Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari, and Kmele talk about their optimism with the peace deal in Gaza, more on Megyn Kelly and recent feedback from our audience.

Summary

Tangle Podcast Episode Summary: “Suspension of the rules.”
October 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of "Tangle," host Isaac Saul is joined by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman and Editor-at-Large Camille Foster for a wide-ranging discussion centering on optimism about the new Gaza peace deal, reflections on a recent interview with Megyn Kelly, and listener feedback regarding accusations of bias and the challenges of non-partisan journalism in the Trump era. The tone is candid, self-reflective, and frequently humorous, with the group leaning into personal anecdotes and fostering substantive debate.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Reflecting on Italy and Cultural Perspectives

00:56–12:00

• The episode opens with light banter about Italian-American identity and Columbus Day, sparking a playful back-and-forth about cultural labels and American holidays.
• Isaac shares stories from his recent trip to Florence, marveling at the historic architecture and contrasting the depth of European history with the United States.
  Quote [06:03] (Camille): “It just gave me this profound sense of just how deep the human story is…It’s not quite the same as here.”
• Ari chimes in with “real Italy” experiences—living in Rome among the working class and dealing with infrastructure projects thwarted by the constant discovery of ancient ruins.
• The panel jokes about "island time" in Florence, noting how leisurely the pace of life is, even in something as simple as a pickup basketball game.
  Quote [10:13] (Isaac): “The whole experience…by day four or five, I really kind of fell into the rhythm, you know. It was relaxing.”

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2. Cautious Optimism: The Gaza Peace Deal

12:05–30:00

• The hosts are noticeably upbeat, with Isaac expressing rare optimism about the prospects for real progress in Gaza: Quote [13:06] (Isaac): “I actually, for the first time in two years, am feeling optimistic about this conflict.”
• They break down key elements of the deal, especially the release of all hostages by Hamas, Israel’s military withdrawal, and the planned technocratic leadership for Gaza.
• Ari analyzes the core issues: Hamas’s governance in Gaza as a longstanding problem, Israel’s military presence, and how the deal attempts to resolve both.
• Camille brings in the broader regional picture, noting the significant weakening of Iranian influence due to the war: Quote [18:19] (Camille): “The fact that Iran has been gutted in certain respects...their ability to wield power through their proxies has been utterly crippled.”
• Criticisms of the deal are discussed, including skepticism from outlets like The Guardian about the externally imposed “Board of Peace” and the concern that Gazans were not properly consulted. Quote [25:03] (Ari): “What this is is a denial of agency and it’s paternalistic. I wouldn’t say it’s colonial.”
• The panel agrees that any true compromise will have critics on both sides, seeing this as a sign of a realistic, substantive agreement.

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3. Interview Reflection: Camille vs. Megyn Kelly

32:30–65:10

• Isaac transitions the conversation to Camille’s interview with Megyn Kelly on the Fifth Column podcast, exploring Kelly’s current posture as “out of generosity” for the left and center, and squarely on “her team”:
  Quote [34:45] (Isaac): “She seemed to articulate a view of ‘I don’t have any grace left’...she’s just done.”
• The group analyzes Kelly’s resistance to being pressured into condemning individuals like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens, with Camille emphasizing the personal nature of some of her alliances and her independent agenda-setting: Quote [37:27] (Camille): “You’re not going to boss me around and tell me which views I have to adopt or who I have to condemn...”
• Isaac critiques the interview for not pressing Kelly hard enough on Trump's own criminal cases versus those brought by his political opponents, wanting a clearer distinction on the legitimacy of charges.
• They grapple with the journalistic tension between eliciting a guest’s perspective and challenging them:
  Quote [53:17] (Isaac): “My job is to get...somebody in a position to articulate their views in a cogent way so our audience can understand and judge for themselves.”
• Discussion turns to the gravity (or lack thereof) of various Trump prosecutions, whether they were politically motivated, and the role of nuance versus partisanship in these conversations.

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4. Navigating Audience Feedback and Bias

66:09–85:43

• The focus shifts to Tangle’s own audience feedback, highlighting divergent accusations: some say Tangle is “too left,” others think it’s “sanewashing the right.”
• Ari notes the increase in feedback that goes beyond accusations of bias, instead questioning Tangle’s very mission during periods of high polarization and under the Trump administration: Quote [70:58] (Ari): “That mindset is also something...that I think has grown. That mindset is also something that...we should attribute to Trump.”
• Camille reflects on the expectation for "maximalist condemnation" of Trump and other political actors, and the difficulties of remaining measured: Quote [75:29] (Camille): “Try to bring a little bit of clarity to the universe so that people can make what they believe are informed decisions.”
• The hosts explore how feedback varies by channel and audience and why honest viewpoint diversity sometimes angers both sides.
• They conclude it’s impossible to satisfy everyone and double down on their mission of intellectual honesty and fair debate: Quote [84:43] (Isaac): “It feels the same as I feel when some conservative writes in and says that I’m using soft language because I’m scared of getting canceled by the left.”

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5. Grievances & Lighthearted Closing

88:52–97:32

• The “Airing of Grievances” segment offers comedic relief:
  • Camille complains about dropping his caseless iPhone, calling on Apple’s design:
    Quote [90:18] (Camille): “...I should be able to drop this phone. I should be able to drop it from several stories and nothing should happen. Do better.”
  • Ari humorously laments aging and waking up with tension headaches.
  • Isaac rants about his inability to reorder identical eyeglasses that actually fit, speculating about anti-Semitic glassmakers and his changing face.
• The trio closes with self-aware banter about their own complaints.

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Notable Quotes

• Isaac Saul [13:06]: “For the first time in two years, I'm feeling optimistic about this conflict.”
• Ari Weitzman [25:03]: “There haven’t been free and fair elections [in Gaza] for about a decade now... Something that’s also denying the agency of Gazans for self determination has been Hamas—straight up.”
• Camille Foster [18:19]: “The fact that Iran has been gutted in certain respects...their ability to wield power through their various proxies in the region has been utterly crippled.”
• Isaac Saul [41:01]: “She was just like, yeah, Trump’s obviously a self-interested narcissist who only cares about himself and like his reputation. But, like, our views and incentives are aligned.”
• Ari Weitzman [74:01]: “There is a kind of hubris attached...a point at which you reached the conclusion that this was, in fact, genocide, and...someone else perhaps doesn’t see it in exactly the same way... seriously, come on, like... allow for the possibility that you could be wrong.”
• Isaac Saul [84:43]: “It feels the same as I feel when some conservative writes in and says that I’m using soft language because I’m scared of getting canceled by the left.”
• Camille Foster [90:18]: “...I should be able to drop this phone. I should be able to drop it from several stories and nothing should happen. Do better.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Italy & Cultural Reflection: 00:56–12:00
• Gaza Peace Deal Discussion: 12:05–30:00
• Megyn Kelly Interview Reflection: 32:30–65:10
• Audience Feedback & Bias: 66:09–85:43
• Airing of Grievances: 88:52–97:32

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Episode Takeaways

• The episode is a strong example of open, non-partisan political debate wrestling with the nuance and complication inherent in deeply polarized issues.
• The team is cautiously hopeful about the new Gaza peace deal but remains realistic about the difficulties of establishing lasting peace.
• Isaac, Ari, and Camille reflect openly on the challenges of interviewing partisans, the limits of journalistic interrogation, and Tangle’s evolving role amidst accusations of bias.
• Their self-awareness and willingness to air grievances—both professional and personal—underscore their commitment to honest dialogue, good humor, and transparent journalism.

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For anyone who hasn’t listened, this episode offers a thoughtful, at times humorous journey through current events, media criticism, and the perpetual balancing act of independent journalism.

Transcript

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[Isaac Saul]

Coming up, some optimism around the peace deal in Gaza. We put Camille in the hot seat for his interview with Megyn Kelly. And we talk a lot about our audience, you guys, and some of the fury we get from the masses. It's a good one.

[Advertiser/Host Voiceover]

From executive producer Isaac Saul.

[Isaac Saul]

This is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Suspension of the Rules podcast. A place where the takes are hot, the heads are cool, the hosts are handsome.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yes, you're making it your own. We love it.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, I'm doing my own thing. Maybe we should just do something new every week. I am your trusty, reliable host who goes on vacation regularly. Yeah. Isaac Saul. I'm here with Ari Weitzman, Tangle managing editor. Camille Foster, editor at large. Fellas, it's Columbus Day tomorrow when this comes out. We were just having a nice conversation about the acceptability of Italian American slurs off air. So we're celebrating in our own. We all celebrate in our own way.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Isaac Saul]

Camille, you wanna share?

[Camille Foster]

I'm just surprised you called it Columbus Day, because some people call it Indigenous People Day. I just call it Culture War Day. So happy Culture War Day.

[Isaac Saul]

Everybody, funny enough, we had a brief. It was brief. I mean, literally two or three exchanges, which for our team is brief, about whether we should hedge. I'm still a Columbus Day guy, and I feel like the Columbus Day slash. Columbus Day slash Indigenous peoples Day is just like. It's too clunky. It feels weird.

[Ari Weitzman]

Designed to create more arguments than solve anything. Like, we should. If we want to have an indigenous peoples day, it's a good idea. We should have it its own day so it doesn't have to be like a cultural or division thing.

[Isaac Saul]

I think you got to pick your lane, you know, and my lane's America. All right.

[Ari Weitzman]

But we should have to pick Arlaine on this one. You know, I mean, Columbus Day, it's like the discovery of America is the thing that we traditionally have been celebrating on that day, and the discovery of America shortly thereafter. Discovery of America by Europeans, brackets created some incredible, incredible strife and problems.

[Isaac Saul]

And that's part of it. Listen, I'm a believer in Italian American slurs, not Italian American erasure.

[Camille Foster]

Okay?

[Isaac Saul]

That's where I draw the line.

[Camille Foster]

And it's probably too early in the podcast for me to say something as insane as humans are indigenous to Earth. The end. I don't. I think the concept is fraught.

[Isaac Saul]

And yet you should just tweet that out tomorrow morning, Camille, with no context.

[Camille Foster]

I probably already have.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, I am thrilled to be back here. Italy is a beautiful country. I was in Florence, not to brag, but, you know, great place, good food, ancient, you know, I had a realization over there. I'm just gonna put this out there to the world. Yeah, we sort of like 100, 200 years ago, we lived in this era where when rich people died, when, like, super wealthy people died, they would just leave all their money to, like, build me the coolest thing ever. When did rich people stop doing that? Everywhere you go in Florence, there's, like, a church. I went to a synagogue and biggest synagogue in Southern Europe. Beautiful synagogue in Florence. I went for the high holidays because they're for Yom Kippur and it's a museum, too. And I was reading about the synagogue, and there's this super rich Jew who was going to die and his entire estate. He just said, build me a synagogue worthy of Florence. That's so badass. Rich people never do that anymore. I wish more that we need to bring back the state, you know, the Boboli Gardens, the. Just, like, do the thing. You have a bunch of money. When you die, leave it to building Constructing something beautiful. I don't know why more wealthy people don't do that anymore. But this is my call to action for them.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I actually have a real love and affection for Italy. I think it was my first European trip was to Italy shortly after college. It's me and my then young wife and our then early marriage. And it was just this extraordinarily profound experience for me in particular going to Florence and visiting some of the museums there and seeing this block, this block that a master artist had been working on and it is yet unfinished and you can see something beautiful emerging from the block. And I don't know what it is about that experience, but that moment among all of the moments. And we did the thing where we went started in Rome, we wanted to go to Naples as well, have an opportunity to. But started in Rome, trained up to Florence and then went to Venice and Como and Milan as well. And it just the depth of the history there, certainly the architecture just the whole thing gave me this profound sense of just how deep the human story is in a way that you just don't really get when you're walking around in a much younger country in the United States where you see buildings that have all of the kind of aesthetic qualities in Washington D.C. they're kind of modeled after these buildings, but they were built just the other day and it's not quite the same. There's something different about coming from the airport, driving into Rome and watching the Coliseum rise in the distance. Just like a really profound experience for me. So I'm glad to hear about your account. Cause it reminds me of that moment. I hadn't thought about it in a while.

[Ari Weitzman]

I feel like I really have to balance the upper crust here and say I lived in real Italy, man, seven months amongst the working class when I was in the Ostiense neighborhood of rome working my €500amonth internship at NATO. But.

[Camille Foster]

Was there a municipal worker strike.

[Ari Weitzman]

During your very there every day? No, actually what happened a lot was they would have to close some of the. The new lines that they were building and some of the train stations because every time they. They tried to excavate to make a new infrastructure project, they would just find some other like priceless ruin.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

This ongoing joke amongst people that I knew there were. Yeah, we're never going to have a third metro line in Rome because it's impossible to not dig up more history in a literal sense when you're actually building. That's can maybe not take for granted here is when we. It's Hard enough to build things in the US Right now, but at least we don't have to unearth another priceless artifact and then not be able to build anymore when we do that.

[Isaac Saul]

It was really funny when I was there. One of my. I was there for a wedding, and another friend of mine who was at the wedding was staying with his friend who lives in Florence and was, like, a woman our age, like, early 30s. And, like, the week we got there, there was some huge news story about this, like, new ancient artifact they'd uncovered in Italy. And she was just like, oh, my God, like, another ancient art. Like, send it. She's just, like, a Florentine, like, normal attack. She's like, send it somewhere else. Like, we don't need more of this. We need, like, a new coffee shop, you know? Like, her. She's like, so I'm there. I'm just, like, completely blown away by everything. She's just, like, so jaded. Like, oh, great, another museum for this one artifact they dug up that's gonna pull a bunch of tourists in. Whatever. I will say my favorite thing about Florence. Maybe this isn't real. Across all of Italy. Cause, like, Naples I've been to and is. It's like, almost like a small version of New York. But in Florence, man, they are on island time. It is, like, everywhere you go, everybody's moving slow. There's like, you're gonna go get a cappuccino. It might take 90 minutes. Like, the whole experience start to finish. And everybody's just fin. I played this pickup basketball game, middle of the bat. I was at this park, middle of the basketball game. This guy just walks up. The whole game stops. Everybody daps him up, and they do the double kiss on the cheek. Like, you know, playing 3v3. Five guys, he gets to me, kind of shakes my hand, looks at me weird, and, like, tries to say something in English. I'm like, yeah, I'm just a guy who's here. They all know each other, kisses for everybody. And then he's just on the court, just rolling a spliff in the middle of the basketball game. And they're all just talking for, like, 10 minutes. And I'm just like, are we just standing here watching this conversation? And then he leaves, and the game just starts up, and it was like, oh, yeah. Nobody's got anywhere to be. We're just hanging out. We're in Florence. Life's good. So I respect that way of life. I got a little impatient here and there, but by day four or five, I really Kind of fell into the rhythm, you know, it was relaxing. Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

Similar experiences. I guess it was an interesting cultural difference of, like, I'm gonna go out to the bar and just have a drink for a little bit. And if I went out to the bar with my Italian friends, it meant going after dinner, which meant going out at 10pm and then I'd get home at 3:30, just because, like, what. What's the rush? You want to sleep? We'll do it later, Whatever, it's fine. We'll do it in the afternoon tomorrow. What's the big deal?

[Isaac Saul]

It occurred to me when I was there because we brought Omri, I was like, do babies go to sleep here later? And it turns out they do. They just like, they are all their bedtime's all at like 9 or 10 o' clock because parents don't eat dinner till like, 8 every night. It's just like. So they just go to bed later and wake up later in Italy. At least that's according to the one woman I asked.

[Ari Weitzman]

But, yeah, I cannot live in Italy anymore. Don't have the. Don't have the stamina. Don't have the stamina.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, I understand that.

[Camille Foster]

I went to see a movie at 12:50pm last night, so congrats.

[Isaac Saul]

You're always up late, man. Yeah, there's a lot of news here today. I'm in a good, you know, I'm in a good mood because it's been a little while since we started the show with just some, I think, objectively positive news. And today we get to do that because we're sitting here now, as we sit here Thursday afternoon, and there's a ceasefire deal in Gaza, a peace deal between Hamas and Israel brokered by the ultimate dealmaker, the king of all dealmakers, Donald J. Trump. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I mean, there's a lot to say here. I'll start by just what I said in the podcast earlier this morning, which is, I am cautiously optimistic. I think the most important thing to me is that phase one of this deal includes Hamas releasing all of the hostages, which to me means they are giving up all of their leverage to the degree they have any in the war. And if they're doing that, then that means that there's probably a lasting deal here that holds if Israel holds up its end of the bargain. So I find that particularly encouraging. I think the peace plan is fairly novel and clever, and there's elements of it that I really like, and it seems to acknowledge a really wide range of perspectives that exist in this conflict and tries to capture them all into a deal. It's a good plan. You know, this stuff falls apart at various elements, but I think it's a really good plan, actually. Not like the half baked. We're going to give everybody a token and move them out of Gaza, and they'll be able to use that token to, like, buy a fake crypto apartment in some other country. This is like a real plan that has real benchmarks to hit. So I actually, for the first time in two years, I'm feeling optimistic about this conflict. I don't think this is a lasting solution to end the Israel Palestine conflict, but I do think there's an opportunity for this to actually end the war here, which I'm excited about. So, I don't know, I'm curious to hear what you guys think. And Camille, I know you did a show last night or earlier today, got released about this. And Ari, you and I have obviously been going back and forth talking about this conflict for a long time now, but I'm feeling hopeful and optimistic and that's where I'm at. And I'd like to just live there for a few hours. So say whatever you want, but don't burst that bubble.

[Ari Weitzman]

Okay, well, let me try to actually even push it a little further and see if I can make the bubble wider. I'll simplify something real quick. It's going to be an oversimplification, but just for the sake of the exercise. In my estimation, the two things that have been the biggest sticking points in this conflict even before October 7th has been Hamas's ability to just have control in Gaza. They're not a trustworthy governing coalition. So their control in Gaza is a concern for Israel. And on the other side, Israel's threat of being able to militarily occupy and now the reality of them doing so in Gaza has been the biggest issue on that side. This is a deal that fundamentally seeks to address both of those things. So could you feasibly say that this is a deal that is not just going to end this conflict, but could potentially lead to a more lasting peace in the area?

[Isaac Saul]

I mean, the really optimistic take is there's just been so much pressure and destruction that Hamas actually cedes power in the territory and this whatever technocratic Palestinian group with leaders from the surrounding Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority actually gets formed and they can cooperate with whatever the Board of Peace is that Trump's trying to build as a top layer to them. I mean, this doesn't feel like an appropriate thing to Talk about in the middle of the war, but I suppose now it does, which is like the opportunity in Gaza is unbelievable. I mean, it is a resource rich region. It is like on one of the most beautiful coastlines in the entire world.

[Camille Foster]

Sounds a little Trumpy in there, Isaac.

[Isaac Saul]

Well, you know, Gaza lago. I'm not, yeah, I'm not advocating for Gaza lago, but I am saying that like also Gaza is one of the most educated places in the world. There's a huge number of, you know, college graduate, post degree people there. Like, this is, this is a place that has so much potential in terms of put the right people in power and rid yourselves of like the mission to destroy Israel. That is often coming from the top down in my view and change the focus there. Like, I mean that, that is a fundamental Zionist critique of Gaza that I'm aligned with. I've always sort of tempered it by saying like, Israel acts in certain ways, obviously in my view, obvious. That limits the potential and stops Gaza from turning into what it could be. But a peace deal like this maybe opens the door for a real rebuild in a way that could bring economic prosperity and stability and some genuine peace. I think it's really early to be talking like that, but I'm certainly not going to pretend the potential is not there. I think it is.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. You mentioned the conversation we had yesterday on the fifth Com. That episode just dropped this morning. I think one of the other dimensions that makes me somewhat optimistic is just the broader regional change that has occurred as a result of the conflict itself. I mean, the fact that Iran has been gutted in certain respects. I mean, their ability to wield power through their various proxies in the region has been utterly crippled as a result of the conflict and how kind of broad the scope is. I think even in recent weeks, some of the more controversial aspects of Israel hitting neighboring countries, going after various folks associated with Hamas has similarly created perhaps at least a disincentive amongst other parties to kind of be involved in these kind of subtly malevolent ways. So, I mean, all of those things suggest to me that the region that has always been desperate for peace, that the conditions might actually be suitable to being able to sustain that for longer, because some of those more provocative elements of the region are just simply not in the position to be nearly as disruptive as they have been in the past. One of the things that I was very curious to hear you guys talk about, Isaac, is just the fact that it took a little while for this peace deal to actually solidify all of the party's support. And I was curious about your thoughts on the criticism of the deal, given that you've said optimistically, this is a pretty good deal. The Guardian, for example, published a piece that was somewhat critical of the deal. I think they referred to it as the deal structure is somewhat colonial because of that Board of Peace dimension to it. They were very concerned that the Gazans weren't consulted when the deal was constructed and had some other kind of parallel concerns. But I think that's like, those are the main beats of it. And then another kind of bit of criticism is that a lot of the narratives around the conflict were. There's this big conversation. We published a piece about it with respect to the kind of genocide dimension and whether or not it was kind of consistent with the notion of there being a genocide, that one of the parties would not be interested in just accepting a deal that gets you to peace right away. And I don't know if it's a fair point completely, but it certainly seems like something that is interesting and kind of colors things in a slightly different way.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, two great questions. I mean, I'll go first, and I certainly would be curious what Ari thinks. I mean, I'll start with the second one first, which is. I don't. I think it's, you know, stop thinking about this conflict for a moment. Just like in a vacuum, some country could commit a genocide against another country in order to try and force them into submission, and that country could refuse to be submitted and still be the victim of genocide. So, like, the. Hamas's response to bring it back to this conflict, Hamas's response to, you know, a deal that offers peace in the wake of the violence that's been described by some people as genocide. Like, whether they accept that deal or not, to me, doesn't meaningfully change, like, how we're going to define the actions that happened leading up to it. Like, I would try and analyze those independently. There's a definition of genocide. Like, does it apply to what Israel did? That's the question. Even if Hamas is, you know, like, they could be refusing to take the deal because they don't trust the deal being offered by a country that they think just quote, unquote, genocided their people or whatever, I'm not like, adopting any view there, saying that I believe one thing or the other. I'm just like, that would be how. I just like, there's a definition. Let's put the definition to it and see, the first part is a lot more challenging for me because I'm actually pretty sympathetic to the idea that.

[Camille Foster]

I.

[Isaac Saul]

Guess you could say, to the idea that there is a colonial aspect of this. It's not the language that I would use necessarily, but like, yeah, the goal should be Palestinian self determination. Are you removing that self determination by ensuring that there's this board of foreigners who have some kind of final say over what the construction of the government looks like and who's allowed in and whatever in isolation? I actually agree with that perspective. I think you need to let the Palestinian people choose, ultimately or eventually. The reality of the situation that we're in is that Israel has much more leverage, much more control. The United States has much more leverage, much more control, because they're winning the war. Whether you think it's a genocide or an ethnic cleansing or whatever. And I've talked at length about that. It's just like one side is in a position to make a demand, like we're going to remove this power center and replace it with something different and we can work together on what that power center is going to be. But like, you know, Hamas isn't in a position to say, we'll accept this deal if Benjamin Netanyahu is removed from office. They don't have that leverage. They don't have that power. And that's just like the reality of where we're at. So I don't know how. I think it's totally unrealistic to expect Israel to work towards a peace deal that leaves Hamas in power. So I always presume that any sort of end to the war would include some sort of international coalition working alongside some kind of Palestinian Authority, not the Palestinian Authority, but a Palestinian Authority to create a leadership group in Gaza. And that's what's happening. And I think that's inevitable. And I don't think, like, to me that's not. It's not like a colonial. There's a colonial element to it, of course, but it's like, what's the alternative? You can't, in my view at least, I don't think you can leave Hamas in power or expect Israel to leave Hamas in power as part of a deal. I just never thought that was in the cards.

[Ari Weitzman]

I think, yeah, I like a lot of what you said there. I'm gonna take the second half and sort of add to it. And starting from the idea of the colonial critique of what this is, I think when we use the word colonial to describe something, it's more often than not functioning as a signifier to say this is a critique coming from a perspective that's decidedly on one end of the political spectrum. The reason why I'm starting by critiquing the wording here is that I think it's a little bit broadened to say something that's more than what the term colonial originally meant. So a colony is something that an imperial power would set up in another location against its will so it could take its resources for its own. And it's more plundering than it is paternalistic. What this is is a denial of agency and it's paternalistic. I wouldn't say it's colonial. And I think if we say like a critique, like colonial, it tends to box people out. If we say this is something that's denying the agency of the Gazans, I think that's a more neutral statement that a lot of people could say, yeah, I see that in that regard. Something that's also been denying the agency of the Gazans for self determination has been Hamas straight, straight up. Like, let's start with that. There haven't been free and fair elections in the enclave for about a decade now. So a deal that's saying we're going to get these people, this governing coalition is not acceptable to the people that are waging war on it. The ones to Isaac's point that are winning that war, they have the leverage to say this governing coalition's out. That's also something that's being made without the opinions of the Gazans, but it does at least pave the way for them to have a say in their self determination. Is that a little paternalistic? I think it is, but I think it's the lesser of the two choices or the lesser of the evils of the two choices that's ahead of us, which is either Hamas is going to call the shots here, they're going to have some say in what's going to be shaped for the future, or they're not. And let's just start from there and say get this party out of a negotiating position and then we can have other people at the table who are more neutral so we can build something that has that path towards self determination laid for the future.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, I think a really good framework for the self determination question is to just say Gazans didn't have self determination when Hamas was in power. And so what's the. Tell me the meaningful difference? You could say they elected them, but it's been 20 years. And you know, I think, I think that's a really good point that I probably wouldn't have come to on my own. So like, you know, also just the other thing I would say is, you know, this is like a. It's like. It's like a bipartisan healthcare bill. Like, there is always going to be stuff to criticize. You know, I mean, if you're. I mean, I. You know, I swim in a world where I have a lot of Zionist and Israeli and Jewish friends and, you know, and I follow people, Israeli reporters and pundits and stuff on Twitter. And, you know, there are a lot of them are, in sense that there's going to be another prisoner release and that, like, these, you know, they're gonna. There's like, people convicted of really heinous crimes in Israeli prisons, Palestinians who are going to be released as part of this deal after, like, thousands have been released in the last, you know, whatever decade through exchanges like this. So they're like, we're doing this again. Like, we're gonna send these people back who are, you know, maybe the most liable to want to land in a world where they're committing violence against Israel or whatever. Like, that's. I don't know. That's pretty. A reasonable response in my view. So, I don't know. Like, I would expect there to be people who are pissed off from both sides in any deal. That was a good one that had multiple dimensions to it. You know, I mean, I. I don't know. I don't want to do, like, the cliche thing, but I will say, in a situation like this, it's probably good if everybody's a little pissed off. Like, that means that you're striking some sort of middle ground, I think.

[Ari Weitzman]

Right. It's a negotiation, and it's a compromise. So in compromises, you won't always get everything you want. And depending on your perspective, this is going to fall short for people who are pushing for as many things as they want from one side or the other.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, no, I think. I think any good deal is a compromise. We'll be right back after this quick break. As the weather cools, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually get the job done. Warm, durable, and built to last. And Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples that carry you through the season. Quince has the kind of fall staples you'll actually want to wear on repeat. Like 100% Mongolian cashmere from just $60. Classic fit denim and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. I just spent a full summer wearing nothing but Quint's clothing. You can ask my wife, because she keeps complimenting me for successfully dressing myself. And now I gotta restock for the fall with some warm wear. So I personally can attest that if you're trying to look sharp, save a little bit of money and buy from a brand that has some ethical practices. Quints is a good way to go. Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quince.comtangle for free shipping on your order and 365 day return. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.comtangle free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comtangle if you're like me, instead of learning to skateboard, you wish you were learning to write code. Instead of scraping through college, you wish you bought Bitcoin at less than a cent or secured a few Nvidia shares before they boomed. We might beat the FOMO generation, but don't miss out on protecting your future. For around the same price per month as one of your streaming services, you can break our generational cycle and secure your and your family's future by finding life [e-mail] if you're new to life insurance or it's your first time hearing about the idea, you're not alone. I found Selectquote and for over 40 years, SelectQuote has helped more than 2 million Americans understand their options and get the coverage they need. Over $700 billion in coverage and counting. The good news is life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than [e-mail] tangle save more than 50% on term life [e-mail] tangle today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com tangle do.

[Ari Weitzman]

All right.

[Isaac Saul]

Well, speaking of compromising your values, I want to talk about an interview Camille did this week. Is that good? Was that a good. Did I nail it?

[Ari Weitzman]

Light em up. Wow.

[Isaac Saul]

I'm just. No. We have a few topics that we want to get to today and one of them, in case you haven't heard, is that Camille Foster and the Fifth Column crew, Camille's other friends, losers. They got to sit down with Megyn Kelly, which was. It was a very good interview. Megyn Kelly is somebody who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. Sorry to all my left leaning liberal listeners who are gonna be upset by that. I think she is one of the most caricatured people in the media. A lot of her reputation sort of goes back to Fox News days and I Think stuff early in her career and all the presumptions people make about her because she worked at Fox News and was kind of prominent there. She's actually like, I mean, first of all, she's a great interviewer. She's a great interviewee. I think she's pretty fair minded and she's more independent. I started listening to her podcast about two years ago when she went out on her own and she's more independent minded than I expected or thought. She was like as I sort of imagined her from some of the stuff that I'd seen her do on TV and whatever. And she's been a. I mean, she is an extremely important figure on the right now. I mean, her show is unbelievably popular. Camille, as you guys talk to her about in your interview with her, which I encourage people to go listen to, you know that she's getting an enormous amount of pressure from the right right now to condemn people on her side of the aisle like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. There is like this, she joked at one point, like, I'm not the godmother of the Republican Party and I'm not gonna like, do what people tell me to do to condemn who they and I respect. I mean, that is my view. She said something like, I am only responsible for what I say and nothing else. And I think that is an excellent position for anybody to stake out. I wish she would condemn Candace Owens and some of the insane stuff she says, but I understand why she's just like, that's not my job. I'm not getting involved. I did text Camille after I listened to the interview, a little bit frustrated about an element of it that I just felt like was untouched. And I wanted to talk a little bit about today, which I think we can add enough context in this conversation that it's like, if you didn't listen to it, you don't have to. But I would say, and Camille maybe to I'll ask you, I'll run this summary by you and you can tell me whether you think it's fair or not. I think to summarize the gist of where Megyn Kelly is today, who again, incredibly important figure on the right, top five podcasts in the world on the politics side, you know, she YouTube channel, whatever. She's just like, she's president's ear. She was a Trump hater, then a Trump supporter. And you know, she's just like a little bit of a kingmaker. She brings people on her show, they blow up. She seemed to articulate a View of, like, I don't have any grace left. The title of the show is like, Megyn Kelly's out of Generosity because she says that at one point in the show she's just done. I think she's, like, at the end of her rope with, you know, people in the middle, people on the left. It seems like she had sort of hit a point where she's just like, this is a battle. And I am, like, staking out my position on this side. And I think seemed a little radicalized by the Charlie Kirk assassination, who was a friend of hers, which I want to talk a little bit about that, too. And you guys sort of tried to, like, you know, prod her into some criticisms of the president or maybe some criticisms of Candace Owens. And she was just like, I'm not gonna do this. Like, I'm here to, like, kind of advance the viewpoint of, like, the tribe that she finds herself in now, which I personally think sucks. I'm disappointed by that because, like, I think in the past she's been somebody who will hit her own side, and she feels kind of like independent minded to me. But it seems like she shifted in a meaningful way, and it's like taking on a new posture. I'll pause there and, Camille, ask you if you feel like that's a fair characterization or if you took away sort of any kind of similar perspectives there.

[Camille Foster]

Well, I'll share at the top here that I think when you have a conversation like this in public and it is one of many conversations that you've had with someone, there is a lot of context that you bring to the conversation that most viewers will not bring to it, which is to say we've talked about virtually everything we discussed before, in some instances a matter of days, weeks before. And in a lot of respects, Megan really didn't say anything new when she talked to us. This was kind of just. It was in a different. On her show, she is setting the agenda. She's selecting the clips that are happening around it, and we kind of move along when she's ready. And there's just a basic decorum that you have when you're visiting someone else's home, so to speak, and they are kind of policing the conversation. There's a way that you're gonna interact with the questions that you might not in a different setting. So I think that context is important for kind of discussing all of this. And I think in general, the characterization with respect to Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, who she's being kind of prodded to condemn from the right and the left is accurate. She's been very clear and consistent about this one. Tucker is a friend, so I think that's. There's two very separate relationships that have to be understood. And there's a personal affection there and a history there. And she doesn't believe he's an anti Semite, and she doesn't really care about all the controversy around him. She's riding with her friend, and he's an important media figure, and it's stupid for everyone to be so up in arms. And with Candace, her perspective is different. It's specifically, you're not going to boss me around and tell me which views I have to adopt or who I have to condemn or set the agenda for my show, full stop. And, you know, I think that that is an accurate representation of the conversation. I will say, though, that at a couple of points in our exchange, even if there was a subtlety about the presentation, as opposed to the kind of vociferousness of the condemnation of her detractors or her agitation for vengeance, I think that she was willing to articulate some of her concerns about the Trump administration. She was kind of careful about it, sort of clinical, almost analytical with respect to it. But she enumerated some of those things. She talked about the potential for there to be an overreach on the Trump administration's part with respect to this desire to fight fire with fire. She acknowledged that you could just burn everything down and it might work out badly. I think that's a really important admission, however kind of casually it was offered. And she enumerated a number of things that she thought the Trump administration was doing that they needed to either be careful about or were just wrong. I mean, she's no fan of Pam Bondi and thinks she should be fired. She talked about some of the criminal prosecutions that the Trump administration is pursuing and was very clear, like, we should not be making up charges, but if we're looking for them and we happen to find that your mortgage paperwork is out of order, yeah, we might get you because you did it to us before. I think there is a meaningful difference between that and they made up a bunch of stuff about us, we're gonna make up a bunch of stuff about them and try to pin them to the wall. So just again, without getting into all of the different pieces of it or even the broader critique of the interview, I think that's the characterization that I would go with.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, that tracks to me. I think that's fair. I mean, so I would. She also did something at the end that I was not expecting her to do, which was she. I don't even think she was. Maybe you guys let her into it. But I, my recollection is almost that she came to it herself. She was just like, yeah, Trump's obviously a self interested narcissist who only cares about him himself and like his reputation. But like, our views and incentives are aligned.

[Camille Foster]

So I think sometimes when you can, yeah. Leverage that in service of the American people, that can be a really valuable tool. I mean, that's like, whoa, that's amazing candor. Like really amazing candor. And I think it's actually representative of like Megan's relationship with MAGA broadly. It's not this kind of naked sycophancy. She criticizes the administration, she's willing to say things like that about Trump directly and doesn't alienate her base, her audience. And I think that's valuable.

[Isaac Saul]

And I also. The last thing I'll say, and then I'll sort of offer my broad critique of the interview and then give you a chance to respond. The last thing I'll say that you guys did not really talk about on the show. I think it came up in passing. That I also think is important. Context is like, I know from listening to Megan's show and following her that nothing has really radicalized her more than the trans issue, at least before. The Charlie Kirk stuff. That's my read on her politically is like, she, I think if she had like a core number one issue, it's that she believes like the left is endorsing, mutilating the bodies of children for like an ideology that she doesn't think is founded in reality. And she's been, she's been like really, really moved toward the sort of Trump maga, right. On that issue. And I think it's like it has put her in that tribe. And yeah, to the degree that like, fleshing that out is important at all. That didn't really come up on the show in this interview, which, like, I don't think it should have. There was no reason for it to. There was a ton of other stuff to talk about, but it just feels like context about her and where she's at that I think is pretty important, sort of just like for her person. The critique that I have is, I mean, there was a good chunk of the interview and I think the most important part of the interview, which was sort of about how she viewed Trump's attempts to prosecute his political opponents. And you guys sort of being like this comey stuff is not great. He's indicting a former FBI director. And her response was basically like, this isn't unprecedented. Why do people keep calling it unprecedented? Because of his title. They being the left, indicted a former president. This is a former director of the FBI. If anybody crossed the Rubicon, it was the Biden administration, it was the left. And you guys sort of wrestled a little bit to different, you know, varying degrees about, like, the degree to which these were equal things and what the precedent really was and who broke it. And, you know, you, Camille and Moynihan and Matt sort of, you know, were clear to say, hey, we criticize some of the prosecutions against Trump, and we're also criticizing this. And you criticize the prosecutions against Trump, but you're not criticizing this. You're, like, endorsing it kind of. And there was just sort of like, you're fighting about this thing. That, to me, felt not important. Like, the important thing is that Trump actually did some of the crimes that he was getting prosecuted for. Again, this is now, in my opinion, but, like, Comey didn't do anything. Donald Trump tried to overturn an election and also definitely mishandled classified documents to a prosecutable degree and then obstructed the investigation of that. I understand he didn't get convicted of those things, and I certainly understand that the Georgia case, the election interference case, was novel, I think, because the crime was novel. Sorry, that's just like. I think that's why. But I get it. It was like, they're sort of. And then you have all the stuff with Fani Willis, and she turned out to be a total. I mean, what a fucking mess that was. But it's like the real story is Trump got a prosecutor in Georgia who was, like, incompetent and also wrapped up in a sexual affair thing with someone she worked with and was promoting and made herself vulnerable to having the case thrown out, whatever. And then in the classified documents case, he did, like, the ultimate Teflon Don thing ever. He got a judge who he appointed who was like, so clearly, obviously in the tank for him that, you know, she was facing all sorts of potential condemnations and censures and whatever from the Bar association. And, like, I don't know, you guys were arguing with Megan about, like, pressing and all this stuff. And I was just wanting to be like, can someone just say that Trump did the fucking crime? And Comey didn't like, where is that conversation? You know, like, press her on the election thing? And when I articulated my frustration to you about this. You said the thing that you just said a few minutes ago, which I think is a totally good point, which is like, you guys have so much context of like you and Megan.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, we've talked about these cases. Yeah, right.

[Isaac Saul]

You've talked about these cases so many times and like that isn't brought into this current interview and I'm not thinking about that context and I think that's a totally fair response. But that was the thing about it that like frustrated me as a listener and like, you know, I have to insist I don't have tds. Whatever. I'm just like, I read the indictments, you know, and I list like I looked at the evidence and I know the cases didn't go to trial for various reasons, but I read the commentary about them and like, I feel like I have a really good grasp of the different arguments and like Trump did that shit. Like he did. I'm sorry. And Comey, as far as I've seen is like on the opposite spectrum of that. Like it looks, the indictment looks really flimsy and I'm just like, there is a huge difference here to me and I wish Meghan kind of wrestled with that or you guys made that case forcefully. But I understand that maybe that's not your view and that's. So I'm injecting my own perspective.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, you got look, four people around the table. We don't all agree on anything. Right. At least ostensibly. We don't necessarily all agree on anything. So certainly our reads on these different cases might be different. Well, Meghan says she's ignorant of the kind of she did.

[Isaac Saul]

She basically passed of tariff stuff.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. But I do think that with respect to the two New York prosecutions, I think it is kind of easy for a fair minded person to dismiss the fraud and sexual allegations, convictions, or at least to note that in New York you had officials who were campaigning on their desire to go make cases against Donald Trump. They went looking for things to prosecute him for and they found their way to some things and then engaged in some novel prosecutions. Like that has a political taint to it, whether or not it's all contrived. The Georgia case, as you pointed out, is different. And there's all sorts of weird scandal associated with it because of the people who were prosecuting the case. But I'd actually say that even the evidence in that case, specifically that call with an election official, which we all got to hear in WaPo, I think you can actually interpret that in a bunch of different Ways, at least there's two different ways. One is nefarious RICO conspiracy, and the other is Trump being Trump and saying to someone that just find them, find the votes, they're definitely there. I don't even care if you find all of them. Just find enough of them to actually reach the right conclusion here. Something is amiss. I don't if that's the thing in that case that makes it clear that he did something very wrong in Georgia and it justified the RICO prosecution, I think that's pretty thin read for the case to hang on. And it's the sort of thing that would make it a little challenging for me to kind of deem that prosecution with the sort of credibility that you seem to be willing to attribute to it. And I don't when I say that, I mean, again, it's just we have different reads on the evidence and the case was not fully prosecuted, which is important. And then the Florida case, I think, is the one that actually is the clearest example of obvious wrongdoing here. And I mean flagrant, belligerent wrongdoing here that Trump managed to not get convicted on. And I think that's kind of where it ends in that respect. So if by my read, it's like three out of those four cases have pretty clear, or at least directionally clear, political valence to them, it's not unreasonable for me to hear out Megan kind of making her case that, look, they started it, these politically motivated prosecutions happened under them. To the extent that's what's happening now, we're at least kind of selectively going after people who've committed actual crimes, which is the perspective that she articulated, you can't really be upset with us for that. They started it. That's her opinion. And I think in the context of an interview like that, again, where we've had these conversations many times before, it's just in a slightly different setting and it's all packaged together. The opportunity, from my standpoint, is less about trying to adjudicate all the various ways in which I think Meghan might be wrong about one conclusion or another. I think it's a really valuable thing to just allow her to articulate her perspective, to put it out into the ether as a body for people to interpret and pick apart and to publish in various contexts. And I think that was the success of the interview. Like, we've talked about all this stuff. She's articulated these views before in different contexts. People were paying attention and have the opportunity to analyze it. And my aspiration in A context like that is less getting my shot off and ensuring that I've made kind of every argument about every way in which you might be wrong and more about ensuring that your perspective is kind of adequately rendered against what are, at least from my perspective. And this is somewhat subjective. The most important kind of questions that are out there lingering and not to get stuck trying to pin you down on a particular thing when you've been unambiguous about what your perspective is on something. And I think that's what we tried to do. And it can be really hard to do something like that when you've got three people conducting the interview, and really hard to do when there's just this incredible terrain of topics that you actually want to get to. There's plenty of things that we didn't have an opportunity to talk to. But at the time that I'm asking Ghost questions related to the prosecution of Comey, I mean, we're maybe a third of the way into the interview. We hadn't even gotten into the Candace Owens of it all yet, and I knew we wanted to get there. So, yeah, we didn't pick through all those. Those cases, but one, we had before, and two, we don't necessarily have the same perspective on just how legit all of those prosecutions were.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, I mean, I'm smiling because I have often defended my own interviews by saying something similar to what you just articulated, which is like, my job is to get. Put somebody in a position to articulate their views in a cogent way that our audience can understand and judge for themselves. And I'm not, like, I don't tend to do very combative interviews. Like, I've done interviews where they have turned a little combative, whether intentionally or not. But it takes a good. It takes a bit to sort of push me into that mode. Like, I think it's, you know, you just get more out of people when you can make them feel heard and comfortable. And I think the conversation becomes a lot more revealing. I'll just say, just because I have trouble, like, letting this go or letting.

[Camille Foster]

It, like, don't let it go.

[Isaac Saul]

The Georgia phone call to me is not. I mean, first of all, I don't think. I don't think. I think both of the interpretations that you offered, like, is he really clever and this is a conspiracy and it's part of this larger thing, or is he just, like, being Trump, quote, unquote, and telling a Georgia state official to find him enough votes to win him the election after the election's ended, I think both of those propositions are like, should be criminal and probably are.

[Camille Foster]

Even if you believe the election was. Was stolen, you are earnestly believe the election was stolen and the votes aren't there and that they are doing something nefarious by not investigating this and finding. Finding the missing votes.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, because the, like, you know, the, like having some underlying false pretense about why somebody should commit a crime for you to solve a problem that you want solved. It's. That doesn't change the actual crime. It's like, you know, but he didn't.

[Camille Foster]

Say manufacture the votes. He said find the votes, which is very different than, like, commit a crime.

[Isaac Saul]

Sure.

[Camille Foster]

I'm not like, kind of hair splitting by drawing that.

[Isaac Saul]

No, I know. I know you're not. I think like, you know, the analogy that I used when we wrote about this was like, if I think somebody stole my computer and brought it back to their house and was like, hiding their computer in their apartment, and then I went to their apartment and broke in to steal my computer back, and I got there and the computer wasn't there because they didn't actually steal it. I still committed a crime by breaking into their apartment. That's not. Yeah, it's just. But even like. Okay, so just to say I don't. It doesn't really make me feel better. Either of those framings of the call. I think they're both really bad. But the Georgia indictment was criminal charges for conspiracy to commit forgery, influencing witnesses, computer theft, impersonating a public officer, and filing false documents. I mean, they tried to. I mean, they stole election data, allegedly from, like, an actual election office. They submitted fake alternate electors, whatever you want to call it. They certified falsely that Trump had won Georgia when he hadn't. I mean, it wasn't just like, Trump picked up the phone and called, and then he didn't get what he wanted. And that was the end of. Was like there was a concerted effort from multiple angles to try and change the outcome in Georgia in a way that would have swung the election to Trump or they thought would have swung the election to Trump. And they had text messages, emails, phone calls. It wasn't just Georgia. It happened in Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Mexico. They were trying to bring that evidence in to contextualize the conspiracy that spanned outside of Georgia, which they were right to do. So I just think that compared to James Comey being accused of lying before Congress. I mean, I guess Megan talked about this on the show. The initial Comey indictment maybe is not about testimony that a lot of Us presumed it was about. And I actually made the wrong presumption there, too. I think basically everybody who reported on it did. But, like, I haven't read a single person who's read that indictment and thinks that Comey's actually going to be prosecuted for something. I mean, it seems like, which is good, but it's like, yeah, yeah, convict. But it's like he's. Yeah, he's still. They're still doing so. I don't know. It's just like I have a hard time getting over, like, the. Just the discrepancy there. And I definitely can see that we have different views of the Georgia case. But, like, it's like, you're like, the way I felt was like you guys were having the conversation with both your hands tied behind your back, because nobody's saying the thing that is the most important thing, which is like, Trump got prosecuted for something that he actually, there was a lot of evidence he did. I'm not going to say he did it because it didn't go to trial. I think he did, obviously, but at the very least, there was a lot of evidence that he didn't. It was, in my view, worthy of prosecuting him. I am aligned with you on the New York stuff and Letitia James and just there was clearly stuff. There were clearly prosecutors who went after Trump and just tried to ruin him. I mean, in Colorado, they tried to get him off the ballot. There was stuff that happened that I was like, this is bad. This is really bad, because I knew one day we could be where we are now. But to the Georgia and Florida cases specifically, I think those were actually legit, and I wish I saw them go to trial.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, look, I don't think you're making it an unfair point. And as I said, even if there's some disagreement about Georgia, we agree about the Florida situation. And he, quite frankly, I think he just got lucky in Florida. He drew a judge who gave him a favorable outcome. That happens in our system from time to time. But I think that Megan could still make her argument. Even if Trump had done a bad thing in a particular context, there was an effort, as you just described by some people, to use the legal system to try to disempower someone who, again, it was a sort of ends justify the means perspective on the parts of these people. I think they earnestly believe he was a threat to, was and is a threat to the polity. And as a result, they needed to get rid of him in any, by any method they could. And drumming up or at least finding, if you don't want to say manufacturing a case against him in those contexts was something they were willing to do. And from her standpoint, that justifies prosecuting Comey for something he may have in fact done and various other people who might be Trump critics. Again, I take issue with that. I was very clear about that. I gave her two different trajectories for why this might in fact be bad for her side. Not so much why I think this is just bad to do in general on principle, but why it might be bad for her side. One of those she rejected. The other she acknowledged that they could go too far. And one of the specific examples she gave was, well, look, they didn't try to perp walk, homie. And I think a day after she said that to us on the podcast, we discovered they tried. They really wanted to. And again, I think this is instructive. It's valuable to have prominent people on the record who support the President of the United States, who say, hey, if you are sending federal troops into National Guard, troops into states without the permission of the governors, this is actually a problem. Don't do that. It's important to have them say, hey, with respect to these prosecutions, if you're making up charges, that's a bridge too far. Do not do that. And, hey, the whole perp walking Comey stuff probably shouldn't do that either. We can perhaps claim that as a small victory, but I think it is of some material importance, so I don't know. And, Ari, I know you haven't had an opportunity to watch that yet and probably perhaps won't, but if you have thoughts on this, I am curious if you want to take a swing at me, too. I can take it.

[Ari Weitzman]

I don't give a shit about 20 minutes. I said that, like, two weeks ago. I really think I get frustrated by the fact that we have so much meta commentary about a thing that's not going to go anywhere and shouldn't have happened in the first place. And I think the more we talk about it, the worse it is. That's part of why I've been sitting here just not saying anything.

[Isaac Saul]

No, that's right. Actually, that's a good opening for me to say that. I listened to the pod when I was in Italy. I listened to the podcast, and I hated Ari's take about that, too. I was totally on Will's side. So, yeah, I'm mad at you both. That's good.

[Ari Weitzman]

It's awesome.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah. All right, well, I'll let Camille out of A little bit of a hot seat here. Not that it was very hot, but.

[Camille Foster]

No, it's okay.

[Isaac Saul]

Like I said at the top, I really do encourage everybody to go listen to the interview. And I'll say again, just to be clear. I mean, I really strongly disagree with Megan about a lot of stuff. But, yeah, she's a super influential voice, and I listen to her show and I often learn a lot. And I think she's. I mean, her interview with Jake Tapper is still one of the better interview about original sin, is still one of the better interviews I've ever heard anybody do in, like, a kind of media criticism context. After the book came out and everybody was thinking. She was clearly thinking the same thing I was, which was like, Jake Tapper wrote this book. Like, he was the problem. Yes.

[Camille Foster]

Not alone. Not alone.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah. Not alone. So, yeah, it's a worthwhile interview to check out, and I thought it was really great. Even though.

[Camille Foster]

Can I say one more brief. One more brief thing about this? Just very brief. If Megyn Kelly were an elected official, I would actually have a different posture in that conversation. I do think that with elected officials, there is an obligation on the part of journalists to actually hold their feet to the fire in a different sort of way for those conversations to be a bit more adversarial and just, frankly, like, the Fifth Column is a podcast about media criticism. It is all about that navel gazing that Ari has contempt for. And I get it, but that's literally the conceit of that particular podcast. So if we have Ezra Klein on, in fact, since Moynihan is just keep saying when, when we have him on, the aspiration is not gonna be to, like, try to adjudicate all the different ideological disagreements that are there and to, like, get him for being too woke or something crazy like that. The aspiration is to have an interesting conversation about his approach, about various things that are going on in media broadly, certainly about places where there might be some disagreements, but to really illuminate the business of journalism, in a way, the practice of media. And again, I think it's different when we're dealing with fellow commentators, fellow journalists, and when we're dealing with the policymakers who might actually be in power and directly responsible for discharging certain duties.

[Ari Weitzman]

Foreign.

[Isaac Saul]

We'll be right back after this quick break. Monday Sidekick, the AI agent that knows you and your business, thinks ahead and takes action. Ask it anything seriously. Monday Sidekick, AI you'll love to use. Start a free trial today on Monday, a mochi moment from Mark who writes.

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[Isaac Saul]

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You're the best. Thanks, Mark. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.

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Mark is a Mochi member, compensated for his story.

[Isaac Saul]

It's a great transition to our final segment today, which is a bit of navel gazing so we can lean in. And it's related to Trump too. I mean, Ari and I spend a lot of time on Slack discussing the various responses to our pieces as they come out, because we're always interested and surprised in the different ways that people push back or whatever. Sentences that we didn't think were particularly meaningful, elicit a really strong response or whatever else. There's been something interesting happening here at Tangle, I think for the last few months that is just like perfectly indicative of the challenges of covering the Trump administration, which is that we're seeing a lot of people unsubscribe over an accusation that we're quote, unquote, too left. We survey people. You, dear listeners, wouldn't know this because you would never leave us, but if you were to ever make that decision, you get prompted to let us know why you're going. And today the number one reason that people unsubscribe actually is news fatigue. That's like the biggest thing we see, which is new. That's only been true in the last like six months is people starting to say now like, I'm just exhausted, I need a break, I'm consuming too much news, whatever. Also probably indicative of the Trump administration, Trump era. But in the past it's typically the top ones are always your bias. And towards the end of the Biden administration, we were seeing a lot of people unsubscribe because they thought that we were too conservative, which I think was probably in part due to a lot of the stuff we were publishing about Biden's fitness and age and whatever else. And then in the last few months we've seen just a huge ramp up of people saying that we were to left. And at the same time, if you ever peruse the comment section on one of our articles, I think you'll find pretty quickly that they're kind of dominated by people who are self described left of center, leftist liberal, who are pissed off that we're Giving Trump a free pass or sane washing the right or softballing rising authoritarianism and fascism or. And it's sort of just this crazy dichotomy to be in the middle of. And it's very like. It's disorienting, it's frustrating. And I thought it would be fun maybe to talk here publicly just about what to do with that. A. Is there something to do? Like, should we be thinking about that kind of feedback as content producers, journalists, media people, whatever. Is it worth responding to or even having the discussion about? Is there anything to learn from it? A takeaway? I mean, one of them for me has always been that just biases in the eye of the beholder, which is a convenient view for me to have, because then anybody accuses us of being biased, I can just say, ah, it's your own bias that's informing your perspectives on us. So that's like a defense mechanism if I want it to be. I think it's true. I happen to think it's true, but it's convenient. So, I don't know. I'm curious to hear from you guys. And, Ari, maybe we can start with you, since you just had to sit there and listen to me and camille chat for 30 minutes. But, yeah, just like what. I don't know what to make of this sort of dueling fury that we engage in.

[Ari Weitzman]

The dueling fury doesn't bother me. I think it's the way that's something that we've had for a while, and I've gotten pretty used to it. Accusations of, you're too biased in this direction or that direction, and engaging with whether or not we were. It's sort of part of the job, and I don't mind that too much. But something that camille, you said 3 hours ago when we were talking about Megyn Kelly was that she was. She was responding to the. The pushback, about the lack of pushback by saying something about, like, look, I'm just representing this team now. Now. And that. That mindset is something that I think has grown. That mindset is also something that, like Isaac, I do think we should attribute a good portion of blame to the person who's setting the tone at the top, which is and has been Trump for the last eight months. The way that he responded to the Kirk shooting by saying, look, a lot of people now are saying, I want to embrace. Just like, I don't want to wish the worst for my enemies, but I do. I hate my enemies and I wish the worst for them.

[Isaac Saul]

That.

[Ari Weitzman]

That sort of like you know what? They're killing us. They're killing us. I'm with my team, and I think the best approach is to just do what we can, to just bury them. That is something that I think is leading to this somewhat different tenor of comment that we've been getting, which is just, I think, not only that Tangle's missing the mark or has been biased, but I no longer think that this mission's worthwhile or I think Tango's failing in its ability to fulfill its promise. That's something that's been a little harder to square. I think when we get accusations of bias and people tell us we're missing something, it always causes good conversation, introspection. But it's really tough. I don't know. I get. Maybe I should also try to be more introspective. And I get. I do try to. But when the conversation starts with you guys are failing at your mission because you're not able to call out ascending fascism, it makes me immediately defensive. And also, I think it's wrong. I've thought about that. We think about that problem, and I just don't think that's what's happening with the Trump administration. And there's this assumption, and this is me critiquing the left here a bit, because this is, to Isaac's point, where a lot of the volume has been coming from saying that we're off the mark more than most in the last couple weeks, couple months. It's just that that view that we are seeing a rise in authoritarianism in the government is a view it isn't. This is exactly what's happening. And if you can't see it, then you're wrong. I happen to disagree with that. And we've been people who have been calling out and criticizing a lot of what the government's doing. But my meta take about the whole thing is that I think we've seen the high watermark of it. I honestly do. I think we're seeing a lot of executive orders get challenged in court, National Guard deployments right now, even with those and those orders that are concerning, really troubling and show a big desire to use the power of the executive to extend authority in whatever ways that the executive can are still constrained to the point that the National Guard troops are not engaging in policing. And they haven't. And that's something that's important to say and talk about. If they were, that would be one of those big markers that we'd be calling out, criticizing. But they aren't. And again, if they Will. We will criticize it. But it's. It's something where I respect that people think that this is something that's a growing problem that will become authoritarian. And I respect the people who are saying, I think this is just Trump doing what he told us he would when we elected him. And I don't share either viewpoint. And the fact that I'm not calling balls and strikes the way that you see them doesn't mean we're failing. It means that we're exposing you to arguments that you think are wrong, which is the whole point of what we're doing. And to say that because we're doing that we're failing in our mission is something that does frustrate me.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I. I resonate with so much of that, and particularly that last point. There is a point at which. And this actually reminds me a lot of where we started the conversation today, and specifically the kind of conversation about Israel, Gaza, and. Do you call it genocide? You must call it genocide. There's a point at which you reached the conclusion that this was, in fact, genocide, and before that, you had a different perspective or were uncertain. The notion that that moment where you understand it, where someone else perhaps doesn't see it in exactly the same way, they are beyond the pale, but you are not. There's a kind of hubris attached to that that I find, like, just a little bit offensive and also frustrating just because. Seriously. Come on, like, one, give me a minute to catch up to you, perhaps, or two, allow for the possibility that you could be wrong about this. And perhaps that designation isn't nearly as important in every single context. And when the mission of a media organization is to try and help people soberly understand what is happening on the left and the right, in our politics, in all the various camps, to take a serious look at what's happening, the machinations, and to disentangle. Look what I just did there.

[Ari Weitzman]

To disentangle. No one's done that before.

[Camille Foster]

All the various strains of argument, the points of fact, and to just try to bring a little bit of clarity to the universe so that people can make what they believe are informed decisions, that we're always going to be striving for nuance and that it's going to be difficult, and there are gonna be times where it's even hard for us to do that kind of work while having these perspectives, which Isaac might be the person who's offering the take at the bottom, but there are lots of people contributing, and they may not even all agree that disagreement is there and it's expected. It is expected. And I get that people are going to always have concerns about whether or not I'm sort of sufficiently on their side or sufficiently not on their side. What does become really hard to tolerate is the kind of mode of assassination that takes place, that there's always this kind of indictment of you as being insufficiently concerned about the right and the good or even the truth more broadly, or somehow being in the tank for one side or the other. And I find that very frustrating. And I think we would all just do better to try and, for the moment, suspend any judgment about what we imagine certain people's motives are and just try to do a dispassionate appraisal of the facts. And I think Tangle tries, as many media organizations do, but I think in a very uniquely capable and laudable way to try and deliver that sort of coverage. And whatever you think about the current state of America and how much concern you should have for rising fascism or kind of the state of democracy, whether you approach this as someone who believes that the left has been kind of doing bad things for a very long time and the right needs to respond, or the right is doing entirely too much, you have to appreciate the value of someone trying to be something of an umpire in these very difficult, divisive times, because you still need that. If you hope to see people persuaded to your side. You have to believe that marshaling the evidence in general, just in general, is still a valuable project. Otherwise, what are we even doing?

[Ari Weitzman]

I, yeah, appreciate a lot of that. I think I'm grimacing a little bit about the idea of us being the umpire. I don't want to be the umpire either. I want to be like the people that are trying to explore the arguments for and against or across the spectrum and trying to present them fairly and then trying to say, like, here's our bias. This is what we see. This is where we're coming from.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know baseball all that well, so I probably used to the wrong.

[Ari Weitzman]

That's. That's fine.

[Isaac Saul]

I prefer Supreme Court of the Media. That's how I like to think of.

[Ari Weitzman]

It's a good one.

[Camille Foster]

Okay.

[Ari Weitzman]

I. I do want to steal me on the point, though, because I don't want to get to a point where we're, like, beating up a straw man of what these arguments are. The way that I usually see it framed isn't that we are in the tank or that we're, like, pretending to be one thing when we're really something else. We see that But I think the strongest point is tangles proving itself, unable to call out an ugly truth that's existing. And it's not like, sure, that's fair. So to take the genocide example, the way that that framework differs isn't. There was a point when I saw this thing as one thing and then my mind changed. Based off of a chain of logic. The argument would be, I saw this thing as one thing and then the facts changed. And so I then described it accurately. And you guys aren't. That is what I think the argument that is being leveled at us is more like. To which, like, my response is generally, again, like, our role kind of isn't to enforce what you think is happening. We might have a different read. But even if, even if we have the same read, our job still isn't to call people out fault. Like, it's to say, here's what we think's happening. Maybe it's not. We always want to. Not always. Definitely not always. But it is more often than not the case that we want to say we could be wrong and here's the way that we could be wrong. And a lot of people see that as like being lily livered or giving an out or sneaking away. And it's frustrating because of the last point that I want to make is I think a lot of people understand our mission correctly, which is that our job is to try to show different arguments and different perspectives you want to get so you can understand when your bias is leading you astray. But I think a lot of the time people think that that job is meant for fixing the people who are on the other side. I think a lot of the time when I hear criticisms, it comes across like, you guys aren't doing a good job ushering over the people who are wrong here. And it could be you, it could be you. You could be the one who's around here and it could be us.

[Isaac Saul]

It's interesting because I don't really know what to make of this, but it's something I'm observing more and more. It really depends, like the arena that I'm in in terms of what sorts of accusations we face. Like, the comment section of tangle on our website is overwhelmingly liberal. I post stuff on Twitter about Trump and I'm being accused of like, tds. I go on Instagram and it's like a bunch of liberals and lefties accusing me of being a closet Trump supporter and like a Zio fascist or whatever. Like, that's all Instagram is. My inbox is like a total collection of, you know, various perspectives, though the unsubscribes are predominantly people accusing us of being too left. So it's like you sort of face different criticisms, literally based on the arena where the content is being shared, and they're all sort of of a different flavor. And that part of this, too, seems really fascinating to me. And I think it speaks maybe to, like, how my algorithm works on X versus Instagram, but also, like, where our audience is kind of comfortable. Like, the conservatives who read Tangle are much more comfortable communicating with me privately via email, and the liberals who read Tangle seem a lot more comfortable, like, in the comments section, being visible and having their views, like, you know, seen by our audience more largely. But, yeah, I mean, this is like, the thing that I try and tell people or, like, remind folks. It's just there's so many media organizations doing the same thing, and we are trying to do something genuinely different, which is just like, Tari's point. It's just viewpoint diversity. And a lot of people interpret my take as like. Or whoever writes the my take section as like, an effort at finding a middle ground or something. And I'm like, that's not what I'm doing. The thing that I'm trying to do is be honest about my views, be fair in how I'm sort of adjudicating whatever the debate is, and then just, like, share them in a way that. That the people who I want to hear them can hear them. So if I'm being really critical of the left, I want to try and deliver that criticism in a way that the left will hear it in my imagination. If I'm being really critical of Trump, I want to deliver that criticism in a way that Trump supporters will be able to hear it in my imagination. And it's funny, because that often is the thing that seems to piss people off the most. It's not that I didn't say the thing that they wanted me to say. It's that I didn't say it in the way that they wanted me to say it. You know, like, they. I get that from conservative readers all the time. Like, you're, you know, you, like, you're softballing this, like, this issue that, you know, because you're scared of being canceled by the left, and, like, you won't use harsher language and just call, you know, them whatever. And I'm like, I don't use slurs, guys. Relax. No, but they're just like a. You know, it's like there's a general push to just, like, Be a little bit more. Own the libs. And I'm like, that's not. I'm not here to do, like, there's no upside in that for me. And then people on the left, like, they're just. You know, I can say Trump is doing three of the five things I was really worried about that I said six months ago would be a sign of, like, an authoritarian government. And the top comments just like, when are you gonna call out Trump as a fascist authoritarian leader? And I'm just, like. I literally just said. But it's like, I didn't do it in, like, the, like, punch the eject button kind of way that they want me to. So it's like, I'm sane watching now.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah.

[Isaac Saul]

And I don't know. I don't know what to do. I honestly don't know what to do with that. Like, my instinct is to ignore it, but that feels, again, convenient. And so I, like, I want to wrestle with it a little bit and give it an honest hearing, but it's just like, it feels the same as I feel when some conservative writes in and says that I'm using soft language because I'm scared of getting canceled by the left or something. It's just like, okay, did I say, was there something you wanted to be included that I didn't include? And it's like, no, I appreciated what you said. I'm like, okay, then what are we talking about here? I don't know. That's the kind of stuff that's frustrating, I think, also, we love all of you. It's all great.

[Ari Weitzman]

It's also, this is now us doing a little bit of the same thing of now we're mad at the language you used. Not mad.

[Isaac Saul]

Not mad.

[Camille Foster]

Not mad.

[Isaac Saul]

It's frustrating. And I don't mean to be mad as much as just, like, I genuinely don't know what to do.

[Ari Weitzman]

I'm just trying to figure it out here. Yeah.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah. Like, I don't know what to take. You know, Emily Oster had that great line when I interviewed her where I asked her how she deals with all the criticism, and she said, I think of criticism, like, the mail, you get to choose what you bring in your house and what you leave outside. And, like, that's up to you. And I think that's a great framework. And I'm just like, sometimes I'm unsure about which things I should be bringing home with me and which things I should leave out in the mailbox. You know, I actually.

[Camille Foster]

I really like that point. I almost want to Let that just stand there is this thing that's been in my craw for a little bit, and I'll maybe offer it here succinctly as I can. One dimension of this that I find very frustrating, like the. The desire people have for the kind of maximalist condemnation in a very. In a bunch of contexts, is the oftentimes bypass, which could be a way more persuasive argument to the people they'd most like to see persuaded, like, okay, the troop deployments. Maybe this is an element of some kind of takeover. And it is like this is actually the specter of fascism. Could also just be, you know, 200 National Guardsmen surrounding a federal building. And not particularly consequential, except it's also accompanied by this rhetoric from the administration who are constantly amping up the temperature around these troop deployments. And for an administration who says explicitly, we are concerned about the safety of these federal employees. That's why we want to do these troop deployments, to talk about it in apocalyptic terms and to suggest, we're coming, we're coming, we don't care, it doesn't matter, we're coming. There's a weird contrast there that ought to be better understood that in the act of deploying these federal troops, ostensibly to protect other federal employees and property, and them carrying out the enforcement aspect of the administration, they are perhaps heightening the danger. There have been these weird clashes between civilians and law enforcement officials, and it seems that it is at least in some respects attributable to just the temperature of these deployments. Maybe there's a conversation to be had there about the administration's just general approach that doesn't necessarily tinge on whether or not we're calling it fascist or not, and just hinges on the tenor of the discourse surrounding these deployments, however you feel about them. And it's a somewhat.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah, it's the same kind of response of the anti. Anti Semitism push. It's like if we're really concerned about it as a stakeholder there, it doesn't make me feel safer. And we're like, now we're re engaging with a. With a whole other suite of issues. But. But. Yeah, I know what you mean.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Isaac Saul]

All right, well, it's time to keep the complaining going with our grievances section. So we just spent 30 minutes airing grievances, and now we'll spend another five wrapping it up. All right, John, you can play the music, man.

[Camille Foster]

The airing of grievances.

[Ari Weitzman]

Between you and.

[Isaac Saul]

Me, I think you're to going country.

[Camille Foster]

Is Placing a lot of importance on shoe removal.

[Isaac Saul]

Anybody want to go first? Anybody feel.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah, I can go first. No, you got it, Camille. No, you. No, absolutely.

[Camille Foster]

I was just going to complain about.

[Isaac Saul]

That was cute, guys. That was.

[Camille Foster]

I was just going to complain about my iPhone some more, so that's okay.

[Isaac Saul]

You didn't get that. You didn't get the iPhone air, did you?

[Camille Foster]

No, no, I got the.

[Isaac Saul]

Oh, I was there when your iPhone got delivered. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, go ahead.

[Camille Foster]

So I am, as you can see, caseless. And, you know, I like the feel of the phone in my hand. Someone said to me, I mean, come on, you're an adult. Why do you need a protective case for your phone? And I don't know why I let that affect me so much, but I have. But I.

[Ari Weitzman]

Did you let it in the house?

[Camille Foster]

And I keep. Yes. And I keep dropping my phone, and I don't understand.

[Isaac Saul]

Turns out you're not an adult.

[Camille Foster]

Well, you know what? It just has all these stupid, ugly nicks on it. It's barely two weeks old, and it's like, come on, Apple. Like, you could do better than this. And I don't know what.

[Ari Weitzman]

Dropping my phone.

[Isaac Saul]

But I keep.

[Ari Weitzman]

Come on, Apple.

[Camille Foster]

Just look at all these, like, scrapes and bumps. I shouldn't have to buy another thing to protect this thing that is always in my hand, always on my. Dude, I will inevitably drop. This is preposterous. We are 17 generations in, and I'm still just, oh, no, what if I drop my phone? I should be able to drop this phone. I should be able to drop it from several stories and nothing should happen. Do better. This thing costs almost like two grand at this point. Do better.

[Isaac Saul]

I totally agree. I bought a brand new Samsung TV last week and I watched the Commander's Game on it. Bad play. Threw my beer at the TV and it cracked the TV screen. What kind of bullshit company is this? You know, you throw something at the TV and it breaks. Yeah. That's a totally reasonable position to have. Camille, you're.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'm just gonna tell you I am.

[Isaac Saul]

I didn't buy a new TV and I didn't throw anything at it. But you're. You know, stop dropping your phone or get a case, you fucking moron.

[Ari Weitzman]

Anyway, this is that safe space where you like to complain and.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

So safe. Yeah, that's. Camille, I think that's you getting baptized. Truly into the podcast here of, like, here's your grievance? It sucks. Good one. We'll move on.

[Camille Foster]

Life is good, though, in general, apart from the tragedy.

[Ari Weitzman]

Stop that. Stop that. Yeah, I'm gonna complain. I don't like the fact that I have a mortal body that ages to my knowledge. I think.

[Isaac Saul]

Amen.

[Ari Weitzman]

I think I'm the first person to have this issue and complaint. It is unique and specific to me, and I don't enjoy the fact that now I'm apparently the only person in the world who has ever fallen asleep strangely late into his 30s, and then woken up with a tension headache. That's a very mean thing to happen specifically to me, and I don't like that. It's that I'm experiencing it. And I really wish I would have the same experience everyone else had where they reached 25 and then they had that body that they had when they're 25 for the rest of their lives. It's annoying that I'm not having that experience.

[Isaac Saul]

I did. Ari sent a slack this morning that was like, I have a terrible headache, guys. I need just like an hour not looking at the screen.

[Ari Weitzman]

And.

[Isaac Saul]

Lindsay and Will and Audrey are like, oh, my God. I'm so sorry. That's the worst. Feel better. And I had to refrain from making some joke about, like, get over yourself, dude. It's a headache. You know, who cares? Let it go.

[Ari Weitzman]

All I said was I'm gonna be offline. Cause I can't look at the screen. I was the one. If you want to criticize anybody, criticize the people who respond with too much concern.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, yeah. I said, guys, he's fine. He has a headache. He didn't lose a limb. Everybody relax. I could both. I didn't know that it was a tension headache, though. That does suck.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah, no headache is good. But, yeah, I appreciate your silence, I.

[Isaac Saul]

Guess, is what I. Yeah, I want it to be acknowledged that I restraint. I exercise restraint. I didn't have anything nice to say, so I didn't say anything.

[Ari Weitzman]

What did I just say? I said I appreciated your silence. All right, what do you have to complain about?

[Camille Foster]

And we can get on that.

[Isaac Saul]

My complaint is I think it's a good grievance. I have been trying to. Okay, I've broken or lost two pairs of glasses recently. One from Warby Parker and one from Glasses usa. And in both instances, I have gone back to these respective companies. I think Warby. God.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah.

[Isaac Saul]

Warby Parker might be a sponsor of the show occasionally. Whatever. I'm independent. Both instances, I've gone back to these brands to get my pair of glasses again, trying to order the same ones I had before. And in both cases, the glasses that came, the exact same glasses that came, did not fit the same on my face, on the bridge of my nose. Now, I'll admit, I'll concede I have a large nose, kind of wide bodied.

[Ari Weitzman]

Don't be anti Semitic.

[Isaac Saul]

Beautiful nose. And. But it makes it a little hard for me to find glasses that sit the way I want them to in my face. And so I'm like, I have to go back to this order. It's like a measurement. Like 18 and a half is like the bridge or something. And they just don't. They're the exact same pair of glasses and they just don't fit the same. And I, like, one of them, I broke by sitting on them. And so like just the lens popped out and like one of the arms sort of broke. But I was like in the mirror last night just like putting the old pair on, taking it off, then putting the new pair on. And they're just different frames. And I'm like, this should be illegal. Like, they. I just spent 150 bucks. I bought the same exact pair. Yeah, I bought the same exact pair of glasses and you sent me a different pair. Like, this is like a. I'm going to file like a Better Business Bureau complaint. This is unethical. They're not. They're also clear.

[Ari Weitzman]

That's what you're doing.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, exactly. They could. Yes. I was gonna preface all this by saying this is like the most like, Jewy complaint of all time.

[Ari Weitzman]

But, like, what happened to truth and advertising?

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just, they literally. I. I'm just like, you clearly changed where you're manufacturing your glasses. Or maybe this is like a tariffs thing. I don't know.

[Ari Weitzman]

They updated their model, which is unthinkable that they would ever.

[Isaac Saul]

Right. So I'm going, I'm going through all of this last night. This is. I'm just like getting angry and angry and then I'm going back. These are the glasses, USA ones that I'm wearing now that I like them, but they don't fit exactly how the old ones fit. So I'm upset about it. Then I'm trying the Warby Parker's on and I'm like, God, these still don't fit. And then I'm just looking in the mirror, I'm like, shit, did my face change? Like, maybe this is just a me thing. Like, I'm like a little longer in the tooth and my face is getting a little Droopier. Like my nose. And that was too depressing of a thought, so I just said, no, this is definitely the glass. They must have changed factories.

[Ari Weitzman]

Children who are young. Yes.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, yeah, the manufacturing here is bogus. And then I went to bed upset and I thought, oh, I know what I'm gonna do. I'll complain about this on the podcast tomorrow and then I'll feel a lot better.

[Ari Weitzman]

It's an interesting tactic that you did at the end to sort of like give yourself a backdoor so you wouldn't attack your complaint a little bit. But, yeah, thanks, but I'm gonna.

[Camille Foster]

Woody Allen grievance on the podcast yet.

[Isaac Saul]

Wow, you're Woody alleying me just a little bit.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah, your. Your nose grew. And it's the fault of the capitalist enterprise that's graciously sending you a free pair of the glasses.

[Isaac Saul]

They're not free. I paid for these. I paid for these glasses. I. I didn't. I. I paid. I bought. I just went back and bought. That's my problem. I presume that if I purchased the exact same glasses I bought two years ago, they would send me the exact same glasses, which they didn't do. Which is the crime they committed. That I think should be the crime.

[Camille Foster]

Egregious crime. Yes.

[Isaac Saul]

All right, we gotta get out of here. Gentlemen, it was nice seeing you guys again. I missed you last week. I did. I'm glad to be back. And we'll see you soon. Next week. Yeah, Alora.

[Camille Foster]

All right, bye.

[Isaac Saul]

Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will K. Back and associate editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead Bailey, Saul, Lindsey Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the box podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our [e-mail].

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[Camille Foster]

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