← Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Your Questions Answered, and a Big Announcement
00:45:43
This week, your beloved hosts gather for the last time to respond to listener feedback, reflect on the state of American politics and look ahead to a new show. If you’re curious about how Carlos prepares for an episode or how the history books will remember Trump or what’s next for this feed, this is the episode for you.
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- [00:01]
Hershey's Voiceover
Hershey's Milk Chocolate with whole almonds makes for a wholly amazing, wholly delicious experience that's, well, holy Hershey's, everyone to get to experience the satisfying surprise of a whole almond tucked inside creamy Hershey's chocolate. So don't wait your whole life to try Hershey's Milk Chocolate with whole almonds. And if you've already had it, then chances are you're already a lifelong fan of this confectionary delight. Find Hersey's Milk Chocolate with whole almonds wherever candy is sold.
- [00:32]
Carlos Lozada
Ross, congratulations. This is going to be awesome. This is going to be great.
- [00:35]
Ross Douthat
Don't say congratulations. Congratulate me in one year's time. I'm not even kidding. Like, let's, let's see how this goes.
- [00:42]
Carlos Lozada
Who are we kidding? I mean, you know, it may be less than that. Who knows? One year is very optimistic. Guys, it's like a moment. Okay? From New York Times Opinion, I'm Carlos Lozada.
- [01:00]
Michelle Cottle
I'm Michelle Cottle.
- [01:02]
Ross Douthat
And I'm Ross Douthit.
- [01:03]
Carlos Lozada
And this is matter of Opinion, where thoughts were always allowed. So, guys, I have some sad news today, but some very exciting news as well. Since the spring of 2023 lo these nearly two years ago, we've hosted some 90 plus episodes of Matter of Opinion together. First with Lydia, then just the three of us, along with many generous and interesting guests. We've been together through a crazy election campaign, the decline of one president, the return of another. We've debated foreign wars and culture wars. We've sparred over the Supreme Court and IVF treatments and campus protests and lots of indictments and even our favorite horror movies. And we've gotten to know each other fairly well, I would say. I know that Ross breaks into song even more than I do at random moments.
- [02:08]
Ross Douthat
It's true. I know that I will never persuade Michelle to believe in extraterrestrial life.
- [02:15]
Carlos Lozada
And yet we know Michelle has been saved more than any other one of us.
- [02:18]
Ross Douthat
That's true. That is also true.
- [02:21]
Michelle Cottle
And the key to Carlos Heart involves Inca Cola and Notre Dame football.
- [02:24]
Ross Douthat
Every weekend I go to the supermarket and walk through the non American soda aisle wishing to see Inca Cola. And it has still never happened.
- [02:35]
Carlos Lozada
By the way, it's crap that they segregate the sodas like that.
- [02:38]
Ross Douthat
It's true.
- [02:39]
Carlos Lozada
Like, I often I do guerilla marketing and I take some bottles of Inca Cola and put them in with the regular sodas to allow them to compete freely.
- [02:47]
Ross Douthat
Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations.
- [02:51]
Carlos Lozada
So even with all that, all we've Covered together, all we've learned about each other. I must report that today will be our final episode together. We won't quite make it to 100.
- [03:02]
Ross Douthat
Shows because we probably should not have signed that contract where we were promised a $1 million bonus for our 100th episode. That was perhaps a mistake.
- [03:13]
Carlos Lozada
This is like when they cut the player just before the big incentive, you know, kicks in.
- [03:17]
Ross Douthat
Exactly.
- [03:17]
Carlos Lozada
Totally.
- [03:18]
Michelle Cottle
They gotta make that trade.
- [03:19]
Carlos Lozada
Or maybe we all should have gotten Ross contract. But any, um, before there is any sort of like, you know, wailing or gnashing of teeth at. At the fact that MOO is going to that great podcast studio in the sky, I should say it is not the end of this feed. Stay with it, folks, because there are exciting things coming. Diligent, dedicated MOO listeners will probably guess what's going on because you've gotten some previews of it in recent episodes. But Ross, why don't you tell us what you've been up to and what you've got in store for our faithful listeners.
- [03:52]
Ross Douthat
Yes. So faithful listeners know that over the last few months, I've been doing some one on one interviews, most notably with Steve Bannon and Marc Andreessen, trying to get a sense of what's going on with the future of conservatism and the Republican Party and the Trump administration. And around the time, just before the inauguration, I wrote a long piece for our Sunday Review section that had the title, Trump has put an end to an Era. The future is up for Grabs. The plan is to launch a show about that up for grabs future, in which interviews like the ones I've already done are expanded to include not only representatives of Trumpism, populism and conservatism, but the wider range of groups and ideologies and factions that are competing to shape our up for grabs moment. There's nothing better than doing journalism and interviews and conversations in an era of total destabilization, uncertainty and chaos. And that is what I promise you here today.
- [05:01]
Michelle Cottle
Hear, hear.
- [05:02]
Carlos Lozada
Ross, I'm just so thrilled for you and for listeners of Times Audio, because as much as I've enjoyed making MOO with all of you, this just makes so much sense. It's a necessary project. I can't think of anyone better suited to do it. One thing I wanted to ask you about because of course, the moment I congratulate you, then I start trying to shape it. Of course, you know your views will be reflected in the questions you ask and the guests you book, in the tenor of your conversations, in the breadth of your topics. But I think mood listeners have also gotten used to hearing pretty clearly and directly from you what you think about where things are headed, the evolution in your own thinking in this kind of wide open world you're describing. So will there be room on the show for you to kind of like, you know, turn to camera three and share with listeners what you are thinking yourself, how you are seeing the world?
- [05:52]
Ross Douthat
My opinions are going to disappear entirely. The show is no one will know what I think about any issues. No, I really appreciate it, Carlos. And yes, of course, my own perspective on the world will come through, not just in the guests who are chosen, but in the questions that are asked and the conversations. Because I think the goal of any interview show is to not just pepper the interviewee with questions, but to end up having some kind of back and forth. But I would add, one reason that I am embarking on this is that while I do have strong views, you know, as readers know, I genuinely have a lot of uncertainty. More so I think, than at any point in my own career. And I'm not that old, but I've been doing this 20 years or so, writing about politics, about where we're going, not just in sort of the immediate, what is Elon Musk up to? And what's going to happen with Doge? And can the Democrats come back and is Trump going to corrupt the Justice Department kind of way, as important as those questions might be, but also in a larger sense of what is happening to the human race in a new technological dispensation? What is the actual future of liberalism and a democracy in a world where the American empire is relative to most of my young adulthood in retreat? What happens to, you know, to popular culture? What happens to novels and movies and a whole host of other art forms in the digital age that we're really only just beginning to live inside? So, yeah, I have strong views that will inform the discussions, but I have a lot of questions about where we're going and a lot of uncertainty.
- [07:37]
Michelle Cottle
Do you have a wish list for who you'll be talking to? Have you been working on that?
- [07:41]
Ross Douthat
Tantalize us a wish list. Well, I will say one thing, obviously, that we're going to try and do, since this is a New York Times podcast, is to talk to my colleagues and friends at the New York Times when they say brilliant and interesting things, which they do all the time, including my fellow MOO hosts.
- [08:01]
Michelle Cottle
No way, man. You're dead to me. You're dead to me. And Carlos.
- [08:04]
Ross Douthat
Well, not. Not you, Michelle. Carlos, I'M just trying to keep Carlos on board. I wrote you off weeks ago, but it would be nice to have a conversation with Elon Musk, future Viceroy of Mars. Mr. Viceroy, if you're listening, I'm ready to talk. The show will sort of begin with things closest to my interests and my knowledge base, which means conservatism, American politics, religion, pop culture, and expand beyond that to broader trends, technological, digital, international, and so on. Can I get the director of Nosferatu right to come talk to me? Robert Eggers? That would be fun.
- [08:49]
Michelle Cottle
Okay, I'll listen.
- [08:50]
Ross Douthat
I'll allow it. I don't think that that might not have been the strongest that might have been.
- [08:54]
Carlos Lozada
No, that was a fine pitch. That was a fine pitch. Before we ride off into the sunset, we will mark this moment the final moo by diving into our listener mailbox for some questions they've had for us since the start of the year. And this bodes well for the new show, Ross, because listeners have had a lot of reactions and questions about your interviews with Steve Bannon and Marc Andreessen. So I'm going to start with an email from a listener named Mark who says he is both troubled and confused by what he heard from Bannon, and hopefully you can clarify this confusion. He writes, bannon is blinded by the victory of Trump, a very imperfect conveyance for achieving his meaning. Bannon's vision of what the world needs. As John Bolton said, Trump makes decisions based on what's good for me, what's bad for me. Mark then goes on to say, my feeling is Bannon wants a revolution, but then what? The red states always complain about the government until they need it. So, Ross, I'm going to channel Mark, who's asking you to channel Steve Bannon after you get past flood the zone and break stuff, the kind of, you know, approach that Bannon promotes. What is the then what that he actually sees for the country?
- [10:13]
Ross Douthat
I mean, I think that Bannon, along with other populists on the right, sincerely imagine a version of the United States that has a lot of the strengths that the US had in a different dispensation of globalization. So much stronger domestic industry joined to lower immigration rates, yielding greater cultural cohesion. So some marriage of William McKinley and Dwight Eisenhower's America. I think that's sort of the simplest way to look at it. And I think Bannon himself regards government in two different lights. On the one hand, he's more pro guidance government than libertarian Republicans have traditionally been, but the kind of government he's in favor of is a kind of 19th century, early 20th century industrial policy. We're building the Hoover Dam, we're building the transcontinental railroad. We're sort of working together with domestic industry to create a more dynamic America. It's not the government of the administrative state. I think you can argue reasonably that that distinction is something of an illusion. And the administrative state emerged for a reason. And if you wanted to do industrial policy or any other kind of policy in 21st century America, you would inevitably need to do it through the administrative state in some way. But I think that is the basic perspective, that there's a form of government that's good, that is a government of investment and partnership, and there's a form of government that's bad, that's a form of government that's sort of regulatory and parasitic. And that's the distinction that Bannon would like to draw and see enacted in policy.
- [12:01]
Michelle Cottle
Let's see if that turns out to be a fun little surprise for everybody.
- [12:05]
Ross Douthat
A Fun Little Surprise for Everybody is actually one of the titles we're considering for the new show, Michelle.
- [12:10]
Michelle Cottle
So, I mean, I approve.
- [12:12]
Carlos Lozada
You get royalties, Michelle, if they pick that.
- [12:14]
Michelle Cottle
Oh, yeah. I'll speak to the powers that be about my royalties, but I want to also. So now move to Marc Andreessen, who you also talked to was also fascinating. And here's a comment from Alexandra about that interview. And she sympathized a bit with his criticism of the quote, woke agenda and the challenges it might have caused companies. But she found his angst about the whole thing to be surprising. She said, I wish you had asked Mr. Andreessen, who lays out in detail how difficult and disastrous these last five years and more have been for tech companies, how it is that amidst the disaster, the billionaire tech company owners and people on Trump's new cabinet and administration have continued to increase their wealth so dramatically. So I think she's raising this interesting question that I had, which is he had the most emotion and rage about the progressivism of his employees, but it was kind of hard to gauge the material impact of employee activism on his business's growth or really understand how that rage translated to government at all.
- [13:24]
Ross Douthat
Yeah, I think. Let's try this. I'll try giving you a cynical reading and then a more admirable reading.
- [13:31]
Michelle Cottle
Oh, please do.
- [13:32]
Carlos Lozada
And then tell us which one you actually believe.
- [13:34]
Ross Douthat
No, no, no. But part of being a good interviewer, Carlos, is never, never put your finger on the scale. My own views are disappearing. No, I mean, I think, look, the cynical reading is one that I think Andreessen himself at least tacitly admitted to in the course of the conversation, which was that he found the ideological revolution in the American elite, the rise of Wokeness, everything else terrible and disastrous on many different levels. But it did not actually drive him and other people on the so called tech right into a big political shift until the Biden administration began regulating cryptocurrency and AI startups. So the cynical reading of all of this is that all these tech lords hated Wokeness, regarded it as ideologically poisonous, but were fine with living with it until a progressive president challenged their ability to make money. Right? And that's sort of the pivot point. So let the communists run everything as long as we get rich. Basically. I think the more admirable and idealistic perspective is that there is in Silicon Valley, there's not sort of a unity where all the tech people have the same interests and perspectives, right? There really is a divide between the world of the big established companies, Google, meta, Amazon and so on, and the world that Andreessen is in, which is the world of entrepreneurism and startups and basically trying to build the next big thing, right? So one alternative reading of the story Andreessen tells is that basically he saw Wokeness sort of overtaking the big established companies, but those are the big dinosaurs. And Andreessen and his friends are concerned about the new companies, the new frontiers, the new horizons, right? And so wokeness circa 2017 seems like it's bad for Amazon and Google, but it's sort of leaving the entrepreneurial side of Silicon Valley alone. And then progressivism under Biden starts to throttle the entrepreneurial side. And so then it's reasonable for that to be your breaking point, right? If you say, look, you need these sort of frontier companies doing new things, and you can live with a certain kind of ideological groupthink in the lumbering dinosaurs, but when it comes for the next generation companies, that's when it's a real disaster for growth and America's future and so on. And honestly, I think both of those narratives contain something of the truth. And obviously they overlap in certain ways. It depends on whether you want to put a cynical or idealistic spin. And the reality is that most human beings and most institutions contain cynicism and idealism together.
- [16:26]
Carlos Lozada
Ross. So there are actually lots of questions about Bannon Andreessen, but we're going to, we're going to dip into some emails about other episodes this year. Ross, why don't you grab the next one?
- [16:35]
Ross Douthat
So this email is from Cassie in response to our episode on the resistance so far, to President Trump's aggressive second term actions, or to the lack thereof, and Cassie writes, all legitimate and legal ways of holding this man accountable are effectively pointless at this point and we're supposed to resist. Please tell me how aside from voting, voting, voting, and I am not sure even that will make a difference at this point. We are at a point of feeling like there's truly nothing we can do to rid ourselves of this scourge. What do you guys think of Cassie's perspective?
- [17:12]
Michelle Cottle
I'm supposed to be the leader of the resistance now, or at least the voice of the resistance.
- [17:16]
Ross Douthat
It has fallen to you, Michelle.
- [17:18]
Michelle Cottle
I knew it would happen eventually. I think, you know, we went over some of this in the episode about how it is going to rely a lot on the courts and the courts are very slow. But I do think we also see in the country at large some of this starting to bubble up. There are a lot of protests at town halls, Republican members of Congress. Congress are facing some backlash back home. I'm headed out to Colorado where there is a town hall scheduled for Congressman Jason Crow to talk to people about their dissatisfaction. This is in the Denver suburbs. It's a swing district. I think as we go along and as people see what the Trump administration's approach is, we will see different options for protest popping up. But I mean, Cassie's not wrong in that it can feel a little bit pointless right now because of the lock on Congress and unified Republican control and the complete shamelessness of the Trump administration. And just the approach is we're going to try everything and let's see you stop us.
- [18:29]
Carlos Lozada
I feel like Cassie's question is a question that Trump critics have been asking themselves since the very beginning for like almost a decade now. And part of the challenge today, which I think she articulates in the question, is that there's such a fire hose of new actions and policies from the administration every day that if they trouble you, they all feel kind of overwhelming and make you feel helpless. I think sometimes the way to deal with that kind of feeling is not to just continue doom scrolling and worrying about the overall scourge, but to try to just take in your own life kind of local, focused action. Timothy Snyder, who's one of the Yale historian and one of the kind of grand poobahs of resistance writing, has written about this, that if you worry about institutions writ large, pick one that you wish to defend. Right. We think of institutions as these large systems and bureaucracies that operate almost an autopilot, but they're only as strong as their internal norms and as the people defending them. So if you're freaked out about the dismantling of USAID because you think foreign aid is important, then maybe volunteer with a church or nonprofit group that distributes its own forms of aid, even on a small scale. If you worry about freedom of the press, if you see the White House press secretary saying that, you know, we're going to dictate who gets to participate in the, in the pool of reporters covering the president, subscribe to your local newspaper, find ways to support it. If you're worried about book bans, go to your local library. Get involved in the school system. Otherwise, people are just sort of so worried about the, quote, issue that they end up not sort of doing anything about it themselves. And I think that kind of personal engagement is really important to the way you live just as a citizen, almost regardless of who's in office.
- [20:10]
Ross Douthat
But certainly today, I think we, I don't really, I don't have a lot to add except that the reality is that House Republicans have a extremely narrow margin. And it is quite likely that if the Trump White House is policies are unpopular, then just the part of Cassie's email about voting, voting and voting will suffice to deliver some kind of corrective.
- [20:40]
Michelle Cottle
There are always races to participate in, but people tend to get really frustrated and give up if a couple of rounds of elections don't go their way. And you know, the comparison that I always find funny is like, oh, well, we fed the baby last night. Why should we have to pay attention to it now?
- [20:58]
Ross Douthat
I tell myself that every day.
- [21:00]
Michelle Cottle
Democracy is one of those things you have to pay attention to and constantly tend. You don't get to pay attention to it and then be like, oh, well, that didn't turn out like I liked it.
- [21:08]
Ross Douthat
Well. And the other point to make here is that there is an act, there is an internal conversation happening in the Democratic Party right now, probably, I think a more substantial one than happened the last time Trump won because most Democrats regarded that as an illegitimate fluke. There's a conversation about where the Democratic Party should go from here. And if you feel baffled as to why our country cannot be rid of Donald Trump, a really important question is why did the Democratic Party lose to him? What happened to make large numbers of Americans who had voted for Barack Obama or who had voted for Joe Biden vote for Donald Trump? And what can the Democrats do to win those Americans back? And that participating in that conversation doesn't give you the immediate thrill of standing up to Trump in some way, shape or form. But for 2026 and 2028, no conversation is more important for opponents of Trump than the one happening inside liberalism inside the Democratic Party about what the heck should be done next.
- [22:16]
Carlos Lozada
Well, on that sort of actionable forward looking note, let's take a brief break here. When we come back, we'll dig into some more emails that you've recently sent us.
- [22:40]
Hershey's Voiceover
Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Whole Almonds makes for a wholly amazing, wholly delicious experience that's, well holy Hershey's, everyone, to get to experience the satisfying surprise of a whole almond tucked inside creamy Hershey's Chocolate. So don't wait your whole life to try Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Whole Almonds. And if you've already had it, then chances are you're already a lifelong fan of this confectionary delight. Find Hersey's Milk Chocolate with Whole Almonds wherever candy is sold.
- [23:10]
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- [23:42]
Carlos Lozada
Foreign Our next question comes from Eric, who says he's wanted to write in a number of times, but he finally pressed the send button after the first few episodes this year. Eric, you got in just under the wire, man. I am. I am very happy for you. Here's what he says. Good afternoon folks. As this edition of the Trump presidency materializes in roughly the exact manner that I and many of you predicted, my family is sick of me starting monologues with I hate being right. But it had never occurred to me that I need to start taking Trump seriously as a historical figure. This is not so much a compliment as it is a concession to reality and an attempt to understand how other people, particularly Younger Americans, view 45:47, meaning the 45th and 47th president. Lest you think Eric is an old coot talking about the kids today, he then explains that as a 30 year old millennial, he has never been able to see Trump as anything other than the Celebrity Apprentice host, mercurial NYC icon and guest actor in Home Alone 2. But it's been helpful for Eric to refrain his view and consider Trump as a historical figure. So, keeping Eric in mind, how have you guys evolved in the ways that you see Trump ranging from the Celebrity Apprentice host to indeed, this historic figure.
- [25:10]
Michelle Cottle
I mean, I don't watch reality tv, so I had no view.
- [25:13]
Carlos Lozada
So he's always been historic to you.
- [25:15]
Michelle Cottle
Michelle, except the Golden Bachelor. I did watch the Golden Bachelor, so I did not actually understand the mythology of Trump. And I'm not from New York, so I saw him mostly as a national joke who would pop up in guest spots in TV shows and movies and would run off at the mouth about his wives or girlfriends or whatever. So it took me a little while even to get up to speed on what all this is. But as a celebrity figure whose brand was ostensibly as this great businessman, on some level, it made a lot of sense that the American electorate would go in for this, especially people who don't pay that much attention to politics. You can tell why what Americans value from what they vote for to a certain degree. And he is a very American figure.
- [26:12]
Ross Douthat
There's a terrific essay that ran in the Journal the Point earlier this year by a woman named Mana Afsari, and it's an essay that covers a lot of ground, but it's called Last Boys at the Beginning of History. And it's about young men, especially, maybe slightly younger than our correspondent here, who never experienced Trump the way Michelle described as a joke, never experienced him as a reality star, have just experienced him as a kind of historical figure and, you know, have this kind of admiration for bond with him that I think is really hard for older, older Americans who regarded him as sort of a comic or ridiculous figure to understand. And the piece starts with a quote from Henry Kissinger where he says, I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses. It doesn't necessarily mean he knows this or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident. And I feel like that Kissinger quote is a good place for someone who can't get all the way to seeing Trump the way some younger Americans see him as like, a genuine world historical figure, to still get to the point of saying, okay, this guy is playing this really noteworthy role in history, right? The idea that, like, Trump cuts through pretenses and exposes realities, like just what we're seeing in foreign policy right now, like, it is not Trump's doing, that the European Union and Western Europe are extremely weak and that the US Wants to disentangle and pivot to Asia. This has been a reality of, like, every presidency for the last 15 or 20 years. It's just that Trump makes it too apparent to deny in his sort of naked Trumpian style. And in that way at least, can be understood as a transformative figure, even by people who will never, you know, obviously feel respect or admiration for him.
- [28:19]
Carlos Lozada
So, Michelle, now you would take us on to the last, like, super sweet question.
- [28:23]
Michelle Cottle
Along with your questions and complaints about using the words and like, we've also received some really nice emails about the conversations we've had on this show. I like this one from Ryan. It's a place where your listeners can go to get their own internal contradictions a bit clarified. Three things the podcast has shown is a bit of what each of the many sides fear as well as hope for. And finally, how in this tangled mess of things, people can still sit in a room together and try to hash it all out. Some days that last part has to be hard, like a family reunion every single week. Right. But thank you for trying. May the rest of us keep trying as well.
- [29:09]
Carlos Lozada
This is like retweeting praise in podcast form, you know. But that is very nice, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you from all of us. I think trying is the operative word there. Don't always nail it, but we try.
- [29:22]
Ross Douthat
I think we did a good job. I think it's okay to own our success. I mean, I think this is, for me, the second podcast I've done at the New York Times that has tried to manifest into being civil discourse between people who disagree. And the first installment, it was sort of formal. It was called the Argument. It had sort of a left right dynamic. And our conversations have been a little more. Yeah, a little more like a family reunion where people have differences but also unpredictable ideas and everyone can't be pigeonholed. But I think it's tremendously important to try to do that. And there's just a really striking dearth of just attempts in the podcast space and anywhere else to host sustained conversations between people who really don't agree. Not like, oh, we've got one never Trump Republican on to tell us how bad Donald Trump is. Right. But to, yeah, actually get a range of perspectives. And of course, we haven't always succeeded, but I don't think it's just retweeting self praise to say that we've done something very valuable in having those conversations.
- [30:37]
Carlos Lozada
So one thing I'll add to this is that being a columnist is sort of a solitary enterprise. It's just you and your editor and your ideas and your reporting or your.
- [30:46]
Ross Douthat
Reading and your AI Chatbot churning them out for you.
- [30:50]
Carlos Lozada
No, don't tell anyone.
- [30:52]
Ross Douthat
Claude. Thank God for Claude.
- [30:54]
Carlos Lozada
But actually, I'm going to miss the community that we've built, not just among the three of us, the hosts, but with the larger audio team, the people who, behind the scenes, work so hard to. To make it seem like that effortless conversation at a family reunion, right? The producers and editors and fact checkers and mixers and music and audience and I mean, they're just. They're all such pros, and you'll. You'll hear all their names in the closing credits. But for me, what's been interesting, too, about it is that this was unlike Ross. This was my first time, you know, hosting or co hosting a podcast. And when you're sitting down to talk to Michelle and Ross, you. You have to be ready, right? You have to get your act together. You got to get your ducks in a row. Each week, we tossed around lots of ideas for what we're going to discuss. Each week I would read up to make sure I had my own points of view clear in my head, and I would read what Ross and Michelle had written or said about these things. I learned to be flexible, right, in ways that I don't have to be as a columnist. As a columnist, you're the ultimate authority in what you want to write. But on the show, sometimes we cover stuff I cared about, sometimes we cover stuff I didn't know much about, and I'd have to, like, go read a book. I'd have to go get ready, and those became great learning opportunities for me.
- [32:01]
Michelle Cottle
Always read a book.
- [32:01]
Ross Douthat
Yeah, Carlos. Yeah, the show. The show was not making you read books.
- [32:05]
Michelle Cottle
Oh, don't try that.
- [32:06]
Carlos Lozada
Okay. Okay. Be that as is.
- [32:08]
Michelle Cottle
We made you watch tv occasionally.
- [32:11]
Ross Douthat
We did.
- [32:11]
Carlos Lozada
But here's the thing. At first, I would try to, like, inject my columns into the podcast, but. But over time, that often flipped. And I would realize that something that came up during a show, like in an impromptu conversation, would give me an idea for, then something I would later write. So I think the experience, like, yes, I hope that we're sort of modeling a certain kind of conversation, as Ross suggests, that can be helpful to folks. But I think, just selfishly, I think it's made me a better writer. It's made me think more expansively, and that's something that I'm going to miss.
- [32:41]
Michelle Cottle
Well, for my part, since I did so much on the trail reporting and traveling during our time together, I'm not gonna lie, I would collect bits from voters on the trail that I would think, oh, I'm gonna have to ask Ross about this, or, I can't wait till Carlos hears this one. And I would just put those in my pocket and bring them back. So that was fun for me. And like Carlos, I operate in kind of a solitary way a lot of the time. So having you guys and of course, our brilliant production folks made it more of a conversation just about my reporting, as well as any topics that we were doing for the show.
- [33:24]
Ross Douthat
Yeah. One of the things that people always ask you when you write a column for the New York Times is do you guys all hang out? And it's always, because Ross lives in the middle of nowhere, it's inevitably the bright shining intellectual center of the universe. Michelle. Yes, that's where I live. There's this inevitable disappointment that people have when you have to say, no, Tom Friedman and I did not get beers last week. No, I've never met Paul Krugman. Do you know I never met Paul Krugman. Isn't that.
- [33:52]
Michelle Cottle
Isn't that he's a mystery man?
- [33:53]
Ross Douthat
Isn't that kind of amazing? Anyway, all of which is to say that podcasting has been, I think, a way of fulfilling what at least some readers consider a kind of ideal vision of how a columnist or writer for the New York Times should be going about their work, which is collegially not just in splendid isolation.
- [34:17]
Michelle Cottle
Carlos and I are both in Washington, so we're going to start our own little gang. And you can come down and visit us next time you're interviewing the power brokers here.
- [34:26]
Carlos Lozada
You have to have the farewell party here, Ross.
- [34:28]
Ross Douthat
It's actually, it's going to be hosted in the. In the White House. You know, the break room. In the break room. In the break room.
- [34:36]
Carlos Lozada
All right, before we let moo become a memory, let us take a little break here, and when we come back, we will try one last final hot.
- [34:49]
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- [35:36]
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- [36:09]
Carlos Lozada
And finally, it's time for our last hot cold. And this week, guess what? Each of us is going to get hot or cold. Who's going first?
- [36:19]
Michelle Cottle
I'll do it. I want to get serious here. So I am ice cold on the Trump administration's efforts to undermine the free press, as you mentioned earlier, handpicking who gets to be in the press pool covering the president, barring the ap, the most straight down the line of media organizations because the AP refuses to play along with their new Orwellian version of language and geography. And I am hoping that, Ross, in your new capacity, you are going to hold their feet to the fire on some of these. These issues. I know that it is an interview show and not a straight news show, but that's the perfect opportunity to ask them, you know, wtf, guys?
- [37:10]
Ross Douthat
Why? I. Michelle, I think, you know, I'm not going to have exactly the same set of complaints and objections to whatever the Trump administration does that you would have or that Carlos would have. But I think one of the goals of a good interview is to simultaneously let the person you're interviewing make the strongest possible case for their own ideas or policies if they're in government. Right. And not just sort of treat the interview as a kind of gotcha or critique from start to finish, but then having done that, use that as a grounds for having a serious and constructive argument about issues. And I've tried to do that. I tried to do it when I interviewed now Vice President Vance, and we spent a long time talking about his policy vision and ended by arguing about January 6th. And I imagine that that would be the goal in the undoubted near future when I'm interviewing President Trump himself, who, again, I'm sure is going to be right there for me as soon as we launch.
- [38:17]
Michelle Cottle
I have great faith in you, Ross.
- [38:19]
Ross Douthat
Thank you, Michelle.
- [38:20]
Carlos Lozada
My hot cold is so much less sort of serious than Michelle's, but not because it's not seriously held. I believe very strongly about this. This is a pet peeve of mine that I've been quietly holding onto, but we're at the end of the road here, so I'm just gonna go for it. And it is about podcasting. I listen to lots of podcasts and there's something that happens on Just about every podcast I hear, I bet it has happened today, and I just haven't pinpointed it, but it happens, especially in these roundtable, conversational type podcasts. And that is what I think of as the podcast giggle. And that is that a person is speaking and suddenly in the course of speaking adds this undercurrent of laughter. Not as an aside, but in the course of speaking the words right, like I just did. Now I might be talking, and suddenly right in the middle of the sentence, I'm giggling while I'm talking. I find this utterly objectionable on both aesthetic grounds because it is totally distracting, but more so on substantive grounds because I don't know what the podcaster is trying to convey with the laughter. It rarely signals something funny or worthy of normal laughter. So I've. I've tried to parse the podcast giggle across a number of podcasts. And sometimes it seems to be embarrassment at something that you're acknowledging about yourself. Sometimes it's sort of shock or disapproval at something that is happening. Right. Sometimes it's more personal. It's like you're trying to distance yourself from something that you're proposing because it goes against your self image or the image you think listeners have of you. So you're just kind of angry at yourself while you're laughing and saying this thing. Our editor Jordana calls it the. The podcaster's like eruption of displaced emotion. And I hate to admit it, I have done the podcast giggle on this show before. Cause once I've listened to it, I realize that I did it and it really bothers me. And once you're aware of it, you can't stop noticing it.
- [40:26]
Michelle Cottle
Yeah, thanks, Carlos.
- [40:28]
Carlos Lozada
And it kind of stops me every time. And you know how weirdly now people are reading transcripts of podcasts. I don't get why that makes no sense to me, but they are. The weird thing is that you don't read the giggle in the transcript. It's not there, it's lost. And so whatever you're trying to convey, people aren't going to get it anyway. So that's all I have to say. I am cold, cold, cold on people doing that kind of undercurrent of giggling in the middle of speaking during podcasts.
- [40:56]
Michelle Cottle
Oh my God. This is hardcore media training by Carlos.
- [40:58]
Carlos Lozada
The end.
- [40:59]
Ross Douthat
I read transcripts. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Without over psychoanalyzing other podcasters, I think that there is a way in which we're all encouraged to be slightly ironically detached from our own most sincere thoughts. I certainly find that to be the case in my own work, in part because I do write often for people who disagree with me, and a little bit of ironic distance can be sort of the spoonful of sugar that helps the contrarian opinion go down. I just did it. See, I do know I just did it. Exactly. And that's so I'm sure that however common it is and whatever it expresses, I personally participate in that kind of deliberate distancing from one's own opinions that is part of the nature of either the medium itself or maybe just sort of the broader era in media where you are allowed to be sincere, I guess, in expressing your hatred of Donald Trump or something like that. But otherwise, there's always supposed to be a kind of distancing. And so I will, for my hot, cold, attempt not to distance at all and say that I am, I think warmth is the appropriate phrase rather than heat, because heat might be misinterpreted. I feel incredible and extraordinary warmth toward both of you. Sorry, hang on. I think that I. I think that I have confessed. I may have confessed previously on this show that I read to children and always struggle to control emotionality in my voice at, like, really important moments in books, like when the writers of Rohan get to Minas Tirith in Return of the King. Hang on, let me. Let me just hang on. So I've known Michelle a long time. Occasionally I get emails from conservative friends and listeners saying things along the lines of, why do you let Michelle give you such a hard time in that lovely Southern twang of hers? And I say, well, I have to, because she's known me since I was literally a child wandering around political journalism in Washington, D.C. such a cute child at a tender age. Carlos, I did not know at all, except through his incredibly erudite book reviews, only 90% of which are about Jimmy Carter before we began doing this show. But it's been a truly wonderful experience getting to know you through this extremely strange, ironically distanced medium that we're participating in, Carlos. And I am. I'm really grateful to call you both friends, and hopefully you will, you know, continue to talk to me even after I have gone out and interviewed some Silicon Valley tycoon who uploads my brain to the cloud. And if I do that, by the way, you have to organize a force of Dominican priests in Rome to come to come rescue me from the, you know, the tesseract or the cloven. I guess it's the cloven pine that Meg Murray's father is imprisoned in in a wrinkle in time. So on that more Dauthatian note, thank you both for everything that we've. All the conversations we've had together.
- [44:26]
Michelle Cottle
It has been an absolute pleasure, an honor.
- [44:29]
Carlos Lozada
Ross, we will continue hearing your conversations, and then Michelle and I will just talk about them behind your back.
- [44:36]
Michelle Cottle
Oh, no. I'm gonna call in. I'm calling in.
- [44:38]
Ross Douthat
The real fateful thing about recording this episode is now I actually have to do the show and that's. You think that I'm expressing strong emotion. Yeah, producers did mention that you think I'm expressing strong emotion about my affection for both of you, but in fact, I'm just mentally coming to terms with the fact that I have to do more interviews.
- [44:55]
Michelle Cottle
And in this case, the nervous laughter is panic.
- [44:58]
Ross Douthat
That's what the quaver in my voice is all about.
- [45:00]
Michelle Cottle
It's panic.
- [45:00]
Carlos Lozada
Ah, another eruption of displaced emotion.
- [45:03]
Ross Douthat
That's right.
- [45:04]
Carlos Lozada
It has been an honor to work with both of you. And you know what? The world takes funny turns. We may find ways to collaborate again.
- [45:12]
Ross Douthat
Bonus episodes, I think.
- [45:14]
Michelle Cottle
So Such bonus Halloween Halloween movie discussions again.
- [45:18]
Carlos Lozada
All right, I won't say see you next week. I'll just say see you around.
- [45:21]
Michelle Cottle
And with that, thank you for joining our conversations.
- [45:25]
Carlos Lozada
Before we sign off, let me remind you, stick with this feed. There is a lot of great stuff coming. Matter of Opinion is produced by Andrea Betanzos, Sofia Alvarez Boyd and Elisa Gutierrez. It's edited by Jordana Hochman. Our fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Lacher and Michelle Harris. Original music by Isaac Jones, Afim Shapiro, Carol Sabaro, Sonia Herrero, Amin sehota and Pat McCusker. Mixing by Pat McCusker and Carol Saborough. On audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulewski. And our executive producer is Annie Rose Strasser. I have to tell you something because this is my last chance. And it's weirdly apropos of of today's.
- [46:45]
Ross Douthat
Episode because after today, we will never speak again.
- [46:48]
Carlos Lozada
Yeah, I'm counting on that. The so when I was little, my older sister Marilu would make up these, like, awesome, like, worlds that we would inhabit, like these, like, cinematic universes that we would, like, have roles in and play in together, the three of us. Like, there was like one of the worlds was called Boda and the other one was called Gather. And then they had a war and they merged and became bother. But anyway, one of the kind of lesser worlds was this place called Cheapy Town.
- [47:17]
Michelle Cottle
Cheapy Town.
- [47:18]
Carlos Lozada
Cheapy Town. The one thing I remember from Cheapy Town is that it was so cheap that if you went to, like, a restaurant in cheapy town and you wanted to get a burger or a steak, you had to go into the kitchen and kill your own cow.
- [47:33]
Michelle Cottle
Nice.
- [47:34]
Carlos Lozada
The way you knew a cow was being killed is because you would hear it, and you would hear the cow say, hello. The cow would say moo. Moo. And then the third moo would be muah.
- [47:48]
Hershey's Voiceover
Right?
- [47:48]
Carlos Lozada
Which was like when the death blow was landing. Every time we have referred to the show as moo, part of my head always thinks of the cow in Cheepy Town. And today feels kind of like a mwah. Kind of kind of day for the cow.
- [48:05]
Michelle Cottle
This is why I don't eat meat.
- [48:08]
Carlos Lozada
Cheapy Town. We'll all move there someday.