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- [00:00]
A
Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the In Good Faith podcast. I'm your host, Philip DeFranco. And you know, each week I talk to the most important people in the world about politics, finance, the news and the state of America. And my guest today is Terry Moran. You may remember having seen him on the nightly news for over 20 years and. Or you might also remember him from the infamous Stephen Miller tweet where he said that Stephen was a world class hater who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred and that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate with him now out of the mainstream, and he's writing.
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B
His own wonderful substack.
- [00:32]
A
And today we discuss the autocratic takeover of America, the military occupation of American cities, the crackdown on the free press, what it's like going solo parenting. And obviously the most important question. It's caused quite a stir in recent ketchup on hot dogs. It's one of my favorite episodes yet. I really hope you enjoy it as.
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B
Much as I did.
- [00:50]
A
And if you haven't already, please follow the podcast to see or hear more. Give us five stars and leave a comment.
- [00:55]
B
Enjoy. So, Terry, a question that has all of a sudden popped up. I didn't expect it to have as big of a reaction as it's had online, but you grew up in Chicago. A few weeks ago, President Obama fully comes out against ketchup, at the very least on a hot dog, maybe. In general last week I have Governor Pritzker on. He says, you absolutely do not put ketchup on a hot dog. I don't. I go mustard. But the reception to those statements, and it seems very much so from non Chicagoans, has been anarchy, chaos, anger. And so I want to know, do you stick with your Chicago brethren here on Catch up or not?
- [01:35]
C
I go both ways, actually. And I do think, look, I grew up. I grew up. I was born in Chicago, grew up outside of Chicago. My dad was a Southsider. My mom was a North Sider. My dad a White Sox fan. My mom Cubs fan. My dad, mustard, relish. My mom, ketchup, celery, salt. So I, you know, I had the full range of things. And I will say this, Obama's a transplant Chicagoan, right? I kind of think he, he's putting it on a little bit now. People are very militant about it. But when I was growing up there, it was more of a, excuse me, it was more of a, you know, a tradition. Now it's like a badge of being Chicago. I think it's a bit of a put on. I was at a Cubs game a couple of weeks ago with my son. They won, which is, you know, too rare these days. And, you know, I had my hot dog. They don't do celery salt anymore, which was a Chicago thing. But the guy next to me, clearly Chicago, he's a Cubs fan. He came in with like three hot dogs, ketchup all over him. And I was like, no, that's a Chicagoan. I mean, you know, it's not a commandment. It's a tradition. It's a good one. I like them both.
- [02:39]
B
Okay. I mean, I think you might get. You might get some of the. I don't know if it's. It's not the equivalent of, like, I like the Yankees and Mets guy. Like, it's not that guy.
- [02:48]
C
But growing up in a mixed marriage, right, with my dad, the White Sox fan, my mom, the Cubs fan. They had 10 kids, right? Seven boys, three girls. So whoever was good when you were like 8, 9, 10 years old, that was your team. So I've got brothers who are hardcore White Sox fan. When the Cubs won in 2016, I'm balling, right? I'm thinking of my mom, who would take me down to the games, and one of my brothers said, yeah, okay, it's good we won.
- [03:14]
B
Yeah. I'm originally from the Bronx. We were big Yankees fans growing up. Easiest time to be a baseball fan there. And now as an adult, I'm like, you know what? I'm only. Although the jets prepped me, I like rooting for people that are. That are losers. I like rooting for losers. That team, I don't know if they'll ever dig themselves out. So I've become a Chargers fan from being in LA for the last 15 years and the team moving there. But, yeah, I don't. I don't know. It's. It's an interesting thing. But I. I do want to talk a little bit about a more serious thing. I was. I was on your substack recently, and I saw that you actually went down to D.C. although I guess you're just an hour out of Washington.
- [03:55]
C
Yeah. I spent 20 years of my life living in the city itself, and so that was something I was able to. To do. And I was. As soon as the takeover happened, I was like, what's it like there?
- [04:05]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, you. You play the clip several times, VP Van saying, talk to the residents. And seemingly you were like, okay, let's do it. Let's go out there. And you Know, you talk to a variety of people, and they actually did have different experiences based off of. Because, you know, like a lot of places, even though when you're outside of it, it's usually cast as just one thing. Just. It could be sometimes a few blocks, half a mile, very, very different situation. I wanted to ask you, going there, what was. What was something or the things that stood out most with your conversations with the people that were living there.
- [04:39]
C
You know, it's interesting. The most important thing is the city has changed. It's different when federal troops come to your city, and they probably will. If you're in a big city in the United States, it looks like that is the program of this administration going forward. If you're in Los Angeles, you've seen it. It changes things, right? It changes things most for people who are Latino, right? Whether they're here, third, fifth generation in Los Angeles, they may predate the United States, their family, or whether you're here undocumented, obviously, your life has been changed, but for everyone, really now in different ways. I talk to people in the southeast part of the. Of the city, which has been a great historically black neighborhood, one of the great black neighborhoods in America, Anacostia, and really struggled with crime over the years. And, you know, the guy I talked to is one of the community leaders there. He runs. He's the operating officer for the Anacostia Community Council. He said, you know, we welcome people getting arrested who had outstanding warrants for guns or violent crimes. And the feds have helped with that. Now, federal government could have helped by not cutting D.C. s budget by a billion dollars so that they could hire more cops because they are understaffed on the police, on the department in other neighborhoods where they've had crime issues. But they've gone down, as the statistics show. It's a different feeling. It's like, why are these troops on my street? I talked to a woman whose mom is Vietnamese, her dad American, and she's concerned about getting stopped at a checkpoint. She's concerned about her parents in their 80s now, dad struggling with dementia, coming in from across the river in Virginia. And what if they get stopped at a checkpoint? They get flustered. Her mom's Vietnamese. She comfortable. She said, why am I thinking these thoughts? It changes the landscape. It changes the feel of the city. And the question is, is this the way. Is this the way to do it? Is this the way to solve the problems that D.C. has? And is it the way to solve the problems any city has? Because, as I say, this is likely Coming to a city near you, this is clearly the Trump program.
- [06:48]
B
Well, I think that was always really interesting is one of the gentlemen in your video was like, here's the thing. There is crime. Like, there is crime. We. To your point, it's. It's more of a matter of, like, how we're doing it, what it looks like specifically on the streets. I've seen some reporting about where. Where things are being implemented, whether it be checkpoints or people going through the streets, the visuals versus where the crime actually is. And that's been. That's been really interesting because I think one thing that I try and talk about is like, okay, there's sometimes an extra focus on specifically murders, whether it be the total number or per capita, and then violent crimes in general. And the big point of contention, or I think where people keep missing it is, or not seeing eye to eye, rather, is, hey, well, crime's going down, right? But also, there's still crime, right? It still needs to be handled. What do we. And I feel like that's where a lot of people aren't meeting. Do you find that to be true, whether it be the people that are there or just generally speaking?
- [07:54]
C
Yeah, less with the. With the residents than. Than in the country at large, because we live in a country now where every single issue gets filtered through our polarized kind of argument. And it's way up here, whereas life feels very, very different. And talking to several people, you know, you did get a sense that crime is down, but crime is still a real problem in D.C. especially in certain neighborhoods. Let me just give you the comparison. Right. So in New York City, which is a city of just under 9 million people, they had through the end of May about 112 murders. That's exceptionally low for New York. D.C. over the same period had about 106. And it's a city of 700,000. D.C. has a crime problem now. It's down 30% from a couple of years ago. But it was crazy. You know, I was living. I moved here right after the pandemic, and it was. It felt like something had snapped in the city. The crime was crazy. You know, I was living In a Northwest D.C. professional, overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood, and there's not much crime there at all. And there was somebody stabbed to death in front of the target a block from or so from my house. It was like, you know, the pandemic cooped everybody up. It kept kids out of school. It screwed up people's brains a lot. Gang activity increased a lot more carjackings and so that has decreased, but D.C. still has 100 plus murders with 700,000 people, and New York has 100 plus murders with 9 million. That's a crime problem.
- [09:35]
B
Yeah. And it does feel like a lot of it is. And maybe more of the conversation should be focused on rather than get kind of getting kind of stuck in the weeds regarding is there a crime problem or not? Is the how to deal with it. Right. Which was something that that gentleman hit on. And I mean, I'm even seeing new polling this morning that 81% of Americans think that crime is a major problem in large cities. Which what I love though about the statistics is perception of places and then perception of your own. Right. So it's like this Polling found that 81% think that crime is a major problem in large cities, 20% in small towns or rural areas, 66% in the United States in general. But when it comes to your own community, I mean, you've done this for so long, where do you think the number might land if you haven't seen this?
- [10:23]
C
You know, I'm gonna. Is crime a problem in my community? I'm gonna say it's about a third, 24%.
- [10:29]
B
Right. So drought, but so drastically lower than the United States in general, large cities. And it makes me then want to go, I end up being a data nerd. I want to see where fully the sources is. This just came out, I want to say like 20 minutes before we started talking, but it's so fascinating. And as someone that's been in the news space for so long, I mean, what are your thoughts regarding, like in the media, what we do as far as the perception of what's happening in our country? Because there's our lived experience. Right. Our community. And then there's just like the other world that's out there, but is closer than ever because of social media these days.
- [11:06]
C
Yeah, that's a great point. Really long before social media, if it bleeds, it leads. Right? That was how you got eyeballs. That was how you got ratings in local news, but increasingly in national news. I was at ABC News for 27 plus years and you could feel the shift as we chased a declining audience. And part of it was, you know, if there was a, if there was a. If there's crime, that was dramatic, especially if there was video, you know, it got pretty high up in the news agenda. It's a big world, there's a lot of news out there. But if you've got a good crime story, look at the, look at the true crime Industry. Right. People are interested in crime for good reason, certainly in local news, because you want to know, you know, what's happening around you. It's about, it's about self protection. And in national news you kind of want to or true crime, you kind of want to know what went wrong over there. And doesn't compare with anything in my life. So it's a self protective instinct that gets fed upon by the media because you know you'll get eyeballs and eyeballs will watch a crime story. So does that overestimate crime? Well, you know, if, if you feel unsafe in your city or in your neighborhood particularly, I think that's one of the distinctions we're seeing. People tend to believe the best about their neighborhood because they're proud of it or they enjoy it. With few exceptions, the majority of people feel that way. But then they look around the city and they'll say, well, that part's not safe. I don't know those people, you know, big cities are like that. But you want to make sure that you're safe. And if you don't feel safe, you know, as one gentleman said to me who I talked to, he said, if the murders in your neighborhood go down from 10 murders to 8 murders, that is no reason to have a party. You are still like not feeling good about that. So I think the media plays a role, but it is a real problem. And the other thing this guy said, and he's, and he's in this piece that I, that I published on Substack, he said he appreciated federal government, you know, helping outstanding warrants, getting bad guys off the streets. But where are they when it comes to the flow of guns into D.C. and other cities? He says we don't have any gun stores in Washington D.C. all these guns, he said, are coming from red states, from Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia is kind of a purple state, but from, certainly from North Carolina and from Georgia, West Virginia. And he said these, these gun shows and even flea markets, almost informal exchanges of guns. The sellers know that the people who are, who are buying guns in bulk are going to drive them up to the nearest cities to Washington and Baltimore. He said that's a federal responsibility. Where are they? And so there are a lot of ways to address the problem. The problem's real. You don't feel safe. That's no good. You will demand action and you deserve action. It's the United States of America. But let's face fact, one of the reasons, look what happened in Minneapolis yesterday. One of the reasons that we had on Sunday I should say yesterday, one of the reasons we have such unsafe cities is the enormous amount of weaponry available to criminals, to crazy people, to angry people, to depressed people. It's out of control and we don't want to face that, really. We've just given up on that. So it's a hard problem, but there's certainly a role for the media to play. Except when you've got those flashing lights on your local news and somebody who was an eyewitness, you know, a heartbroken victim, you've got a story that people are going to watch and that is part of the main diet of local news. Certainly.
- [14:45]
B
Do you feel like there is a focus on, well, what can we do locally about guns? Because there's kind of a, an understanding at this point that no matter how horrific the specific incident is that Congress just will not act, that whether it be the voting base or the lobbying situation, that it's just Congress and, and it's because it's not even this specific administration, but just Congress and the presidency that just. They're not going to do it. Because it might be unpopular with half the country.
- [15:17]
C
Yeah, or less than half. I mean, certainly Republican Party is a block against any kind of gun regulation, although there have been talks certainly about mental health and guns. And that is really the key part when you think of something like, like Minneapolis, how did that person get that kind of weaponry? Something is going wrong in a system when that happens. But there's, there's, there's more than that. It's the Supreme Court. Right. Supreme Court has closed the door to M.O. most regulation by localities and states of guns. In D.C. versus Heller, you know, which came out what now? More than 10 years ago, much more than 10 years ago, the court decided that the Second Amendment is an individual right to bear arms. And I think that that sounds right to me. The subordinate clause, a well regulated militia being necessary to the safety of the republic or whatever is descriptive. The right of the people to bear arms is part of the Constitution. But does that mean it's absolute? You don't have an absolute right to free speech. You don't have an absolute right to all kinds of things. And that was the historic understanding. A lot of place cities in Texas banned guns in the state of Texas, in the state of Oklahoma, when back in the 1880s and 1890s, when they had gun problems in those cities, when they had murder problems in Dodge City and other places in Wichita, there were ordinances on the books that you could not have a weapon in those cities. The history of Gun ownership and gun regulation in America is much more complex than the cartoon version you get from the Supreme Court and from gun absolutists. There was just, there was more flexibility, more grease in the gears, more practicality. Right now we have ideologues in every level of government, and that makes actual governing under the Constitution much more difficult than our forefathers and foremothers found. They were able to do things that we aren't today because everybody looks at things in either or black or white. That's actually not the way we've lived over the course of our country's history. Under the Constitution, it was a more flexible document than today.
- [17:28]
B
Yeah. I mean, when you bring up the Supreme Court, it does make me immediately think, well, the Supreme Court and the First Amendment then pops into my mind with the flag burning executive order from Trump. I mean, right now, I mean, you've been, you've been doing this a while. You've been seeing things change. You've been seeing the Supreme Court change drastically over your career. I mean, it seems pretty obvious that the goal here is to get this to go to the Supreme Court. Do you think that where the Supreme Court is now that we are going to see a changing of the understanding of what the First Amendment is in.
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C
America when it comes to flag burning? I doubt it, actually. It is.
- [18:06]
B
Really?
- [18:07]
C
Yeah. Because there's a libertarian streak in people like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Roberts. You know, I don't think they're going to overturn a decision. They might, though. They might. Because I think here's the way I look at the Supreme Court on all these things. Look, Trump is pushing the envelope, to say the least. I would say we have to open our eyes and see what's actually happening. He is trying to overcome the Constitution's restraints on presidential power and trying to change the nature of the government we have. I don't think there's any question about that. And a lot of those things are being challenged. The Supreme Court is standing aside. Why they haven't approved them. At this point, I think he will lose some court battles, but it's clear they don't want this fight. So the greatest thing that the court ever did, the greatest thing American lawyers ever did, was Brown versus Board of Education. When the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in 1954 saying separate but equal education for our nation's children is unconstitutional, we aren't that country. Our founding document says it's unconstitutional. Now, who did that on that court was a former governor of California, three former United States Senators, a former representative in the state legislature of Kentucky, a former head of one of the most powerful agencies in the government, the Sec. Two former attorneys general, and one of the leading public intellectuals in the country. They were men. They were all men of state. They had practical understanding. Sorry, they had practical understanding of, of government, of politics. And they met the moment under the Constitution with that understanding. And they did the greatest thing that the court has ever done. They were practical people. The last person on the Supreme Court who had actually run for office was Sandra Day o'. Connor. She had been a state legislator and had actually also run for the Supreme Court in, in Arizona, which is an elective office, and, and won. And that gave her a real tangible understanding of power and how it works. After she retired, the year after she retired, the Supreme Court handed down Citizens United, which said money is speech and you can't really regulate it in politics. She said she would have voted the other way because she had run for office and she knew that money wasn't speech, money was money. And it's that kind of common sense understanding of how history works, of how the Constitution works in the real life in government, that this court, which is made up entirely of federal lawyers, federal appellate lawyers, they have a little bit of courtroom experience. Basically they're all Ivy League except for Amy Coney Barrett, who's Notre Dame. They're all the front row kids, as somebody once said, and their actual grasp of how power is exercised, of how it's checked, of how the Constitution actually works. You think of somebody like Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was governor of California, he knows it. He knew how it felt to have that responsibility. This court shies away from it because they can't meet this moment, which is an exceptional historical moment with the kind of hands on experience that I believe it requires in their judging under the Constitution. And so they're ducking it and they're being a small bore as possible because that's who they are.
- [21:29]
B
Damn. Well, I mean, yeah, I, I mean, I guess connected to that. Do you see what we're, we're dealing with right now from this administration? As, I mean, I know Bill Maher mentioned it a long time ago, kind of this slow roll coup, this authoritarian power grab. Is. Is that what it is or do you think that's taking it too far?
- [21:49]
C
That.
- [21:49]
B
Are we even past that question?
- [21:50]
C
Yeah, that's what it is, Joe. I, I do think the fundamental challenge for every American right now is to look at what's happening and name it. Okay, I, I've Covered. I've been in 86 countries around the world. I, I've, I've seen countries slip into autocracy in the Balkans, in Hungary, in Poland, in Russia. First time I visited Russia was. First time as a reporter was in 1998, 99. And I've been there probably 12, 15 times since then. And you can, you could feel that Putin was the author of all this. One of the most important facts to remember in the 21st century is that Vladimir Putin was a lawyer. He doesn't need the thugs in the basement of the, of the Gulag, right? He can do it with law and twisting the meaning of law and bringing the force of whatever power he's got through that misapplication or twisting of the law to look like what he's doing is normal. And the walls closed in. I could feel it in my colleagues and friends in Russia that they, they started being worried for me that I would speak out, that I would get in an argument, and they certainly didn't. If certain people were around Poland, the same thing, you, you, you get. Your life gets smaller is what one of my Polish friends said to me. When a, When a government that is autocratic takes over. I mean, look at how Trump brings the hammer of federal power down on anyone he doesn't like, on any institution who displeases him. You tell me what that is. I think that's somebody who wants to be the strongman, right? Not under the Constitution, but beyond the boundaries of the Constitution. What president ever thought of going after news media, universities, law firms, demanding they do personal work for him if they don't get their ship in order? As he sees it, what we're seeing is no question what other countries have seen a lot. What our founding fathers predicted would happen, that a great strong man would. Not great in the good sense, but great in the power sense. Right. Trump is the most dominant figure of our age around the world. Don't underestimate him. He is a world historical figure, and he is the man that we were warned about by the founders that democracies fall. When a man who can captivate the populace wants to exercise the power that's there in the government, and that is what we're watching.
- [24:20]
B
Well, when you mention that, as far as his competency, I mean, he seems more of, like the energy and this bulk thing, and it feels. I mean, I know you have a history, we'll call it, with Stephen Miller. I mean, is. Is Stephen Miller in your eyes? Maybe the one that's actually running the country is. I mean, because when I, when I see a lot of what's happening, I just think a lot of this is his, his baby, his playbook.
- [24:48]
C
I think you're absolutely right. Like, Stephen Miller is both, as I said, a world class hater. Something that I said as a reporter. I mean, it seemed to me that that is name the thing in front of you, right? That's your job as a journalist, it's your job as a citizen. And so I thought that was fair, accurate and true. ABC disagreed and here we are. But more important, of course, he's the brains. As I said in that tweet, I said he's the brains. He translates Trump's impulses into policy. Trump is a man with an impulsive. Is he smart? I kind of always thought there's many ways of being a smart human being as there are human beings, Right. And what he does is he's able to project his desires, his plans, his vision for the country through his own personality. And with people like Stephen Miller, who can translate that vision, that, that instinct he's got of the kind of America he wants to rule into policy. Russell Vogt at the Office of Management and Budget, the director of Office of Management and Budget who was very instrumental in Putting Together Project 2025. That is a crackerjack piece of work. I mean, that is, I think it's a dangerous piece of work. I think we're living that danger. But if you look at Project 2025, and I wish I had more before the election, I took a look at like the, a couple of things, but I didn't read it cover to cover, every crack, every crevice, every crease in every law that might have granted from Congress a little power to the President. They've blown open. They've blown open and asserted maximal authority through what Congress never expected in terms of emergency declarations, in terms of immigration law, in terms of foreign policy, all kinds of things. And they're expert at that's what those are. The orders that he's signing were they were ready to go. And as a result, you have an extremely efficient Trumpism. Trump won, at the end of the day, wasn't that big of a deal in terms of the history of the presidency. I mean, he's a dominant political figure. He's the dominant political figure of our time, that we live in the age of Trump politically. But as president in his first term, there are too many people who stopped him from doing what he wanted to do, and not enough to say, okay, I get it, boss, here's how we twist this law to let you. To do it, to let you do it. So now from the jump, they had the plan and they are executing on that plan. And I think people don't want to look at it. They don't want to think it's happening here. The rest of the world looks at us and they say, oh, that's happening to them now. And they're heartbroken because they didn't think it would.
- [27:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's a mixture of that. I think there's a lot of. Well, either I have so much going on in my life, I want to focus on that, or I have to focus on that as well as. Yeah, to your point, people. Well, actually, so three things as well as people going, you know, what else can I do? People, people that have, you know, they saw Project 2025, they were shouting it from the rooftops. And people going, you're being crazy. Even to the point of. Now he's like, a lot of people are saying they actually might want a dictator. That's. I mean, he's hit on these notes before, but it's just normalizing it. And then I end up in conversations. I don't. I don't know the people that you find yourself around. I try to be around a lot of diverse thinkers these days, even if I don't understand where they're coming from, that will say, you know what, maybe we do need that hammer, the period of a decade to break stuff. Strong man put it all together. And I'm like, but the problem with that is who is in that position? And goes, well, I'm out. I'm out after 10 years. I mean, that's just one of the problems. The fact that it even gets to that place is horrifying. But do you. Do you find yourself through talking to people, interviewing people? Are you finding people are wanting a strong man?
- [28:35]
C
That's a really good characterization of how people are. My own feeling about where we are politically is that the best kept secret in American life today is that most people are still normal, meaning they aren't obsessing about politics. They're getting along with their lives. They take a look at it when they need to. They inform themselves as they need to. And I do think, look, one of the blessings of living here in Frederick, Maryland, I'm closer to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania than I am to downtown D.C. and one of the blessings is that I went from a place in Northwest D.C. there was probably 92% Democratic registration. Right. And here it's a much more purple about 55, 45 Democratic Republicans. So a lot of my neighbors and the parents of my kids who I see at the games and everything are very. Are Trump supporters. And some of them quite enthusiastically. I walk down to the bus stop, and there's a fellow down there. Very, very much so. And one of the gratifying things, when I got fired by abc, several of those people. My neighbor right next door comes running. He comes running across. He says, terry, I just wanted to let you know I'm a, I'm a Trump supporter. And I was like, yeah, Sean, I didn't know from the sign on your lawn, but. And he said, I think what happened to you is wrong. I don't agree with what you said, but shouldn't get fired for it. And there's much more nuance in the way people live politics. Right? 130, 150 million people vote in this country, and there's much more nuance in how they go about making their decisions. And yes, I know people who think, you know, the country needs some of this. It was out of control. I think Covid broke and how the government responded to Covid broke people in deep, deep ways. Too much lockdown, too. That's one of the reasons we're out here. My kids were out of school for almost a year and a half. You know, people. I mean, I'll just. A quick digression on that. At the beginning of COVID I talked to a guy who was active in the HIV AIDS prevention epidemic back in the 80s, right? In the early 80s when I was alive. And it was a scary thing to be a young person at that time, because the aides were stalking, you know, nightclubs and all the kinds of places the kids hang out. And, you know, he was leading efforts in San Francisco to do that. And he said to me, when Covid hit, he said, the lesson we learned, don't lecture people, don't judge people, don't talk down to them, don't force them, empower them to make the right decision. And he said, you know, they'd stand outside the nightclubs and the bath houses with little literature and a condom and say, you know, you might want to take a look at this. And our public health authorities and our media and a lot of the major institutions of this country took the exact opposite approach, judging people, condemning people, closing schools forever. Right? I mean, it was. And part of what Trumpism is, is a reaction to. So people did get broken by it, didn't trust the establishment. Covid is one of the reasons that that happened. But are they signing on entirely for the end of our constitutional governance as we know it? I am confident that is not the case. And they will make pragmatic decisions to change things if they feel that the direction Trump is going in doesn't work for them. Americans aren't ideologues. We're pragmatists. And I think at the end of the day, for all Trump's boasts, if there's inflation, if people don't feel right, look at what happened with the immigration numbers. So for most of my life, when Gallup, which has been asking the question for more than 50 years, asked the question, do you think immigration in America is about right? Or we could use more immigration or less. Mostly it was about right or more. 65, 70% in the last five years, it went down to where it was about 60%. Too much immigration right now, since Trump has been inaugurated, that's switched again. Is that because people have changed their mind about how many people are in this country? No, it's because of what they're seeing. The shocking videos of people being snatched off streets, mothers being snatched from their kids, in courthouses where they're all in the Sunday best to get themselves right with the law, and they get snatched like that. What Americans are saying in this complete rapid flip is that's not who we are. And I'm not going along with that. And I think there's common sense in that.
- [33:13]
B
I agree to a certain point. I do think that. I mean, something I've said to the past few guests is I really think for anything to change, people are not only going to need to see pain, but feel it themselves. I feel like that's the only way that you experience any sort of meaningful change over the years. Just because we become so hard, hard locked into our opinions and our takes and what we've seen especially kind of blow up since COVID is the community around a number of things, whether it be pushing against a system or not, especially because, I don't know, I still wonder if there is without the pain, let's say, if Trump's approval rating can drop below 37, 34%. If. Seems locked in. It feels like there is that, that. That rock there. Do you not. Do you not see that right now, or do you think that that will continue to erode? There is. There is something that would.
- [34:08]
C
I think you're right. This is the most powerful, the most, the most astonishing political movement, certainly, of my lifetime, I think, in the history of the country, about 30, about a third, maybe a little bit more sounds about right. 35, 37% of Americans, tens of millions will follow Donald Trump to the end. Now that is a minority. And that's one of the reasons you see him paying so much attention to elections and how elections should be done, because that's what autocrats do. You know, they, they tend to try to get the elections to come out their way and use legal means once again that, that slippery 21st century legalisms to do it. But I think you're right, I don't, I think, I think that Trump will go to his grave whenever that may be, with tens of millions of people thinking, that was the greatest American of my lifetime, the greatest American ever. And that is a political force to be reckoned with, no matter what happens.
- [35:11]
B
Something I want to jump back to, it's the ABC Stephen Miller of it all. I do want to add to your quote of world class hater, because the world class hater is what I remembered. But then when I was looking for the specifics, I was like, oh, you also said, quote, he's richly endowed with the capacity for hatred and that his, quote, hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate. Which, what a beautiful sentence. But. So you put that out there.
- [35:40]
C
I did.
- [35:41]
B
Is there a thought of, well, this is going to put my job at risk or like. Because at this point you see the landscape changing, you know, your day to day experience, which I don't, people outside don't know, like, did you expect that there would be some, some repercussion or it was to hell with it. Like, is that the mindset?
- [36:01]
C
No, it wasn't to hell with it. I didn't think I'd lose my job. I wouldn't have done it. But I did think I'd get in trouble and good trouble. And I, you can ask my colleagues at abc. I had a reputation inside ABC for many, many, for most of my career of challenging what we were doing, of trying to get often. And I think this did come out in the press. I was one of the voices to say we aren't being fair to the Trump side. Said that a lot. I was one of the people who said In January of 2024, Biden's too old, everybody can see it, we need to cover this. And I got shot down, right. I said it on the air at one point, but I got shot down. So I had kind of a trouble. And I had been suspended several times for tweets. Okay, Several times I'd been suspended. When I did get fired, I called the former President of ABC News, who's a friend and colleague and was my producer for a while who had to suspend me at one point. And I said, I just want to. I know that you are among the least surprised people in the world at this turn of events. Because I had a reputation as somebody who did try to push the envelope and both within the organization and outside as well. And, you know, it wasn't. Oh, the hell with it. I actually looked at the tweet before I sent it and I thought, well, that's hot. But it's true. And I thought, bang, send. And I got the call the next morning, you know, oh, you gotta take that down. You gotta take. I said, all right, all right, all right. I've been through it before. I'd been through it before where, you know, you have to take it down and the rest is history. Then they were under a lot of pressure from the White House to fire me. Actually, that decision was made in California by Disney executive. By the head of Disney. Did I expect that? No. I actually thought, yeah, I'm pushing, yeah, but I think it needed to be said. And there was this. I wouldn't have described it at the time as the straw broke the camel's back or whatever, but something had been working inside of me that day and before about Miller and the way he and the whole administration is kind of bludgeoning the country daily with a voice of cruelty, a kind of mocking, whipping, nasty demand of obedience and submission. And it offended my sense of being an American, a free American. And I wanted to call it out and describe it accurately. And I did. And I don't regret it at all. I don't regret it at all. I had a great career at abc. I loved it. I have challenges in my life now, but I'm kind of liking this new media space. But I said it, and I don't regret it at all. After they suspended me, when I saw the hitting the fan, I kind of figured, oh, well, this is it, this is it. And then really, when the. When the acts came down, I haven't looked back. I have no bitterness. None. I had a wonderful career. Dear friends, people I respect are still doing good work. I think they're. They're not meeting the moment either because I think the corporate media can't. But I said, let's go. What's next?
- [39:34]
B
So that's what I was going to ask you because I think you calling it a hot tweet pairs perfectly with. It does feel like there's not on the horizon a chilling effect we are seeing the chilling effect play out. When you say that you feel like people in the space that you've worked in aren't meeting the moment, do you see that? One, there is a chilling effect playing out. And two, do you, do you think we're at a moment where there is pushback to it that we're starting to see or it's just getting worse?
- [40:00]
C
I think that, I'm going to say that, I think that the business that I was in for all those years, network news, corporate media, legacy media, whatever you want to call it, is failing the American people. And they have corporate pressure on them and they have kind of rules what they can say and what they can't say, what they can describe and what they can't describe. The facts in front of them are eluding their coverage. And I think that they are disserving the American people. I know that there's frustration there. I know that people look at what they're doing and they're like, this is not enough. You know, they try to put it in their tone sometime as they, as they read their, their piece or they speak to camera, but they can't say the words of what's happening. And that's corporate pressure. Look, Disney, I mean, is a multi billion dollar business, right? The ABC News, a little tiny speck in that giant empire. The last thing that the head of Disney or anybody in these corporate offices wants is a problem with the President of the United States because somebody in the news division tweeted something. I mean there's, there's like, there's absolutely no, no upside to that. And so the pressure's on. Very much so.
- [41:22]
B
Do you feel like we're at a place where there is still a hunger for. I mean, the word bias gets used so much and I know that you've, you've talked about this recently of everyone has a bias. And you know, it's, it's that, that is separate from just relaying the facts. But do you, do you feel like we are at this point where the, the people that can move elections, the thing, the people that can change things, they're in a place where they, where they are looking for something that is truly unbiased and just full attribution to. Sometimes I think the detriment of like the both sides equal, which was something early on in my career I was very, very guilty of that I've, you know, really had to work through because it was one of those things of, you know, I, sometimes I think it's the idea of what Professionalism is in the industry. Obviously, if everyone likes you, you think that's better, but then later on your career, you realize that also means you're probably not saying anything that is actually a value or hits the moment. I don't know. I'd love to know your, your thoughts there.
- [42:28]
C
Well, I think that is a challenge, and I think people do hunger for that. I think once again, you get your, you get your finger where the pulse of people is, that they don't want screaming, they don't want fake news, and that's now a shibboleth, but they don't want news that is packaged into something, whether it's biased or pretending not to be biased. I think what they want is fair, fair news. They want news that doesn't come without any perspective, any values, but they'll judge whether those values are backed up by, by the facts that are, that are being, or the reality that's being reported on. And I think people know the difference between kind of a corporate pose of objectivity and something that's fair. If you take a look, I'm going to, I'm going to toot my own horn. If you take a look at this, at this report that I filed from the streets of Washington, D.C. you can get it on substack if you want. What you'll see I did my best. There are people who say, hey, this has done some real good, these, these troops and, and federal forces in D.C. and there are people say, look, I'm scared. I'm scared to go down to the corner. You get not both sides, but you get the human reality. Right. We are supposed to be reporting on what's real. And that's, as I say, the biggest challenge. If you can't say the thing that's real, which is that Trump's sending troops into Chicago or la when he really doesn't have the authority. Technically, the National Guard operates under him. But he's describing LA as an emergency because one car was lit on fire. Right. That's a pretense. That's a pretense to describe an emergency that doesn't exist. Is crime a problem in la? Sure, yes. Do you federalize it under the power of one person who really also has ulterior motives in terms of how elections are conducted there, how, how that city is governed in ways that he might not like? Yeah, that's happening. If you can't report that, if you can't describe that fairly, you're telling the whole story. But I think what people are looking for is not a Depersonalized news, frankly, what you're doing in this space, you're a trusted voice, right? I think that's what people want. You aren't a disembodied voice. You aren't AI. And so people want to get their sense of what's happening from you, because you aren't out of control one way or the other. You aren't haranguing them. You're exploring what our life is like together. You're reporting on it from who you are. That's the credibility, your authenticity. The authenticity of the voice that is bringing you the news is the credibility. And right now, you know, when I was standing in front of the camera, only allowed to say certain things, not other things, speaking it in a certain language and not the real language of people, well, that's not credible increasingly to people. So I think there's a way we can get back to a shared space. But it's gonna be voices, like as many voices, slightly different on the political spectrum. But Joe Rogan is a good example, right?
- [45:32]
B
Yeah, we're seeing a lot of back and forth in the sense of, I think, you know, I've been doing this for just under 20 years, and I've gone from just Phil or that guy Phil, Phil DeFranco that I watch over here. And then he became a trusted voice. And then I think we're more and more seeing, okay, I remember, or I saw that person in that established place, but now he's closer to me. I think that both of those are incredibly valuable. I think that's the bigger shift we're going to see, whether it be people that are in Hard News or the Colbert types or just. Just those. Those switches. And with that, I do want to. I want to ask you, because, you know, hitting on your. Your DC piece, you know, it's. It's 22 minutes. It feels. It feels close to something that was on tv. Like, the main differences, I would say, is that some moments you allowed to live longer than you might be allowed on tv for a sense of, like, we gotta hit that beat so that we can get to a commercial break or something like that. And then there was like, whatchamacallit the audio work on. It was different. Right. There'd be maybe more musical for the shifts and stuff, but it felt very like this. This blend of you finding what your Internet piece is that you're. You're okay. This is. This is Terry Moran. This is what it feels like. I mean, what is. What does that look like production wise? What compared to, like, who how many people worked on that piece? Like, who's. How does that come together compared to what you used to do?
- [47:06]
C
Yeah, it was so much fun. Thank you for that. It was so much fun to do this piece. And I did a report from Springfield, Ohio as well on the Haitian community there. I had covered it during the campaign when Trump said that they were eating pets. And I came back now that they have lost their protected status. And this one, too. You're absolutely right. One of the big differences is you. We can listen to people more. Right? I'm not, I'm not. I don't have a time frame to meet. I mean, it's not a three minute piece. It's not a six minute piece. It is. The story will be what it is. So we listen to people more and I think they were good talkers and I think they had good perspectives, so we're able to listen. And then the other thing is that I don't really, I'm not in the piece that much as far as the voice track. Right. And this person said this or we talked to this person. Just let it, let it develop itself. I think that style of news talk is gone, right? I think that's gone now. The production. Well, one of the things that, that I learned very quickly in this new media space after having been a network correspondent for more than a quarter century with producers and cameras and editors and, and, and makeup people and the whole deal, right. Is that I am incompetent. Right. It's. It's an occupational hazard to, to be put in that situation where, you know, you just sit down and somebody's like patting your eyes and there's a script and you've written it or you've edited it or whatever, and there's a teleprompter up there, whatever, or you're out in the field and there's a whole crew and a producer. The producers set up all these interviews and you spent weeks researching it and you had a packet as you flew out. You could. That's all gone, right? So that's me now. So it's me and a crew. And the crew that I work with is Steve and Ann Coughlins. And they were at ABC. They do work with ABC, their freelance crew. They're in their 70s. They've been working together, husband and wife. Steven. Ann Coughlin. Coughlin's Digital is their company. And right after I got fired, I had said, I think on the Tim Miller podcast or maybe in the New York Times or both, that I wanted to go back there. Somebody Asked me, what do you want to do? It was like a week after I got fired. Not even. And I was like, I want to go back to Springfield. I just kind of made it up. I'd been trying to sell that story at ABC News. I'd been trying to say, hey, we should go back to that Haitian community because now they've got 20,000, 15, 20,000. We've got to leave. So that's a good story. We should go back and do that. Crickets. Right? So I was able to do that. And right after I said that, well, I said, how are you going to do that? I said, I'm going to have to go hire a crew. And I got a call and it was Steve and Ann. And they said, hey, we want to, we want to go with you to Springfield and we want to donate our time and services to do it.
- [49:58]
B
Oh, wow.
- [49:59]
C
Is right. And then they said, what's our next assignment? And I said, well, I'm not going to tell you. You know, I don't want to take advantage of them. And we do have an arrangement.
- [50:10]
B
Sure.
- [50:11]
C
So, but think of that.
- [50:14]
B
That's, I think that's what's, what's driving the space is obviously the, the ability. Control. To control. But true believers. And that's not to say that there are people that are a part of mainstream news that do not. That aren't true believers. And, you know, getting the word out there and highlighting stories, I think it's, it's just, there's, it's a machine. Although here's, here's a question. I'm not going to ask you to go into specific numbers and anything like that. I mean, based off of your experience so far, substack is a completely different situation for me. I don't even know what that, that world looks like based off of your, you know, it's kind of like two, three months now experience for, for someone that's maybe getting into the space. There's a lot of like, young people that care about the news that want to get into it more and more. Do you feel like the, the money and the opportunities are there in the independent space compared to whatever the mainstream introductory salaries or world is?
- [51:10]
C
No.
- [51:10]
B
No.
- [51:11]
C
So no, the money is not the same. And that is the daunting challenge that, you know, do I wake at 2 in the morning and spiral? Sure. But it's an exhilarating challenge. Okay. And I would say this, so I'll say so. Before I got fired, about a month, two months before I got fired, I interviewed the president on 100 days. And it was a good interview. I had a blast doing it as one of the highlights of my career at abc. And it kind of went a little viral in a way that's very, very hard for ABC News to do now. Kind of went through social media and all that stuff. So I was like, oh, my contract was coming up. I could feel the company. Yeah, ABC's news, God bless them. It's a dying business, right? The average age is in the. Of the evening news watchers is like 65 or something like that. I don't know. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That's me. But so I thought, hey, maybe this. This space that you're in, right? Maybe there's a podcast. Maybe there's something that I could do. And so I called up Scott Galloway. You know him, the podcast.
- [52:13]
B
I've recently become a fan in the past few months. Yes.
- [52:15]
C
Yeah, yeah, Pivot guy. My wife actually worked for him 20 years ago at a company L2, that he owned. And I know I met him, I'd met him back then. So I said, I'll call him. I said, hey, Scott, you know, doing that. Just did this presidential thing, went a little viral. What do you think? And he said, first thing he said, he said, over the last maybe six months, a dozen or so of people who do exactly what you do, iconic names, you would recognize them all, including several from ABC News, have called and asked me the same question. Everybody's jumping ship. He said, here's the advice I'm going to give you. Start something outside of abc, maybe a little podcast or even within ABC that you could take with you, but you keep collecting that great big corporate paycheck as long as you possibly can. About a week later, I got fired. And I texted him that night. I said, well, I guess I didn't take your excellent advice. So, no, it's not the same money, but it's where the growth is now. Figuring out how that pays is going to be a challenge for everybody. Young, old, whatever. But this is where the audience, the news audience, the citizenry is increasingly coming for. For news, for information, for perspective.
- [53:32]
B
I will say I was. I was surprised that I haven't seen you jumping into the podcast space immediately, because it feels like that would be that. That seems to be the. The financial staple of, okay, so that'll. That'll support the other ventures. But is that. Is that on the. The horizon?
- [53:49]
C
It sure is. I mean, I gotta find. I mean, this isn't really. I love. This is my office I love it. But I, I'm trying to get something done in the basement right off all that. Sure, I could take your advice on all that. But also one of the things for young creators to understand is, is that Substack is, is a way that you can get some money, right. And it's readier money I think than, than some of the other platforms because it is subscription based. Every, you can get free subscription and then a small, very small percentage of those people will, if they find your work valuable, if they, if they want to support the work that you're doing, they'll have a, they'll sign up for paid subscriptions. There are a few people doing extremely well, right. Heather Cox Richardson and Jim Acosta who left CNN a while ago. You can see that they're having an impact and obviously it's working out for them financially. But Substack, that's quick. That's right there. And there is a way to make money that way. Podcasting, Well, I have no idea but I am going to do it, so I'll let you know when I do.
- [54:52]
B
Okay, so touching on like the people that you're seeing in the space. I mean what's your news diet like? What are, what are you actually consuming day to day?
- [55:01]
C
That's a great question because at ABC News I was able to just in the email chains which I would complain about all the time but the best reporters in the world on the biggest stories in the world were filing real time reports in my email all the time. So that was my, that was my news source. I missed that. The one thing I missed, friends of course, but I missed that, that email. So I've been trying to construct things. I actually found I'm testing out the three month subscription on Apple, Apple News, Apple plus News, whatever. That's pretty good. Not great. It's more of a. It's trying to tease rather than other things. I've always read New York Times, Washington Post. Podcasts increasingly are part of, are part of my diet. I always listen to a few but now I'm trying to, to get more because you get so many different perspectives and different storytelling as well. Tried to curate a news sub feed in X. X is such a sewer though in so many ways.
- [56:03]
B
It's an important sewer though. It's an important sewer. I will say yeah, that's part of the reason I ask is I have naturally end up having a lot of central or centrist or left leaning people and my constant is a lot of my news diet because in the morning I'll have my team work with me and give, give me something from a lot of the sources that I would normally consume. But my news diet is almost now entirely right wing news. Because whether it be mainstream or these other names that are going to be, that are already very established or will be, some of the people I think are going to be like the biggest names in the space, maybe by the midterms, but definitely the next election. And it feels like a blind spot for a lot of people.
- [56:44]
C
Huh. Who's gonna, I'm curious, who are you thinking?
- [56:47]
B
I'm gonna get shit for saying it, but it is 100% coming. There's a creator that has goes by or goes by the name, his name is Nick Fuentes that I think he's going to be, he is chomping away at the more established bases, whether it be. And more established bases in like Candace Owens more established bases. And oh my gosh, how am I blanking on him now? A lot of these big names and he's very well spoken and he is a true believer. So to your point, whether you think his views are despicable or not, people are seeing him and going, oh, he's, he believes what he's saying and just seeing what's happening there. Because otherwise those in the, those in mainstream media or those in the space in general are just going to get sucker punched constantly and go like, how did this happen? And so I don't know. I, that's my, that's my, my spiel there.
- [57:41]
C
It's interesting. I mean, I think that one of the things that happens when you open media to all kinds of creators is you're going to get all kinds of creators, right? I mean, I remember before I got to ABC back in 1997, before I got there, I thought why is it that at that time the three major news networks still. CNN was there and big, but not like it became. Why is it that Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw, who were the anchors at the time, why do they tell the exact same stories in the exact same order in the exact same way every night? Like it's a big old world out there. There's a lot of different stories. What was it? And I'll tell you, when I got there, they are all there. Somehow to the day I left, they were able to get the rundown from NBC, right? Here's what they're doing tonight. And that would come in. Oh, they're doing this story. Never made any sense to me because I never thought of NBC or CBS as my Competition. It was, it was. But because really it's a big world and who wants to get up in the morning and think. I remember when I was, I was White House correspondent, end of Clinton, beginning of George W. Bush for about six years. And David Gregory was the White House correspondent for NBC and John Roberts for cbs. I love them both. But I was like, if my motivation to work is to be David Gregory or John Roberts, then I need to get a better job. You know, you got. I used to bug my colleagues saying facetiously partly that NBC and CBS aren't our competition, CNN's not our competition. Our competition is ignorance, injustice, falsehood, right? And that's when they'd start throwing things at me. And I knew, but, and I was kind of kidding, but only kind of who. I mean, that, that closed circle of corporate media is too self reflecting, right? Is too. What are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? A story isn't validated until it's somewhere else. Well, then there were a lot of stories I wanted to get reported that I wasn't able to because no one else had done them. And I think that PAC mentality doesn't exist in these spaces. So you're going to get.
- [59:52]
B
Really, really. I was like, I was, I was. I think that there's there, there is some, maybe some sometimes like it's us against ignorance sort of mentality. But I don't know, maybe, maybe I just in, in recent days I've just seen so much, whether it be kind of peckish or infighting or whoever is the search to be on top. I don't know if that's, I don't think that's part of just kind of the mainstream media space. It feels like kind of everywhere. But even in independent spots, maybe that's, maybe it ends up getting a little bit more split across like left versus right sort of mindset of like quote unquote, like our side is winning or losing. But I don't know, I see it there. The only difference I see is there's still the chasing, but maybe there's just, you know, there's not the big corporate money. Although we are seeing more and more stories about apparently big money getting involved sometimes in seemingly shady ways of who's funding what. And unfortunately it's seeming like that is a both side situation. From some of the recent reporting I've been seeing.
- [60:57]
C
That's interesting. I do think you're right, now that I think about it, there's a lot of people who are trying to get to the Top in this. In these spaces by looking at the camera and screaming about Trump or looking camera, screaming about the Democrats, and they see each other, and that's really what activates people and gets eyeballs and engagement and all that. And I've found myself a couple of times on substack, out over my skis. I'm proud to. To describe what I think is in front of us politically. I do. We have an autocratic takeover taking place. And. And I'm. I think that's a repertorial fact, and I have no problem saying that. But I found myself in tone a couple of times and just because I could feel the temptation, right. Of wanting to, you know, get more engagement, get. Get. Get more whatever. And I'm backing away from that. It's one of the reasons I like this piece I filed in Washington. There's none of. And that's not gonna be me. That's not gonna be. I'm not gonna do that, honestly. That doesn't mean I'm gonna pull my punches. I do think that we are looking at something serious in our country, but I don't need to stir rage. There's enough of that. I'd like to be a rational voice even in these difficult times.
- [62:14]
B
When you mentioned earlier that you were someone that was like, I don't think they were covering the Trump administration fairly. Is that, Is that. Is there a certain thing right now that you think that.
- [62:24]
C
That.
- [62:25]
B
I mean, I don't know. There's. There might be too much going on that it. It's not the case. But is there something that you think that he is being covered unfairly on right now?
- [62:35]
C
You know, I'm gonna say the answer is yes, but I'm always talking about the first term. Right. I said to my colleagues, I said to my colleagues, we are covering the Trump show, not the Trump presidency. The Trump show was basically the mean tweets, and that would sometimes lead the news. I lost stories, in other words, they assigned me a story, and I said, I don't think this tweet is news. And they said, we're taking it away from you. We'll give somebody who'll do it. And that happened now. Right. He's got this organized plan that he's executing on, and so we're seeing that. That said, you know, I remember I've always thought that Trump was a new voice and a good voice, and to this day, in some ways, a good voice on trade. Before he was inaugurated, after he was elected in 2016, before he was inaugurated President in January of 2017, there was a company in Indiana that closed down its factory, an air conditioning company carrier. They closed down its factory in Indianapolis, and they were going to send all the jobs to Mexico. 1100 jobs. And Trump as president of elect, President elect said, no, we don't want that. That's not what we mean. And I was like, I've never heard a president say to a corporation, stop shipping jobs overseas. How long has this been going on? Well, you know, Bush 1, Clinton, Clinton, Bush 2, Bush 2, Obama, Obama. And not one of them ever said to a corporation, as we offshored most of the manufacturing sector of the United States and destroyed communities across the country. No, I thought, okay, I'm in. What's, what's that about? And then this. And, you know, now he's got the tariffs, which are typical of Trump. He identifies a real problem and he's total chaos or overkill. Another one was when Elon Musk said, I can cut $2 trillion out of the federal budget. And I was like, have at it. You know, I mean, if you can do that, if there's really that much fat in the budget, wouldn't surprise you. I mean, I didn't, I'm not a budget expert, but I remember when he took over Twitter and turned it into X, there were people saying, oh, he's cutting so many positions at Twitter that the platform will collapse in six weeks. And it didn't. And I was like, well, maybe there's a way to do it at the Fed now. Of course, it went from 2 trillion to 1 trillion. They now claim 112 billion. And as Judd Leggum, the great investigative reporter will tell you, the actual number percentage of the actual contract dollar amount canceled is about 8 billion. Okay, so it's like all BS. So, yeah, I think you don't, you shouldn't have a knee jerk reaction. You shouldn't have a knee jerk reaction. I mean, the Abraham Accords in the first term were good. Now I think he's trying to help Israel ethnically cleanse Gaza. I don't, I don't buy that. But he's, you know, I don't think everything is wrong because Trump is doing it. I do think Trump is a danger to the country. And even if he's got a good idea, what he's doing is overall is dangerous to the country. And I think, as I say, that's a repertorial fact. You can see it. But I do think that there's room for like saying, yeah, sure, that's a good idea.
- [65:42]
B
Well, yeah, and so I think the issue, yeah, you kind of touched on it is the how. It's not the, like, necessarily the initial idea and the. What we saw as far as polling, the idea of doge, very popular, right? The idea of, like, oh, man, there's all, there's all this excess, the actual implementation and the chaos and the ripple effects that we're going to see or that we're already seeing and we're going to see throughout the years, whether it's the human toll or safety or how preparedness, that's. That's going to be the huge issue. I do agree with the idea of just because, you know, Trump says black people have to say white. That's. That's a bad mindset. Because a lot of the time you're gonna add to the egg on your face and you're gonna be. Those moments are gonna be used as, you know, you're an alarmist. And then when you're sounding the alarm on the very legitimate things that we're seeing, you know, people won't have that, that trust. But with how crazy and chaotic the world is. Do you have, Are you, are you mourning to rise right now? Because this is so, so, so new and you need to leave the moment or meet the moment, like. Or do you, Are you able to escape? Do you have, do you have escapes? Because I've talked to people in the space. They're like, no, this is, this is my 24 7. I personally can't do that. I think I would burn out. Do you have, do you have escapes from the news cycle?
- [67:07]
C
Yeah, I do. I've got, I've got young kids who are, you know, they're a delight. Of course, I've got their sports. Yeah, I took some time off in the summer, go to the upper Midwest, Great Lakes area, where I've been going since I was a kid. That's restorative. And there's a couple things. Look, right now, however, I do think about how, how do I set this, these businesses up, or whatever you call them in this new space that I'm in. That's a, That's a dominating thought. But, you know, I'm a Christian, so prayer is a good thing for me. I'll read a little of the Psalms. I'll read a little Bible verse every morning and think about a little bit, a good long walk with the dog. 3, 4 miles with the dog is good. Work out a little bit. And, you know, I had found myself for the first several weeks unable to read anything. I've been a Reader my whole life and of everything. You know it's just the way we were all raised and I couldn't read anything I was like except for news and how to set up these. These spaces. And recently I've come back and I read a few short stories and one thing that I do on the substack that is a delight that my. That some of the folks in my life are saying why do you do that? That I do something called the Sunday poem where I'll. I'll just pick a poem. Sometimes it relates to kind of but. But. But sometimes not. And I'll write a little essay on. On I don't know on that poem and that takes me out of that space. But basically it's family. The usual kind of relaxations and a little reading too and prayer.
- [68:44]
B
How old are your kids?
- [68:45]
C
I have a 29 year old.
- [68:46]
B
Okay.
- [68:47]
C
She's married, just moved to Massachusetts. Great guys. Great guys. A husband. I wish all people to have a wonderful son in law as I do. It's the greatest security of your heart when your daughter marries somebody wonderful. And then I've got within a couple weeks they're just. This is all birthday season versus they'll be 13, 11 and 9. So I call them the oops. I did it again and again.
- [69:13]
B
Is that. Was there a big difference? I mean I know that this like the second one. There's. There's a big difference but with a gap that big where you kind of like right back into experiencing it the first time or you're like it was riding a bike.
- [69:25]
C
It was still. Well it's chapter two of my life. Okay. So. So that. So my 29 year old was from one marriage and this is four. We've been married more than 10 years now but together for longer than that. And it was. It's just joyful no matter what. You know, it's a miracle and it's blessed. And I was. Was I too old to do. Yes. But it is. Is it the best thing that ever happened to me? All these children. Of course. Although somebody once said that three and I think this is true with three which is in this family now is three. Because my 29 year old is often. And in her own life you go from man to man to zone.
- [70:04]
B
That's. That was a scary one. I got a doctor involved to prevent zone defense. I When you had. Whether it's with the 29 year old or this, this now second part of your life. Did having kids affect the way that you kind of view news and the world in Any way, yes.
- [70:27]
C
No question about it. Absolutely.
- [70:29]
B
In what ways?
- [70:30]
C
Well, your work, no matter what it is, is for the next generation. I mean, at least that's the way I felt. These children particularly, but then their world too, you understand that you're working to give them the world, you know, when the time comes. And it also deepened the sense of mission. So my 29 year old was 10 or 11 when Virginia Tech happened. And I got called to, I was in D.C. and they said, can you go down, go down to Virginia Tech now? And I came back a couple of days, a couple, three days later. And it was, it was just terrible. Covered too many of those. And she was 11 and Madeline said to me, she said, daddy, does it make you sad to cover these sad stories? I said, the day it doesn't is the day I should quit. And I feel an obligation to open your mind and your heart to these stories, in part because it's so heavy for kids, you know, the news is so heavy. I'm lucky. I came out of a time when there was less news. It was easier to get away from it. And understanding that it is so heavy, I kind of have, I feel at my best I can be an explanatory journalist and a calming journalist. I do think of my children in that regard.
- [72:00]
B
And I know you mentioned your faith. I mean, with you kind of talking about your job in that way, do you. Do you feel like it's a. It's like a, it's a calling, it's a. It's a God given purpose.
- [72:10]
C
That'd be a beautiful thing. Is it a vocation, as we say in the Catholic tradition? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, the act of prayer, if I can get into that, is an act of hope and hope on being on the right path. And that's why I kind of don't regret what I said about Stephen Miller in that tweet. It feels like that's the right path. You know, it lost me my job, so there's ways it's not the right path, but yeah, I guess it feels like. In fact, I would say, yes, I feel calmer in placing my trust in God.
- [72:55]
B
Terry, thank you so much for the time, sir.
- [72:57]
C
Phil, thank you.
- [72:58]
A
But that, my friend, dear viewer, dear listener, is the end of today's podcast. If you haven't already, please follow the podcast to see or hear more. Give us five stars. Leave a comment I also have links in the description so you can listen to us wherever you listen to things. Thanks for being a part of this. And I'll see you next week with another fantastic guest.