This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Lauren Zema coming to you from the home office in Austin, Texas. I hope everybody's having a great week LZ. We just got back from Dad's weekend that you also attended at TCU. So much fun with their daughter, Taylor, and it was a great week. We had a great weekend.
It's always awesome to see your kids thriving and wanting to share their life with you. We're so proud of Taylor. The most important thing to me is that she has an incredible group of girlfriends around her. I think you know, when you are parenting in any way, that's what you want the most, is just for your kids to have that group when they're away from you, to know they have that family of friends. And besides that, of course, she's doing great in school, so you want that too.
But it's just nice to see them feel secure and happy and successful.
It is a week out from our presidential election where the United States elected Donald Trump the forty seventh President of the United States, and the subsequent chatter and everything has now kind of played out. We did a very highly listened to podcast immediately after the day after the election, where we talked about the media and their responsibility and how they were And now that we're a week out, l Z I wanted to go back because now we have the ratings. Now we have kind of the proof
of everything and what played out. And the good news is this is the good news. The media has done a full point eighty. They took a big gulp of humble pie. They have realized the error of their ways, and they have course corrected. And it is so refreshing to see how even the comedians have really learned a lot. Take for example, Jimmy.
Kimmel being too dry with this.
Take for example, Jimmy Kimmel who went on the next day and literally broke down in tears and told half the country, oh, well over half the country, since Donald Trump won the popular vote, that everybody is wrong and whether you voted for him or not, you all lost and you made one of the biggest disastrous decisions of your lives. And everybody lost. As he broke down into tears, and I just thought, my god, Johnny Carson must be rolling over in his grave. The day was ripe for comedy.
The country needed comedy. The jokes wrote themselves. They were so there was such low hanging fruit and America needed to finally just be galvanized and laugh. And Jimmy Kimmel took his time to cry on National TV.
When did late night comedy shows become? Like, I think what happened. I remember reading that when Colbert moved over, that Kimmel's people were thinking he needed to become more political because Colbert was going to bring this daily show background and really get ratings by leaning into political comedy, and so they wanted Kimmel to do more of that.
It's still a late night comedy show you and I think that's where they've lost their ways, by losing their brand of Like if you're doing silly celebrity interviews but then also using your monologue for a tear filled, scolding speech at your audience, this.
Arrogant, condescending, laughable speech by Kimmel, I want it, I feel like honestly, and I like Jimmy. I've known him for years. He's lost himself, Like he's so like the I just wonder if they're in this echo chamber, if anybody, if any like normal person's behind the scenes going Jimmy, what are you doing like you got to go out and do a show tonight?
I want to put We said this in the last episode and I'll say it again. What we're here to do is an the last episode where we talked about the election. What we're here to do is analyze the media. We are both members of the media. That's what we built our careers on. We interviewed celebrities. I won't say I am, but you are money a celebrity I'd never feel.
We also love producing TV and you got it and how you produce TV to do what it's supposed to do, which is get ratings.
So exactly, and that's I think the biggest reason why we've been so fascinated by this election cycle is you know, the media is and TV shows and news are supposed to play to audiences, right, You're supposed to get ratings. We are not here to and we never endorsed anybody for president. We're not here to tell anybody who to vote for or look or to scold you for her you did vote for. We are here to talk about the way the media is handling this and that's where
our interest and analysis lies. And the biggest thing to me when I see Kimmel crying or and I know you're going to get into Colbert. The popular vote also went to Donald Trump. So aren't you thinking about wanting more people to watch your show? You're yelling at your audience. And it's not just the late night hosts, it's news media too, and we'll get into that. So back to Kimmel and Colbert.
And what I find interesting is, and we did this on the Battery, you did it on Entertainment tonight. You would have these kind of you know, post mortems every quarter, every time ratings come out. And according to Nielsen, across the board, the late night shows are dropping viewers like flies, every one of them across the board. I just looked two minutes before we recorded this. I looked everybody as
Nielsen ratings are down over Q one. So while they've been covering this election stuff, while they have been unabashedly just crushing one side and making this so political and not really making jokes, they've lost viewers. So if I'm in the rooms is an executive prision yeah, or if I'm at Kobert any of these, I'm like, okay, let's go out tonight and look, we don't need to praise Trump,
we don't need to be someone we're not. But let's crack some jokes about the vaunted ground game of Kamala Harris. Just again, don't be mean. How wrong the polls, how wrong the polls were. Everybody thought it was a close call. You're right, the comedy was there. The comedy's there, and you don't have to be mean to anybody, but you can be funny because clearly one side could not have missed it worse, like make fun of MSNBC, make fun
of CNN. Like you don't have to make fun of the actual candidate, but you can have so much fun with what just happened, and we can all, you know, cry together or laugh together or whatever. So that was Kimmel. Kimmel came out and instead of doing anything close to that, he cried, literally cried, and told everyone how they lost. Stephen Colbert, who, as you said, did find an audience early on because he was so political and he's kind
of stuck to it. But he came out and instead of doing something funny, he said, we still don't know the entire parade of clowns, degenerates and in laws that Trump will have running this country. But one guy we know we'll have a major role is RFK Junior. Now, if you're not familiar with him, it's probably because he ran for president and nobody cared.
That's not even true. I mean, that's what's wild he had. If nobody cared, then how come it made a difference when RFK jumped in and brought his supporters over to Trump.
Well, how come you're doing a stand up about it? And by the way, Colbert, in the most typocritical way, has had RFK on several times and lauded over him and kissed up to him and told him how great he was.
To me.
When late night comedy, when SNL, when journalism as well, I'll throw it in there. When it's solid. Its most brilliant is when you are the middle ground, analyzing both sides. It's making fun of both sides, critiquing both sides. That's when I feel the most connected as a viewer, and I have the empathy. Of the problem we have is that the more clearly one sided properties like an MSNBC Era A Fox have upped their ratings in recent years
because people go to what they connect to. I guess it's people like kind of go to where they feel like they're hearing. They're hearing themselves, is what the ratings might show. But in the end, right one group's going to lose. Next time another group might lose. So to me, there's a smart business move in maintaining being that neutral ground over time. To me, it's the long game, it's the big picture. What do you think from a ratings perspective.
We can go further now and talk about the Nielsen ratings. As we were talking about, you know the fact that the election coverage on election night is the super Bowl, It's the biggest night for the press. And we've now gotten the Nielsen ratings for some of the media post election, so this last week and it's staggering. And now, look, I wanted to defend these numbers and the bleed off
of these numbers because they are devastating. But remember if you just played in the super Bowl, that's Election night the next day, there is a hangover effect. There's a fatigue in your audience. They are tired. They're not going to tune in in masks like they were. It would be like having the culmination in the final rows of The Bachelor and the next night doing another show. It's like,
you've got to give people a break. So I want to say there is a little bit of a caveat with these numbers, But these numbers are so big that it is pretty breathtaking and it's pretty noticeable. Nielsen ratings plunge at MSNBC since Trump was elected the forty seventh president of the United States. One example, Wednesday to Friday, so obviously the election was super Tuesday. Joe his first hour,
down forty percent, his second hour. This is Joe Scarborough and Mika down thirty seven percent, Andrew Mitchell down forty percent, Ari Melber down fifty percent, Joy Reid, who's been easily the most outspoken propaganda machine for the Democratic Party, down fifty four point six percent, all in with Chris Hayes down forty seven percent, Alex Wagner tonight not sure what that is, but down fifty three percent, Lawrence o'donald down
sixty percent, and Stephanie Rule down sixty seven percent. Even with the fatigue, as I try to give them an out, holy cow, that is no.
Those numbers are staggering. And I think I mentioned earlier that some I mentioned that maybe CNN had done worse than MSNBC on election night, and now there's like a little bit of back and forth about like the way that that was presented. No, no, I'm sorry. Okay, so on elections, Okay, let's go to Thursday. MSNBC brought in Thursday after election night only five hundred ninety six thousand total average daily viewers. CNN had just four hundred and
nineteen thousand. I mean these numbers in comparison, Fox News number one with two point six million viewers. So I think that speaks a little bit to what you were just saying. Those numbers you just listed, those percentage drops are staggering if you factor in. Okay, maybe there's fatigue, but then why on the Thursday after the election is Fox two point six million versus MSNBC five hundred ninety six thousand.
Let me just throw at this theory. When the Dallas Cowboys lose, and they lose badly like they did this week, I won't watch SportsCenter. I don't want to hear Steven A. Smith and all the pundits just rip on the Cowboys and tell me how bad my team sucks. So that's kind of what this is. Are you going to go back and just listen to how bad your team sucks and how bad you lost for the next week, or are you going to take a big break from that?
And Fox people are like, oh good, I get to just hear people that's true.
We're in the win. Yeah, revel the win on MSNBC, Like part of me wonders though, would you tune in and like you and I are not MSNBC watchers, We just flip in and out on ye Election nights are a big political, big news moments between all the channels. But would you tune in to like feel like you're with your people still and to feel like maybe there's hope or to feel or to even wonder where did
we go wrong? I don't know. Give me that sports analogy back, like would you go and listen to a podcast about the Cowboys loss and wonder and people speculating what do they do wrong and how can they do better in the future? Or would you just tune it all out?
I think which to go? And there's a theme throughout this podcast the authenticity you're seeking authenticity and when you go see and I've I've watched MSNBC this week and I've watched CNN. I've watched them all and when you see Joy Reid not have any sort of her and Rachel Madda'll not have any sort of revelation or open, honest look in the mirror of what really went wrong. And now instead they're just doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on
the same message they were giving you before. I think there is a fatigue there of like enough is enough. And clearly, as I look at these numbers, people have said enough is enough and they are walking away from that network in droves, and that those numbers can't just be explained by fatigue. That is, that is when you're up in the fifties and sixty percent of your audience, think about that, what's mass?
That is scary over half your people? That's wild. I do want to look back. I don't have numbers, do you on how what they're how that compares to numbers like pre the past couple months, if you're comparing MSNBC just on an average month versus this had really been election season.
Yeah, well, clearly, clearly, if they're down, you know, fifty sixty percent, you can just double those numbers to where were pre And obviously again the lead up to the super Bowl, and the super Bowl itself is huge, so those numbers are going to drop, but these were just so glaring and astronomical I wanted to bring them up. The only thing you can definitely be guaranteed in politics in the United States of America is the pendulum will swing.
It always has. I've only been alive fifty three years, and i have seen it swing from Jimmy Carter to Reagan, back over to Obama and Clinton and back over to the Bushes and back over to you know, it will always swing and you don't ever need to worry about it. That's going to happen. I just I wonder, like, why isn't anybody in the room saying, hey, let's go out and perform Jimmy or Steven, like, go out and be funny tonight, let's really let's let's be bigger than this
and let's crush it. And the fact that they just can't, Like I would sit in that room and as an executive producer and say, you got to get over yourself. What you're telling me, and all you're saying is your feelings. I feel this, I feel this. I don't mean to be cruel. But I don't care how you feel right now, Jimmy. What I want you to do is go perform.
At the end of the day, you're a late night comedyost instead of being a comedian. You went out there and you cried.
This takes me back to whin. I got in a shouting match with an executive on my show. This is during the last campaign between Trump and Hillary Clinton, and we were doing a live a tape show and I got called off the set up and berated, very vocally abused in front of everyone in the control room because I wouldn't make a Trump joke and I wouldn't basically support Hillary Clinton. And it wasn't that I didn't support Hillary Clinton, and it wasn't that I didn't love hate Trump.
But I said, that's not who we are, that's not what we do. The people that are tuning in on Monday night to watch the Bachelor Bacherette are not like man. I hope they really get political tonight, and I hope they solve our political problems. They're escaping to us. When I watched Saturday Night Live, when I watch Jimmy Kimore Colbert, I just wanted to laugh. I want I tuned in and be like, oh my god, they're going to crush it tonight. Their monologues are going to be amazing. If
you're a comedy writer, this is manna from heaven. And they couldn't have failed and missed the mark more and it just it makes me sad for them. It makes me sad for the viewers they've killed. Late Night. The ratings have dropped across the board, you know, the number one late night show in America. Greg Guttfeldt on Fox News By Far, I want to say three at least three x the ratings of all the other late night shows that considered.
So I've seen little clips, but I've never fully watched it. Is it like a comedic at all?
He does a roundtable thing, he has consistent and gut Felt's very you know, whether you think he's funny or not, he's comedic. He writes his jokes and they're very you know.
Like so it's more political, but a little.
Comm tongue in cheek, lighthearted.
Yeah.
And the other one that had did go up, it's kind of skewed. Comedy Central's their their show has gone up because obviously the Daily Show on Comedy Central the return of John Stewart was a big part of that. So those were skewed early. It's dropped since John Stewart's return, but Comedy Central is notably up as well. And the ratings, and we'll get into this, that kind of momentum carried
into election night as well. For and we we theorized and hypothesized of what we thought the ratings were going to be about network News versus cable, and we were right. We were right about network Everybody was down. The overall election coverage in our viewership was down. But who did well cable networks? Who was a disaster? The actual networks which is just such a again it's still partless, yes, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's ABC, NBC,
CBS was barely on the board. And you know, ABC was the best of the worst than NBC, than CBS. But who led coverage? Fox, MSNBC, CNN.
And I think CNN did the worst of those things.
They were that they yeah, they were the worst of all those which.
Look at Also, that's what it speaks to, is what I just said. I mean, people do seem to want to go to where they're going to feel their opinions are matched, and that scares me. I don't think it's a good way to live. I've said this before. I try on social media to follow people I don't agree with. On election night, I flip back and forth between the channels because I want to be exposed to other voices
to keep a good perspective. But you know, also there's something to like the importance of a talent that people connect with. People like to feel like, oh, I like and trust Anderson Cooper, or I like and trust and watch you know, Brettbear, whoever it is.
And I guess that's what's crazy is when I grew up, it's just like I'm going to watch Dan rather I'm going to watch Tom Brokaw. The networks owned those faces and voices, and now I think, to your point, the cable news networks own those characters.
That back then you went to those personalities because you felt you would get trusted news, and that now people feel they like the opinion.
Yeah, yeah, I think that. I think the idea when I was younger was this is unbiased news, and now that we know that they are biased, I think people feel like, well, if I know George Stephanopolis does not have a journalistic take at all, Like he journalism's gone. So George Stephanopolis is just a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party.
So if you're going to get a really bad take from George and ABC News, I'll just go to CNN and or MSNBC and really and really get like Rachel matt Hower read that a really propagandist or Tucker Carlson or whoever who's really in the propaganda of the right. You know, like, if you're going to go that way, I might as well just go all the way.
I think you're right. I think that that's the problem is that the networks didn't stay, didn't keep that level of trust of being unbiased, of being if they'd maintain that, but I think they lost it the last time Trump and in twenty sixteen was when it became really evident how people felt, and that is I agree, that's the problem. Is it's not being clear because it's a lack of authenticity,
and then it's a lack of trust. Like if you're gonna be someone who really stands one way, you have to be honest and own that and say I am an opinion journalist or whatever the phrase we want to use for it is. You can't say no, no, no, I'm a journalist when it's so clear that you feel one way like you have to own it or not one person. That's like and I think it all changed again. It leaned even more towards showing that this time because
I think of the debate and David Muhr. I held David muirorup as someone who I thought he stayed pretty I did too straightforward.
And I've heard nothing but good things about him.
I was like, that man is an old school like he just reports the news and keeps it even. And then the way that he was in the debate of only fact checking Trump and not Harris, I thought wow. And then he tried to do we talked about on the podcast. He tried to do that apology tour the next day. I'm different, like I'm Live with Kelly and not really an apology tour, but sort of trying to justify the way he was. And I thought, no, you've lost me. I've seen big.
Shadow of Dana Walden who runs ABC News, and that lauded over him as well. You know, I go back and this will be an interesting kind of if there was such a thing as self reflection, and clearly there's not. Is that this is the whole point of this podcast. There is zero self reflection from the media. And that's what I find fascinating. I go back to that Republican
debate the first time. I remember, like Jeb Bush and who was like maybe Ted Cruz, I was trying to think he was in that debate when they debated Trump for the first time, and they went in for a presidential primary debate for the Republicans, and you know, Trump came in just like it was like so like like a college frat boy showed up and just like disrupted this tea party, and it was like nobody knew how
to handle him. And I found that fascinating. I remember they were just like, you know, Jeb Bush, who was the heir apparent, I mean, he was a Bush and he's going to be our presidential nominee and he just fumbled and bumbled and he lost the primary to nobody knew how to handle him. Donald Trump was living rent free in all their heads. Everyone just was like befuddled on how to handle him. And I feel like the
same thing happened to the media. At first. They treated him with kid gloves and a comedian.
He was the guy from The Apprentice, right right, he's one of that.
He had been on all these shows. He had been on the View, he went on Jimmy Fallon, he did all this stuff, and when he became a candidate, it was like, oh, this is going to be fun. We're going to do bits with Donald Trump because he's so comedic. He's really good at this stuff. That's why he's been on SNL. He's funny.
Now Trump actually has good comedic timing. He does.
But the problem is, all of a sudden there was a turn of like, oh crap, he's actually going to beat Hillary Clinton. We have aid it and embedded in all this what do we do? And then from there on there was this tipping point, as Malcolm Gladwell would say, where he has lived rent free in everybody's head and nobody no intellectuals. And there are so many smart people on both sides of the aisle, you know, opposed to what Jimmy Kimmel says, there's brilliant people on both sides
of the aisle. Nobody's been able to crack the code of how do we handle this guy who's a bully he's bombastic. Yes, he tells very tall tales. As Joe Rogan says, he bobs and weaves, and he goes on these weird tangents about rockets and stuff.
I think Trump says that about himself.
Oh yeah. But nobody has cracked the code of how do we unpack this and how do we handle it? And my point was, don't feel bad because the Republicans couldn't figure it out either. They couldn't beat him in their own house. The media has just not been able to figure out how do we crack the code of how do we handle.
It's the balance of how do we cover him?
But you know what, and I don't have the answer. I'm not brilliant. I don't have the answer, but I just know that what's happened has clearly not been the answer.
Well, what has happened from a lot of media has been that they've you know, I mean MSNBC footage of his rally up against footage of Hitler's rally from Madison Square Garden. I mean, what has happened I think is last time it was more playful, and so this time they leaned so hard into like, no, he's this villain and however you feel whoever you voted for, the popular vote has shown that the country does not feel that way. And so again when you go back to that discussion
of like how do you handle it? I believe journalists should be the voice for the voice of the people. I think they should critique across the board. I think if you're going to be a more opinionated journalist and be on a cable network that has more of a slant, you have to own that. And to me, the biggest you know, now we're in this election blame game, right and everyone in the in is analyzing and has their
sources on and who's to blame? And as you pointed out, I think the biggest who's to blame meaning for the Harris loss. And I think, as you pointed out, the biggest thing that's not happening is that both media and I would say a lot of people in the Democratic Party aren't looking in the mirror. I think overall the biggest issue has been a lack of authenticity and a lack of connection to your audience. And I would say
that to both the media and the Democratic Party. And I probably have to say that because I think there's a lot of overlap. The statistics just show the media is overwhelmingly democratic.
Like well, that's why you know when you say that dominated the ratings, and they dominated election night ratings by far. There's only one network where where Republicans go. There's only there's out of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, those are clearly hugely liberal Democratic staunch supporters, there's only one place. So all Republicans basically went to Fox News. So Fox gets thirteen million, and you know ABC got five million.
So if Fox Fox News, a cable network, did over two x what Abc News did, a network with massively, massively more reach, that's what Fox did and they completely dominated the landscape. But again, there's only one place to go if you really want to hear your side, and you're on the right. So it is a little bit of misleading numbers because Democrats are spread across the board.
And so when you look at the blame game, and this is what's interesting, and to expand on your point, if they really wanted to beat Donald Trump, if they really wanted to and when I say they, if I'm met CNN, MSNBC or whatever, and you really want to beat Donald Trump with which they do wholeheartedly. They would have not given him any oxygen. You just don't cover
him and don't talk about him. That's how you treat a bully, right, If you have a bully and they've called him a bully many times, what would you do in school? Ignore? Don't give it oxygen. But here in lies the hypocritical problem. The best ratings in the world for MSNBC, CNN, all of them are with Donald Trump in the lead. So if Donald Trump went away, so do their ratings. This is really the best thing that's happened.
They won't say this quiet part out loud, but the best thing they could have hoped for is Donald Trump. That gives Rachel mattout Joy read Anderson Cooper endless amounts like don't believe they're tears.
Well, ratings when Trump was in the White House were way higher dar Biden was. Yet there's a lot of a lot of news happening.
Yeah, and so in this will continue right now, they took a hit, But the best thing that happens for them is now they have news for the next four years. They can tell you what's wrong in the world. And that that is immediately you know, was there a Mara Kopa was there a about face of guys, this is what went wrong with our our plan with getting Biden out and getting Kamala in and not having an election.
There was no primary. Nobody really elected her. Like there were so many things that went wrong on the Democratic side. There's a laundry list of problems. There wasn't one thing. There were a million things that went wrong. Instead of that laundry list, I think Bernie Sanders is anyone that's really kind of hit back. But there's a laundry list of things that went wrong. And instead of like, guys, this is what we did wrong, it's the first day
was Trump Trump, Trump Trump. He still lives rent free in their head, but now he's going to help them pay the rent for another four years. So it's it's it is this kind of interesting. You know, they're really opposing feelings of God, do we want him to go away? God? We love it when he's in the White House. It's
a tough it's a tough inner battle. But now they have something to talk about because if they had it their way, let's say they had the House, the Senate and Kamala Harris, what the hell are you going to talk about for four years, It's true, it's Trump's fault again. I mean, they spent the last four years blaming Trump. How could you spend the next four years. How could you spend the next four years the better part of a decade blaming someone who's not in office. They were
kind of running out of rope there. So it is very interesting. So I'm just saying, be careful when you hear the when you see the crocodile tears, because they're also laughing their way to the bank.
Well, you're pointing to the conflict of on the one hand that we heard from a lot of media, like you know, critiquing Trump and Trump is is evil and so, and the promoting of Kamala Harris and that. I mean, look, I'll take Time magazine, for example, without an interview from her, they put her on the cover with the headline her moment,
no critique, just an article when Trump. When the assassination attempt on Trump happened, I watched Times Instagram they first posted their cover and it was the photo of him with his fist in the air, and I was like, wow, what a poignant cover that. You know, We'll go down in history an assassination attempt on a former president. At some point they changed the cover. They changed it to a different photo where he was lying on the ground, and I thought, wow, who made the call and said, hey,
that photos like makes him look too powerful. You need to change it. There's no other way to read that
to me. And so they're stuck between do we, you know, promote and help and support Kamala Harris becoming the president because so many of us we are so democratic, that's the way we all lean and you know, that's not even getting into like who's paying the bills and everything, or we also do want Trump in the White House because of the ratings and oh also so we have to kind of appear like we're like, we're not so
biased and we're critiquing both sides. And what all that boils down to to me is what I just said a few minutes ago. A lack of authenticity. That's where they've lost their way own what you are as a brand, be who you are as a brand. It's just what you were talking about with The Bachelor, where you're like, this isn't what we are as a brand. When you're
trying to appease too many parties. When you're trying to check too many boxes, when you're listening to everybody on Twitter and you have your advertisers, and you have your own personal feelings and you've got to appear like your that's when it's going you're losing because you're trying to do too much at once.
Well, the old saying is if you try to please everybody, you please nobody.
Right, if you stand for everything, you stand for nothing. I think when you look at what people will probably call this the podcast election, the rise of the podcast Election, Joe Rogan was simple and clear. He had Trump in for three hours in his studio, that's his brand. Did he grill Trump as much as and Anden? Did he push him as much as you know, maybe a classic journalist would have no, but that wasn't his brand. And he said he would have done the same thing for Harris.
She didn't end up wanting to do it, and he has later come out and revealed well, also part of that was she didn't want to come to his studio and she only wanted to get forty five minutes, and her team wanted some editing power, and he said no to all those things. He stuck to his brand. Instead of getting what could have been, Oh, Harris could be a big get, he stuck to his brand and I think that that is that has meant something.
The comedian Theovonn who also Trump, went on his podcast said the exact same thing that the Harris campaign asked about editing rights, and they both said the same thing. No, we we don't do that. We tape. This is like what podcasts are is kind of that live radio feel. It is AM radio. You're just you are coming on. And this isn't a clean, edited, polished propaganda advertisement. And so you know, to your point when people said, well, well,
two things that I find very funny. One, immediately people came out and Democrats and liberals said we need our version of Joe Rogan. Guys, I hate to break this to you, Democrats, you had him. He was a liberal, he's a Democrat.
A Democratic, and he was a Bernie Sanders fan.
There Democrats pushed him away and pushed him out of the party. It's so funny. I was just like, man, could you be more blind to what's going on? He was a die hard Democrat. He has ripped both sides, but he definitely leaned on that liberal side. But the other thing is people said, well, you know, she did go on Call Her Daddy Alex Cooper, and this is nothing against Alex Cooper or Call Her Daddy. It's a
hugely successful, huge money revenue making podcast. But that was not I think people give too much credit to Joe Rogan, and I really I'm a fan of Joe Rogan. But it didn't have to be Joe Rogan. It could have been anybody because the huge difference was podcast A we'll call it Joe Rogan was open, you could say anything. It was unedited. They talked about crazy stuff, they talked about serious stuff. To Call Her Daddy was clearly a scripted moment. It was Kamala Harris going in giving her
talking points. There was no follow up, there was no creativity.
That's what I'm talking about, is the inauthentic thing.
Yeah, and so that's what that goes to my point of like it just you're comparing apples and oranges. Those podcasts weren't the same because she didn't go do a podcast. She went and taped a commercial with Alex Cooper.
Well, let's think about it, like this, Call Her Daddy is known. How it started was a very sex focused podcast. She's expanded from that, but there's still every time she has like a Katy Perry or Gwyneth Paltrow on, there's a couple sex questions out there. From what I saw, I don't think they got into sex at all. So and look, by the way, I'm not saying you should you're a presidential candidate, but what is Call Her Daddy?
I think that's why in part that, I mean, you could argue it was whether people wanted to hear from Kamala Harris or not. But I think at least in part why it wasn't as Gangbuster's numbers, as even a typical Call Her Daddy episode, it wasn't what Call Her Daddy was. It wasn't even the same set. It's now come out from Harris's FEC filings that they paid one hundred thousand dollars to build a fake Call Her Daddy set for her to do that interview in a hotel
room somewhere. I think because she said she couldn't leave Washington. And also I've worked on a lot of sets in different newsrooms, from startups to bigger. That was not on a hundred one thousand dollars. I don't know where that money went, but two chairs and a table and like a little signage and some picture frames. That was not one hundred grand, That was a couple thousand dollars max. So whoever you pay to do that, that money was not you were ripped off. Well, but it wasn't authentic.
Yeah, and you're right, the authenticity of everything. And now that things are coming out, and you know, Kamala Harris one thing you have to give credit for. She came in late and she raised a billion dollars. A billion dollars. That is staggering, staggering, staggering.
No matter how you feel politically, it sickens me on some level how much our country spells on elections. The problem is, I guess you have to. But god, it's.
Now come out that she spent more than a billion dollars in that they are either somewhere between eighteen to twenty million dollars in debt, so they spent over a billion dollars. They couldn't even balance their own budget, which is kind of laughable, but they spent over a billion dollars. And then the story came out one of the big celebrity endorsers. And you know there's another thing where we talked about the day after in the last podcast we did about celebrity endorsements.
There were whether they're worth anything?
Yeah, And I think you and I both agree they they didn't. They don't move the needle to the good. But I do not think they moved the needle to the bad. Like were the Avengers and that video cringe worthy? And were they ineffective? Yes? Are they laughable sometimes? Yeah? But I don't think they I don't think anybody in a sase you're deterred, right, I don't think anybody in Pennsylvania's like Scarlet Johannes.
For I'm not going to agree. I don't think that happened.
I don't think it matters. I don't think Taylor Swift hurt anybody by saying she loved Kamala and if it made her feel better, great, So I don't think they matter one way or the other. But one thing I will say I find very disheartening is now that all the filings and all the truth has to come out as far as financials, Kamala raised a billion dollars. That's great. Now it comes out that Oprah Winfrey. Her, you know, arguably the biggest interview in the world that you can get,
was paid a million dollars. Oprah took a million dollar paycheck to interview Kamala in what seemed like a very friendly town hall. This is my girl. I got my arm around her. I'm endorsing her. This is just me being me Oprah, you know, the most genuine face that we all trusted. Does it tarnish that feeling of love and unity when you realize Oprah took a million dollars to do that in ah centic?
Yeah, that, again, I think is where people are now. Media are blaming this group or that group, and that just disgusts me. To do that too, is like to place the blame back on different groups of people who allegedly didn't show up. It's not to turn around and blame the average person. These are our elected officials or hopeful elected officials. Do your job to win the people over.
I I really can't handle the media blaming. And again, it's bad business blaming their own audiences for whether someone won an election. That's a quick way to get people to turn off the TV.
You're all you're all stupid, We're smart.
Honestly so on the celebrity endorsement thing and the oprun the one million and authentic, right. I think now we spent at the last podcast we asked, is the celebrity endorsement dead? I think it might now be buried with some of these numbers.
Well, I can't wait to see more will come out, like did what did you know there was one hundred thousand dollars spent on the call her daddy? Did Alex Cooper get a paycheck? Did Beyonce get a paycheck to show up? You know? Did all these people?
Has come out that the concerts were paid for? They had different people perform, like Katy Perry, Megan thee Stallion. So I think it's come out the concerts were paid for and I won. I was like, I kind of thought that's something that I don't know the law on it. I guess I'm naive. I would have thought that would have been something that you would have had to disclose if Oprah was paid to do that interview, But I'm wrong. I guess I guess you didn't have to and all from the beginning.
I'll be very interested to find out. On the flip side, you know, did did the Trump administration or campaign did they pay people to do certain things? I did a little research and a friend of mine Sage Steele, and she won't mind me telling this. I asked her because she had been hosting town hall meetings and doing basically what Oprah was doing, but for doing it in the Trump campaign, for Jade Vance, for Tolsey Gabbard, Danica Patrick, all these people. And I asked, you know, are you
getting paid to do this? And she said, no, absolutely not. And she's like, as far as I know, nobody is. And I said, are you sure. She's like, as far as I know. And that's so it's only one that is not scientific. And as a journalist I need at least two more sources. But at least that source material told me we're here on our own volition because we believe in this. And again it goes back to your word authentic. These people, whether you like them or not,
are authentic in their belief and why they're there. And that comes across.
And you know the let me let me make the smallest comparison here, huh. If you do an ad on Instagram, right, you have to do hashtag ad hashtag sponsored for this product.
Yeah, good point.
Why if Oprah is getting paid to do a town hall with Kamala Harris, does that not have to be disclosed right from the beginning when this is for a presidential election for the American people. That kind of blows my mind. And I'm not saying that Oprah's job isn't worth being paid for. Well, yeah, obviously she's the you know, interviewer of our time, right, but it certainly was portrayed as if she was just in support of Kamala Harris
and this is just what she believed in. And if I were in that position, if I was going to be at the position of I don't know, I would have just made it clear from the start, Like I would have come out and said, hey, everybody, you know, I'm here doing my job tonight. And if she was getting paid for it, well then maybe I would have taken my job very seriously and asked some really probing questions.
Well, it's funny you just took kind of my thought is like, I really respect Oprah. She's brilliant. Again, whether you're a fan of her or not, you cannot deny her success. Her success and what she's accomplished she's amazing, and I agree with how smart she is, and I know she has brilliant people around her. I can't fathom that Oprah didn't know this would get out, because you have to file this stuff. This all comes out, so you know what's going to come out, and it did
come out. TMZ caught up with Oprah and got a comment on this. She looked like she was on her morning walk there in Montecito before she was getting in her range Rover, and they asked her about taking a payment from Harris and receiving this million dollar payout. She denied it. She said, absolutely not true. Didn't happen, now, Oprah. This is where it gets interesting. Technically, did Kamala Harris pay Oprah a million dollars? Well, maybe not, but this
has definitely happened. Two payments to Winfrey's production company, Harpo Productions, can be found under the Harris campaign's disbursements on the Federal Election Committee website. This is fact, it did happen. The payments of five hundred thousand dollars each were made on October fifteenth and are marked as event production. So very slippery.
And here's what my speculation is there. Yes, I think Oprah said no, absolutely, not in a again i'mating, but I think she's saying that answer and like a get kind of around the around the semantics kind of way, because you could say, oh, well, that was a production fee or like that was like for the setup or whatever. But I looked at that town hall, I don't know what a million dollars. I mean it was a studio with audience members, and I mean, at the end of
the day, I think that we have to acknowledge. I've heard us say this other members of the media podcast I listened to. I feel naive, but I was shocked to find out that Oprah would even take an event fee or whatever you want to call that. I was shocked to find out that these people playing concerts for the Harris campaign were paid millions of dollars. To Megan the Stallion, to Katie Perry. I thought they were doing
it like for the campaign. I really thought it was a oh, we endorse you and we support you kind of a thing.
This report also came out. It has hit several different sites. I tried to do a deep dive on this. I've looked at several other sources. I can't source it enough to call it fact, and you know, I do take our journalism serious. But the alleged reports are that Kamala
Harris gave Beyonce a ten million dollars to speak. She didn't sing ten million dollars to speak, and for her endorsement, five million went to Megan thee Stallion for the Torking incident, three million to Lizzo, one point eight million to eminem and a million to Oprah. We can absolutely and equivocally verify two five hundred thousand dollars payments did go to Harpo production, so that did happen. The rest, I have to say alleged, but these are all very specific that
somebody if it was just made up. It's very specific. So it is something that we all have to grapple with when you thought that something was so sincere and so honest and we were just behind this candidate, and then you find millions of dollars and look, over a billion dollars went somewhere. We know that she raised over a billion dollars and now she's eighteen to twenty million dollars in debt, So it just it's such a bad look.
It's definitely the nail in the coffin on the celebrity endorsement, because I think people found celebrity endorsements annoying enough when they're watching this multimillionaire tell them how to vote to then find out that the multimillionaire was paid to do that, to make those appearances and paid with campaign money that potentially the average person donated is striking. I think that says all we're going to say about whether a celebrity
endorsement is valuable. And I think people are also finding an insincere because you heard celebrities really sounding the alarm on what a Trump presidency would mean, making it seem like the world's going to collapse if Trump becomes president. But you were I'm so worried about the future of our country that you were okay with taking a payment for it. That doesn't look good. I mean, you and I have done many many charity events. I have you. Ever, we've never taken money for charity.
No, I have taken in full disclosure, I've taken money for corporate events, for sure, when I'm paid by a company to come in and host something that is specifically for a company, but never for coming in and for a charity.
Absolutely not, And I sort of thought it was like some people take I could never but I kind of assumed, well, if this is like a cause, you believe it, it's along those same lines.
Well, just the numbers are so staggering. When you are, you know, the party of the working man and the inflation and all this, and when there are tens of millions of dollars going to celebrities, it's just such a gross look. It's a really really bad look. And I don't know if the media, that's the tough part, is so much the media is slanted. Will they dive in
and try and unearth this, I know some will. Will it get any footing, I don't know, but it's definitely as this unravels, and that's what this whole podcast is about. As things unravel, that is one of the things that is quickly unraveling is these endorsements and the payola that went along with it.
Well, and you know, you have to like bring in I mean, interestingly, Trump being a candidate being president for the past eight years or whatever it's been has been really interesting from the Hollywood perspective because he was a member of Hollywood, you know, I.
Mean He's a Hollywood darling on.
The Apprentice, in movies like Home Alone two on Saturday Night Live for years, very friendly with people like Oprah on Oprah's Shosh. There's past clips of her asking him, well, would you ever run for president? One day? On the view in the past, like he was in that world. And what's really interesting to me now when you think about like the celebrity endoor factor is Trump? Like when I look at the way Trump is a lot of the time, my my sense goes off of like he's
coming at politics from the perspective of an entertainer. Like when he's saying a lot of the things he says, I'm like, oh, that's because he's used to like creating teases for The Apprentice years ago. You know. He speaks in these big ways and makes these wild statements that get attention. And I'm hearing a lot of media analyze now just like how like I think what ended up happening actually is the Democratic campaign tried to bring in other celebrities, but it's like Trump is a celebrity on
his own. So it's just interesting the back and forth of like trying to combat those two things in the earned media that you get out of big moments like Beyonce speaking was supposed to be this really big moment, but it backfired because I think people thought she would going to sing and there were headlines about how she was going to sing, and then you kind of have Trump just creating these moments for a much cheaper price.
So it's interesting combating celebrity endorsements with a celebrity candidate.
Here's the funniest irony of it all. Maybe the most authentic celebrity is the one that's being blamed for this, and the one that's being ripped on George Clooney. The Daily Beast wrote an article blaming George Clooney, or is George Clooney to blame? Because back in July, there was this huge fundraiser in New York and they were raising tens of millions of dollars and George Clooney was on stage, had his arm around Biden, was touting Joe Biden, how great he is, how great he is. Well in July,
after that event, George Clooney noticed something. He noticed something that we had all noticed for the last two years. Joe Biden's in serious mental and physical decline. He's not up to the job, according to George Clooney, and he wrote an op ed in The New York Times of I love you Joe, but it's time to step down. And that was the beginning of the end of Joe Biden. And it was the rise of Kamala.
Harris and was a major term.
Yes, that was a huge because then everybody it legitimized, it had the ability to speak their mind and start talking about what we've all been witnessing and what we've all been watching.
And then that led to the no primary Kamala Harris is installed, et cetera, and the debacle that followed clearly now, so that's what's interesting is maybe the most authentic celebrity who spoke his mind is now being blamed for the downfall.
Not only I don't think took any paychecks, but was helping raise the money I mean.
And he has since backed away and walked away from all of this.
Well, I haven't really heard from him. There's an article in Variety. The headline is stop blaming celebrity endorsements for Kamala Harris loss. We need to hear from artists now more than ever. Now, I'll be honest, I started reading this article and it is so long, and I just couldn't get through it. I read it as well, Well, then maybe if you read the whole thing, maybe you can weigh more.
For you, it doesn't get better read it, It gets worse as you read it.
It just wasn't that captivating. But if I just look at the headline, I agree with the first half of the headline. Stop blaming celebrity endorsements for Kamala Harris loss. Blame a million other things. Blame the way the campaign was run, the way that they use their money, how long she had, the administration she was coming out of. There are like a million other things to blame before that. But we need to hear from artists now more than ever.
I mean, obviously, Variety is a Hollywood publication, That's what it does, so they're gonna it's in Variety's interest to protect me artists because that's who they cover. But I don't know if we need to hear from artists now more than ever. I think that what this election has proven is that the celebrity endorsement does not help. Again, Kamala Harris had Taylor Swift, the biggest artist in the world, endorsing her she lost in a landslide. It does not help,
and I don't think it helps celebrities themselves. I don't what career benefit are you getting out of this.
If I could rewrite the headline for Variety, and Lord knows they need help, I would say, don't blame celebrities for this. There is zero blame. And George Clooney, you're up there, man. You have no blame, no culpability in this. We need to hear and see your art. Yes, more than ever, art needs to be created the theater, music, comedy. We've never This goes back to summizing this entire thing and how we started this. We've never needed your art more.
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, John Stewart, we want you to promote Perry Beyonce, Oprah. We've never needed your talents more this country. One of the things we're known for, and you actually brought this up the other day, of the shining beacons on the Hill of America is Hollywood movies. Everywhere I've traveled around the world with the Bachelor Bacherette, we kind of represent that right with they think, oh Hollywood, Hollywood's here. It's no matter where you go. John Wayne
was huge. People still talk about him. Cline Eastwood, our movie stars are huge, Tom Cruise, and I mean that's why our movies are massive in China, they're massive in Russia. We are the arts of the world. And Variety came so close to writing a good article. But that is what I would have taken. That is, we've never needed your talents and your art more. Go back on stage, go back. We don't need you to rail against half the country. We don't need you to rail against the president.
And I'm not saying shut up and dribble, shut up and seeing. I respect your opinions, I respect your feelings, but at the same time, go kick ass at what you do, and we love you for that.
What you're talking about is something we learned in journalist school, which is show, don't tell show the story, don't tell people how to feel. And I think it applies to journalism and it applies to movies, film, TV music. Quote from this headline. We need to hear from artists now more than ever. I think we need to hear from them with their art. That's what you're saying. It's I think what this has proven is people don't feel people
will feel so much from a Beyonce song. They did not feel so much from Beyonce standing on that stage for Kamala Harris and telling them because they know, at the end of the day, this is someone who's a multi millionaire, who's living a totally different life than me. And it applies, and you can be powerful and you can affect change with your art, with your music. In all those ways.
Times of great strife and oppression and anger and war have always well, it's always created the best art. Some of the best art came out of the World War two era, the like you think of like the artists and the people, the great art of Europe and all that. A lot of that came from that time. And it's always been like that. Look at the great music that came out of the rebellion and civil rights and the hippie era and all that. So much great music that
kids are still singing today. They may not know what it stands for, but great music comes on right and you think, oh man, this is so write music. Taylor Swift writes the greatest breakup songs ever. Her greatest gift has been picking the wrong guy and writing music about it. That's her brilliance, right, write about this, Go make a great song and let us listen to it, and let us empathize and sympathize with you through your art. And again I'm not saying don't ever speak your mind.
Well, Hollywood wasn't always like this, right, it used to be. It wasn't that long ago that. Like when Michael Moore got up and I forget which awards show and he critiqued Bush, people were booing him from the audience and people were like, this isn't what our awards shows are about, and it's gotten.
So now if you don't do.
That, if you don't do that, then you're messing up your silence is definitely and I think we've had enough awards shows and ratings and all that to prove that is not what people at home want. They want to escape with this or they want to feel thought provoked, but like able to sit and discuss those thoughts, not to be told how to take the arts, not to be told how to feel. And like I said, that's a phrase from journalism show don't tell. I think it's
the same with the media. I think that right now the media needs to take a step back, ask what their audience wants, not what they want to tell their audience. And I think that media personalities have gotten kind of on that level of like movie stars and singers and stuff, in terms of their disconnection from their audience. This week on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough starts talking about the results and
they're talking about this thing. It's like he can't believe that people voted in part because of how expensive groceries are. And his wife, who co hosts a show with him, I always say.
Her name on it, don't make it present. I don't know if they're still together.
Oh I thought they were. I don't be wrong.
Yeah, okay, I know they were married at one time. I don't know if they still are.
But but she goes, well, butter costs seven dollars right now, and he goes what he goes, what is it made of gold? And I'm like, dude, you just outed yourself. You don't even You're sitting here talking about how you can't believe people voted based on groceries and you don't know how much the groceries costs. Like, do their research, do the work, Be in touch with your audience, know your audience and what they want. That is part of your job. If you want people to tune into you,
then be in touch with them. And I think that media personalities have gotten so overpaid and out of touch clearly that that's part of the problem. Yeah, so in authenticity, a lack of connection to your audience, a lack of trust. I mean, we were talking about how Rogan and Vaughn were saying that Kamala Harris's team wanted editing power and they wouldn't give it. I go back to that CBS
sixty minutes interview. I would have loved to see CBS interview Trump as well, and I would have loved for CBS to air both interviews unedited or as we all wanted them to do. After the controversy about the Harris interview and how it was edited came out, drop the
full transcript. This election has also clearly changed the game on when you have podcasters doing three hour interviews with presidential candidates, the media is going to have to step up the game their game with that and be authentic.
You know, it makes me think of call her Daddy. Was that edited and who had the editing rights over that? And all of all the things she did. Uh. There is a lot to learn and take from this, but again I'll urge I'll start with the late night guys. Go on the show tonight and be funny. Go do you you guys are good? You got you got the job for a reason years ago? Remember that, Remember how funny you used to be? The bits on Kimmel that I had a part of many of those.
And then remember when SNL years ago did a they did a bit like the Whole Sketch where they mocked the debate, but they had they were in personing both Trump and Clinton. I remember that being really funny.
I merry and we watched, like many people, we watched Saturday Night Live, and I'm like, oh, you know, Bill Burr was on, and I think he's really funny. He's pretty clever. He tried to go both sides. I think he's pretty you know, down the middle with his comedy. But I was watching and I was like, okay again, like the weekend update, like this is going to be funny, Like this again, there's the low hanging fruit is just there. The writers can just have so much fun with this
and we can all laugh. Oh, and it just missed so poorly. Go back to doing what you do.
So well, making fun of everybody, making fun.
Of everybody, and be funny and be talented and show your art off and be authentic. Be authentic.
If anyone is looking for some new media sources to follow, I will say I've used Twitter quite a lot just following the news on the selection, the selection cycle, probably more than anything. One person I've found is Mark Halprin. He was I think on ABC at ABC and maybe at time for a long time. He's now launched his own thing, but he was the first person to break
the news that Biden was stepping down. So he's deeply sourced in Washington, and I always felt like he was as I was watching him, I felt like he was giving pretty middle of the road, like solid old school type of reporting. So just to shout out to Mark Calburn because I thought he did a really good job covering it.
You know, I listen to Breaking Points as well. I think they do a good job. They kind of go back and forth, they have really good interviews, and they really cover both sides.
Oh yeah, but we both like that podcast.
It's just good. There's media out there, and again I think that's the big problem is even on election night when we saw such drastic numbers. I actually had the numbers. I never really got into how big of a fall it was, but it was really a drastic turn of events. According to Nielsen, there was How crazy is this? There's forty two million people overall watching the election?
Does this mean broadcasting the cable network was broadcasting cable.
That's down from fifty seven million who watched in twenty twenty. That is down from seventy one million that watched in twenty sixteen. Wow, that is thirty million, almost thirty million viewers. You've lost, and a lot of that can be attributed to the decline of TV in general, terrestrial TV. But there's other options like you and I like, we listen to other people now.
Well, no, I think that's exactly it. I don't think those numbers being down as a reflection of people not caring about the election.
Yeah. I think to the contrary, more people care and more people are seeking out voices that they want to listen to or can listen to and feel like they're getting news.
And if I can actually even specify when you said a little more, to be clear, I don't think it's that people are seeking out like alternate voices for different opinions. I think it's alternate sources and they're looking for more of what they can trust. That's just my gut on what it is. I think those numbers being down as a reflection of I don't trust the TV media anymore
and they're seeking their news out elsewhere. Now, I will say a lot of the Twitter news like it's sort of dependent on big media because a lot of you got to find it well well, I mean a lot of Twitter news and coverage is like accounts that pull little clips from CNN or MSNBC or whatever, and then that spurs discussion. Then they add on reportings. So it's almost like the new media needs the old media to
have something to talk about a little bit. But I do think those numbers being down as reflective of people using podcasts, using Twitter, using newsletters for other forms of coverage.
Yes, it was fascinating. It was fascinating to see all this play out of the last week, even since we talked about it the first time.
Well, I'm predicting. I think we're going to see some layoffs in media because those numbers are way down and you can always rely on an election for numbers to be up. Well, now, yeah, my prediction would be we see some layoffs happening.
This is their super Bowl, this is this is the new super Bowl. Yeah, your super Bowl is over now for another I mean two years. You have you have the midterms. That's not that's like the playoffs. You know, the election of the President of the United States is the super Bowl for news and you lost. Right, that was a big l You'd have to look at it as far as advertisers go, money raise, getting the key
demographics in it was a big failure. And if you are not as a news director and a president of a network reorganizing, rethinking, figuring out how we can adjust course to the wins of change, you're going to be obsolete. The late night shows, you are almost already obsolete. You got a course correct here, Try something different because what's going on is not working. And I want these people to succeed. I'm a big fan of a rising tide lifts all boats. I want Jimmy Kimmel to succeed. I
don't dislike Jimmy. I don't just I've never met Kobeir. I'm sure he's fine, but I you know, I like it when TV people succeed, because then we all succeed in this business and more people give money to advertisers, et cetera. So I don't root against any of these people. Same thing for the news industry. I want my friends in the news industry to succeed. But gosh, you got to do better. You can't keep you know, it's that old definition of insanity. You can't keep doing the same
thing and expect to different results. And we've been doing the same thing now for the better part of a decade and we're getting the same result, and that result is not good. So let's change. Let's be authentic, and let's find our voices and find our talent again, because it's out there and that's what we're yearning for. Thank you for listening, Thank you for being here. We'll do it again next time because we have a lot more
to talk about. Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.