← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:01]
John Dickerson
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Tim Miller
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John Dickerson
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Tim Miller
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John Dickerson
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Tim Miller
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John Dickerson
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Tim Miller
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John Dickerson
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- [01:14]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have one Monday without Bill Kristol because, well, I could not turn down this beautiful setting. For those of you on YouTube, we're at the Aspen Ideas Festival. So I searched for a suitable replacement among the global elite, the thought leaders, the illum. We needed someone wise and wry. And among all of the notables here, the only choice is of course the former host of CBS Nightly News and the politics podfather himself, John Dickerson. And I hear you have a sub stack.
- [01:41]
John Dickerson
Oh, I do. I have a substack. Like everyone, like all humans now must have a substack. I think you're born with them. I have one.
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Tim Miller
That is nice. It's good to see you.
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John Dickerson
It's great to see you, Tim.
- [01:51]
Tim Miller
This is nice doing this in Aspen.
- [01:53]
John Dickerson
Yeah. I mean, what's. I don't know if you were here last night, but what's gorgeous about the clear sky is that it's a clear sky because there are fires over in Utah that at the end of the day everything looks, you know, is totally haze.
- [02:05]
Tim Miller
Yeah, when we got in yesterday morning, it was a little spooky. Yeah, yeah.
- [02:09]
John Dickerson
Blood red sun. It's a little ominous.
- [02:11]
Tim Miller
All right, we got a bunch to get to. We'll do a little media talk at the end. Is there any media news that you think you might be worth?
- [02:18]
John Dickerson
There is huge mountainous media news. I am in the flatlands of my ability to weigh in on it. I'll enjoy ducking your questions.
- [02:26]
Tim Miller
Well, I don't know about that. We'll see my Questions might be more fun than you think. Let's talk about Iran first. I had to write this down because since Friday's podcast, here's what happened. Can I run you through the events? Iran launched a drone offensive on ships in the Strait. They were mad that Oman had opened an alternate lane for ships. They said that that other route violates the mou. The US retaliated, we bombed Iran again. Iran then hit back against eight US military targets in Kuwait and Bahrain. Those were countries that you might remember were on Marcos all as well trip just last week. We retaliate again. Then Trump threatens Iran with annihilation again. Iran then says now we're gonna go ahead and get a nuke then. And then our friend at Axios, Brock Ruvid, reports. Well, we've actually now agreed to stop escalating right before the markets open. And we plan to meet again this week. Talks Tuesday in Doha. Per the New York Times, Iran has not yet confirmed they're sending reps. So we'll see. So that's the state of affairs on our ceasefire.
- [03:20]
John Dickerson
Yeah, it feels like this is the state of affairs every Friday, weekend and Monday, the weekend war. One of the substack things I do is a compilation of the week's news and every Friday I end it and I think, oh, there's a breakthrough at the end of Friday. The President was often saying we're ready to sign a deal. I think, ah, I haven't really accounted for that. But then it washes away by the time you get to Monday. So this feels like a similar thing. I mean the fact is that all of the issues, the key issues are so up in the air, they can't even get to the other issues that are up in the air.
- [03:51]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [03:52]
John Dickerson
And that shipping lane, if you look at the number of ships that are still able to get through, it's tiny compared to the 130 a day that we're going through. I think it's over a couple of days. They had 78 and they've got to go through that narrow non mined lane even in the best of terms. And we should talk about what that even looks like. This is just super slow going a half a foot forward, two steps back.
- [04:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And the two things that just stand out on this, which you will note are not, were not. Neither of these things were part of the reason why we went into the war as particular holdups here as Lebanon. Item number one of the MOU mentioned Lebanon three times. So I think Iran was pretty clear about what was important to them. So that makes things challenging when that's out of our hands. And then when it comes to the strait, you know, it seems that there is like maybe an intentional miscommunication, I don't know, but a miscommunication about like, what an open strait is. Right. And I think that it seems like Trump is at least pretending like or acting like an open straight means ships can just go through and Iran means. No, an open strait means that, you know, you get our approval, you send in a TPS report, like we let you know if you can come through. And that's open.
- [04:57]
John Dickerson
Right. And that's a precursor to Iran saying after 60 days in, the MoU is over, we're going to hold, we're going to have tolls, we're going to charge people to go through this. This is which is a new arrangement. Pre war, this didn't exist. And so all this conversation about the strait, either what's going on now or what will happen after the MoU is over is all leverage points that Iran gained by the war. And so as we measure, was this worth it, which is the question we should always be asking about. Everything that happens, everything that's being debated was didn't exist as a point of leverage or complex complexity beforehand. So it's a new thing that's been created. Leaving aside all the other thorny issues, Lebanon's another one that was not originally a leverage point, but now is as a part of these negotiations on Iran's side.
- [05:38]
Tim Miller
J.D. the vice president has been appointment on this lately. I like this little fact that I read during negotiations in Switzerland last week. One of the things that Vance thought was important that they agreed to is that there's a hotline between the US Military and Iran because we haven't been able to get a hold of them. They keep saying like, oh, the Iranians are in caves and so we don't know. And then like Tasnim or whatever, they'll put out information on state news. It's like, it seems like we can get to them, but they keep acting like it's hard to get ahold of them. So we're supposed to have a hotline that Iran starts bombing on Friday or starts droning the straight again on Friday. And JD like sends out a tweet that's like, I wish they would have called me and they should have just called. And as of, I guess, Saturday, I don't know if they've, if the hotline's become operational since then, but we still didn't have a hotline.
- [06:24]
John Dickerson
It feels like the hotline is like when people are in salary negotiations with a job and they can't give more money so they give them a title. It felt like the hotline was the thing they could name as a piece of progress when there was no actual progress. On the other hand, you. It has been reported throughout these negotiations that one of the challenges for the U.S. negotiators, for J.D. vance and others, is like, who's in charge? Remember that first round of meetings? The Pakistanis spent more of their time trying to adjudicate the arguments among the Iranians, let alone than between the Americans and the Iranians. And so getting a person on the other end of the line would be nice because it would mean there was one person on the other end of the line. On the other hand, the idea of a hotline is the reason I'm being a little bit glib about it is because this war has taken place by social media, essentially each side acting and then threatening in public for a variety of their different reasons. So a hotline is like, it's a little late because it's all happening in real time on social media.
- [07:20]
Tim Miller
I see it. You're here for your wisdom. Do you have any wisdom about where things go?
- [07:24]
John Dickerson
Well, I don't. No, I have no wisdom about where they go. But I do have what I hope is wisdom about what we should always keep in mind. What was the war worth it? And I think there are three things, three ways you measure that. Was it worth tearing up the Obama era? Jcpoa, which was negotiated by several countries, had a series of constraints on Iran, which President Trump tore up and thinks he's going to get a better deal. Let's talk about just one little thing. Inspections. When JCPOA came out, Senator Tom Cotton and others said the inspection regime is too puny. It has to be Inspections Anytime, anywhere. J.D. vance just announced before things fell apart that the Iranians were gonna have inspections again. They were not anywhere anytime inspections. So if you measure the inspections that they might get out of this deal against what was the previous standard, this war has not been worth it. So you measure the war against the jcpoa, you measure it against where things were before the bombing started. Cuz there was, there were negotiations. The Strait of Hormuz was not a leverage point. And then you measured against what President Trump said this war was about. So keeping those three things in mind, every time there's a development like the hotline, Great, okay, hotline's a development. But if you measure that against all the previous Situations like a hotline's a meaningless development. Yes. So I just think you want to keep those three in mind because the problem is when there are some of these agreements, like to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, it's treated by the White House as a great development. Okay. Without thinking about the context, maybe it's a great development, but the context is it wasn't a point of contention before the war.
- [08:58]
Tim Miller
It was open already.
- [08:59]
John Dickerson
It was open already. So just keeping those three things in mind every time there's development I think
- [09:04]
Tim Miller
is, I mean, given those three things, I don't see any path back to something that looks even remotely like success. Like, honestly, even if you think about what a best case outcome from here could be like, it's hard to see how it would be any better than the pre war status quo or the jcpoa.
- [09:19]
John Dickerson
I think that's right. And by the way, if you're really doing the math, you've got to then calculate all that was expended, not just the loss of lives, the damage to the international economy, all those missiles that you can't replace very easily. So that's another thing worth keeping in mind because there's really nothing more important for a president than the decision to go to war. And so this isn't some decision about a reflecting pool. This is like at the center of the presidency. The only thing that would be worse in terms of a president using or misusing their power would be if they encouraged some sort of kind of an attack on the free and fair elections that are a part of the American Constitution.
- [09:55]
Tim Miller
Back to JD Last week he was at the Nixon foundation or something, libraries. And this was not an off the cuff comment, it was a prepared comment. He planned to go to this event and announce that he thinks that Richard Nixon's having a renaissance. Actually, actually, it says actually a couple times.
- [10:13]
John Dickerson
Yes.
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Tim Miller
And that if Watergate happened today, It'd be a 12 hour story. I did say on Friday's show, I said that that was not true, that Nixon's having a renaissance, that I follow a lot of political. I'm a political watcher. I haven't seen any of this. My colleague Will Sommer did correct me that there is like a niche subculture on right wing TikTok where they do Nixon edits to Charli XCX songs. So it's a brave new world out there. So there's like maybe a small, small renaissance happening there. Your mother, Nancy Dickerson was there. She was covering all of it.
- [10:47]
John Dickerson
She was there. She actually, she was covering the White House for NBC and Nixon during the period where there were protesters on the mall. He gave a press conference, and she asked him, why don't you speak to the protesters? And his answer was a traditional press conference answer. But then he called her later that night, and he had been drinking a great deal. He also called Helen Thomas that night, and he said, I love those kids. And then he later. That was the night that he went down on the mall and met with the protesters. It was a very odd conversation. He talked about.
- [11:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah.
- [11:23]
John Dickerson
And Haldeman writes about this in his diaries. The drinking part, I mean, and this period, we're going down to talk to the young protesters. And he ended up talking about, like, the Super Bowl. It was not a deep interaction, but that was one. And she knew Nixon going back to when he was on the hill in the 50s, because she had been working on the Hill. And she also did a documentary about Watergate. So. Yeah.
- [11:45]
Tim Miller
So how do you think she'd process the notion that Watergate wasn't that big of a deal and that he's now, many years later, having a supposed renaissance going to the new vice president.
- [11:54]
John Dickerson
Yeah. Defining deviancy.
- [11:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [11:56]
John Dickerson
Essentially is what's happening. You know, there has been a line of thinking in Republican thought over the years since Nixon and among, obviously, his defenders, that they all do it. Nixon just got caught. That was the. That. That's been around for a while. That. That. That abuses of power happen in every White House, you know, Kennedy, blah, blah, blah.
- [12:15]
Tim Miller
The old Trump line about, oh, we're so great. When Scarborough was asking him about, you know. Yeah. What Putin had done.
- [12:22]
John Dickerson
Exactly. Right. Like, who are we to talk about Putin's throwing people out of windows? We're not so great ourselves. I think what struck me about what J.D. vance said is he said, well, this was the deep state. And Nixon certainly, if you read the tapes and you listen to him, he was obsessed with the deep state and the bureaucrats in it and the liberals in the media and everything. But the problem for that argument is that if there was a deep state, it was Nixon's mouth. I mean, the thing that got him in trouble is the smoking gun tape is Nixon himself saying to have the CIA stop the FBI investigation into a break in. In a political party's headquarters, which is, you know, again, messing with elections. So you can't define that.
- [13:04]
Tim Miller
Also just. We should just say also about the deep state at the time. This is kind of this amorphous word. And I was trying to figure out, like, what he's talking about because, you know, when Trump was talking about the deep state, you know, it was going after him. He was talking a lot about like the intelligence services and the intelligence services were working for Nixon. The CIA was part of the COVID up. Trump also was talking about the Justice Department as part of the deep state. The Justice Department was with Nixon. There were some lower level people, but the attorney general had left by the time Watergate had happened. Mitchell. But was part of the planning on the front end while he was still Attorney General of the United States. Right.
- [13:40]
John Dickerson
The obvious benefit of this politically for J.D. vance at the moment is to connect their sense of grievance about any questioning of presidential power with a big popular thing, you know, and to try to say essentially that it has a modern valence which really has nothing to do with Nixon, but which has to do with basically like these ninnies who think that what Nixon did was bad. They're the same ninnies, you know, barking at our heels. And the whole thing is just the product of elites and not actual law breaking caught on tape. I mean, think about what J.D. vance is trying to do. This is literally the definition smoking gun, right? Literally the definition of evidence that is so powerful it is unfalsifiable. Except think about one of the projects of this administration and J.D. vance in particular. He said essentially, okay, maybe they there aren't Haitians eating their dogs, but if I have to tell you something that's untrue to get attention to it, it's okay. You know, he called them domestic terrorists in Minnesota, which they weren't and which there was no evidence of for Renee Goode and Alex Preddy and. And that project of taking things you can see and know with your own eyes and trying to cast it as something else is essentially what's happening in that Watergate exchange.
- [14:50]
Tim Miller
Ninnies or nattering nabobs?
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John Dickerson
Nattering nabobs of negativism. Yes, that was the preview. That was the other vice president.
- [14:57]
Tim Miller
I also think it's JD Vance saying it's okay for us to do the crimes. I mean, there's a certain group that we're tough on when it comes to the rule of law. But us in Washington, if you're on our side, you can do it, it's fine, it's no big deal.
- [15:12]
John Dickerson
Right. When a president says it, it's law, which is a version of, or I'm paraphrasing what Nixon said, but I think that's right. You define down any previous crime, any previous abuse of power, any previous obstruction of Justice. So then when you are accused of the same, it's like, oh, this is the same. These are just. These are points of etiquette that we're being called on. And that's always. There's always been a sort of etiquette critique by elites in Washington. It happened with Nixon, and now, you know, it's happening to us. To downplay the severity of breaking essentially your constitutional oath.
- [15:45]
Tim Miller
Here's another reason they want to downplay it. It's a New York Times story this morning. The government is actively doing critical minerals deals with. Do you want to guess how many different companies that have financial ties to Trump or Lutnick?
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John Dickerson
Oh, dozens.
- [15:59]
Tim Miller
14. I don't know. A dozen plus. Dozen plus. A dozen plus 14 different companies. It's worth in total, about 9 billion. 9 billion. How much was in the paperback that Agnew was taking? It's like 20 grand or something. Hold on. I just want to do one example of it. The meeting last September, Trump, Lutnick and the president of Kazakhstan. After the meeting, it resulted in an exclusive deal for an American company, Kaz Resources, to mine tungsten in the country. Both Trump and Lutnick families soon announced a highly lucrative business connections to the deal. Tungsten mining in Kazakhstan. That's some creative corruption.
- [16:39]
John Dickerson
Yeah.
- [16:39]
Tim Miller
Well handed to him, I guess.
- [16:41]
John Dickerson
Every time I hear about one of these deals and, you know, there have been a lot of them or the business that comes the way of the Trump family. And also, obviously, this is shot through all of the Middle Eastern negotiations going on. It's hard to keep up with. I mean, it's hard to keep up with what's in the MOU and what's not getting dealt with just in the mou. But then all the relationships in the Trump family to the various countries that are involved, it's very hard to track. That's just one thing. What I keep thinking about is President Trump's first inaugural address, in which he said, this period where the elites in Washington protect themselves and ignore the forgotten men and women of this country. That ends right now that there will be no more of this using the system.
- [17:22]
Tim Miller
To the Lutnick and Witkoff kids were the forgotten men of the country.
- [17:26]
John Dickerson
What we didn't know is that. What we didn't know is that they were the forgotten. And so every time you see a perfection of the use of or the benefit of people with ties to the Trump family in a way that he directly built his entire presidency around in that inaugural address, it's crazy to think back.
- [17:46]
Tim Miller
I was kind of young, but like some of the other ones, like Roger Clinton, trying to think of the other family members who are in on the take.
- [17:52]
John Dickerson
Right.
- [17:52]
Tim Miller
And I don't recall Marvin or Neil Bush getting in on anything.
- [17:56]
John Dickerson
Not Marvin, but Neil. There was a lot of Neil.
- [17:58]
Tim Miller
Neil got in on some stuff. Was anything.
- [18:01]
John Dickerson
I don't want to be wrong or more wrong than normal, but there was a lot of speculation in the SNL crisis about Neil Bush, as I recall. I don't know where that ended up.
- [18:11]
Tim Miller
Not trying to impugn Neil's character.
- [18:13]
John Dickerson
Yeah, yeah. And. And the point of it is just
- [18:15]
Tim Miller
like how small ball that stuff was.
- [18:17]
John Dickerson
Yeah. Yes. And for me, one of the tip offs was when President Trump made those first feints about giving up control and access and connection to his family business. His. He had his lawyer go out there and say, you know, when Nelson Rockefeller was vice president, nobody cared about this. In other words, again, like with Watergate, nobody cared about it in the Rockefeller case, Therefore, you shouldn't care about this now. So it's using the past to try to frame the present. Except that the past was totally wrong. Rockefeller had to go testify on Capitol Hill about his private fortunes. Right. So when they were preparing the way like that, just at the beginning of the first term, you kind of got the sense. And Haberman and Swan's book has a passage where Trump, and I'm paraphrasing, essentially says, you know, I did some of that stuff and nobody cared about it, so I'm not gonna bother with it anymore. That stuff being caring about the.
- [19:07]
Tim Miller
We had a thin wall within the business and I, you know, pretended. And they stopped doing some of their hotel deals overseas. Not all of them, but it's like. But not now. All that shit's supercharged. I should do this. Actually. This would be a fun podcast game with guests is like create like a fake Trump business deal and a real one and try to get people to guess which one is which. Cause some of them are so preposterous that you could not possibly believe that it was true. Y' all know I love Sol's out of office sparkling beverages for an easy way to unwind without drinking. And if you haven't tried them by now, you need to get yourself some of those or some of their new mood gummies as well. If you're anything like me, your day and night routines are not really routine. Whether it's doom scrolling, keeping you up, something I'm still doing, or whether you went to the Geese concert last night like I did and so you're a little bit sluggish the next morning. Bad habits can throw you off your rhythm. Sol's Mood Gummies can help balance that out. Sol's Wellness brand that makes delicious hemp derived CBD and THC products designed to make feeling good simple. Sole's new Mood Gummies have precise dosing, clean ingredients and formulations designed for predictable effects so you can choose how you want to feel while staying in control. They have something for every occasion. Uplift gummies that are perfect for your social plans. Mellow gummies that are ideal for cozy nights and fully unplugging. Or the Valance Gummy for an easy anytime vibe. Three moods, three intentionally crafted formulas. Same great taste, less filling. That's an elder millennial joke. I bet the Xers an Xers joke too. Anyway, make today a good day and get yourself some soul gummies right now. Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsoul.com and use the code the bulwark. That's getsoul.com promo code thebullwerk for 30% off. We're at the ideas. It's right there. Ideas.
- [20:58]
John Dickerson
Yeah.
- [20:58]
Tim Miller
You were on six panels.
- [21:00]
John Dickerson
I will be by the end of the. Yes, I'll be.
- [21:02]
Tim Miller
So I don't know, this felt like a good podcast topic and I was just like, what ideas are hot right now? Do you think you've been coming to this thing for a while? Is there something that's new? It's out of fashion. While you think I'll talk, I have some theories on this. I feel like there is a kind of Europe stepping up is a very popular topic right now. Whether they're capable of that.
- [21:26]
John Dickerson
Yes. Certainly not in the uk.
- [21:27]
Tim Miller
Well, the UK is a big countervailing point to that.
- [21:31]
John Dickerson
Yes. The UK Prime Minister is the Spinal Tap drummer of world leaders. I mean they just keep as Ian
- [21:36]
Tim Miller
Bremmer UK and Peru are competing.
- [21:38]
John Dickerson
Yeah. Ian Bremmer said, you know, in the future everyone will have their 15 minutes as a UK Prime Minister.
- [21:46]
Tim Miller
The UK thing is pretty worrying cause we did kind of follow their footsteps in breath and some of the problems that they're having, budget wise, immigration wise, do feel like things that are coming down the pike for us.
- [21:58]
John Dickerson
You're exactly right. And this is incredibly important. So we just had the 10th anniversary of Brexit. You now have a majority of Britain saying, hey, can we get rid of that? Like let's go back to one analysis said it's between 4 and 8% of GDP has been hurt over the 10 years of Brexit for a variety of reasons. The trade didn't take place as easily with the eu. Labor was restricted. But your more important point is the right one, which is when you look at Medicare, Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt, we are facing the same fiscal problems, challenges that they are in the UK and why did Starmer, among other things, get bounced? Because he tried to do some, you know, restrict the payments that went to pensioners, restrict the disability payments and like got screamed by his own party. Same in the states. If we try to tinker with some of those programs or tinker with the other parts of the budget, which are tiny by comparison, politically, it's too painful.
- [22:47]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Another one I'm noticing and I guess I'm trying to put this the right way because obviously at Aspen and here there's a lot still of talk about climate happening. I almost felt like a little bit of a time machine coming here and looking at the panels and seeing all the climate talk, because that is so absent from the political discourse now. That's another kind of trend I'm noticing. Even the DSA types, you have this kind of big moment with all these DSA left candidates in 2018, a Green New Deal would have been their thing, like right. If it was 2018. And you know, some of the trends have gotten slightly better on climate, but like things we haven't solved it in the, in the intervening eight years. And now it's, you know, health care, it's medical care for all, it's Israel, it's costs. Right. It's not even really on the, on the agenda. I mean, sometimes it gets mentioned, but it's like not on the agenda.
- [23:39]
John Dickerson
Yeah, well, I think when you have a 40% increase in the price of gas as a result of the war in Iran, you have a difficulty selling an argument that has always had embedded in it some upfront costs to make a better future, which is often what the case with a lot of climate conversations. Also though, I think it's just this is distinct from Aspen for the moment. But when you think about housing, education, health care, those are like, you got to get to those three first. We now have a situation where wages are for the last two months behind inflation. So, you know, in the order of operations. Talking about long term threats is tricky now. It's not a long term threat when you look at the fires in Californ, but still what I'm seeing at the gas pump or seeing it month by month in my bills are always, as you know so well from politics, are Going to get in front. One of the wonderful things about the Ideas Festival is those ideas are still important. And they are what, you know, they are important. But if you don't tend to them at a place like this, then by the time they make it into the political conversation, it's too late because you haven't done any of the work.
- [24:43]
Tim Miller
Okay. This is a half baked idea. So we're just doing this live because another thing that I'm noticing that's different
- [24:47]
John Dickerson
is did all my previous ideas have to be fully baked? Because I'd like to restate enough.
- [24:52]
Tim Miller
This one's particularly half baked, this one's a quarter baked. But you know, I mean, these sorts of things, you always have corporate sponsorships and stuff, like the corporate America shift, you know, particularly somewhat on climate, on dei, on tech, you know, it's pretty noticeable. Again, this is another thing. Had we come here in 2018, I think that there would have been a lot of the big tech companies either sponsoring or doing panels that are like, we gotta think about trust and safety. We're a little bit worried about disinformation on the platform. Not really a ton of that anymore. And I think one of the big cultural shifts of Trump, and obviously this panel with the Broadbatch, they're good CEOs, but is kind of in Trump 2.0, there's been a kind of like, we're unleashed for having to do some of this stuff.
- [25:42]
John Dickerson
Well, I mean, you see it explicitly from the CEOs who went to the White House and visited with him. You see it in Haberman and Swan's book about how. And this is one of the particularities of President Trump's felicity with power and the enjoyment he takes when Jeff Bezos or Zuckerberg sucks up to him. It's a thrill. I mean, those companies trying to stay alive under the tariff regime, like it was existential for some of them. I mean, Apple in particular. So there were. There was both a diminution of the virtue signaling that you got from talking about diversity, equity and inclusion. And then there was an increase in the things you had to do to stay on the right side of the administration. And now with the AI companies, there is this new sort of emerging White House policy that you have to run your new models by me. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of great leverage.
- [26:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Marc Andreessen basically said he supported Trump because he was worried what the Biden or then Harris administration would do to do oversight of AI. And like now, I guess as long as they feel like as long as they're inside the house, it's fine.
- [26:44]
John Dickerson
Yes. Although, I mean, so anthropic's in a two front war with the administration. ChatGPT just wrote on Friday that their new model has to go through the administration before it can be released. ChatGPT has a better relationship with the administration than Anthropic did. But even a good relationship doesn't mean that you can get, you can just do what you want. Which was the original promise of the Trump policy on AI, which was like, let a thousand flowers bloom. There is now a gatekeeping function, which I'm fascinated to watch, because if you can control the spigot on what gets to go forward or not go forward on what might be the most powerful technology in our modern age, that's a lot of leverage over activity.
- [27:20]
Tim Miller
It's kind of one of those, be careful what you wish for lessons. Like there's, myself included, there's a lot of mockery of like the Chevron pride float and these sort of performative, you call it virtue signal and these corporate performative efforts to show that the companies care about the society and the environment and equity. And now that that's gone, it's kind of like what? There was something to be said for virtue signaling, maybe, Maybe better than the alternative.
- [27:51]
John Dickerson
Oh, totally. Well, because virtue signaling, I mean, this is always true, you know, okay, let's strip away the virtue signaling, which might have been a kind of cynical, glib thing for me to say. We know this from.
- [28:01]
Tim Miller
Oh, no, there was, there was, there was some fucking virtue signaling. It's fine. And it's fine. They deserve some teasing.
- [28:07]
John Dickerson
What you don't want to lose is the scholarship that shows the benefits of diversity. Right. That this is. Both decisions are better. Your workforce is more robust when people can see models of others like them who've risen up. I mean, as the son of the first woman correspondent for CBS News, the number of people in my life who've said, who would never got in the news business, who said that their eyes were lifted up on the horizon by seeing a person like them doing a job in public where there were no other women like that is super powerful. And so to deny the power of that, to deny the power of human example for basically everything other than white men is ridiculous because it is powerful. It's some of the most powerful stories in American history are the power of what diversity can do. And then there are the studies that show the powers of what diversity can do. So I don't want the mocking which is justified in Some cases behind it, there is a reality which is that diversity, equity and inclusion was a part of a real and important thing for government and for corporations.
- [29:07]
Tim Miller
Was your mom torn at all about being recognized in that way? Like would rather have not been always cited as the first, or did she have just a pure pride about it?
- [29:18]
John Dickerson
Yeah, she had a pure, pure pride because it was a bitch of a climb to get there. I mean, told for years that audiences didn't care about women. And then also you can imagine in the 50s and 60s how an attractive woman was treated by men in power. If you would like to advance in your career, we have some ideas for you. And so if you have to crawl across all that glass, she would also recognize that she maybe was a little too proud of herself, which caused her some trouble later in her career.
- [29:49]
Tim Miller
But, you know, excessive pride in the media.
- [29:53]
John Dickerson
I know, exactly, exactly.
- [29:55]
Tim Miller
I think that there have been plenty of men that went down that.
- [29:58]
John Dickerson
Right, exactly. She has a good example in them, in all the men that came before her.
- [30:02]
Tim Miller
That's very cool though, mom. Like that. The 2026 FIFA World cup meal at
- [30:08]
John Dickerson
McDonald's is underway with one of nine legendary cups in the lineup.
- [30:12]
Tim Miller
Christian Pulisic, David Beckham, Lamin Yumal, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Son, Hyung Min, Alphonso Davies, Santi Jimenez. And between the posts, it's grimace.
- [30:26]
John Dickerson
Get one of nine collectible cups with
- [30:28]
Tim Miller
a FIFA World cup meal.
- [30:30]
John Dickerson
Participating McDonald's for a limited time while supplies last. All rights reserved. 20:26 McDonald's at FIFA World Cup 20:26
- [30:35]
Tim Miller
My name is Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yaoi, a gift shop from the lens of artists and handmade objects. I chose Shopify because when I was testing other platforms, it was definitely one
- [30:45]
John Dickerson
of the most user friendly.
- [30:46]
Tim Miller
It was important to me to think about where we would be in all
- [30:50]
John Dickerson
of the tools for reading your sales, like planning inventory. They're just right there on your dashboard.
- [30:54]
Tim Miller
For anyone starting a small business, the biggest thing I can tell you is it doesn't have to be perfect.
- [30:59]
John Dickerson
Shopify can help you build upon it.
- [31:01]
Tim Miller
Start your free trial on shopify.com all right. I want to do open ended 2028 on you for you.
- [31:08]
John Dickerson
Okay.
- [31:08]
Tim Miller
Because I think we first met. I mean, this is not true. Do you. Do you know where we first met?
- [31:12]
John Dickerson
I think we first had dinner in Oklahoma City at a midwestern governor's conference or something that all the candidates were supposed to come to. I don't know if Jeb actually went. We might have met before. That. But I remember having dinner.
- [31:22]
Tim Miller
There you go. I met you one time before that. That I can remember. It was 2011. That's 15 years ago. All right, so the Iowa straw poll, which doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, The Iowa straw poll, which was. Would have been the Romney year.
- [31:36]
John Dickerson
The Romney year.
- [31:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I don't even remember who won the straw poll that year. Santorum, I think.
- [31:40]
John Dickerson
Didn't Romney win? But because he'd finally decided to bust all the people and he just dropped money in on it.
- [31:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that's right. He bust all the. Damn it. I'm gonna Google it. We should know. Okay. But in the meantime, I brought that up because you've been covering these things a long time. And I mean, I don't care if you wanna talk about Republicans, Democrats, just what's catching your eye.
- [32:01]
John Dickerson
Oh, well, you know, I. Man, I love those days. The. You know.
- [32:08]
Tim Miller
Oh, my God, we're both wrong.
- [32:09]
John Dickerson
Oh, no.
- [32:11]
Tim Miller
Michele bachmann won the 2012. I was drunk.
- [32:15]
John Dickerson
Oh, my gosh. Well, sound guys laughing at that. Who came in?
- [32:19]
Tim Miller
Shel Bachmann. Mr. Bachmann. What's he up to, Marcus?
- [32:24]
John Dickerson
I don't know.
- [32:25]
Tim Miller
I should invite him on the pod. Oh, my gosh, he was a hoot.
- [32:28]
John Dickerson
I have a particular fondness for Iowa because I spent so much time there covering both Republicans and Democrats. And also I started my career, well, first covering Arlen Spector. Can you imagine a pro choice Republican candidate? He never got, like 0.01% in any poll. But even just saying, like, I. I think I'm gonna run, it just would be unheard of now. But then Lamar Alexander, who, you know, essentially tried to.
- [32:52]
Tim Miller
He'd visit all night before Job stole the exclamation point from Lamar.
- [32:57]
John Dickerson
Exactly. Went to all 99 counties. I traveled with, with. With Lamar all through this state anyway. Huh. Well, you know my boring feeling about 2028, which is the same boring feeling I had about 24 and 20, which is that the horse race, fine. But what we're learning in the Trump administration, as we learn with all presidencies, but particularly in the Trump administration, is this person you're picking has the ability to go to war unchallenged, basically, because Congress is supine for the moment. We'll see if that changes when there's a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, if that's the case. But they can launch a war. Keep that front of mind. Right. Keep in mind all of the power that a president has and that it's not just about the single president. It's about the team they put around. Build around them. You know, Stephen Miller has extraordinary power. And there is. There are. There's a lot of reclamation that needs to happen. The Department of Justice needs to be moved from the personal. Personal grievance factory of the president into something that actually deals with the challenges that we face from crime and terrorism and, And. And the rest. Like, there's a serious bunch of issues. And the parlor game is like, I spent my whole career, as you said.
- [34:09]
Tim Miller
I like you resisting. You resisting doing the horse race. Parlor game.
- [34:13]
John Dickerson
I am.
- [34:13]
Tim Miller
We're gonna do it then.
- [34:14]
John Dickerson
Okay.
- [34:14]
Tim Miller
Okay. Cause I only allow myself 15 to 20 minutes a week. On 20, 28. I have a cap. Some weeks I don't even use the cap. I have a ceiling for myself. And I was looking at the guests this week, and you're really the only one that I wanna talk about 2028 with. So we're gonna use some of the cap. Let's just do the Democrats for a second. Well, I have a particular Democrat I wanna ask you about, but do you have any thoughts just about the field broadly right now?
- [34:38]
John Dickerson
Well, the field broadly. The Democrats are about to have a big. I like these fights in parties. I love these fights. They're going to have a huge fight between. If you look at the Pew political typology survey of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and you look at, it's about 14% of the Democratic Socialists inside the Democratic Party. They, however, are the noisy end of the room right now.
- [34:59]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [34:59]
John Dickerson
You know, and so what's going to happen when the Democratic Socialists and the energy behind that movement clashes not only with the establishment, but with the political scientists and the political hacks who will say, we love your energy, what you're talking about, and the distribution of wealth in America and the diminution of the American dream. Love it. We'll get back to you because we're gonna go run our race.
- [35:22]
Tim Miller
Well, this takes us back to bachmann, actually. So 2010 was the Tea Party, and 2012, the Republicans nominated Mitt Romney.
- [35:29]
John Dickerson
But what's funny about that is, so you have the Democratic socialists representing about 14% of the democratic coalition. On the Republican side, the Tea Party represented a much bigger part of the coalition, as you know, sent 70 people to Washington, sent 70 to Congress, as opposed to, you know, maybe we'll have a handful. So it had a much bigger part of the party. And yet Mitt Romney nevertheless is the. Mitt Romney won cpac. Talking about straw polls. Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw poll, which is hard to Imagine.
- [35:57]
Tim Miller
But he won it as an unexpected fusionist. And so this is where the DSA can end up having power, even if they don't have a nominee. And this is where the Tea Party had power. Romney. You know, I never believed it. I love Willard Mitt Romney. But the idea that Mitt Romney was like a tough border deportation wall guy. Sure.
- [36:15]
John Dickerson
Well, he was the first one to put self deportation into the landscape.
- [36:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, exactly. Self deportation. I think that was. To me, it seemed like him trying to appeal to the Tea Party guys and find a lane and realizing that just doing the belt tightening economic stuff wasn't gonna be enough. He needed to do part of the culture war. And I think you'll see some of this from the Democrats. And you look around and it's like, well, who can do that? And I think that the key Democrat. My little rule of thumb I'm trying to use is I feel like Kamala, who I like personally, was in the sour spot where like the DSA types or broader progressives thought that she was a corporate shill and the moderates thought that she was a California progressive. Right. And the challenge will be to find Mitt Romney doesn't end up winning. So this person, ideally for the Democrats, would be more talented, the Mitt Romney more appealing to a general election audience. But. But the principle of winning the primary is you have someone who's more from the middle but who has an appeal to both sides. Who the progressives feel like, oh, they're pandering to me enough to make me feel like they believe it and I can get on board with them because I don't know if I really trust Rick Santorum. Right. I don't know who the Rick Santorum and Michele Bachman is in this analogy. But anyway. And I wonder if that person is Jon Ossoff.
- [37:25]
John Dickerson
Well, one thing I want to grab in what you said, which is like the thing about, as you know, well, about both the conservative. The most conservative wing of the Republican Party and I think is also very true of the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party, being handled, being, like managed is infuriating. So a candidate who tries to do that can in fact cause more problems.
- [37:48]
Tim Miller
Backlash.
- [37:49]
John Dickerson
Yes. And there will also be a candidate who decides, hey, I'm gonna grab the core part of the left wing part of the party and be their spokesman. And so now when you try to handle the very progressive part of the ring, you've now got a person who's gonna come at you at every debate. So you're gonna spend all this Time on that territory.
- [38:08]
Tim Miller
Sure. Warren was basically in this situation where she ends up having the Bernie people go after her very aggressively last time. Let me pitch you on something else, though, then. Maybe it's just grabbing an issue that they care about. Maybe the immigration stand in is either Medicare for all or maybe a foreign policy, things such as our relationship with Israel. And you have someone that kind of really, like, captures a mantle of that while also, you know, not maybe checking all of the boxes.
- [38:37]
John Dickerson
Right.
- [38:38]
Tim Miller
The issue, rather than being, you know, we need a ball, a wall with a moat with alligators in it to appeal to the Tea Party, something, you know, something that appeal more to the DSA type.
- [38:46]
John Dickerson
And that issue has to be both. One that appeals to the actual voters and then one that. That is a valence or sends a message about your entire. You know, it becomes the proxy for all your positions on everything else. Does that exist? Well, they used to think in the Democratic party when in 2020, that that was Medicare for all. Remember how much they debated that? And it was never going to happen. But they spent a lot of time in the debates talking about it because it was a way to send a signal to voters about where you were in the party. I don't know if that. I don't know if that's possible or whether the more powerful prospect may be that a candidate comes forward. Maybe it's Ossoff. Maybe it's somebody else who has the athleticism of the political skills, where basically everybody decides at some level he's just good at this. And we're gonna. We're gonna just kind of shilly shally around the real fights inside our party. The thing is, Democrats like to have the real fights start of their party.
- [39:37]
Tim Miller
I find that hard to believe. He's an immigrant to the coalition. I notice that there's a lot of. A lot of nitpicking, a lot of fighting about white papers, and also a
- [39:46]
John Dickerson
lot of discussion about, like, hey, we need the fight. We got to figure out who we are. Because, like, all this trying to kind of maneuver around our differences is a disaster. And it's part of what happened in 2024, some would argue. In other words, there should have been a robust fight. It should have just been an anointment of Kamala Harris. Whether you agree with that or not, there is a significant number of Democrats who want to have this big open debate.
- [40:08]
Tim Miller
They wanna have it too early for my taste. I'm like, sometimes I wanna say to some of my Democratic friends, I'm like, you're aware Donald Trump's still president for two and a half years. There's a lot of time ahead. Why are we doing Twitter fights to the death right now in the summer of 2026? There's a lot of pre positioning as if Trump's already gone, as if the future's already here and I need to win for my faction. And there's a big fight going on right now on Twitter where there's a group started, we're representing the center and they're fighting the. They're nastier to each other than they are to Trump.
- [40:41]
John Dickerson
Yeah, right. This is all church basement fights over. But I think, as you know, though, when two members of Congress, incumbents are bounced within their own party in New York, there's like political gold there and somebody wants to grab that energy to, as you said, define where the debate is. Like, you can really never start too early defining where the territory is. Because if you define the territory, then, oh, look, I've defined the territory of the future around all the things my candidate is good at. Right. So they're trying to say, this is what the fight's gonna be about and it should be about this. And then they'll come up and they'll say, well, this is why so and so should be president. So you gotta start that all early. But it's all completely detached from the actual job itself, which is what I always constantly keep coming back to.
- [41:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah, just one man's opinion, but I have some disagreements with Zoran, I have some disagreements with Josh Gotheimer. I've had both of them on the show. We've argued. If you're madder at them than you are at Stephen Miller, I do think that maybe your eyes are on the ball. One man's opinion.
- [41:45]
John Dickerson
Yes. And also you need to be able to articulate the arguments against Stephen Miller more than just bad Trump, because obviously there's some people in the country who are not where you are on whatever issues you want to be against Stephen Miller and the White House. And the inability to articulate the set of values underneath your disappointment with the Trump administration or whatever has been damaging for those kind of candidates. They need to be able to talk about why Trump is bad, not just say, Trump is bad.
- [42:14]
Tim Miller
You're good. You keep getting the off horse race, but we're going to do the payoff on Ossoff.
- [42:17]
John Dickerson
But I feel like you, I feel like this is useful 2028 conversation. So I think you're. You have only expended a little bit more.
- [42:24]
Tim Miller
A few of my minutes. Okay. Great. This is all quota. All right. So Ossoff has been doing the strategy which is working for him. He gives these speeches on the weekend. He's very good at them. Clips from the speeches go out on social media. They start to go viral. There's another one this weekend talking about corruption. That was excellent. Just a couple of tweets I saw about it. Ossoff just has the sauce, man. It's the guy. Jeremiah Johnson. I follow. Tommy Vitor. I want to roll this speech up and smoke it. Sarah Longwell on the secret podcast. She was thinking about how much she likes optimistic guys with nice young man energy. Rogan and Tim Dillon were having a manosphere podcast I was listening to on the flight out here. They were talking about Ossoff. Rogan actually didn't know who Ossoff was, which shows you how much tension he's actually paying to the news. But then they played some clips and they're like, yeah, this guy could be the right guy.
- [43:11]
John Dickerson
Yeah.
- [43:11]
Tim Miller
So, you know, and he's got a Senate race to do first. But I don't know, it does feel like there is some.
- [43:16]
John Dickerson
There's a lot of Ossoff energy. But now, you know, and we'll just trade the cliches of the business that we've trafficked in. The peak too early.
- [43:23]
Tim Miller
Right? Peak too early. We're peaking too early.
- [43:25]
John Dickerson
Here we go. Here's another one. His best day was the day he announced for president.
- [43:28]
Tim Miller
That was Jeff, actually.
- [43:29]
John Dickerson
Yes.
- [43:30]
Tim Miller
We had a great announcement day.
- [43:31]
John Dickerson
I was there.
- [43:32]
Tim Miller
A great announcement day.
- [43:33]
John Dickerson
I was.
- [43:33]
Tim Miller
People don't remember it. It was a really nice day.
- [43:36]
John Dickerson
It was either the day before or after the Trump came down.
- [43:39]
Tim Miller
The day before. Day before. That's why we had one good day.
- [43:41]
John Dickerson
Yes, exactly. Yes. No, I remember that quite well. So this isn't to take it anyway. It's just. It's early and you never. But I think the secret sauce for a Democratic candidate is being able to tie. So corruption. Right. So that corruption is a thing. People get angry at it, but once you get outside your coalition. What does corruption mean? Corruption means that the attention of the person who has the powerful job in the world is always centered on himself, which means he doesn't care about your housing costs, he doesn't care about your education costs, he doesn't care about your health care. And guess what makes up a life. Those three things. The American dream is not possible if housing has gone up 40% in the last 10 years. If education and healthcare are beyond what a. A middle class family can afford. Like so the attent corruption on its own terms is a powerful issue. But as a. As a signal of the president's attention and the attention of his administration, which has not been on what is the concerns of the American family. That's a way in which a subtle politician can weave those things together and somebody starts nodding.
- [44:44]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [44:44]
John Dickerson
Now if they're good looking and they can do it with certain elan, then that is arms. That's the sure guns. That's the beginnings of what is a candidate who could bring a whole coalition.
- [44:57]
Tim Miller
He wouldn't tell me what his workout routine was on the pod. You told me before you started that you listen to the pod sometimes while working out.
- [45:04]
John Dickerson
I do.
- [45:04]
Tim Miller
So will you tell me what your workout routine is?
- [45:06]
John Dickerson
Well, I'm 57, so it includes a lot of mobility, a lot of mobility work, a lot of body weight work. Because. Because there's a point where sleeping starts to hurt. You know, you went through your whole life, you know, a teenager, you slept for 16 hours. Maybe in college you didn't sleep for several days. But the act of sleeping didn't used to be a possible source of pain. Now sometimes I get up, I got like my shoulders all messed up.
- [45:33]
Tim Miller
So what's a mobility thing? Like some bands?
- [45:36]
John Dickerson
No, it's a lot of like rolling around. We have these gorilla mats which you put on the. On the floor of the garage. Mostly because there's a lot of oil and gasoline on the. So you try to cover that smell. But also you just do a lot of like rolling around and it's like
- [45:49]
Tim Miller
yoga slash stretching it band.
- [45:52]
John Dickerson
Sure. There's a lot of like. Now that we've said it out loud, your Instagram account is gonna be full of people doing the windshield wipers with their hips and all that and all that stuff. And then, you know, I'm hurling around some steel. All right.
- [46:03]
Tim Miller
You know, I bet. I bet you are.
- [46:08]
John Dickerson
Evening. Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started.
- [46:15]
Tim Miller
Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.
- [46:18]
John Dickerson
You what? Yeah, Great price. I even have seven days to love
- [46:21]
Tim Miller
it or return it. So there's no. No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice.
- [46:27]
John Dickerson
I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.
- [46:32]
Tim Miller
Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply.
- [46:36]
John Dickerson
See our seven day return policy@carvana.com.
- [46:38]
Tim Miller
i know that you've called in some loggers, called in a band, a symphony, to try to play so that before we start asking about cbs. But you were unsuccessful.
- [46:48]
John Dickerson
Exactly. It's time to talk about the second Airborne is coming.
- [46:52]
Tim Miller
Time to talk about the media. We're gonna start with this. I noticed when I said it that it was wrong, but it's kind of apt. When I introduced you, I called it the CBS Night News. It's the CBS Evening News.
- [47:03]
John Dickerson
I didn't wanna correct you.
- [47:04]
Tim Miller
Okay. I think it's apt because it's kind of like who cares? Does it matter who is on the evening news anymore? Does the evening news programming matter? Do you think I know that this was your job and so I ha. Kind of diminish your life's work.
- [47:20]
John Dickerson
Here's what we believed when we tried to create a different kind of evening news which is that at the end of a busy day, thousand things going on, what is important and what can you tell people about that respects their attention, treats it not as something you want to freak them out about so you can hold onto it, but respects their attention and puts the day's events in context and does it with storytelling because you remember stories more than facts often and tells the story in the tradition of CBS News. That's what we tried to do and we felt like at the end of the day that is useful. I still think that's useful. I still think that's useful. Can you.
- [47:57]
Tim Miller
But were you talking to anybody that was under 60 and gettable for Donald Trump? And were you really just talking to boomer and elder Gen X liberals though on the evening news or is that wrong?
- [48:09]
John Dickerson
No, no, no. Well, CBS has a. Has a good strong, solid and God love them audience in rural America which are not. These are not city liberals. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's one of the joys of working for CBS is that it forces you to practice the kind of journalism I was trained in at time, which is not to present the final product as like, you know, this person believes drunk driving is good. This person says it's not. Who's to say no? But you go and talk to everybody and then you draw. You use the evidence to marshal your claim about what you think is actually happening. And CBS always had had a good relationship when I would be out in red state America, you know, there are lots of good people who when you said cbs, they weren't angry having said that cbs. You know, there's a long history of things that conservatives and Republicans have not liked about cbs. You may remember the George W. Bush
- [49:03]
Tim Miller
Dan Rather had a miss.
- [49:04]
John Dickerson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not I don't want to create a false.
- [49:08]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [49:08]
John Dickerson
But I do think at the end of the day, if you could deliver to people, here are the top 15 stories in your world, ordered in order of importance, with context, facts, color, attaching people to the wonder of the world. Like, we're not supposed to just keep people freaked out about politics all the time. The news is supposed to attach humans to knowledge, and knowledge is happening in science, in sport, in fashion. That's also part of the mandate. If you could do that at the end of the day, if you could get that at the end of the day, in half an hour, Bob's your uncle, you'd be so happy.
- [49:40]
Tim Miller
Okay. You have some early 20s children.
- [49:44]
John Dickerson
Yeah.
- [49:45]
Tim Miller
Did they watch you when you were on the.
- [49:47]
John Dickerson
Oh, my gosh. They've never watched anything.
- [49:50]
Tim Miller
Did any of their friends watch you?
- [49:52]
John Dickerson
Yeah, actually they did, because I'm. And I've taught at the Institute of Politics at University of Chicago and spent a lot of time with college students. And they care a lot about cbs, the New York Times, mainstream media, in part, not necessarily because they watch it. They do read the Times, but because they think it's shaping worldview. They also cared about the Ellison family because of their relationship with TikTok, CBS. And as I said when I worked at CBS, I basically don't want to talk about CBS now that I'm gone, because I have a lot of dear friends who work there who are fighting the good fight. And whatever my opinion is positive or negative, when you're in the middle of it, like some dude kibitzing on the outside, like, it's. I don't. I think it's kind of dickish.
- [50:35]
Tim Miller
I hear that the TikTok thing, though, does tie it to, like, a bigger thing. I guess. Part of why I'm being cheeky, of course, like, Obviously, like, whatever, 4 million people are watching the CBS Evening News, maybe a little bit less now with Tony Deeb, you know, so that's something. Obviously, it has a big audience still. But like the Ellison thing, as it ties to TikTok, I guess my just concerns going forward when it comes to these questions about media consolidation is what's happening on the platforms, like, where people are really consuming stuff and where there are no editors and where the algorithm is the editor and it's feeding them the nonsense. And if you have the Ellison family, who's close to Trump, owning TikTok, Elon, close to Trump, big Trump's biggest donor owning Twitter, Zuckerberg, can you have a
- [51:21]
John Dickerson
democracy when the billionaires own the way that we learn things. Yeah, Yeah. I think it's a fundamental question for our democracy and also for our ability to think critically. Because when you're being whipped around by the. By the algorithm, even if you told the algorithm, like, just give me political news, you know, because there are now some ways you can train the algorithm, it's not working when the algorithm is whipping you around, it's pickling you and diminishing your ability to actually evaluate questions of the day. So it's not only keeping you addicted and stealing your attention, but it's creating habits of mind that are not healthy. And it's basically in the hands of, like, a few people.
- [52:01]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [52:01]
John Dickerson
Not good.
- [52:02]
Tim Miller
No. And so I guess, like, when you assess the landscape broadly, like, where is your alarm the highest? I guess, like, when it comes to the media and social media companies, my
- [52:14]
John Dickerson
alarm is the highest. When you have a kind of an alley oop, that happens where you have an administration that tries to rewrite what's happening literally in front of our eyes. I mean, Secretary Noem, when she talked to Jake Tapper right after the deaths in Minneapolis, and there was video and she was arguing for something that human eyes could tell was not true on the actual video, that's the furthest example of what is a thoroughgoing effort to reshape the very notion of verifiable information. If you have the most powerful person in the world and his administration trying to teach the country that verifiable information is totally up for grabs and there is no such thing. My narrative is my narrative, and everybody else's is treason. That's incredibly corrosive and dangerous. And then if you have news organizations who are supposed to fight like hell against that idea, allowing it to go forward, not fighting like hell. Or as I said when I worked at cbs and I make that distinction because, again, kibitzing, now that I'm not there, I don't. I find. And sort of I don't agree with. But when I was there, maybe it's why I'm not there anymore. The idea of paying off a president in a meritless lawsuit completely undermines your ability to hold that administration account. And it's not just holding people in power account, it is holding people in power who are trying to rewrite things. Like an attack on free and fair elections on January 6th. Like, the stakes are extremely high. So the effort to rewrite misinformation, plus the, at the very least, supine response to that effort to rewrite misinformation, that's what worries me.
- [53:53]
Tim Miller
This is where. So the meritless lawsuit point. This is like, what I care about more than I care about the characters and the drama and the personalities of what's happening at cbs. Like, it was a corrupt game. Like it was a rigged game from the start. So, like, everything that happens underneath that is the fruits of a rigged game. Right. So if you even. I believe you that you have former colleagues that are working there. I have friends that are at CBS that are good reporters that are doing their job. And yet, like, the whole structure now is a structure that was started because the President bullied the network. Like, that's bad.
- [54:29]
John Dickerson
And it's bad because it undermines, again, as I said at the time, it undermines the ability of people to trust. Trust is a big problem. Trust those of us who are in the job of saying, you know, you can't ask the President a question, but we can on your behalf. And so we're going to ask him a question that's going to directly affect your life, and we're going to try and do it with you in mind. Well, can you do that when you've shown that you're going to pay off this lawsuit, which is basically keeping him in mind, and that is just directly contradictory to the job that a news network does. And again, I said that while I worked there.
- [55:07]
Tim Miller
CNN thing. Were you. I don't know. Tbd.
- [55:09]
John Dickerson
I don't know. I've spent a lot of my time since I left in December thinking about other things.
- [55:16]
Tim Miller
You know, no, CNN people have called you. I find that hard to believe. They've called you and be like, what should I do, Dickerson, you've already been through this.
- [55:22]
John Dickerson
Yeah, yeah.
- [55:22]
Tim Miller
No, what should I do? No, Coles, I don't believe you.
- [55:25]
John Dickerson
Well, I know on this podcast. No, no, no, no. This. Swear to God, nobody calls me, I think, because, like, I'm not useful. Like, which is to say, like, I don't. There are people who have called me and many of them who were fired or let go at cbs, who I talk to about, what do you want to do with your future? All of those things. I really care for a lot of people who worked there, but I don't. I got no advice. And I. Because I. Because I got no knowledge. And. And I mean, despite all the hot takes I've had here, I usually try to base what I say in some reporting or some analysis or something. And I haven't. I've spent my thinking.
- [56:02]
Tim Miller
I have some knowledge. You don't have to comment on this, but I have some Knowledge, because I. I've watched Tony D. So I've got a little bit of knowledge because my eyes can see and my ears can hear. Okay, this is my last question for you on this. I just wanna know how it makes you feel, like on the inside, like everything that happened at cbs. How are your emotions as you relate to all this? I mean, Peli said that the dismantling of 60 Minutes was similar to the death of a spouse. That's some pretty harsh stuff.
- [56:29]
John Dickerson
Well, you know, Scott, I worked very closely with Scott when I was political director. And then when I was at Face the Nation, I mean, I was on two or three times a week, week when he was anchor of the Evening News. And one of the great things about Scott, which is, I think important in any organization, was that he not only worked incredibly hard, but he was a model for everybody else. And one of the things that I'm saddest about is that being in touch with Guy Campanile, who was the EP of the Evening News, when for most of the time I was there, was modeled what being a leader was and being in the. But being in the company of people who do work where you're like, oh, I want my game to be that good. That's thrilling. When Colbert's show is ending, you know, I spent some time there, and you look at his staff like everybody wanted to be better because of the leader. And that is a cool thing to be under when you're a part of a tradition where people are like, wherever you are in the ratings. I want to be good because of this sort of thing inside that we all believe in. That's a great thing to be a part of. So I miss being a part of that. So I miss being a part of that.
- [57:36]
Tim Miller
You don't seem that sad. You've been hanging out, melancholy. You haven't seen that sound.
- [57:40]
John Dickerson
I'm incredibly lucky. I get to, you know, moderate panels here. I've been, you know, one of the great things about Substack, which you have lived and breathed, is you have a barn you can put on a show. And so I spend a lot of time, you know, writing and thinking about things that I might get an audience of four people who really, you know, want my perfectly.
- [57:59]
Tim Miller
We're gonna give more than that after this podcast.
- [58:01]
John Dickerson
My perfectly thought through about why Alan Greenspan and change the way we think about the chairman of the Federal Reserve. And nobody may care about it, but I do. And that's really fun to work on.
- [58:12]
Tim Miller
So I'm having a finding internal fulfillment is important. I learned about this in therapy. You know, not requiring the praise of others, but finding fulfillment within yourself. Very challenging for people in our business.
- [58:26]
John Dickerson
Sure. Yes, Exactly.
- [58:28]
Tim Miller
But it's an important thing to continue to work on.
- [58:31]
John Dickerson
It is. And one of the ways you can do it is to try to develop a value system where you. Where you think. Seeking to achieve these goals within my value system is important to me and fulfilling for me, and I can spend my day doing it. We all still seek validation of people, but it's not driving the bus.
- [58:48]
Tim Miller
And so I'm hoping that you validate my interview skills at the end of this. Actually, I'm trying to get validation right now.
- [58:53]
John Dickerson
It's already been validated by the enthusiasm with which I'm responding to your questions.
- [59:00]
Tim Miller
All right, well. Well, that's good. I'm happy you're not sad. And there's just. There is a little bit of melancholy about everything, but, you know, things move forward. Like, this is life.
- [59:09]
John Dickerson
I'm really lucky I can go on substack and write and come to places like this. There are people who were at the beginning of their careers who don't have a job now and who bought into the idea of meaning and the mission. And the mission can sound super elite. And it's basically just trying to tell stories on behalf of the people in the country. Like, it's a basic job of journalism. There were people who bought into that who don't have jobs now. I'm super sad for them.
- [59:44]
Tim Miller
I'm sad about one other thing. We're close with one thing, that we're here. So I was. One of the neat things about being here. I honor and respect you doing six panels up here, and I love the people of Aspen and the ideas fest, so I appreciate them having us. I just don't really like rich people panel stuff. Like, it's tough for me sometimes I just.
- [60:01]
John Dickerson
Because it feels detached from City hall, from real life a little bit.
- [60:06]
Tim Miller
I don't like being. I'm a man of the people, you know, I like being at the bar chatting with people. I like people. But something about the panel culture is something I need to work on to find value from. But there is one element that I do like, which is for all of some of the nonsense that you get and some of the fart sniffing at a place like this, you also have people that did real interesting things. And I just give you one, and then you can chime. I had a guy last night that came up after the show, older guy, and they were just excited to see the bulwark thing. And we were just chatting about the news, and his wife was like, well, he was an ambassador for 35 years. And I was like, I didn't know that. Thank you for bringing it up. So we started talking about that, and he was talking about how he was an ambassador from Reagan all the way through Obama, different administrations. And the thing that I gave. I'm gonna get emotional, talk about it. The thing that gave him the most pride about that job was we had values that we cared about. And there were different disagreements with every president that time, but there were basic values of human rights, free people, open markets that we argued for in those jobs. And he's like, I couldn't do that anymore. The person in that job as an ambassador, we don't have any values anymore that we argue for. And even if someone who does have values gets back in, in 2029, I kind of feel like in some ways it's over in the same way that the CBS experience is over. Because it's like, if you're worried that in 2032, someone's going to come back in and we're going to be back to this mercantilism, then it's kind of like, well, then your values have no weight, and you needed it to be both parties. And that makes me melancholy that that's kind of over.
- [61:53]
John Dickerson
Well, let's hope it's not. But having a space where you can talk about that is useful. So that's what something like this and any big idea panel type thing is. But I think that in a world where our attention is so shredded, where there are the best minds of Silicon Valley and the best minds of Wall street trying to keep our attention atomized, that if you can get out and meet with people, this is just modeling. You can meet with somebody who went off and had an idea and sat down for weeks thinking through that idea, why it was important. How do we restore the values you're talking about? Not in a sense of, like, hot takes. Oh, you know, they used to do deals on a handshake in my grandfather's day. No, what do we do at, like, the personal level, at the city level, the state level, the national level, to build trust? What do we do to, you know, make a better workforce when you have so much of the country unable to afford college and so many businesses needing people with technical skills that they're not going to get at Harvard? Answering those questions can't be done in the cut and thrust of politics and in the cut and thrust of the atomized, algorithm driven public conversation. So if you can get people together either to talk about those ideas or to be adjacent to them, to go, hey, you know what? There's a set of values. Like, what are my sets of values? What animates my day? And that takes us back to the point you just made. A life of fulfillment and meaning is driven by values. So if you don't have values, you're in a tough shape. So it's pretty good for everyone to go somewhere, whether it's here or just, you know, a weekend away to go, like, what are my values? What do I want to leave behind? Who would I sacrifice for? And so I think the more we are forced into those kinds of conversations, the better. Yeah, not all the time, but as at least a counterbalance. As a counterbalance to. Because here's what happens. You think through your values, the interaction you had with that ambassador, you will then bring that to every future podcast. Now, of course, you already cared about those values and it's the death of those that have animated your work. But if you've gone off and thought about those things, then you bring them into the cut and thrust and now you're leaning forward a little bit more. You're asking different kinds of questions.
- [64:04]
Tim Miller
Seems like you have a little optimism about our trajectory. We're in this. We have 250, and it's kind of a. It's kind of a bleak 250. I know what, though.
- [64:11]
John Dickerson
Well, except it doesn't need to be. So there's a Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick who wrote a book during World War II and said how lucky this generation is to be alive. Because he basically said there are all these challenges to freedom and humanity, but you are being called on to fight for them. And so you're lucky to be in that fight. At 250, a lot of people are, for very good reason, worrying about the American experiment. But it also forces people to say, this is the American experiment I want to fight for. You recognize and kind of distill what is really important in a country when it's threatened. What I take hope in is if you look at Frederick Douglass writing, including after the Dred Scott decision, when he's basically said, you can't. You are not a person because you are a formerly enslaved person. You are not a citizen. And he nevertheless could talk about his hope in America, his sense of hope in the face of absolute cruelty and an entire system that wanted to make him a non person, not a human. His ability to talk about hope and that the Declaration and the. And the Constitution were glorious liberty documents. Like, if you can stand up and do that, inspired by these slave owning white men and their ideas, like we can take nourishment from that and we can like stand up a little straighter and keep the fight. Because those values, which are the same ones that Ambassador was talking about, They've lived for 250 years. There is strong stuff in the cupboard. We just have to grab it and bring it out into the podcast.
- [65:43]
Tim Miller
I had some strong stuff last night. John Dickerson, man, I need more Dickerson in my life. That is great. That is important. You're getting your, I don't know, your free man. The weight is off your shoulders. Frederick Douglass inspiration. You know, you're drinking the old whiskey. That's nice. That's great.
- [66:01]
John Dickerson
Well, you bring it out in me.
- [66:02]
Tim Miller
Okay, great.
- [66:03]
John Dickerson
This is a testament again to your question.
- [66:04]
Tim Miller
I don't think that's true. You were the pod. That's what I said. The pond father. You'll be great on substack because you were doing all this before navies, listening to podcasts. Gabfest. Yeah, the OG, right?
- [66:13]
John Dickerson
Started more than 20 years ago. 20 years ago we had to burn wood to get the podcast machine to start. And. Yeah, and it was also when you talked about doing a podcast, but back then, you know, it's like Jiminy Glick says in one of his interviews. He said, I've never been that desperate to start a podcast. I mean, people thought you had joined some sort of cult. You know, I do a podcast. They thought you were sort of alone in a small broom closet, you know, telling your stories.
- [66:40]
Tim Miller
And here we are.
- [66:41]
John Dickerson
And here we are in the sweep of the world talking big ideas. By the way, I'm not going to let you off the hook on the big ideas thing too, because what you do when you question people is like you challenge them with better sense.
- [66:55]
Tim Miller
That's what I say. I like that. I love. I mean, I like listening to and hearing from smart people. That is the good part of going to these things. It's like the happy hour. It's not the ideas that I. I'm pro ideas, John. I'm a fucking podcast host. I'm bringing on experts. I don't. The small talk, the social o. The small talk.
- [67:16]
John Dickerson
As an incredible introvert and misanthrope. I can't do small talk. So I can't.
- [67:21]
Tim Miller
It's like with the necklace. I don't want to do the small talk with the necklace.
- [67:27]
John Dickerson
Isn't the necklace helpful? Because if you can't remember your own name, you're, like, talking to somebody and you're like, yeah, self. That's it.
- [67:32]
Tim Miller
All right, there it is. That's John Dickerson. We'll be back tomorrow. Who do we have on tomorrow? Who knows? Katie? We've got somebody good, though. Yeah, I think we've got somebody good coming on tomorrow.
- [67:40]
John Dickerson
We always do.
- [67:41]
Tim Miller
Oh, we got a bunch of Supreme Court decisions, so we're doing legal stuff.
- [67:43]
John Dickerson
And by the way, it's not just the decisions to come, but last week, all the decisions on temporary protected status, on asylum. Asylum. Ask whoever your guest is. Asylum. Done.
- [67:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's horrible, right?
- [67:54]
John Dickerson
And Stephen Miller boasting about it being over.
- [67:57]
Tim Miller
It's horrible. Okay, we do another hour if you get me started talking about the Haitians. It gets me so mad. So we're just gonna leave it there. I like the optimism. End.
- [68:04]
John Dickerson
Okay.
- [68:04]
Tim Miller
We're gonna end on that. That's John Dickerson. We'll be back tomorrow. I'll be back in my hole in New Orleans. So appreciate you guys sticking with us on the outdoor podcasting. We'll see y' all soon. Thanks, buddy.
- [68:15]
John Dickerson
Thank you, Tim. It was great.
- [68:25]
Tim Miller
Now Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.