What You’re Not Being Told about Scott Pelley’s CBS Firing

Summary

Podcast Summary: Next Up with Mark Halperin

Episode Title: What You’re Not Being Told about Scott Pelley’s CBS Firing
Date: June 9, 2026
Host: Mark Halperin (MK Media)
Guests: Michael Smerconish (CNN, SiriusXM), Rich Lowry (National Review)

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers around two major, hot-button media stories: alleged election fraud accusations in California’s mayoral race and the controversial firing of Scott Pelley from CBS’s 60 Minutes. Mark Halperin delivers a reported monologue critiquing both right- and left-wing reactions, urging listeners to demand evidence over outrage. In conversation with Michael Smerconish, the episode dives into media attitudes, the Scott Pelley controversy, and political hypocrisy. Rich Lowry joins in the latter half for analysis on the state of conservative politics, media bias, and Democratic Party dynamics.

---

Reported Monologue: On Partisan Outrage and the Pelley Firing

(Begins ~[03:15])

Main Points

• Dual Outrage in America:
  Halperin highlights two simultaneous scandals enraging each side of the political spectrum:

  • Conservatives claim Spencer Pratt was a victim of fraud in the LA mayoral race.
  • Liberals allege Scott Pelley's firing from 60 Minutes is politically motivated to benefit Trump.

• Evidence vs. Outrage:
  Halperin criticizes both groups for relying on feelings over facts:

  “Don’t jump to conclusions without evidence... In both cases, they don’t have any evidence.” (06:17)

• On the LA Mayor’s Race & Alleged Fraud

  • Voting patterns—late-counted ballots favoring Democrats—were widely predicted.
  • California’s vote counting is slow and arguably problematic, but there’s no clear evidence of fraud.
  • The real issue, Halperin argues, is the system and lack of evidence, not conspiracy:

    “If you’re mad about what’s happened to Spencer Pratt, work to change the law... but don’t cry fraud before you fix the system or before you find evidence.” (09:09)

• On Scott Pelley’s Firing & CBS/60 Minutes

  • Scott Pelley and others claim management, especially new figure Barry Weiss, is politicizing 60 Minutes and pushing out mainstream journalists.
  • Halperin argues the reported “smoking gun” examples—like being told to leave the building upon firing—are normal corporate practices.
  • Barry Weiss’s alleged “editorial interference” is, per Pelley’s own examples, weakly substantiated.

• Notable Quotes

  • “You’re hurting the country by claiming fraud without evidence and you’re hurting your own cause.” (10:46)
  • “Scott Pelley and his colleagues have no leg to stand on when they say we ought to keep all political bias out of CBS News 60 Minutes coverage.” (18:02)

Timestamps

• LA Mayor’s Race Discussion: [04:45] – [11:15]
• CBS/60 Minutes/Scott Pelley Segment: [11:15] – [21:20]

---

Interview: Michael Smerconish

(Begins ~[23:09])

Media Trends & Scott Pelley

• Insubordination as a Firing Offense:
  Smerconish agrees that, regardless of workplace, Scott Pelley’s insubordination (“denouncing” his new boss publicly) would typically lead to termination.

  “If I walked into Mark Thompson’s office at CNN... and said the sort of things he said, I think it would be the end of my employment.” (25:08, Smerconish)

• Barry Weiss’s Qualifications:
  Debate on whether deep TV experience is really necessary for running a major news brand, with both hosts arguing non-traditional backgrounds can work, especially with a strong support team.

• Pelley’s Dismissal of Weiss:
  Both note the irony in Pelley, a self-described digital expert, never having heard of Barry Weiss—a major digital media figure.

  “She’s part of the landscape and she’s a pretty dominant figure. I think it says ... it does reveal something about you." (27:58, Smerconish)

Graham Platner, Hypocrisy & Political Loyalty

• Democratic Hypocrisy:
  Smerconish calls out Democrats for overlooking Platner’s troubling history, arguing that rationalizations (“the stakes are so high”) don’t justify the double standard.

  “There’s not a non-hypocritical basis I can see.” (29:31, Smerconish)

• Media Story: NYT & Platner Accuser
  Discussion of a key Republican woman quoted in the NYT Platner story who later accused reporters of betrayal and ethical lapses—why is this undercovered?

  “Why aren’t the media writers... covering this extraordinary face off?” (35:09, Halperin)

Plausibility of Platner’s Survival

• Acknowledgement of the political “immunity” someone like Platner now enjoys if they are seen as a “fighter,” even amid criminal, extremist, or erratic background details.
• PTSD as convenient political excuse; both recognize that military service may grant extra leeway, but argue it doesn’t fully explain continued support.

NYC & Sports Sidebar

A brief, lighter digression into the cultural moment of the New York Knicks’ success and the country’s need for shared, non-political experiences.

---

Interview: Rich Lowry

(Begins ~[44:22])

The State of the Right: J.D. Vance & GOP Dynamics

• JD Vance’s Relationship with MAGA:

  • Vance is seen as a loyal Trump ally but lacks broad charisma ("X factor").
  • Has little appeal to independents; too attached to Trump brand to build separate identity.
  • Compared to Rubio, has less cross-party and intra-party enthusiasm (except among “real-world” Republicans).

• Conservatives and the Media:

  • Lowry supports efforts to reduce liberal bias but pessimistic about results—media “monoculture” persists.

    "Media has largely gotten worse... because people in the press have been so outraged by [Trump]..." (50:04, Lowry)

  • Suggests Trump’s hostility has actually reinforced the media’s leftward tilt rather than improved fairness.

• Media Suggestions:

  • For conservative politicians: Be aggressive confronting unfairness, foster alternative media, but realize control is limited.

  • Wall Street Journal under Emma Tucker named the rare exception for increased fairness.

    “I think [WSJ] go to great lengths to try to cover things more fairly than they did before.” (53:17, Halperin)

Democratic Party: Vision, Policy, and 2026/2028 Outlook

• Democratic Rebranding:
  • No current prominent Democratic idea or champion with the broad, centrist branding of past figures like Clinton or Obama.
  • Governors often mentioned as future candidates (Newsom, Shapiro, Moore, Pritzker) lack national-level, marketable signature policies.

NYC Closing Thoughts

• On NYC: Halperin and Lowry trade notes about its energy and liveliness, tempered by complaints about crime and grime.
• Mandami (the mayor) largely as-expected: left-leaning, little substantial accomplished yet.

---

Memorable Quotes

• “Don’t claim the election was stolen with no evidence. Point out the flaws and how they vote... but until you find any evidence, don’t scream fraud.”
  — Mark Halperin ([09:14])

• “I couldn’t do that if I walked into Mark Thompson’s office at CNN or Scott Greenstein at Sirius XM and said the sort of things that he [Pelley] said. I think it would be the end of my employment.”
  — Michael Smerconish ([25:08])

• “Media has largely gotten worse, I think, in the Trump years because people in the press have been so outraged by him and fear and loathe him.”
  — Rich Lowry ([50:04])

---

Key Timestamps

• Monologue: Election & Media Outrage: [03:15]–[21:20]
• Smerconish Interview: [23:09]–[43:02]
  • Scott Pelley discussion: [24:13]–[29:02]
  • Platner story/media criticism: [29:02]–[39:41]
• Rich Lowry Interview: [44:22]–[59:02]

---

Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: Blunt, openly critical, and anti-tribal; strives for “evidence-based” analysis over partisan talking points.
• Purpose: To push listeners beyond knee-jerk reactions and encourage skepticism of emotionally charged but poorly substantiated claims.
• Utility: This episode is especially valuable for those interested in the intersection of media, politics, and perception, and for understanding how controversies are inflamed by both sides’ unwillingness to wait for or provide credible evidence.

---

For further reflection and to join the discussion, listeners are encouraged to write Mark Halperin at [e-mail] and subscribe on YouTube.

Transcript

[Thumbtack Advertiser]

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app Download today.

[Mark Halperin]

Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom.

[Adopt Us Kids Announcer]

Hold my hand. You hold my hand. Learn about adopting a teen from foster [e-mail] you can't imagine the reward to you by Adopt Us Kids, the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.

[Mark Halperin]

Everybody, welcome in. This is next up. I am Mark Kalperin. Thank you for being here. I'm the editor in chief of live interactive video platform 2way and your host to everything. Nextup. Grateful to you for being here. Great show. Two guests, two smart guys who I love talking to. First, Michael Smerconish will be here, host of CNN Smerconish. And of course here on Sirius xm, the Michael Smerconish program. And then Rich Lowry, editor in chief of the national will be here. We're going to talk about the media. We're going to talk about politics. We're going to talk about all manner of things. Looking forward to talking to both of them about all sorts of stuff. But before that, next up, my reported monologue on what the both the left and the right are missing out on the Spencer Pratt story and the Scott Pelley 60 Minute story. Here's my reported monologue. Think for a minute about the last 30 bucks that you spent maybe on a streaming subscription you'd you don't even watch. Or a lunch you've already forgotten. That's $30. That's gone forever. Acre Gold lets you turn that lost money into something better, physical 24 karat Swiss gold. You pick a plan, your balance builds and once you hit the price of a bar, they ship it straight to your front door. This is real gold in your hand at your house. And then over time, you're sitting on something that's been valuable since the dawn of civilization. And for the collectors out there, something really special. They just dropped the limited edition Hot Wheels collection. They are officially licensed by Mattel, strictly capped. And once they're gone, they're history. So while you're checking that out, also claim your free entry in the speed club sweepstakes. They're giving away a 1 gram hot wheels gold bar plus a massive grand prize, the 10 gram 24 karat Gold Hot Wheels bar. Both come in the official collector packaging and they're up for grabs right now. Start stacking for just $30 at getacregold.com again, that's getacregold.com mark. Subscribe today. All right, everybody, welcome back. Let's get into my reported monologue. It's essential that we try to understand what's going on in America and particularly when people see things so differently. I am blessed. I get to talk because of Nexters and because of two Way. I get to talk to people every day from all over the country, text, email, voice, conversations, and on two Way itself about what they think. And one of the things that really makes me frustrated is when people look at the same set of facts and rather than focus on the facts, see things only through a purple, a blue or red lens. And there's two going on this weekend, into this week, as week gets underway here, that really are just textbook cases. One that has red America furious and one that has blue America furious. And in both cases, I think the people who are furious are off base. I've talked about these things already this week. And then I go on my X feed and they see inevitably, people so outraged about what I said, so outraged. Now I talk a lot live. So am I always exactly precise? No. But I don't think in either of these I was off base. So here are the two propositions. One is that people in red America think that Spencer Pratt's dropping from making the two person runoff in Los Angeles marist race to falling to third place, that that was somehow the product of wrongdoing, that that was somehow stolen from him. No less a red American than Donald Trump has said that. But he's not the only one. And then on the other side, I talked to people in blue America who, who think Barry Weiss and the managers at CBS are doing something evil regarding 60 Minutes, that Scott Pelly's firing was somehow a manifestation of their toting up to Donald Trump. I couldn't disagree with more of these in the sense that based on the facts as we know them, what happened in the Los Angeles mayor's race was not just understandable, but in some ways expected. And there's no indication that what's happening at CBS was intended to help Donald Trump. I'm open to both theories. I want to make that clear. The people who are mad at me for disagreeing with them, I've said to them all, maybe you're right. But don't jump to conclusions without evidence. And I don't mean don't jump to conclusions without full evidence. If you have a little bit of evidence, bring it forward. Let's talk about it. A little bit of evidence would make me more confident that maybe you're right. But in both cases, they don't have any evidence. They don't have any evidence. What happened? We'll start with Los Angeles. Everybody predicted this might happen, that the. The votes that came in later under California's ridiculous system for counting votes would favor the Democrats and that by favoring the Democrats, you could see Pratt's numbers fall from the election day tallies to the subsequent tallies. And by the way, they're not done counting yet. Not impossible that he'll go back into second place, but very unlikely because of the pattern in the voting. Now, California votes and counts in a ridiculous way. They send everybody ballots. They vote by mail. They're sloppy. I've heard so many stories from people saying, I got a ballot, I voted, then they send me another one. Then they allow people to send in their ballots well after election Day. They allow for ballot harvesting. As my friend Larry o' Connor said on the morning meeting on Monday, what's the scandal here is what's legal. This should all be changed. And I think people in California, regardless of party, should look at what's happened and look at how it undermines confidence in the election and say this needs to be changed. And maybe because of the ridiculous way they vote, maybe there was widespread fraud, as the President suggests, but there's no evidence of it. This is images of ballots being walked around skid row and all these illegal votes cast. Well, I don't know. I don't know who would have organized that. I don't know why we don't have a single piece of evidence of one. Now, there are people out there already mad at me, people listening to me now who will say it's so obvious it's what happened. Well, it's really not. And what's wrong with the country in this respect is this. If you're mad about what's happened to Spencer Pratt, work to change the law, work to highlight how ridiculous the system is. But what causes the media to turn up its nose, what causes Democrats to have an easy time of it, is when people in red America just call out fraud and say this election was stolen, say there's something weird here. That's not what happened. Here's KABC localization in Los Angeles describing what happened this weekend. This is S1 please.

[KABC News Anchor]

This is where we stood on election night. These two were flipped. Nithyama was about 40,000 votes away. Here we are on Sunday and she has finally overtaken Spencer Pratt into second place. If this holds, and we do expect it to, given the nature of the votes we've been seeing in those final mail in ballots, this looks like it will be your runoff in November. A Democrat versus a Democrat. Spencer Pratt has now been bumped. If somehow we see a batch in the last couple of days of those mail in ballots that are heavy on Spencer Pratt, he could bump back ahead. It is not very much. It's just a 3,000 vote deficit at this point. But given the trends we've been seeing since election Day, it looks like this is going to be the matchup that we'll see in November.

[Mark Halperin]

That's the way they do it in California. Why have they counted the vote so slowly? That's the way they do it in California. Why is it that someone who was way behind in third place on election day returns is now in second place? Happens all the time in California. These are all troubling things and just taking so long to count in this age when people worry about ballots being stolen or lost or whatever, just that undermines confidence in the election. I don't disagree with any of that. California should change the way they vote. It's, it's, it's not only suspicious, not only does it induce suspicion, but there's good arguments that it's meant to help the Democrats who control the state. I agree with all that. What I don't want is, is there to be a distraction from that debate by President Trump and others suggesting the election was stolen unless they have evidence that it was right. And people say, well, the U.S. attorney is looking into it, but Gavin Newsom's blocking it. Investigate it. Use journalism. Use whatever parts of government you control. Get to the bottom of it if you can, but don't do what Republicans did in 2000 and 2020, rather, that's so dangerous to the country. Don't claim the election was stolen with no evidence. Point out the flaws and how they vote. Look for evidence that there was impropriety and who cast ballots, whether ballots were cast or counted illegally. But until you find any evidence, don't scream fraud. And I know this is, as I said, I know this is going to anger people. I've already angered people. As I've said it on two way. This is fundamental to the country. You're hurting the country by claiming fraud without evidence and you're hurting your own Cause because you're not focusing on what could really be better for California, which is fix the system and look for fraud. Do it both. But don't cry fraud before you fix the system or before you find evidence. Okay? That's my message to the Reds. That's my message to the Reds. It may jazz some of you up, it may help people raise money, but it's bad for the country and ultimately bad for the party to claim voter fraud when there's no evidence of it. I didn't say there was no voter fraud. I said there's no evidence of it. And people say, well, the evidence is in the fact that Spencer Pratt was way ahead, and now he's not. That's just not evidence. That's the way it works, is perfectly good explanations for how it happened, and it's happened before. And the fact that no Republican made the runoff, That's. That's the way California does it now. Top two, regardless of party. Okay? Now on the other side. And again, I don't like to be one of the only people in America who calls out both sides, but it's got to be done. And, and I hope. I hope those of you who listen and watch the show, you see in me someone with the credibility to say it. Okay? I'm not saying there's no fraud in California, and I'm also not saying that. That there aren't people at Paramount and CBS who aren't trying to use their control over the news division to do things to support Donald Trump's positions. I'm not saying that. Saying there's no evidence of it. And, and this. This weekend, we had. We had such a clear example of the media, the liberal media, siding with a liberal journalist who quit, who was fired from CBS News, from 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley, and creating just an illusion of what actually happened based on the facts as we know them. Scott Pelley claims that this outrageous firing of his colleagues, of his executive producer, of some of the correspondence and then of him was, you know, was against the. The, the principles of management, was against the traditions of CBS News. And he gave an account of his own firing. Okay, and, and, and then he gave an account of what's at the heart of the criticism of Barry Weiss on the editorial side, that she's trying to interfere in the editorial process. Now, there are people who say. Who criticize Barry Weiss for not having management experience, for not having television experience. Those are legitimate things to look at. And, and hopefully she'll be smart enough to surround herself, as she already has, with More and more people with television experience and management experience. Tom Sabrowski, who's, who's her deputy there, one of her deputies, has as much management experience in TV as anybody alive, really, Almost anybody alive. So there are people at CBS who know how to manage and know how TV works. But what we have here is Scott Pelly doing an interview over the weekend with, with the New York Times that had all these liberals in my life saying, oh, my goodness, here's the smoking gun, here's the proof, here's the testimony that Barry Weiss is trying to destroy cbs. I could give you a thousand examples. He said he's just from one interview, he said, he said how outrageous it was that when they fired the executive producer that they told her she had to be out by 5pm Folks, I got message for Scott Pelley who, by the way, said he'd never heard of Barry Weiss when she was hired by Paramount. That's how it works. Somebody gets fired. That's typically how it works. You're instantly locked out of your email. You're. You're told you need to leave the building. Everybody understands why that is. For some reason, Scott Pelley was not familiar with that practice, saw it as some inhumane sign. It's horrible that people get fired and, and this executive producer was a talented, is a talented person, but people get fired all the time and they get told you need to leave the building right away. So this is not unusual. So then he said he made a big deal of the fact that CBS hadn't consulted him. It hadn't talked to him about why they were doing what they were doing. Okay. Here's his account of, of what, how he reacted when, when the previous week, before he was fired. CBS said, we'd like to Barry Weiss. And Tom se said, we'd like to meet with you. We'd like to set up a meeting with the new head of 60 Minutes with Barry Weiss, with Tom Sipraski to talk about what's the changes that we're making. Here's Bill, Scott Pelley's own account of how he reacted to that invitation. S2, please.

[Scott Pelley]

And I thought, you know, I'm going to give it a day or something. I'm too emotionally wrought up. I'm going to say the wrong thing. I'm not going to hear what they have to say. This isn't the moment. We had a baby shower at the house and we got through the weekend and I learned that Nick Bilton was going to speak to the 60 Minute staff on that next Monday morning. My wife and I had a long planned hiking trip in the Canadian Rockies planned, and I wasn't going to be able to be at the meeting. And she and I talked about it, realized that this was an existential moment for 60 minutes. So we canceled the vacation so I could be there.

[Mark Halperin]

Okay, so he goes to the meeting, and it's been reported he basically denounces Barry Weiss at the meeting. Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, says, Barry Weiss is totally unqualified. So again, just imagine a normal workplace. Your boss says, I want to meet with you. I want to talk to you about some changes that we're making. I'm interested in your input. And you say, well, I'm not going to meet with you today. I'm too upset. And they said, well, I'm doing a baby shower. And then the first time you're willing to meet with them, you show up at a meeting with the entire team and you. And you criticize your boss. Okay. I mean, again, this is the mentality of people at 60 Minutes, not just Scott Pelley. Pretty much everybody at 60 Minutes. They just feel like they're more important than everybody else, better than everybody else. But that's not normal to refuse to meet with your boss when your boss asks to talk to you, get your input, and then show up and criticize them and then to be fired for it. He's indignant about that. How could he be fired for embarrassing his boss and, and. And saying his boss was unqualified in front of the entire team? Okay. Now, at the heart of the criticism of Barry Weiss and of Paramount is this notion that they're interfering in the editorial process. I take this. This concern extremely seriously. Because if after all the things David Ellison has said in public and Barry believes in, they're using their influence over their. Over their subordinates to do the political bidding of the White House as a serious accusation, an accusation made by some of the other correspondents who were also fired. Haven't heard any specifics from them. Here is Scott Pelley's specifics. What he frames is this egregious interference in the process. This goes back to a February of this year report on the Minnesota conflict between protesters and. And Border Patrol and ICE and where, of course, two people tragically lost their life. Here's Scott Pelley's description to the New York Times of what Barry Weiss did. This is S3, please.

[Scott Pelley]

Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I'm Paraphrasing, I don't have the quote, but that's what was communicated to me. And the other thing was Renee Goode's car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.

[Mark Halperin]

So by Pelly's own account, there was already footage in the piece of the protesters looking violent. And he went, he said, look for more. Look for things that make it more violent. That's not editorial inference or doing the bidding of Donald Trump. That's just a note from a senior person saying maybe isn't there more, isn't there stuff that would make that more dramatic or more illustrative? They looked, they didn't find it. They didn't make the change. Second thing, the characterization of whether Good steered towards the officer or not, again a suggestion, if you go look at the actual script, it's not as, it's not, it's ambiguous in the way Pelly wrote it. And he says he never changed it based on the request of Barry Weiss. And Barry Weiss didn't order a change. She asked them to make those changes. That one again, plenty of people believe, looking at the video, that she steered towards the cop. She hit the cop cop and call him a cop. She hit the border patrol agent. So if these are his examples of egregious interference that he claims clearly came from the Trump White House, it's thin gruel, ladies and gentlemen. There's no, there's no sense. She asked for some changes, he didn't make them. Neither change was clearly quote, unquote from the Trump White House. Neither is, you know, an egregious looking at the fact, saying, well, this is the thumb on the scale and it comes after, let's be honest, decades of 60 Minutes political coverage being liberally biased. So I'm not saying they should fight liberal bias with pro Trump bias. What I'm saying is Scott Pelley and his colleagues have no leg to stand on when they say we ought to keep all political bias out of CBS News 60 Minutes coverage. Okay, so like I said, if there's evidence of Barry Weiss interfering in the process on behalf of Donald Trump, that should come out. But these people who cried to me over the weekend and into this week saying they're destroying 60 minutes, they're taking a nonpartisan, fair minded show, and they're doing the bidding of the Trump White House, it's just not evidence of it. Just as in the voting in California, show me some evidence. But what Scott Pelley produced in his interview with the New York Times was not evidence that there's egregious political interference on behalf of the Trump White House. And as I said, the other folks have offered nothing that I've heard that specific. So you can say that Scott Pelley is a hero, or you can say that he was insubordinate, that his executive producer was insubordinate, and that no boss in the world would tolerate what they did and that their accusations going out the door of political bias that's pro Trump has yet to be illustrated. All right, I asked people in blue America to calm down and look for evidence and not lionize Scott Pelley after that performance. And I asked people in red America to get your facts straight regarding the California elections. All right, now that I pissed everybody off, there you have it. Let me know what you think. Send me your email@nextup halpernmail.com make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's YouTube.com NextUp Alperino. If you subscribe, you help us out build our numbers, but also help yourself out by making sure you get all of our content all the time, right away. And if you're listening to the show on a podcast version, please set your downloads to automatically go so you get every episode as soon as it's available there. You want to make sure you always know what's coming next up right away. All right, quick break for us right now. And when we come back, Michael Smerconish will be here. Michael Smerconish, the great talker, thinker, analyst, my friend is next up. If you're 64 or older, here's something worth knowing. Medicare has thousands of plans, but most people pick just one without ever seeing the full picture. Plenty of people will call telling you they've got something better. The question is whether you can trust them. That's why I tell my audience about chapter. They're the only Medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide. Their advisors aren't paid to push one plan over another. They look at your doctors, your prescriptions, your priorities, and they show you what actually fits. There's no cost and no obligation. Chapter will review your options in under 20 minutes. If you're already on the right plan, they'll let you know that. But if not, they'll help you switch to something better. CHAPTER has already saved my audience thousands of dollars by helping them find new plans. Call Chapter now. It's the advice I give to my friends in need of advice about Medicare. Talk with the chapter advisor today. Call them at 262-454-0503. That's 262-454-0503.

[Monday.com Advertiser]

Close your eyes. Listen to Monday.com feel the sensation of an AI work platform, so flexible and intuitive it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com, start for free, and finally, breathe.

[Mark Halperin]

Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand.

[Adopt Us Kids Announcer]

You hold my hand. Learn about adopting a teen from foster [e-mail] you can't imagine the reward brought to you by Adopt Us Kids, the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ag Council.

[Mark Halperin]

All right, next up and joining me now, Michael Smarkanish. He hosts on CNN's on CNN on Saturday morning, Smirkanish. That's 9am Eastern time on Saturdays east and then on Sirius XM, he hosts the Michael Smerconish program weekdays from 9am Eastern to noon. Michael Smerconish, thank you for having me. Honored to have you here. How's your media empire going? How is your endurance of 15 hours, 16 hours a week? How are you feeling lately?

[Michael Smerconish]

You know, when I feel like I've got too much on my plate, I think about you. And then I feel like a piker.

[Mark Halperin]

Well, 16 hours is a lot.

[Michael Smerconish]

It's a lot. In addition to all the other things that, you know, one needs to do via YouTube and other social media platforms. So it is a lot. And there's never a break in the age of Trump. My God, please, Mr. President, Friday night, could you do nothing and just be quiet so that I can deliver the program on a Saturday morning that I've planned all week long?

[Mark Halperin]

Friday nights are his specialty.

[Michael Smerconish]

I know.

[Mark Halperin]

Explode the Saturday show. What's a trend in the media now that you, you're encouraged by a trend in the media?

[Michael Smerconish]

How about open conversation about whether Scott Pelley should have been fired?

[Mark Halperin]

The trend is the fact that we can have an open conversation.

[Michael Smerconish]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I like you. I run. I don't do it deliberately. It just seems like that's where I end up. But I run contrary to, to so much of the conventional wisdom. And I talk about that today on radio and was surprised, even though, you know, I love my daily polls. That is my poll question. Today, overwhelmingly, people are defending Scott Pelley. I'm not. And I was surprised by callers today who saw it the way that I saw it.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, I mean, probably, you know, I talked about this, the monologue, probably for you at least in part, and for your callers, the insubordination.

[Michael Smerconish]

Yeah, I couldn't do that if I walked into Mark Thompson's office at CNN or Scott Greenstein at Sirius XM and said the sort of things that he said. I think it would be the end of my, my employment.

[Mark Halperin]

If you said in front of a room full of people about your boss and you're, you're barely qualified to do the job you have, what other, what other choice would they have but to fire you?

[Michael Smerconish]

I completely agree. I mean, you may disagree with the direction in which Barry Weiss is seeking to take 60 minutes. I'm for fairness, so I'm not necessarily opposed. But the idea that you could tolerate a personality in the ranks who has laid down a marker, it would, it would never occur in the private sector, beyond the media. So why should it be different in the media?

[Mark Halperin]

When was the first job you had? How long ago? What was it that you did? Television production.

[Michael Smerconish]

HOLLY KONG Junior High SCHOOL I created a short that was called Pay the Price. And with a buddy we hired a studio and we thought we were being very, very cle in televising and execution. We had a social message, Mark, and the message was the television was becoming too violent. The Mercedes 190 had just been released. I think they were selling them for $25,000 each. And my buddy and I knew, knew we were going to sell it to the Prizm cable outlet in Philadelphia. We would go to New York and drive home our one, our 190s. That didn't work out.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, and your Emmy didn't come through either.

[Michael Smerconish]

I'm still waiting.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. My point is, you've been around because I knew that story from your one man show is that, what can I call it, a one man show.

[Michael Smerconish]

It was things I wish I knew before I started talking.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, there you go. You know, you've been around production. One of the other debates in the Barry Weiss, Nick Bilton thing from the overlords at 60 minutes who think they know more about everything than everybody is that they don't know about TV production. Now, obviously, Barry has deputies who know about TV production. But is TV production, news production? Is that some big mysterious thing that if you haven't done it for 80 years, you can't do? Or is it something you can come in and kind of figure it out, in your view?

[Michael Smerconish]

I think you can figure it out or you can hire people who already have it figured out. I mean, I thought that she earned respect at the Free Press. I'm an avid reader. Has her chops, obviously, relative to the media.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, I didn't, I didn't mention this. I mentioned it in the Monologue. But I didn't go into detail. And I'm sure this caught your ear, too, because our ears catch many of the same things. Scott Pelly goes, oh, you know, we're digital. We're digital savvy, and we understood digital. And how dare Barry Weiss come in and tell us we don't understand digital. And then he said, I never heard of Bari Weiss running the Free Press. Tell me why that caught your ear as it did mine.

[Michael Smerconish]

Because, I mean, she's part of the landscape and she's a pretty dominant figure. And I think it says. And he, he finished that sentence by saying, and maybe it says more about me. I was driving in my car and I was listening to that Times interview, and I thought, respectfully, it does reveal something about you, something else about that interview. I don't know if you noticed, my mother is 90. So driving to and from visiting mom yesterday, I listened to the totality of it. Never was he asked the question of, okay, you've set the table. Now tell us exactly what you said in the meeting about Nick Bilton. That they were on the periphery of it. But that was the obvious question, and I wanted to hear it from him. I said, X, Y, Z.

[Mark Halperin]

But don't people have audio of that? So don't we know exactly what he said?

[Michael Smerconish]

Mark, I haven't heard the audio. I mean, it's been reported on. I wanted desperately to play the audio on radio today. You know, TC My producers. Terrific. She said, it's not out.

[Mark Halperin]

Huh? So people got the audio and listened to it and transcribed it, but didn't make it public.

[Michael Smerconish]

As far as I know, that's true.

[Mark Halperin]

Interesting. Yeah. I want to talk about Graham Platner. Very few Democrats are criticizing him or the party for supporting him as the nominee. And you and I both have seen hypocrisy in both parties our whole careers. Is there a non hypocritical basis for Democrats to simply say it's up to the voters of Maine and to not denounce Graham Platner and say he should step down?

[Michael Smerconish]

There is not a. There is not. This is probably a double negative. There's not a non hypocritical basis that I can see. And I frankly think that the rough edges of Platner and the revelations of Platner are part of his appeal with Democrats who are sticking with him. They. They want someone they perceive as willing to knee the president in the groin. And he fits that criteria. The voice, the ruggedness, the tats, the military service, all of these indiscretions of his past. I think that that's what they're looking for. They want a street fighter. You and I think have debated in the past who actually was the first to say that Trump is willing to be bring a gun to a knife fight. Democrats want their version of that.

[Mark Halperin]

Is that, is that just luck on Platner's part, or does he have that ineffable thing that Trump has, that Bill Clinton has that allows him to survive what, you know, a textbook in political science would tell you could not be survived.

[Michael Smerconish]

Right place, right time. He comes across as an angry fighter willing to take it to the man. And that is what I perceive the base and as most wanting. And you ask about hypocrisy. I mean, I look at Elizabeth Warren and I think about that debate stage and the night that she eviscerated Michael Bloomberg and the era of women deserve to be believed. And then you look at the Times story and what they reported about his past relationships. How can you take down Bloomberg for NDAs and be accepting of Platner? Same thing about Bernie. Same thing pretty much about. About all of them. I read the Roman comments very, very carefully to see how's he going to go stand on that stage in, in Maine. I can't believe in any other context they'd be okay with that.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. And is the only thing that explains it that they just look at the reality and he's the one? I mean, you said part of it that some Democrats like, like the fighting posture, but is it also that they just desperately want to win control of

[Michael Smerconish]

the Senate at any costs? Yes, I think that they, and I've heard this, this argument from, from callers. It's the. Yeah, but the stakes are so high and democracy is on the line. And in any other election, maybe we'd pay more deference to that. But these are unique times. That's what I hear.

[Mark Halperin]

Right. All right. This is a media story, which you and I enjoy discussing. That when it had, when it first developed, I wondered, will this become a big story? And my instinct was no, but I don't really want know why I thought that. It's the story of the conflict between the New York Times and the woman, a Republican, who's the main accuser in the New York Times story about Graham Blattner. She did an interview with the. For on the record with them. And subsequently, in three extraordinary tweets repudiated, the New York Times accused them of some serious violations of journalistic ethics. She says, amongst other things, that they told they she they introduced her to two other women who they said would be quoted in the story who were not quoted. She shared supporting information and documentation with them about her accusations, which weren't included in the story. And she now says in her tweets she feels betrayed by them, that they weren't honest with her. That seems to me to be a huge story. But the New York Times is being challenged by, by one of their own sources on the record in a very explicit way. They put out just a completely mushy statement saying, we stand by our sources, blah, blah, blah, and our reporting. First question is, do you consider that to be an interesting media story?

[Michael Smerconish]

I do. And I read the social media account that she published and she seemed to be saying, I, I was led to believe I wouldn't be the only one. There were others. I interacted with the others and then I was left holding the battle bag. And then of course, it opens the criticism to one of, oh, and you know, she's a partisan, by the way. That in and of itself doesn't rule out her credibility. I just had a long conversation. This may seem like a non sequitur, but I just had a long conversation talking about Michael Jackson and the three part documentary, talked about that on air today, this new Netflix show. And I wanted to know why are some people still standing with Michael Jackson and callers. Some of them said, well, you know, those families have all been paid to. Which I said, okay, they've been paid, but that doesn't necessarily mean their accounts are incredible. I feel the same way about, about this witness. I felt the same. I felt the same way. Here's another non sequitur. I felt the same way about the. The witness never called to testify in the O.J. case, who had seen O.J. leaving the Nicole Brown Simpson scene, but had taken money from one of the tabloids and apparently had like the best account of him looking harried and speeding away from that, from that location. And that person didn't play a role because the perception was, well, they took the money. Okay, maybe they did take the money and shouldn't have, or should have, but I still want to hear that side of the story.

[Mark Halperin]

Right. All right, these are great metaphors. And it goes to the attempts to discredit her, but the Times obviously found her credible because they did quote her extensively in the story. So here you have the leading news organization in America, by most standards, you have a woman making some serious allegations against the person who's one of the top news topics in America today doing a kind of Allegations. I can't think of a great parallel to what she's alleging. It seems super interesting. Why aren't the media writers who have these newsletters with endless capacity? I haven't read a single word in any of the media newsletters about this extraordinary face off between the New York Times asking the New York Times, whose statement did not deal with the specifics of her allegations, for specifics. Why aren't they covering it?

[Michael Smerconish]

I think it's a great question. By the way, I'll say in defense of the Times, I appreciate the fact that they were willing to investigate the story.

[Mark Halperin]

Absolutely.

[Michael Smerconish]

And put it on the, put it on the front page. But, you know, when it was, when it was Bill Cosby and control of the Senate was not potentially at stake, everybody was clamoring to identify everybody and publish all of their accounts. It's not the same here.

[Mark Halperin]

If you could interview the New York Times, what would you ask them?

[Michael Smerconish]

Give us the accounts of the other women. And why didn't you put them in the initial story which was going to have the biggest pop.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, I just, you take just sort of the general convention of a woman making allegations like that is afforded enormous amount of deference on credibility, but also on agency. And here she is saying, I regret cooperating. She said, my friends told me not to. One of the people told them not to. It's my morning meeting co host Larry o', Connor, who said to her, who's a very dear friend, don't do it. Do not trust the New York Times. And then she says she was betrayed by them. How often do people go public and say, the New York Times, I was the source of the New York Times and they betrayed me? Not very often. I agree. And yet I see no coverage of it. I find it, I find it a little bit confusing. All right, let's wait.

[Michael Smerconish]

Let me just say one other thing. I'm. Yeah, I'm parroting you. So this is not my original thought, but yeah, the other shoes are certainly going to drop because to what benefit is it for Republicans now? None. To drop whatever they may have in terms of opposition research. They're going to, I think it's Saturday, you know, election tomorrow. Saturday is the deadline. Let's see where we are next week or next month. Because if, if I'm Susan Collins or her campaign, I want to wait a little bit to cement his position before we reveal whatever we may have.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, the election's Tuesday and, and then they have almost over a month where he could step down and the state party could replace him, he doesn't seem inclined to step down. But I will say, and this is obviously based on what you said and others have said, not a far fetched scenario. Could easily imagine a situation where eventually Democrats have to abandon him, where elected officials who are currently supporting him say, I no longer can support him. I don't think he should be our nominee. I wonder how they'll explain the gradation between what it was that caused them to say that and what he's already been accused of or already acknowledged doing.

[Michael Smerconish]

I know, but what could be worse for a candidate than for 18 years to have a Nazi tattoo on his chest? Like, what could it be that would finally be the straw that breaks the camel's back?

[Mark Halperin]

Here's another strange thing about the Platner story. It was reported that he used cocaine while he was in the military. It was reported he kept a gun in his home in D.C. that would not be legal to have kept in his home. Those are two violations of the law. Nazi tattoo is, you know, is what it is, but it's not illegal. And here's a guy who says he wants to be a lawmaker who seems to have committed two violations of the law. And again, this is not ancient history. This is in the relatively recent past. And yet those stories have not been pursued either, as best I can tell after being initially reported.

[Michael Smerconish]

Yeah, but he's willing to, to knee Trump in the groin if given the chance.

[Mark Halperin]

Right?

[Michael Smerconish]

It's that simple.

[Mark Halperin]

One more thing about Platner and, but it has a wider applicability because again, I just, I trust your, your, your sagacity on these things. A catch all explanation and excuse for Planner supporters is ptsd. He was in the military and he had ptsd. I would venture to say that most people who have broken the law or done improper things or been bad girlfriends or boyfriends had some sort of trauma in their lives early on. Is, is that, is that. Is being in the military allow you to have a special dispensation? Or can other people now say, I had PTSD from a childhood experience and, and therefore, please forgive me.

[Michael Smerconish]

I think the military does provide him some slack. I think it gives him leeway that, that someone else would not have. But it's not that alone. If the PTSD didn't exist, I don't, if he didn't have that as, as a, as a crutch, for lack of a better word, I still think they'd be sticking with him.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. All right. Got to talk some Knicks because you're a student of urban sports to tell people about, who are Young, about the 73 Knicks and why they're. Why they're considered so legendary.

[Michael Smerconish]

Mark. It harkens back to my youth. You'll remember Nerf basketball. We used to. On our knees, we would. We would affix a Nerf basketball net to the top of a door and. And, you know, shoot hoops and play against one another. This was my cousins and me. And there was something special about. About those five or those six individuals that today I can rattle off their names. I think I went to three home 76 or games this year, and I. I'd be stumped after three members, all right, maybe not of the current 76ers. So there was. It was, you know, it was lightning in a bottle. It was. It was the Joe Willie Namath era of Manhattan and the excitement that surrounded the city, and they've been able to, again, catch that lightning in a bottle.

[Mark Halperin]

I know they. I know they. You're not the hugest basketball fan, but what does it mean to New York and to the country to have the Knicks, if they do win, finally win a championship?

[Michael Smerconish]

I think it's a good thing because, you know, I'm a big believer that we lack common experience. We don't all watch the same TV shows. Somebody recommends something to you, you're paying for the streamer, you've still never even heard it. So I think it's a good thing for the country when we have something we can talk about that's not politics.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. And again, I'm too close to it because I live in New York and I've been caught up in this. I've been a Knicks fan just because I live here, but they're not my main team. But my sense is, I've traveled the country the last couple months. People are, at least sports fans, really are caught up in this.

[Michael Smerconish]

I agree. And this is. I'm a homer when I say this, but the fact that three of the starting five are Villanova, I mean, it's really like Jay Wright's team that's in the finals. And I love the Villanova aspect of it as well.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, it's an incredible story. And. And those guys, I mean, Villanova obviously is a basketball powerhouse, but those guys, you know, they're not the biggest, tallest, fastest players of all time. You wouldn't have watched them in college and said they'd clearly be an integral part of an NBA championship team. And yet they're just extraordinarily gifted teammates, both in college and in pro in a way that you just don't normally see. So I agree with you. That piece of it is just an incredible story to have college teammates like that, not from Duke, not from Kentucky, but from little Villanova, as we said. Tell people how to get your newsletter to make sure everybody's signed up.

[Michael Smerconish]

I'm proud of the newsletter. It dispatches. It's almost as good as Wide World of News.

[Mark Halperin]

It's almost, that's what people say. People say almost as good.

[Michael Smerconish]

So it dispatches at 8am Eastern every day.

[Mark Halperin]

All right, thanks again to Michael Smerconish. Then next up, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of the National Review. Rich Lowry is next up. Time for some life talk. Life insurance talk, that is. You probably have it, but do you know how much you're paying for it? The truth? You likely pay too much to get too little. Plus, if your coverage is tied to your job and then you're laid off, you're left with zero protection. It's scary, but simple to fix with Select Quote. Unlike one size fits all companies. Select Quotes license agents work for you in 15 minutes. They compare top rated providers to find the perfect fit for your health and budget. Best of all, their service is free. Don't worry about medical exams. They've got partners offering same day coverage up to $2 million without a doctor's visit. Even with pre existing conditions like diabetes, Select Quote finds the protection you deserve. Life insurance is never cheaper than today. Select Quote they shop, you save, get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at selectquote.com, save more than 50%. That's right. On term life insurance at selectquote.com, today to get started, go to selectquote.com, close your eyes.

[Monday.com Advertiser]

Listen to Monday.com feel the sensation of an AI work platform so flexible and intuitive it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com, start for free. And finally, breathe Courage.

[Mark Halperin]

I learned it from my adoptive mom, hold my hand.

[Adopt Us Kids Announcer]

You hold my hand. Learn about adopting a teen from foster [e-mail] you can't imagine the reward brought to you by Adopt Us Kids, the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.

[Mark Halperin]

All right, next up and joining me now is Rich Larry. He's the editor in chief of the National Review. I'm going to start. Hopefully we'll get to more than three with the Vice President, United States, Mr. J.D. vance. How would you describe his relationship today with Maga?

[Rich Lowry]

I think he's in Good standing. Right. He made it clear that he wasn't a supporter of this war, but he's been a loyal soldier. No evident distance from Trump. I think Marco is probably more popular. Just I have not met one Republican out in the real world who doesn't love Marco Rubio. Whereas there's some mixed feelings about JD But I think he's still in very good stead and in a very good position to potentially win the nomination in 28.

[Mark Halperin]

When you find people who don't love JD what is it that they don't love? Republicans?

[Rich Lowry]

Either that he's not warm and fuzzy, they don't find him charismatic, or they wonder, is he opportunistic because he is so crit of Trump? Obviously that's true. Marco Rubio as well, but I think it's basically just not warming up to him. I don't think anyone can even objectively say he's not a highly impressive guy and really articulate and very smart and knows what he thinks and why. But if he ultimately doesn't make it either for the nomination or get over the top in a general, I think it's going to be because of a lack of the X factor.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. What about his relationship with independence of people in the country aren't particularly partisan? How would you characterize that?

[Rich Lowry]

Not great. I think that's tough. He doesn't have a huge independent identity for most people, separate from Trump and being his vice president. And again, if he wins the nomination in a general, it's going to be like Kamala Harris all over again. In terms of Kamala, I think, actually could have gotten separation from Biden if she wanted it. And it was an issue, idiotic mistake not to do it. And it probably would have helped her if Biden would have shot at her or made his displeasures known in some other way. But with JD no separation will be possible because if he shows any, Trump's gonna take a bazooka at him, and that potentially could sink his chances. So he's gotta be with Trump all the way. At a time when Trump, standing with independence, is circling the toilet.

[Mark Halperin]

If he said to you that, Rich, I aspire to get support if I run for President in 28, I aspire to get support from a lot of Democrats. I want to get as many Democratic votes as any Republican's gotten in the last 50 years, how would you rate the prospects of that project?

[Rich Lowry]

I think it's very difficult. I think he's going to be running with, who knows? Maybe we have an economic boom here and the Iran war gets settled in good order sometime soon and Trump's numbers climb. But sort of straight line projection, you got to think Trump's going to be 40 ish for the duration and he's going to be a vice president running very much in the mode and very much on board everything Trump did. So how is he going to get those crossover votes and expand the coalition? It's hard to see with Marco. At least you can see it in theory. I don't know whether it actually work in practice, but maybe he can get more Latinos, which Trump seems to be shedding at the moment. Maybe he can win some more college educated voters. But it's hard to see where JD Pluses up from where the Trump coalition is.

[Mark Halperin]

If you walked into the National Review editorial meeting and said, hey, everybody, big surprise, the vice president's coming in 15 minutes, he's going to do an on the record interview with the whole team. And you said that, or you said, hey, guys, in 15 minutes, Marco Rubio is coming. How would they react to those two things?

[Rich Lowry]

Well, we have a lot of people who's really skeptical of JD for some of the political reasons I'm going through, but also because substantively, he's in a different place than most National Review conservatives are. So there'd be more enthusiasm about Marco Rubio and probably more enthusiasm than people would have expected 18 months ago than there would be over meeting with J.D. but my colleagues would love grilling J.D.

[Mark Halperin]

yeah. So they'd like it for the sport.

[Rich Lowry]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mark Halperin]

So are conservatives better off with a hostile media because they have it as a foil, or is it in the interest of the conservative movement to make places like CBS News less liberally biased? Which is, which is better for the conservative movement?

[Rich Lowry]

Clearly the latter. You know, and I wish Barry Weiss, everybody success. You know, it's difficult, right, because you're going up against that monochromatic cultural affinity that everyone in the media has. They all kind of go to a certain true north of a certain kind of center left kind of ideology where they have no awareness that they're even ideological in any way. But I think it'd be better if we had better media outlet.

[Mark Halperin]

So I agree with, I agree with you. From my point of view, it'd be better as well for the country. So Donald Trump and J.D. vance have done as much on that project as any people I've ever covered. They really understand deeply the nature of the problem. They understand how the problem manifests itself. I think they have been appropriately aggressive with reporters and news organizations to Call it out. How's that project going? How much progress have they made? Them and their running partners, their teams? How much progress have they made?

[Rich Lowry]

Well, I think just in terms of the way I looked at this in 1617 time frame, it's kind of the media at that point had replaced the Soviet Union as the main object of conservative ire. And the main figure who had represented that ire had been Rush Limbaugh. And I think Trump picked it up from Limbaugh. Right. And it's been a Republican complaint for decades, for as long as I can remember, that conservatives and Republican politicians haven't been tough enough with the press. So obviously Trump meets that standard, in some ways exceeds it. But that doesn't necessarily make the press any better. Right. The media has largely gotten worse, I think, in the Trump years because people in the press have been so outraged by him and fear and loathe him. So they felt even less of a need to kind of COVID up where they're coming from. They've been more blatant about it.

[Mark Halperin]

So what's the solution? Let's say Marco Rubio says, rich, I've saw you on Mark's show and I think criticizing them and demonizing them the way Donald Trump has, while well intentioned and purposeful and satisfying for a lot of conservatives emotionally and intellectually, hasn't worked. I want to change it. I want the New York Times, the Washington Post to cover me and Republicans fairly. What are the, what are the building blocks of doing it so it's effective rather than, as you correctly point out, made things worse.

[Rich Lowry]

I'm not sure how much control you have over it. I think you just need to be aggressive when they're wrong, encounter narratives that you consider false, do what you can to kind of foster the alternatives. And, but, but after, you know, after that, you're kind of, you're not a media mogul. You're, you're politician. So they're limited, limited control. But something has long been irritating and still kind of true, as conservatives have often thought. Well, the mainstream media hates us and doesn't give our politicians a fair shake. Yet our politicians go on those shows and talk to those reporters, take it as legitimately as Democrats do. And Trump is kind of, he's done things obviously to foster the alternative media. He'll sit down with interviews, they have seats in the, the press room and all that. But he still cares very much, you know, what the New York Times or Meet the Press say about him. So he talks to those reporters and goes on those shows probably more than the average Democrat. Right. Because he's just more accessible generally.

[Mark Halperin]

Leaving CBS aside because there's special case, is there any place that you think, in the legacy media, what I call the dominant media, is there any place that you think, say, in the last two years since President Trump was elected again, that's gotten better incrementally or otherwise?

[Rich Lowry]

I can't think of one. I think Axios is different in a way that Politico was different when it first started, but I think Politico got taken over by the news culture. And who knows, if Axios is around long enough and Mike Allen and Jim vandehei jump and do something else, maybe it'll be taken over too. It's hard to think of an outlet that's gotten fairer or better.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, you, you wouldn't say that about Emma Tucker's Wall Street Journal, maybe.

[Rich Lowry]

Yeah, that could be exception.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, I, I, I, I, I feel their coverage is excellent. I know the president thinks it's too tough, and I'm not saying it's universally different, but I think it's somewhat different. I think they, they go to great lengths to try to cover things more fairly than they did before in the news side and certainly in the post,

[Rich Lowry]

they caught hell for doing a Biden Aid story before, before a lot of other people are doing. Yeah, I think that's a good point.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. I want to ask you about the Democratic Party. The midterms could go well, but as Doug Sosnick and others have pointed out, that doesn't mean they'll necessarily do well in the next presidential level. Besides being an opposition to Trump, do you hear Democrats talk about things that are popular or that could be part of a rebranding of the party? Do you hear any ideas or themes that any Democrat raises that you think, well, that's smart, that's interesting. That's, that has brought appeal, affordability.

[Rich Lowry]

Right. It's, it's very vague.

[Mark Halperin]

I mean, it's, I mean, it's, I mean, a specific thing, something that, I

[Rich Lowry]

don't think so, but I don't think this is unusual. I think usually you, you lose a national election, you lose all of Washington, you come back by default. You know, you come back based on what's happening with the president, and usually two years in to a term, good things aren't happening. Right. And he's, he's on the decline. That's certainly true here. So you win by default, and then you need a candidate, a candidate to figure it out, to have a new way of doing Politics to forge a new coalition, to come up with new policy ideas and to be a fresh and interesting figure. So that's Obama. Right. That's Trump. That was George W. Bush as well. So who that figure is among the Democrats, I don't know, but we'll find out whether they have one or not, because very often it's someone who comes out of nowhere. Yeah.

[Mark Halperin]

As you probably don't know since you raised the assertion. I don't believe it's the case that people come out of nowhere. I don't think history supports that.

[Rich Lowry]

Yeah, well, Trump would be out of nowhere, but otherwise. Well, yeah, Trump firstly minted senator.

[Mark Halperin]

He was. But.

[Rich Lowry]

But out of nowhere. That's true.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. But I'll say. I'll say this about Obama. He was talking about a potential president from the time he was at the Harvard Law School.

[Rich Lowry]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Halperin]

You know, and, and when he ran for senate in, in 20 2004, he gave the keynote address. So he came out of nowhere in the sense that it wasn't his turn and he's the only Democrat to beat a front runner. The modern age. But he wasn't out of nowhere. Same with Trump. He was out of nowhere in the sense he'd never run before. But he'd been talked about as a potential presidential candidate for a long time. He'd been on the national stage. So I guess maybe I have a different definition of some than out of nowhere, but I don't. I don't. I don't believe in that. At least not. Not supported by modern history. If you look at Bashir, Shapiro, Newsom, Moore and Pritzker, amongst the governors most often discussed as potential presidential candidates, can you name a single idea any of them have had that they've implemented as governor that would have broad appeal?

[Rich Lowry]

I don't think so, no. And I think Newsom would have the biggest problem in terms of having a state where. In terms of affordability, which was talked about, again, not. Not an idea, but a theme.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah.

[Rich Lowry]

Everything has gone in the direction. The wrong direction very often as. As a direct result of failed state policies.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. I think Shapiro has done some things like lowered the requirements for what kind of degree you need to have to get a government job. I think that might have broad appeal, but. But I'm surprised at how poor all five of them are at marketing, because you and I pay pretty close attention to stuff and you just don't hear about any ideas that they have that. That could get national purchased away. Bill Clinton did in Arkansas the way George W. Bush did In Texas. I find that a little bit strange that they're not out there trying to share a little bit more about what they do.

[Rich Lowry]

Yeah, totally. So Clinton. So did we know he was a New Democrat? Yeah, early. Before.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah, we did. He was a. He was the chairman of the dlc, Democratic Leadership Council. And. And he ran the Democratic Leadership Council, had its own platform, which was very, very much out of step with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. They supported the death penalty and right to work and NAFTA and welfare reform. So, yeah, we knew. And. And he did a bunch of stuff like that in Arkansas. I want to talk to you about New York. People hate New York around the country. Not uniformly, but there's a lot of, you know, anti New York feeling. What. What's the best thing about New York? New York City.

[Rich Lowry]

Oh, the energy.

[Mark Halperin]

Yeah. What's the worst thing?

[Rich Lowry]

Like nothing. No place like it. I went to Dallas. I love Texas. I went to Dallas two weeks ago. Flight got in a little late. 10 o' clock at a hotel, no food. Can I go to eat? Nowhere?

[Mark Halperin]

Nothing. What's the worst thing about New York City?

[Rich Lowry]

Major America.

[Mark Halperin]

I know, but it's true in a lot of cities, unfortunately. What's the worst thing about New York?

[Rich Lowry]

Smell. The grime. The sense of disorder, which has always been kind of part of the energy, but is a negative part of it. Very often.

[Mark Halperin]

We could use the energy without the smell. Yeah.

[Rich Lowry]

More streets possible.

[Mark Halperin]

Has Mandami been a better, worse mayor or what you expected?

[Rich Lowry]

I think about what I expected. My upside with Mondami is that he doesn't end up really being able to do anything substantive and he ends up making a lot of left wings gestures, especially cultural gestures. It seems like that might be where he said it.

[Mark Halperin]

Yep. Where can people see your work, sir?

[Rich Lowry]

National Review.com and National Reviews YouTube channel.

[Mark Halperin]

All right, thanks to Rich Lowry and to Michael Smerconish. That's it for today's program. We'll be back on Thursday with a brand new episode. Subscribe to Next up on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast so you always know what's coming. Next up,

[Monday.com Advertiser]

Close your eyes. Listen to Monday.com. feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com start for free. And finally breathe.

[Mark Halperin]

Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand.

[Adopt Us Kids Announcer]

You hold my hand. Learn about adopting a team from foster [e-mail] you can't imagine the reward brought to you by Adopt Us Kids, the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.