It's maybe still around, but it used to be like the rival of the AP. So that was an amazing opportunity for me as a young journalist to travel with the Secretary of State to go to all these different countries and kind of my introduction into kind of big time journalism. And then I started writing for The New Republic and the Weekly Standard
and a little bit for the National Review. And I was at the New York Sun. So you just sort of that's a career path, and I guess my next break after that. I went to the New York Sun ended its print run and had to lay off a lot of people. In two thousand and eight, right around the financial crisis, I went to the Washington Times. I did very well there under John Solomon, who was the editor at the time. He was picked up by Tina Brown's Daily Beast when right when they were acquiring Newsweek.
So I got hired at Daily Beast News. I remember that, yeah, And that was another kind of big break for me. And I did that for a while and then Bloomberg made me a columnist and that was that was a wonderful gig and then that you know, eventually, you know, we parted ways and I started a podcast originally called The re Education and now it's called Breaking History. And once Barry Wise started the Free Press, I wasn't in the first wave of hires, but I was writing for
it a lot. And then I started at the Free Press January twenty twenty four, and I had to say, it's it's it reminds me a lot of being you know, at the Young Daily Beast Daily Beasts not great now, but yeah, when I was there, it was a really exciting place. You know, it was like, right, there's a lot of energy, and that's that's kind of like what the free press feels like. So it's nice to have to be part of like a growing, thriving publication.
If the free press is killing it, I mean, I don't know any publication that's, you know, anything that's come out in the last you know, decade that's doing anything near what they're doing.
It's it's amazing to.
In some ways it's like easy for us, right, I mean, because the big the big outlets which have more resources, still won't like touch certain stories, like you think they'd learn the lesson, you know, so are like we have.
The New York Post of course.
Well no, no, the New York Post. I'm saying, like the Time in the Washington Post, it's like they still are kind of giving you the same slanted I mean, I don't know that Time story on like BB trying to prolong the war.
I mean I've seen that story in exactly Israeli outlets, Like that is not a news story. It's just they thought it was new and they repackaged it for.
Cal and like that's just one example. But I'm saying, is that, Okay, fine, I expect that in the Nation or drop Site or already in or something like that. Those are those are ideological outlets. The Times, though it's still kind of pretending to be like all the news that's fit to print, right, you know, and it's not that's a that's an opinion piece kind of masquerading as
front page. Is Also we have a I think there's a built an advantage for I don't want to say alternative, but like just normy publications.
Normally Normany is a great word for it.
Yeah, Like the other podcast is called normally and that's the that's the idea that Mary News, you know, with Mary Katherine Ham.
That's wow. I love I love that podcast and I loved you two together. Yeah, Mary, Catherine is so great, So.
Thanks so much.
Great Twitter.
You refer to yourself as a dilettante, but I don't see you like that at all. I see you as a very serious foreign policy guy who is not just dabbling and not just learning topics overnight. And you know the way we all become experts on X on any any new topic, like you seem you seem kind of the real thing.
Well, thank you. When I say dilettant, what I mean is I have a lot of interests that I want to write, and you know, I've been doing it for a long time now. So the I compared to somebody who I don't know studied at Princeton University Turkish and Arabic and I don't I can't compare to that to writing about the Middle East, but I know a lot of I don't even rate that anyway. So that's kind of what I meant in that respect. But dileton is
not a bad thing. It means you're no, It's not it's you're curious, it's it's I don't want you shouldn't be an irresponsible dilaton. You shouldn't like allow chat ept to be your researcher. You should read books. That's very important, reading books like as opposed to But so I do that. But at the same time, my my role models for people like Christopher Hitchens or the kind of essaysts intellectual journalists.
That's what I aspire in some ways to be. And that's kind of how I look at what I'm trying to do. And nobody would say there's a difference between reading I don't know, like there's a difference between reading Robert Conquest, who kind of wrote the definitive history of the Soviet Union before the collapse the SVIT versus somebody who's going to write like really like a journalist is going to write really well about it. There's different things
like historians. I have too much respect for what good historians do. It's a lot of very bad historians right now. But I of.
Course historians, well there are I'm like, sadly like academic historians like I'm But so that's that's kind of what I mean by it.
But thank you for saying that. I do try to. I mean, like, you know, first of all, you've been writing. If you write about this stuff for a long time, you really kind of get to know it. It does help. I have people out of these places I've even you know, I used to say up into all the access of evil countries as a throwback reference.
Now but I have Yeah, we're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
So any other paths that you would have chosen, Like, were you always going to be a writer?
Was there a plan B in case that didn't work out?
I don't know if there was a plan B. I love music and I played piano, and I've played music since I was six, maybe before then. My parents want a piano in our house, and it was, you know great, So in that respect, I played. You know, if I would have like stuck with it, I could see myself as being a musician. And I think about that now because I love making AI songs on studio and it's like one of my favorite activities. So in my podcast,
I every every podcast has at least one original AI song. Wow, that's about that's cool topic. Yeah, So I could see myself of maybe being a musician. The problem is that it's such a risky kind of proposition.
That's less of a plan B than it is like a subplan A.
But yeah, I mean, but I love I love music.
Plan b's are usually like I would be an accountant.
Right, sure something. At one point I really wanted me to go to law school, and I didn't do that. Yeah, in part, like I just didn't do it because I just know I don't have the kind of personality. There's a certain kind of personality that you have to have. Yeah, And I again, I have friends who are lawyers. I respect what lawyers do. I'm not gonna get lawyer jokes for me. I like being a journalist because we get
to like kind of criticize at least our generation. I should say, the journalists that have come up in recent years, not all of them, but a lot of them are not in my view, they're like kind of they're not
really journalists. How do I put it? Like the journalistic instinct is is that if there's a if there's an interest group or a pressure group that says you shouldn't talk about X, the journalists can talk about it, like, well, let's find out why not not to criticize other journalists to talk about X because of the pressure group and by the way, the entire trans debate. That can sort of sum it up, right, There were a series of pieces that were done basically saying, look at these people,
who are you know, questioning youth, gentermdicine or whatever. I'm like, yeah, that's our freaking job, and or like there. I don't know, this is now kind of an old thing, but like a few I don't know, six seven, six years ago, when the social media companies were completely out of control, there was like a unit of NBC News that would just like report on average citizens, right and say like, why haven't you banned this account? And that's not journals and that's snitching. So for me, like I.
Just the NBC News, I could think of like New York Times articles about average citizens who might have done something wrong in their lives.
I remember a girl who used the N word.
With an A at the end to you know, to be exuberant, and the New York Times wrote a whole piece about her, including you know, a guy who held onto that recording to specifically ruin her life. She was a nobody, I don't even know her name. She lost her college acceptance and you know, just it.
Was normal or The Washington posted that piece about these two people who went to a party and they had.
A kind of Halloween party, right Halloween.
Party with an inappropriate costume, and then like seven years later they're like, you know, they were going to ruin your life. And to me, that's like, Okay, that's right, that's stossy journalism. That's like, that's like yeah, communist block journal.
It get into line journalism exactly.
So I'm not interested in that. And I understand because that was I mean, I think we're hopefully turning a corner. I understand why journalism has a bad reputation among Americans because they're associated with that kind of thing. But for me, the spirit of journalism is robust, passionate debate. Newsrooms should be places where, you know, occasionally people will like throw things at each other and scream at the top of their ones at a story meeting because they completely disagree
with him. That to me is great. I like that, yeah, And that's why you know, I don't have a to me like, right now, I'm concerned, as I think you might be, about the turn on the right to embrace the anti Israel anti let's call it anti Semitism in some cases of the left, like that's that kind of horseshoe is disturbing to me. But I also want to always kind of keep in mind, like I don't think just because I happen to be pro Israel that there
shouldn't be certain topics that are off limits. Like yeah, sure, let's let's float in to you how much food was allowed into Gaza during various points of the war. That's fine. Like I'm sure the israeiling, I'm sure the ideaf makes mistakes. I'm sure there have been.
Yeah, I mean sure, I would say I criticize Israel from the other side, like.
Why are sometimes you know, I don't know, I just don't want to see like kind of our side of it, so to speak, adopting the same kind of things, and like this is like constantly, of.
Course you should question, of course, but it becomes like, you know, I mean, my audience knows that I record these foreign advance but we're recording this during the time where Masad is allegedly, you know, bribing everyone in the country, and Donald Trump is probably suspect also because of the whole Epstein thing.
And it's like there is literally zero evidence for this.
Let's talk about this. I'm with you there, yeah, but but let's let's be totally let's put all of our cards on the table here.
Okay.
When Pam Bondi comes into office as the Attorney General and says, the first thing we're going to do is release I have the Epstein right here. Yeah, Okay, I'm sorry, stop playing with my emotions. Okay. And second of all, I am not a hater of Cash Betel by any stretch. I think he did Yeoman's work on Russiagate. I think some of his post Reussigate media stuff. I don't agree with it. Maybe it's like hyperbolic, over the top, but like,
I'm not here to like crap on Cash Ptel. But Cash Hotel is somebody who, when he was out of government was like very much believing that there was a cover up on Epstein, and he has to do more than just do a one eighty Plaine. I went in and I agreed with you. Yes, I finally got the keys to the kingdom and I saw everything was wrong. It turns out I was wrong, and that just goes to show you, and so I apologize for being wrong.
I went ahead over my skis and let me walk you through and really meet these people, because I think Cash Hotel and Dan Bongino have a lot of credibility with magnation, and there's an opportunity now to really do it, Like go on your show, Go on, Megan Kelly, I don't know, go on one of these shows and give them two hours, right, and walk us through what you thought
going in and what you ended up learning. Because when there's a vacuum like this, of course people are going to expect the worst and suspect the worst and they and that's that's my criticism.
You're fully right, yeah, but of course it's the Masad part that I find, like you know.
Anything to do with it?
You know, obviously Massad. I don't think Massad is doing blackmail operations against Americans, which is what the Jeffrey Epstein against Donald Trump.
It's not even just Americans.
It would have to be Donald like it would have to be our president, right.
But the Masad is an intelligence organization, a very lethal and effective intelligence organization has juststrated in the Twelve Day War and before with pager operations and so forth. They're
in the skullduggery business. What I want to say here is I don't think that they're doing this against like American politicians or American celebrities, And there is no evidence to suggest at this point, you know, other than like kind of throwaway comment that was made by a journalists like I recently went through like reading like how did this thing start? But on the other hand, if you just wanted to look at well, does do intelligence organizations?
Does the Masad conduct what are known as honey traps? Of course they do?
Sure, Sure.
Do they engage in blackmail? Of course they do. That's probably one of the ways they were able to penetrate Iran.
I mean, it's like and as somebody who's written a lot about the Masad over the years, and you know is read a lot of books and talk to x Masad people and a couple current Masade people over the you know, as a journalist, I don't have like you know, if you if you just want to sort of say Massa's an intelligence agency and as an intelligence agency, it's it's up to its neck and a bunch of skullduggery.
I agree, But that's not what you know, what I'm saying, that doesn't mean that's not that's not what they're saying. They're kind of going much further. Yeah, and there are lots of unanswered questions about Jeffrey Epstein that I still have lots of skepticism about. I still am like not satisfied that he was that the guards just happened to
not catch him killing himself in the cell. I also have come to really want to love a good financial reporter to explain to me this hedge fund with only one client, what the hell is that he's got gazillions of dollars that he's supposedly managing. He has no experience really as a financial manager. Who are his clients? How did this happen? We're talking about a lot of money, So it might be and I'm just throwing this out as a possibility that there is some perhaps maybe not
even masade. It might be CIA. Might be. This might have been a sort of intelligence agency slush fund. This happened before what I want to try to do. And I did an episode of my podcast Breaking History on it was about JFK and his assassination, and I did not come up by saying I said, I don't think
I think that Lee rvy Oswald did it. And he was alone assassin, which is boring at this point, But what I said is I kind of understand why so many Americans didn't believe it then and don't believe it now.
Yeah, they've been lied to about other things too.
Exactly so. And so when you have Bongino, Bondie and Patel doing a one to eighty and not explaining why, well, like, okay, I don't believe it. I don't think there's much evidence of this, you know, Epstein Masad stuff. But I also kind of understand, like, wait a second, even these people are not being straight with us.
Yeah, all right, switching gears, let's switch gears. What do you worry about?
That's a great question. I have a four year old daughter, so of course I worry about the future. Were all kinds of reasons for her, little things like you know, she's at the age now when we are walking in the city she can break away from me when we're across the street. That makes me crazy. So that's like
an immediate thing. But in the more house for sense, like I want her to have the kinds of things that I guess I took for granted in my life, Like I want her to be able to go to college without being indoctrinated, without being intimidated because she's Jewish.
I don't want her to, Like, I don't want her to I wanted to be able to, like have romantic relationships when she's of age without it being fraught with all this you know, political stuff, Like I just very very like, I don't want her to kind of come into a culture where all the things that I took for granted are not available for her, including maybe you could say, are the prosperity by the luck that I was born when I was born and was able to have this kind of comfort and so forth. So that
that's something I say, I worry about. But on the other hand, I tend to be an optimist. I'm especially an optimist about America. I'm also an optimist in Israel. So I kind of feel like we're going to get it right. And I see all kinds of reasons to think we are getting it right.
So it's a very optimistic moment. Actually, I feel like there's a lot of doom and gloom and you know, black pilling, as the kids say, But it's actually a very very optimistic, forward looking moment right now.
Absolutely, I mean, listen, I think that, you know, there are there are elements of the Trump administration's policies on higher education that I don't agree with, in something I really applaud, but I also think that like it's I think we're also culturally in a moment where like that there's an understanding in these elite schools. Hey, this isn't really sustainable.
Yeah, things are changing.
The battle is not over. It's like the war's not over yet. But there's been major things that have you know, we went from in the course of like four years maybe where you had people at the commanding heights of our culture screaming DEI and intersectionalism and all this stuff is not a thing, like you know what I mean, Like it's not a thing to like a real recognition and the Supreme Court decision like that's.
Big, huge stuff.
Yeah.
And again, so I have again, I have a lot of faith in our system, and I think that the Trump election is unjostling a lot of things. Some of it will not be for good. Some I think a lot of it will be for good. But it's a We're in a change and it's good. We needed to change. Like I was, I was depressed in twenty twenty and twenty twenty mine, Yeah about like we're just stagnant. And I don't feel like we're stagnant it's much anymore.
I was negative on America for the first time in my life, Like, I was pessimistic for the very first time in my life life on America. During that time, I thought we were heading in such a bad direction, and I was scary.
But what is it? It doesn't it? I mean that that statistic that came out that ninety three percent of Republicans love their country and like thirty six percent of Democrats do.
It's a worrying number.
Yeah, in a way, it's wearing, but it's also like wow, Like what is it? You know, Like that's a wake up call, Like you can't you can't get a major natural party if most of the people who identify.
With hate the country.
Yeah, you kind of have to, like at.
A certain point sort of part of the bargain.
The argument can't be yeah America sucks, it's got to be Yeah, America is great, and here's how to make it better.
We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What advice would you give your sixteen year old self.
Well, the first thing I guess I would say is you have ADHD and it has been not been te coost yet. That explains why you're constantly like reading like seven books at the same time. It's fine, you know you'll but like, that's the first thing I would say. There's nothing wrong with you, it's like you know. But the second thing I just I would say is believe in your own talent like you have. You have the
ability to write for a living, like you should. You should do that because by sixteen, I think I knew I wanted to do it. Just stick with it, like because I wasn't a good writer at age sixteen. The very few people are sure and don't don't be demoralized about it. So I don't know if that's a good thing.
I like that.
Yeah, definitely to stick with it and don't be demoralized is good advice for that age. I loved this conversation. You are just somebody. I love hearing from you.
And I always love reading.
You leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
I think the best tip would be fine time in your week to read or listen to books. If you don't like reading books, if you can't find that stillness, take a walk and put on an audiobook to learn and dive into things that you're passionate about. So, in my view, like don't let you know it's it's great to listen to podcasts. It's great to like, I understand that we're living in the era of influencers, and that's fine. Maybe I'm sort of an influencer. I don't know, and you're certainly an influencer.
You influenced me.
Yeah, But what I mean to say is there's a whole world out there and you can become like you don't have to depend on these other people filtering stuff go out Like I find like I have a mixed I'm not a doomer about artificial intelligence, and I'm also not like I don't think it's the greatest thing in the world. But one of the things that I do that helps me with you know, when I do these deep dives for bringing history, I just ask the chat gipt or I use Brock a lot. Now, what are
the three best books on X? And if you just do that and then you know they're not always going to be right, but like you can get a little summary in the answer and if it looks like it's pretty good, that's what That's what I would say. Read books or listen to books like that's that advice.
Yes, absolutely you can, you know, go to the source material.
Don't just rely on influencer. He's Eli Lake.
Read him at free Press, Listen to the Breaking History podcast anywhere you get your podcasts.
Thank you so much, Eli for coming on.
Thank you Carol