← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Trump Undercuts AG on Ending Convict Fund
00:41:13
MS NOW's Ari Melber reports on escalating confusion over the status of President Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund. Former SDNY Chief David Kelley joins to discuss.
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- [00:01]
Child
Mom, I'm heading out.
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Mom
You're wearing shorts.
- [00:04]
Ari Melber
It's freezing. And where's your coat?
- [00:06]
Child
I'm good. Bye, Mom.
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Ari Melber
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber and we are covering several big stories for you tonight. We begin with what has been clearly a type of confusion or double talk by the Trump administration over their controversial embattled currently on pause According to the $1.8 billion fund for convicts and defendants. You may recall that the acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was on so much defense, including a real outcry in Congress with Republicans pushing back, that he said to Congress, which is about as real as it gets, that they simply would not be moving forward with this fund. In other words, no money taken by them from you, the taxpayer, to go out to Trump allies. That's where it stood for a little while until today. The president saying this. Can you explain why you decided to drop the anti weaponization fund?
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Trump Supporter
So I love it. I think it's so important.
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Ari Melber
Is the $1.8 billion DOJ fund dead or is it on hold?
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Trump Supporter
It's. I'd have to ask the lawyers. I don't know. I know one thing. The weaponization. Are you talking about the weaponization fund?
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Mom
Yeah. What's your decision?
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Trump Supporter
The weaponization fund, as far as I'm concerned, was a beautiful thing.
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Ari Melber
He doesn't know as the lawyers, it's a beautiful thing. So he's clearly continuing to try to give support to something that even Republicans say is wrong, that goes too far, that would potentially reward people who physically attacked police who were convicted of various crimes. If it goes to Jan, six people, and again, different than what his attorney general claimed to Congress, which is kind of basically like an under oath scenario, it's obviously wrong and usually illegal to lie to Congress. Trump is sort of stepping up in a way that he didn't have to. So he's at least undercutting the Attorney General's message. The whole thing is paused anyway, under court order right now by the courts. When you look at the fund now, when you go over to where the money's coming from. The treasury chief was asked about this and sounded more like what we've heard from the acting AG Chairman, Crapo, ranking Member.
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Ari Shafir
I'm unable to discuss most of this
- [02:49]
Ari Melber
because of ongoing litigation. Yeah, I know you like everybody likes
- [02:53]
Reverend Al Sharpton
to say that, but the Constitution.
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Interviewer
We like to follow the law, Senator,
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Ari Melber
and the law is that the Congress has constitutional oversight functions. I suggest that you speak with the treasury attorneys again. I'm not going to be able to
- [03:07]
Ari Shafir
comment on these matters,
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Ari Melber
Mr. Chairman. This just makes no sense at all. Now, from here, you have questions about what people want to get out of this. You have January six convicts floating the idea that they could still get paid. You have Politico reporting that whatever Blanche, the ag, Acting AG said, nothing stops famous from the treasury for those who engaged in violence that day. In other words, there's no outer limit. Blanche has worked tirelessly on Trump's agenda. And all of this has been a big public audition. Trump now suggesting that he will promote him permanently into the role that he's currently the acting replacement in. Since Bondi was ousted. It's a pile of loyalists and a lot of confusion when it comes to the basic question of what this government is doing with remember your money. I want to bring in David Kelly, who served as the FCNI chief and I should note my former boss. When you look at this, David, obviously the messaging is all over the place. I don't call on you as the Washington interpreter. Anyone who follows the news can see that Trump thinks this very controversial bad thing is something he'd still like to happen. So he sort of floats the words that way. What does it tell you, though, that the acting attorney general, having floated this and tried to make it happen, was so quick yesterday to finally say we're done?
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David Kelly
Well, look, it certainly presents an abundance of legal issues, but also presents a bunch of political issues. And I think the attorney general probably gets the sense that he's running into strong headwinds on both fronts. And I think that once this is being challenged legally, which it is, and the judge has reopened the matter, that presents a whole Pandora's box for the judge and that the Justice Department is going to have to deal with. And I think Todd Blanche is probably looking at this saying this is not a winning case for us. So from a legal perspective, we really need to drop this. From a political perspective, I think you see, the President, I don't really want to drop this, so maybe I can hedge a little bit, but I think they're going to have to. It plays out with, in, in court. But even if you get past what the judge might do, it still presents a bunch of legal issues. If it were ever approved, if is a big word because you have to get through Congress about whether or not they're going to let them have that money. But two, think about all the, you know, talk about the devils and the, the devil in the details. Who is against whom has this lawfare been weaponized? What is the criteria? Who gets included, who gets excluded? And when somebody gets excluded, what kind of rights do they have? What kind of action will they bring? There'll be lots of lawsuits saying, well, I should have gotten money too, or that person got more money than they should have gotten and I should have gotten some of that. So even if this fund was allowed to exist, the number of issues that are going to come flowing from that as a legal matter are crazy.
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Ari Melber
Well, it's so strange and unprecedented. You know, your way around a lot of cases. Have you ever seen a case like this where you effectively have a party suing a government he controls, settling to his own benefit, and then the benefit, among other things, because he wants immunity, but the money then goes to other people? I mean, have you ever seen a settlement like this?
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David Kelly
No. It's almost like a money laundering operation. Right. But no, it's just really crazy that you have that. It's just really kind of a creating a vehicle to create a fund to do with it what you want.
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Ari Melber
And you're not being extreme when you suggest there's a money laundering concern. The DOJ's guidance asserts that they are not responsible for any potential illegalities or any liability for what these people do with the money they get, which is our money. Which makes sense because if you give money, for example, to someone convicted of sedition, who's a proud boy, who's promised to wage war against the United States government, they could do it again.
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David Kelly
Well, not only that, but I mean, consider also the, the track record with several of the people who have been given pardons from their January6 criminal conduct for which they were convicted, now have gone out and committed other crimes. So, you know, the type of folks that you're giving this money to, who knows where it's going to end up, to what use it's going to be put.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. The President also spoke today as I mentioned about whether this acting Attorney general would become Attorney general. Let me play that.
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Interviewer
Will he be Attorney General, or have you decided?
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Trump Supporter
I think he will, yeah.
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Interviewer
You haven't got someone else in mind?
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Trump Supporter
No, not. I wanted to see how he's received. You know, we put him as acting, and he's done a very good job.
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Ari Melber
You see that as a glide path to being Attorney General. And how do you think Blanche is doing so far? Because even leaving aside cases you don't comment on, he's certainly been more aggressive than Bondi in rushing out revenge prosecutions.
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David Kelly
It may be a path. I don't see. It's a glide path because where the President may be intent on nominating him because of his loyalty and the work that Todd has done, he's gotten great results for him. When he was his personal lawyer, he's now delivering for him like the former Attorney General did not. So he's got that behind him. But. So he's got 210 days to serve as acting. So that concludes in October. Before that happens, the president has to nominate him, and then under the. Under the Appointments act, so then he has to be confirmed by the Senate. So the question is whether or not, and particularly after the midterms, what the composition of the Senate will be and whether or not the Senate is going to confirm him. So it's really. When you say it certainly is a path, but I don't know if he gets to home plate.
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Ari Melber
And you're suggesting that if Trump wasn't so fixated on testing people's loyalty to get these outcomes, they could have put him in faster and tried to get a vote from a Republican Senate.
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David Kelly
I think that's a great point, because Hattie laid low, got rid of the former attorney general, nominated Todd, instead of waiting for him to come up with a bunch of controversial decisions to please the President. The president might. It might have been more like a glide path. And look, you look at Todd Blanch's record, he's a very competent lawyer. He's done, you know, very successful as a lawyer. And, you know, the. The Senate might have had trouble not confirming him had he gone in. Yeah. But now from the Senate's perspective, I think he probably has more baggage to deal with at a confirmation hearing than he might have had they not put him to the, you know, do the president do his bidding on vindictive stuff beforehand?
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Ari Melber
And that's sort of. That's the Trump way of doing business. I mentioned how I got to know you working for you, and that you're rightfully proud of your government service. But I've always noticed you were especially proud of being a cop because you started as a cop. Right. I wonder what you think now about how far we've gone through the looking glass to have a president who still says, well, maybe we'll pay some of these people who were convicted of attacking cops. In other words, we went through all the legalities. What about what we might call the ethics or even the patriotism of that that he and Blanche for weeks have said that's on the table. In other words, they can't even just say, whatever happens with this, obviously we won't be helping people who attack police on January 6th.
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David Kelly
Well, I think they're gonna be hard to do that if they have this fund. But I mean, you use the word patriotism. I don't. The two together. When you're talking about what they did to police officers on that day. And patriots, that's. That just.
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Ari Melber
No, I'm saying that it's. Well, that's what I'm saying. The patriotism would be to stand with the police who defended democracy that day. Like, did you feel that here? Because in 1-7-21, Trump was saying, hey, I'm against that. And now we've gotten to a point where he admits he's for it. I mean, what could be more wrong than being for the people who attack the police?
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David Kelly
I hear you. And look, if you're a Capitol Police officer, this has to make you, you sick to your stomach. But not any of you Capitol police or anybody in law enforcement. And look at what this fund would do and basically reward people for doing what they did. That's just beyond the pale.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And you talk to any old cop friends about it?
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David Kelly
No, but I can just imagine how they're all.
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Ari Melber
You can channel it. Yeah. David, it's always good to see you, especially on more than one story here where you bring a lot of credibility and experience. Our thanks to David Kelly. There is an actual rolling MAGA crisis is 60 minutes. The venerated 30 year plus veteran Scott Pelley is out because he stood up to executives. We have a special booking tonight. The renowned journalist Kennelletta from the New Yorker and the author, he's here. As for the Republican controlled house, I can tell you they just bucked Donald Trump on the war. This is another late breaking story. I told you we're covering a lot tonight. The Reverend Sharpton is here when we're back in 90 seconds on this vote. The yeas are 215 and the nays are 208. The concurrent resolution is adopted. Breaking news late today, that is the House voting to rein in the Iran war. It is a huge rejection of Donald Trump's effort to keep this off the floor. And it took a break for Republicans breaking with Trump and joining Democrats to push this resolution just over the edge. This is one of those nail biters. Now, there's a long road from here to ending the war, but it shows you just how the opposition around the country is rising and the war would be stopped if the entire Senate and Congress move forward on this with enough votes to trigger the full War Powers Act. So we're not there yet, but tonight we are watching a major rejection of Trump that included full Republicans and as you see, many of the Democrats in the House. I'm joined by Reverend Al Sharpton, host of Politics Nation, of course, president of the National Action Network. Reverend Sharpton, this is a big rebuke of Trump's Iran war at a time when the country has clearly turned against it. What does a vote like this mean tonight?
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Reverend Al Sharpton
Vote means that you now have a break in the dam, in the Trump dam. That it doesn't mean that you're gonna get a flood, but it means you at least have a leak. I think that this leak should be troubling to Trump because as we now go from primary season almost over to the general elections, a lot of Republicans, after seeing these four in the House, are going to have to rethink how do they stand with this Iran situation with gas prices still up and food and groceries still up, and we don't even see an end to the state of Hormuz being open. So this gives a lot of people things to think about. I don't think it's a slam dunk, but it starts the whole ballgame.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And you rarely see this kind of War Powers act resistance in Congress happen this fast. Trump had famously promised a quick end to the war. Very hard to predict war. He was wrong. We know why he was saying that, cuz he knew already he was doing something risky and unpopular. So we've passed his timeline, busted through it. The public is very clear on this. I'll show the poll and remind everyone this is much worse than the first week of the war. Now, 60% of Americans oppose the Iran war. A tiny slice, 28% supporting you. Do the math on that. REV. Translation. A heck of a lot of Republican voters, people who voted for Trump at least once, are against this thing, which means that this is a midterm issue that the party has to worry about,
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Reverend Al Sharpton
the party must worry about is a midterm issue. When you see his endorsed candidate lose in Iowa, the handwriting is on the wall that they at least need to stop and look at what they're doing if they're not outright concerned. And clearly, with the President going back and forward with the $1.8 billion slush fund and this, that and other, none of this is helping them. But the war at a centerpiece of this, because this is hitting people where they live. You can talk all of the ideology you want. You can talk all the politics you want. When a person pulls up to the gas station and it's $4.50 to $6 a gallon, that is not politics to them. That's real life. And that the President can't explain and has not explained.
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Ari Melber
And the wider narrative has really shifted, you know, forever. We heard Republicans will stand with him on everything. They won't break. This doesn't move him. That doesn't move them. What will move. That was sort of. We heard that endlessly. And there was a period of time when it felt like that. And now, you know, you really stitch together. You had pushback on tariffs, you had them overriding him with a veto proof. Major authority on Epstein. You have a lot of concern about the way he's picking candidates in the midterm. So the Senate Republicans were mad at what he did. Down in Texas. You had recently a vote that not everyone in the country was following, but a vote where he wanted to move forward on some of the immigration stuff. And over the fund you just mentioned, Republicans said no, and they didn't give him that vote. You have the ballroom pushback, and now today you have this and you start to say, gosh, it's not that they never buck him. It's that on several big key things in the last months, they keep bucking
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Reverend Al Sharpton
him, consistently bucking him. And it looks like small steps, but it starts adding up. One of the things I think that happens is it's very hard to say that I'm not going to be against somebody who seems to have no problem being against me. So when they see what he did in Texas with Cornyn and others, they say, well, wait a minute, there's no price for even trying to show belated loyalty to this guy. Cornyn voted with him most of the time and he just tried to destroy him and did so. I think that at some point, your self esteem kicks in saying, how am I going to be with a guy that will be disloyal to me if he decides in the middle of the night to just tweet something, so I better protect my own hide because he certainly is not.
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Interviewer
Yeah.
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Ari Melber
And a lot of people might watch that and say, God, sure took the Republicans a long time to figure that out. I mean, we watched that with Michael Cohen and everyone else in the first term. But if they're finally figuring it out, plus, as you say, an election coming that might sharpen the mind. Well, Therehere we are. REV. Always good to have you, sir.
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Reverend Al Sharpton
Good to be here.
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Ari Melber
Okay. Coming up, a very rare public clash. CBS News in crisis as one of their most venerated longtime journalists, 60 Minutes and CBS anchor Scott Pelley speaks out, gets fired. We have Ken Oletta, one of the best guests you could ask for in the country on this big, big clash. Pelly out at 60 Minutes.
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Scott Pelley
I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.
- [18:19]
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Interviewer
Again,
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- [18:48]
Mom
apply home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. Ms. Now is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now.
- [19:05]
Rachel Maddow
I don't know where Scott Pelley will land. Frankly, I hope he lands right here. Yeah, I hope he stays on. I hope he's on TV tomorrow. And I hope that everybody in journalism and everybody who values a free press figures out ways to outmaneuver the people who are trying to the free press from us.
- [19:22]
Ari Melber
Our colleague Rachel Maddow speaking frankly for many in her reaction to what was breaking news last night. A longtime 30, 30 plus year veteran of CBS News in 60 Minutes in the anchor chair Scott Pelley out CBS firing him over what he says was standing up for journalism against bias and politicizing their work. What 60 Minutes becomes is in a sense a question. Tonight there's a question about whether the owners of this new CBS company which is making larger mergers are allied with MAGA and putting a thumb on the scale or whether this is also part of a larger effort to curry favor with the Trump administration which oversees the big business tech merger. Peli, who is as credible as they come when you look at his long tenure of independent reporting, including from war zones and multiple administrations. Says CBS News management instructed him to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. He calls out what he views as incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management that wreaked havoc describing scenarios that were completely avoidable, according to him, that put stories in danger going up to airtime. He has a lot of experience here to launch these critiques and he says it's all to Curry favorite with the Trump administration. Msnow has requested CBS comment on those accusations. We haven't specifically heard back, although some of their officials have spoken out publicly and there's been a war of words in the press over what is a big and rare inflection point in already a long running battle over CBS News independence and whether freedom of speech or Colbert style criticism of the current government would be allowed for long on that platform. Peli also criticized the CBS News boss Barry Weiss. There was a staff meeting where Peli confronted the new executive producer about Weiss. This is something that broke in the New York Times yesterday. There was a reportedly a recording that the Times says they have of this unusually tense meeting where he said that she was trying to murder 60 Minutes. She does not love this place, he said. That was in response to a back and forth. She was brought in to kill it and she's been doing exactly that. Now there are reports that Weiss was telling staff that Peli was violating trust and mutual respect. And for her part, she and others say that they tried to reach out to him, including before that tense meeting I just mentioned for a one on one discussion that there was a back and forth and clearly a breakdown of an ability to get through issues that Peli thinks go beyond communication and to the heart of how that news division is being gutted. I don't have to tell you if you're watching this news channel, you've probably seen news over the past decades. Peli is someone who reported from war zones, who faced politicians and presidents who cover the White House and most recently as well the war in Ukraine.
- [22:17]
Scott Pelley
How would you say your mental focus is?
- [22:20]
Reverend Al Sharpton
Oh, it's focused.
- [22:24]
Michael Hirshhorn
I think it's.
- [22:24]
David Kelly
I, I haven't looked at behind me you can see what's left of one of the 110 story Twin Towers.
- [22:30]
Ari Melber
How do you dig this up? Piece by piece, man by man.
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Scott Pelley
Tonight we have details of a classified US Intelligence mission that has obtained a previously unknown weapon. Everything America is trying to accomplish in Afghanistan is represented in these four tents. How do you measure success? We sat down with Zelensky in his hometown. It had been a week since Russia killed nine children on a playground.
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Ari Melber
As a viewer, I've never spent any time with Scott Peli. I've watched him. As a journalist. I can echo what Rachel and plenty of other journalists have said, which is this is really one of the long term gold standards of what a TV journalist can be. And that independence, whether you saw him there pressing then President Biden on one of his perceived vulnerabilities or going to war zones, as I mentioned, or just calling it free and fair. And 60 Minutes relied on Peli. Over the years, they've had different stars, but he was currently one of their most prominent. So it means something when he says after trying to work with this new management for months, that it has become untenable and that he has specific concerns, examples of what he calls their bias and effort to promote falsehoods at that institution. Now, there is another version of this story you'll hear, which is that some of the broadcast media has fallen behind, has lost a step and needs to be modernized, and that that itself is not illicit. Well, that's true as far as it goes, if you watch this program. We've reported on the shifts in digital media a ton, but 60 Minutes didn't need some sudden overhaul to reach the public. It was a commercial success indeed. Paramount, which is the parent company, recently noted how 60 Minutes made history by marking 52 straight seasons as America's number one news program with as many as 10 million people watching Variety reports. When you look at those Nielsen ratings, there were weeks where the top thing watched in all categories would be football. In 60 minutes, it was number one in news and rivaled some of the other most profitable things on the air. And yet lately, these accusations of bias were mounting. One correspondent said there was a, quote, political decision by the bosses to try to shape and delay an immigration report that might have upset Trump officials. Another 60 Minutes correspondent said, quote, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. CBS has repeatedly denied those accusations during this period. The wider context is David Ellison, who is part of that Ellison family that we've mentioned that has been buying up media. Paramount is the company involved here. And the wider thing that goes beyond just news is that they need the Trump administration's approval for that huge Warner merger. With so much money on the line, broader than CBS News, you have a Trump administration that has gone farther than any other US Government to target and sue and intimidate and sometimes use executive orders and other powers and even indict Don Lemon, reminding you of just some of what they're doing here, including these lawsuits. This is the environment we're in. And if you needed an inflection point beyond Colbert, beyond the lawsuits, beyond this or that reporter telling you they're doing it again, someone like Pelly saying out in the open at the risk of his career and whatever money was left on his contract and everything else saying out in the open, they are doing this for the Trump government. What they're doing is false. What they're doing is wrong. That's your inflection point. And we are happy to say when it comes to getting an expert on this, we have lined up someone with rock solid credentials. Renowned journalist Ken Aletta, a media author and reporter, joins me next.
- [26:19]
Scott Pelley
I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.
- [26:28]
Ari Melber
Scott Pelley, a 60 Minutes veteran, out today. We're joined by Ken Aletta, renowned journalist, author, writer for the New Yorker. He's written many national bestsellers. You see here often looking at the intersection of media and its role in society, which is why we thought of you tonight. Welcome. Thanks, Harry. What does this mean for 60 minutes in CBS News? How rare is it to see this spill out the way it's happening over the last 48 hours?
- [26:58]
Interviewer
Well, you know, you look at the history of mergers. Take Time Warner, when AOL acquired it and AOL comes in, they say you guys are suck, that your Luddites. There's an old and alienates all the Time Warner people. Something similar has happened right here. The people from Paramount are coming in, Harry Weiss coming in and saying you guys suck. You're Luddites. We have to make changes now.
- [27:24]
Ari Melber
You do have to.
- [27:25]
Interviewer
You said this earlier in the introduction. They do have to make changes. The audience is aging at 60 minutes and at all of newscasts and the audience is declining as more choices proliferate. So you have to and upgrade 60 Minutes and News. But you don't come in and say you guys suck and insult people and summarily fire them, which is what they've done. So they've created a place at CBS News where people aren't happy and they're going to leave and they won't work as hard. They don't have the trust that you need when companies merge. And by the way, it's not just cbs. They're if they get Trump's approval, they're going to take over CNN, too. And how does that radiate out to cnn? So it's really A huge problem. They've really mishandled this.
- [28:17]
Ari Melber
Yeah, you say the new owners have mishandled it. I mentioned to viewers who probably know that Mr. Peli is pretty serious when it comes to the life and career he's led on behalf of independent journalism. So him saying this doesn't read to me, what do you think, as just another employment dispute?
- [28:37]
Interviewer
It's not another employment dispute. You know, one of the things, I mean, as a watcher of your show, you talk about Republican senators and members of Congress who don't speak up. And here's Scott Pelley speaking up and daring to speak up, putting his job on the line to speak up and speak what he sees as the truth. And so he deserves a lot of credit for his courage to do that and to risk his career, which he's done now. I'm sure he has communicated, he has misunderstood certain things that these people, they don't want to destroy 60 Minutes. They don't want to destroy CBS News. But nevertheless, the message that they've conveyed is one of the structure. And Scott Pelley is standing up for the people he's worked with for years and the admirers. And he's gone. And several other correspondents are gone. The Longtime executive producer, 60 Minutes, was summarily fired, as was her deputy. So this radiates out in a very negative way.
- [29:38]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And it seems that MAGA owners want the power and reach of 60 minutes, the audience and the credibility. But according to so many people who built that, these MAGA owners don't want to do the hard work, the compromise and the independence of that. And so they're running into that. It's one thing to say, oh, you know, let's widen our story selection, or let's do more stories about rural America or the things you sometimes hear. And you go, okay, go, let the 60 Minutes people do it that way. That's not it. We're hearing about, and I want to put up on the screen that we have some evidence here, and they cannot answer it. But this is the evidence from, again, a very credible source from Mr. Peli. He says they instructed him, the new management, to inject falsehoods and bias into the reporting. He says that politicians have now been invited to choose the correspondence for interviews, basically handing the government. Government a kind of oversight role, and then, of course, picking perhaps their favorites. He describes how incompetence and unprofessionalism wreaked havoc in one of his stories. He says, quote, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all. That point, as you'll understand, Ken and many other people won't know all the details is, you know, folks watch a show, they say Ari pulls up around 6, talk to some people and leave. Hey, if that's what it looks like, great. In fact, anyone who's worked in the challenge of TV news knows huge team. Most of them aren't visible on air and they do a lot of work. And if you want to have an editorial discussion about changing a story on a magazine style weekly show like 60 Minutes and you're at all competent, Ken, you do that with advanced time in the proper way. And he is suggesting, and there's been other independent reporting on this, that these new executives don't even know how to put a show together. And then he adds on top of that, they want him to put a show out that he said was false and he resisted. Your reaction to that, that evidence or those claims he puts forward?
- [31:35]
Interviewer
We haven't heard from Scott Pelley what specific happened, what people told him not to do or to do. But he is specific when he talks about the interview with Netanyahu. Leslie Stahl had been petitioning to do that interview for 60 Minutes and had done other interviews. She's a long time and prized journalist at 60 Minutes. And they brought in someone else and they actually cleared it with Netanyahu, which is what Scott Pelley's talking about. Netanyahu chose someone else to do the interview. Now, the interview was okay, it wasn't a soft interview, but it also wasn't as hard as it could have been. He didn't ask any questions, for instance, about the right wing government that Netanyahu supports and some of the oppressive things they've done in Palestine?
- [32:26]
Ari Melber
Right. And so then you say, well, is that part of a process where the government is getting the first word or the last word through their intermediaries and then the alleged corruptive questions about whether this is all to get a merger done. So, Ken, for viewers watching tonight going, gosh, this is what's happening at cbs. Colbert's out, Peli's out. These other people are being pushed. And then these folks are very close to finalizing their deal to control cnn. What do you say about the outlook for independent media in the United States?
- [32:59]
Interviewer
I mean, anyone listening to those facts writes a headline, don't trust the paramount people. They don't love us. They don't support us. And I'm sure that's not entirely true, but nevertheless, that's the headline. That's the message. That's Been conveyed. And so the element of trust that's so essential when you're working, particularly after a merger is absent.
- [33:27]
Ari Melber
Yeah, that's fairly put. And again, speaks to these challenges. And you reminded everyone there have been mergers passed that looked big and bold and they didn't work on a business level. We're still talking about media. You know what the kids call it, Ken? They call it content. They say, I saw your content. I like that. Well, whether you call it media content or substance, at the end of the day, it's gotta connect with a heck of a lot of people. And if you lose credibility because of these shenanigans, then that's an issue, too. So I like. Like I said, we're glad to have you on as an expert. On a night when we're less busy, I'll ask you your favorite New Yorker cartoons.
- [34:00]
Interviewer
You got it.
- [34:01]
Ari Melber
Okay. Our thanks to Ken. A Big Story. Thank you, sir. Fitting a break. And when we come back, why movies like her and Minority Report are coming true, the dystopian use of AI. We're going to get into that and what you can do to not be on the wrong end of the AI trying to actually predict dissent. I'll explain next. It's already been a day, maybe a week, so it is time to fall back. And boy, do we have two special guests. Michael Hirshhorn, the reality TV pioneer turned democracy activist, former head of programming at VH1, also writes for the New York Times. Impressive, Brett. He's eping a new documentary, Big Girls Escaping paradise, which premieres this month, June 10, and fallback debut. What? What? Ari Shafir, very funny comic. I watch YouTube sometimes. Someone's so funny, Ari, regardless of name
- [34:58]
Ari Shafir
overlap, I go, let's not forget the name, okay?
- [35:00]
Ari Melber
Let's not forget me.
- [35:01]
Ari Shafir
Get my name pronounced. I'm sure I might do the same for you.
- [35:04]
Ari Melber
But I go, this guy's funny. I'm gonna see if he'll come on the beat. Here's a little bit from his specials, which include America's Sweetheart,
- [35:11]
Ari Shafir
Five Years of Summer School. My mom was like, I think this is gonna be the year you're gonna pass your classes. And I was like, I'll prove you wrong. Do you remember the first time you actually hit it off with a girl? Like, you're actually talking to her on the phone or a guy, and just when you think it's perfect, you hear the click on the other end of
- [35:24]
Michael Hirshhorn
the line, and your mother
- [35:28]
Ari Shafir
would just be like, hello.
- [35:31]
Ari Melber
Now, here's a question.
- [35:32]
Ari Shafir
When was the Last time you listened to radio all the time.
- [35:35]
Chris Hayes
Really?
- [35:35]
Michael Hirshhorn
Every time.
- [35:36]
Ari Shafir
I gotta rent a car.
- [35:37]
Ari Melber
Just. Just flip.
- [35:38]
Ari Shafir
See what. See what hits you with. Okay. I like this. It's nice. I like it. No playlist.
- [35:44]
Ari Melber
If that's not a podcast vibe, I don't know what it is.
- [35:48]
Ari Shafir
I'm drunk at that point.
- [35:49]
Ari Melber
The new storytelling show he has is the end. Welcome to both of you.
- [35:53]
Ari Shafir
Thank you.
- [35:53]
Michael Hirshhorn
I didn't realize I was here with a pioneer.
- [35:55]
Ari Shafir
You didn't tell him you were a pioneer?
- [35:57]
Michael Hirshhorn
Well, I try to keep it humble.
- [35:58]
Interviewer
Wow.
- [35:59]
Ari Melber
He created celebrity reality tv.
- [36:01]
Ari Shafir
Really? Right.
- [36:02]
Michael Hirshhorn
Oh, you didn't sense that.
- [36:03]
Ari Shafir
It killed us all. It's all my fault.
- [36:05]
Michael Hirshhorn
It's all my fault.
- [36:07]
Ari Shafir
The technology killed us all.
- [36:09]
Ari Melber
Michael's been here before, so you get to go first. What's on your fallback list?
- [36:12]
Michael Hirshhorn
Well, I think, you know, I'm worried about the. The young men in general. Like, the whole thing with them with AI girlfriends, they're like, all they care about is Kalshi and betting and crypto. They need to get out there more and mix it up with the girls,
- [36:29]
Ari Melber
and they think they're having these AI relationships. A lot of our viewers would watch and say, well, you don't have a relationship with a robot, right?
- [36:35]
Michael Hirshhorn
Well, I wouldn't know because I'm old school analog with this stuff. So maybe it's satisfying for them.
- [36:40]
Ari Melber
But I'm saying intellectually, somehow or something. I mean, we have her, I want to remind people, because these were dystopian ideas in movies like her, where the actor plays someone who has a relationship with a robot. And now you're saying this is happening.
- [36:55]
Michael Hirshhorn
It seems to be happening, and it's sort of making. It's making the kids boring, right? Like, I thought when I got older that the, you know, generation gap was there was gonna be a new bunch of kids. They're gonn really cool, right? And I was going to feel old and lame, and they're, like, kind of afraid to go outdoors. And they're living this kind of life where everything's happening through their phone and it makes them, you know, a little dull.
- [37:19]
Ari Shafir
Dude, I got to be honest with you. There's a reason they're all going to this. It's. It's. Chicks suck. They really do. They all look exactly the same. Because of Instagram, they had no choice but to go to robot.
- [37:29]
Ari Melber
You feel that it's also a tech problem behind the human.
- [37:32]
Ari Shafir
This is what happened with cabs. Cabs were away. Uber replaced them because cab sucked, right? Chicks suck. So, dudes, are like, well, they give me a robot. I don't care if it's not real.
- [37:41]
Michael Hirshhorn
It could be into other dudes or something.
- [37:43]
Reverend Al Sharpton
Absolutely.
- [37:44]
Michael Hirshhorn
Yeah.
- [37:45]
Ari Melber
There's a solution. Humans. So it comes back to humans. Yeah, yeah. What's on your fallback list, man? I am.
- [37:54]
Ari Shafir
If I had executive order of privileges, I would take out any lettuce based salad. It is not healthy. It's spinach or kale or.
- [38:03]
Michael Hirshhorn
Get out.
- [38:05]
Ari Shafir
What is this? It's a conduit to just dressing. That's not a salad. There's no nutrients in that.
- [38:11]
Ari Melber
So tell me, what specifically is the right salad?
- [38:13]
Ari Shafir
Kale base, spinach base. Maybe the garden. Arugula has to be involved. That's water.
- [38:21]
Ari Melber
And you're saying this for nutrition, not taste.
- [38:24]
Ari Shafir
For nutrition. Yeah, yeah.
- [38:26]
Ari Melber
See, this is why it's fun to have comics. But I wasn't expecting this from you.
- [38:30]
Ari Shafir
Yeah.
- [38:30]
Ari Melber
You're trying to be healthy.
- [38:31]
Ari Shafir
Sick of the obesity epidemic in America and it's. These fake salads are doing it and
- [38:35]
Ari Melber
you're taking a stand.
- [38:36]
Michael Hirshhorn
It's all dressing.
- [38:37]
Ari Shafir
Yeah. You think you're doing something good for yourself, but it's a lie.
- [38:40]
Ari Melber
Yeah.
- [38:40]
Ari Shafir
It's like weight loss, cigarettes.
- [38:41]
Ari Melber
So let me tell you how real we want to keep it here.
- [38:43]
Ari Shafir
Okay.
- [38:44]
Ari Melber
You have a joke.
- [38:45]
Ari Shafir
Yeah.
- [38:46]
Ari Melber
Where the punchline was really. I'm setting up the joke, which you should never do, but I want to give people a little. There are ridiculous news cycles is part of the joke. And so we are so real. Ari, we can take a joke.
- [39:01]
Ari Shafir
Yeah.
- [39:01]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And I want to play you pointing out that, like, sometimes it's just. It's ridiculous. Let's take a look.
- [39:06]
Ari Shafir
Stop. You ever think back to the last 10 years of you once cared about and now, like, that's dumb. You know, Ukraine. Remember you stopped caring about Ukraine. That story went on too long. It's like the show the Walking Dead. Like, wrap it up. Ukraine. We've moved on. Ukraine, Jew tunnels. January 6th. Lizzo's fat shaming. Every Karen. Stop Asian hate, remember? Stop Asian hate. All the statues coming down. Every election.
- [39:37]
Ari Melber
Covid.
- [39:37]
Ari Shafir
Everything. It's just like, blech. Deal with it. Going on a hike.
- [39:44]
Ari Melber
Funny, cathartic. Also true.
- [39:46]
Ari Shafir
Yeah, absolutely. We're talking about this backstage.
- [39:48]
Ari Melber
Yeah. How does it make you feel? Yeah.
- [39:50]
Ari Shafir
Just getting off it. You're not gonna. This won't be funny. But you're, like, not making a difference by caring about every one of these things. Weighing in quickly and then moving on. Losing an uncle's love because you had to make a Stand. It's like, just. Just opt out.
- [40:04]
Ari Melber
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [40:05]
Ari Shafir
It's your job, so you gotta deal with it.
- [40:06]
Ari Melber
No, but you're talking about anybody regular. You're saying we're getting kind of too wrapped up sometimes.
- [40:11]
Ari Shafir
Oh, yeah. I was in Latin America during the Venezuela thing. They didn't care as much as my friends here. Like, oh, people are mad here. I was like, oh, really? Don't they care?
- [40:21]
Michael Hirshhorn
The caring is performance.
- [40:23]
Ari Shafir
Performance caring.
- [40:24]
Michael Hirshhorn
That sort of, like, everything is now performative.
- [40:26]
Ari Shafir
Yeah.
- [40:26]
Michael Hirshhorn
So if you can actually make a difference. Make a difference. If you're performing caring. Shut that.
- [40:33]
Ari Melber
Are you. Are you decoding the premise of the joke?
- [40:36]
Michael Hirshhorn
The joke?
- [40:36]
Ari Melber
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
- [40:37]
Michael Hirshhorn
No, there's a version of the joke that's really depressing.
- [40:39]
Ari Melber
Right, sure.
- [40:40]
Michael Hirshhorn
Right. Which is that we don't have the ability to tell the difference between things that are real and things that are fake. Right. Like, Trump gave up on the Iran deal because it got boring. Right. But they're real people's lives. They're going to be affected by the fact that, you know, they seem unable. He seems unable to resolve the war. But the way we're experiencing everything, everything is, like, mediated. Everything is entertainment in a sense.
- [41:02]
Ari Melber
Right. So going to volunteer, do something in your community is one that great. But your joke is about, like, these are, like, hashtags. And look what I'm. Look what I'm saying.
- [41:09]
Ari Shafir
Oh, my God. I saw one of the stat is being taken down, and it's both. Whatever side. But like, that it got taken down and then this lady was, like, stomping on it as if it was a person she was trying to beat up. And it's just like. It's concrete and it's already down. You're not doing anything to this guy. It's not a real guy.
- [41:25]
Ari Melber
Yeah. So here's the Met down.
- [41:27]
Ari Shafir
They're like, this might be World War iii. It might be nuclear, like, disaster. And you're like, okay, so how are you going to spend your last weeks? I want to go skiing.
- [41:35]
Ari Melber
So our meta question for you, Ari. Yeah, Ari.
- [41:38]
Ari Shafir
Yeah, Ari. Yes.
- [41:40]
Ari Melber
How do you feel about now coming inside the news vortex to share this? And then we know when you leave, you will. You will not be watching the news. How do you feel about entering it?
- [41:48]
Ari Shafir
Well, bro, it actually mirrors a lot of my relationships where I do come inside and then I get out and I don't care what I've left behind.
- [41:55]
Ari Melber
Help me out here.
- [41:56]
Michael Hirshhorn
He was saying he went hiking for several months through South America and stayed in hostels.
- [42:01]
Ari Melber
I mean, I heard you talk about that.
- [42:02]
Interviewer
You.
- [42:02]
Ari Melber
You're used.
- [42:03]
Reverend Al Sharpton
You do not.
- [42:03]
Interviewer
Yeah, you.
- [42:04]
Ari Shafir
You off for a while.
- [42:05]
Ari Melber
You kind of let it go.
- [42:06]
Ari Shafir
Yeah, I got locked. I locked myself on my email and on my pH. I leave. I get a new phone down there.
- [42:11]
Ari Melber
Well, look, when we expand perspectives, Michael, this is. This is what it includes. Whether people agree with you or not or are as out of the news
- [42:17]
Ari Shafir
here so much here, coming back here after 10 months. We care so much here about everything. And no one's recommended a good movie. It's so freaking long. No one's telling me about a good album.
- [42:28]
Reverend Al Sharpton
Lily album.
- [42:28]
Michael Hirshhorn
Album.
- [42:29]
Ari Shafir
It rules. You should get that.
- [42:30]
Reverend Al Sharpton
Don't care about Iran. Watch the Lily album.
- [42:32]
Ari Shafir
Album.
- [42:33]
Ari Melber
There we go. Ari and Michael, thank you both. We'll be right back.
- [42:35]
Chris Hayes
Artificial intelligence is moving very, very fast, and it's raising new questions just about every day about what it is, what it isn't. When all is said and done, what is the end game? I'm Chris Hayes, and as part of my podcast, why is this Happening? I'm speaking with leading experts each week to help ground that conversation.
- [42:51]
Child
We're right now in a situation where it's very difficult to understand what is real and what's not real.
- [42:56]
Chris Hayes
Why is this happening? The AI Endgame, a special miniseries from Ms. Now. Start listening today wherever you get your podcasts.
- [43:09]
Ari Melber
Thanks for watching the be with Ari Melbourne. We tried to cover it all as best we could. I'll see you here tomorrow.
- [43:14]
Chris Hayes
Artificial intelligence is moving very, very fast and it's raising new questions just about every day about what it is, what it isn't. When all is said and done, what is the end game? I'm Chris Hayes, and as part of my podcast, why is this Happening? I'm speaking with leading experts each week to help ground that conversation.
- [43:29]
Child
We're right now in a situation where it's very difficult to understand what is real and what's not real.
- [43:35]
Chris Hayes
Why is this happening? The AI End Game, a special miniseries from Ms. Now. Start listening today. Wherever you get your podcasts.