Loading summary
Transcript107 lines
- [00:04]
Abe Greenwald
Hope for the best, expect the worst Some preach and pain Some diapers the way of knowing which way it's going.
- [00:19]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best Expect the worst Hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily Podcast. Today is Monday, December 16, 2024. I am John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. I want to thank everybody who sent us in so many wonderful questions for us to answer on holiday podcasts. As requested on Friday. If you want to continue, just send us your queries to podcastometary.org and we'll see whether or not we can get them in. Also, a little moment yet again to thank everyone who has been donating so generously to our end of year fundraising drive here at our 501c3 nonprofit. If you have not done so yet, please consider putting Commentary on your nice list. And you can do that by going to Donate. Org. Excuse me, commentary.org donate, which is on our website. You could email us@donateometary.org but that would be silly because you can just go to the website and do it on your own. And we would all be grateful, we being Executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [01:40]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [01:41]
John Podhoretz
Media Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [01:44]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [01:45]
John Podhoretz
Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.
- [01:48]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [01:48]
John Podhoretz
And Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [01:51]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [01:52]
John Podhoretz
I didn't have.
- [01:53]
Seth Mandel
I just want to start by thanking all the people who sent in their concerns about Brazil nuts. I've heard we've got a lot of feedback about brazil nuts and I especially appreciate those who sent me the doctor's recommendations for the daily limit of Brazil nuts so that I don't get selenium poison. So thank you all for the console. The consensus was that they are delicious in but in moderation because of the selenium.
- [02:24]
Christine Rosen
So.
- [02:24]
John Podhoretz
Well, you know, I'm very concerned about your selenium level. I'm also worried about your taste buds because they seem to enjoy Brazil nuts and I don't.
- [02:32]
Seth Mandel
Our readers agreed. Our listeners agreed.
- [02:34]
John Podhoretz
Our listeners are very manifold. They cover the waterfront. They have many opinions. Most of them are good, some of them are bad. This is one of the bad ones, clearly, and that's just the way it is. But we don't need to have a controversy over our nut intake because frankly, I did not have ABC News giving $15 million to the Trump Presidential Library on my bingo card for 2024. Although it does seem to be almost like the perfect surreal capper to the year in which somebody survives 91 indictments, seven different court trials, two assassinations, switcheroo in the rivalry of candidacies and ends up in the middle of December with one of the leading news organizations in the world effectively acknowledging that it had defamed him and was willing to pay an extraordinarily large settlement. And let's be clear that $15 million is an extraordinarily large settlement to make in a case in which George Stephanopoulos said on either this week. It was on this week to Nancy Mace, that Donald Trump had raped Eugene Carroll, the New York City journalist, when in fact he had been found liable for some form of sexual abuse by a New York City civil jury in a matter extending back to the mid-1990s, so peculiarly back into the mid-1990s that nobody could date the event. So which sentence?
- [04:26]
Matthew Continetti
And one additional fact. The jury was asked on its jury questionnaire if they had thought he was guilty of rape. That that was. And they, they said no. So it was actually the judge, after the verdict came in, using the word rape, which the jury itself had declined to use, given the evidence at the civil trial, which is again, a bar far lower than evidence at criminal trial. Sexual assault, sexual abuse, still very bad. Let's that that's obvious.
- [04:51]
John Podhoretz
It is very bad, but it is not a criminal.
- [04:54]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, the jury did not find him.
- [04:56]
John Podhoretz
Nor rape is a rape is a felony crime. This was a civil proceeding about whether or not to hold somebody financially accountable for an action. It the rules, the evidentiary rules governing how you define things in civil trials are vastly different from how we define them in criminal. Criminal trials. And I'm going to say flat out, I don't believe E. Jean Carroll. I think this story is a lie. I think it was. She told it in the course of a memoir where she buried it in the middle of page 122. And some resourceful person said to her, you know, you could really end Donald Trump's career if we can use this as the basis for a civil action. She dug up a couple of friends who said contemporaneously that she had told them that she had had this encounter with Donald Trump in Bergdorf Goodman's sometime in the mid-1990s. And that was evidently enough for the jury to find. I we are not obliged in a civil proceeding to say that because the jury sat and listened to all the evidence that, you know, we are in no position to judge. We are in a position to judge. We can read exactly what she wrote. It was the COVID story in New York magazine as part of the excerpt of her book. And it does not pass the Smell test, as far as I'm concerned. But I forget what I'm concerned. The question is what ABC News decided. That's what's important. And it is a staggering thing for ABC News to have done, because it is almost impossible to libel or defame a public figure under 60 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence, dating back to a case called New York Times versus Sullivan. The idea being that free speech and the ability to criticize famous people and politicians and report on them requires an extraordinarily high standard to prove defamation or libel. And so you go into a case like this, it was like a Hail Mary that Trump was even taking this action against ABC for defamation, because it seemed like there was no way that he could win it. And he didn't win it. ABC decided to settle it. Why anybody? That's the question.
- [07:36]
Abe Greenwald
It's this Trump moon. That's what we're living through. And since before the election, when the LA Times and the Washington Post decided not to endorse a candidate for president, there has been a movement by institutions that were once heavily critical part of the resistance toward Trump to have a more accommodating posture. And it's continued since the election. The visits to Mar? A Lago Meta donating a million dollars to Trump's inauguration. Amazon donating $1 million to Trump and Trump's inauguration. Trump basically taking on the responsibilities of the presidency more than a month before he's inaugurated. And now this latest twist favoring Trump, with ABC News reaching the $15 million settlement for the future Trump Presidential Library and Foundation. The thing doesn't even exist yet, and they're pledging to donate $15 million. I have a few observations about this huge news over the weekend. First piece that I find interesting is George Stephanopoulos is now responsible for more donations to the Trump foundation than the money he gave the Clinton foundation back in the early part of this decade. This was a story that actually my publication, the Free Beacon, uncovered during the 2016 news cycle that Georgette Phantom was a Clinton foundation donor and did not put me in good stead with George Stephanopoulos, I will say, but that the feeling is mutual. And now, of course, he's responsible for much more money being given to the Trump Foundation. So I find that. I guess the word is ironic. Second observation, if I may. Nancy Mace somehow is like, the center of American politics. She's always finding herself in these controversies. She's a lot of drama, lotta, you know, a lot of pizzazz. But she's involved, too. And to watch the interview again, As I did of this week with Stephanopoulos, accosting her, harassing her, calling her a hypocrite. How dare you pretend that you care about the victims of sexual assault. By the way, Nancy Mace is one.
- [10:10]
John Podhoretz
That's why he called her a hypocrite. Yeah, exactly.
- [10:13]
Abe Greenwald
How dare you, madam, say this when you support this man who's found guilty of rape. And he said it again and again and again. It was outrageous. And I do think it was a reason that Trump sued in this case. And also say, could you in a million years, imagine George Stephanopoulos asking a female Democratic politician why she supports Bill Clinton, for whom the evidence of rape of Juanita Broderick is far more substantive than ever it was in this E. Jean Carroll case. The hypocrisy is so blatant and staggering that it deserves this type of punishment. And moreover, final thought, after this suit was issued by the Trump people, Stephanopoulos went on the Colbert show where he was asked by Stephen Colbert, you were just sued by the Trump administration. How does it feel? Is it going to prevent you from doing your job? And Stephanopoulos, still riding his moral high horse, which makes him very tall, says to the little people in the crowd, I won't be intimidated. I will continue to do my job. And in that moment, you see the arrogance, the moral certitude, the cynicism that so imbues the mainstream media, and that has been completely disenthroned by this election. And I think that is a wonderful thing. Can I just say.
- [11:59]
Matthew Continetti
Oh, go ahead.
- [12:01]
Christine Rosen
To Matt's point, that Stephanopoulos said it over and over and over again. Yes. I think part of what is animating media institutions and others to be more conciliatory with Trump has to do with the sort of fear of what may be coming. But I also think in this case, I think Trump, while it is so difficult to prove the defamation of a public figure in the U.S. trump seems to have had him dead to rights here. I mean, it's kind of cut and dry, right?
- [12:39]
Matthew Continetti
Well, ABC News also, we should assume that the corporate lawyers at ABC were very keen on discovery not happening if this case went forward. Because. Because there is no doubt that the email exchanges, George Stephanopoulos and the producers of his show and others at ABC News might have had about Trump's character, about Trump's guilt or not guilt, were not going to make ABC News look at all reliable or nonpartisan or even like a news source. So I do, I think from a. And they want to protect their Talent. They have a lot of money invested in George Stephanopoulos and if that were to come out, they might have felt some pressure to have him, you know, shuffled off into, I don't know, podcast land where the rest of us dwell. But he, but that, I mean, their investment in his talent I think is something that should be. They were probably protecting legally by not.
- [13:27]
Seth Mandel
I also think that some of the emails probably said to him from higher ups. There are probably messages saying that's, that's, that was a step too far or that's not really true or getting inquiries, you know, in the, when you say.
- [13:43]
Abe Greenwald
Like who's his boss? It's not the ABC executives, it's the dnc. George Stephanopoulos is a partisan hack. He was given lines to use against Nancy Mace in order to further the idea that Trump is guilty of rape and he did it. That's the emails that would come out that would shame him as he deserves to be shamed. And by the way, it's larger than ABC News. Who owns abc? Disney. Disney doesn't want to get wrong with Trump right away. That's, I think, driving a lot of this.
- [14:13]
John Podhoretz
I want to pull this back. Matt, Matt, you are essentially in an interesting way endorsing the left wing critique of ABC settlement plan, which is that they decided that they needed to get right with Trump before 2025. They didn't need to be in Breygas with him. Given everything that's going on and access and making sure that they still have a place in the White House press room, their chair is still reserved when they're talking about the seats to Charlemagne, the God and stuff like that. Joe Rogan's Joe Rogan, right. I think that the dead to rights is exactly right, what Abe said, because for many years when media companies have made controversial claims about individuals that seem to rise to the level of defamation, a lot of us, a lot of people on the right who saw it happen have said things like I really hope that they sue. They need to sue because there's no check on these corporations are often multibillion dollar corporations with extraordinarily deep pockets going after individuals. And it would be great if they sued because even if they didn't prevail, the discovery process would end up revealing the private communications inside a company relating to a specific story. Most of the cases that I'm talking about here are like this case ideologically or driven by partisanship. And that one of the ways to force the mainstream media into more proper behavior is to hold it accountable. Well, how do you hold it accountable? These companies are too big to really experience boycotts in a way that would make a measurable difference to their bottom lines or to their viewerships or things like that. The only real way to do this is in a courtroom. The only real way to do it is to sue for slander or defamation. And it's too expensive. It is too expensive for individuals to do this. So in the most successful such case in the 21st century, that was the holding Gawker to account for its publication of a private video involving a married couple, Hulk Hogan and his wife, that Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal, paid for the suit, Hulk Hogan's suit, because he couldn't afford it. And in fact, Gawker was. Had done something. This was not a libel case. This was a. I mean, I don't even know what you call it. I mean, it was a invasion of privacy case or something. It doesn't matter. It was a civil action today.
- [17:15]
Seth Mandel
It would probably fall under revenge porn.
- [17:17]
John Podhoretz
Right, right.
- [17:18]
Seth Mandel
Statutes that weren't in existence then.
- [17:21]
John Podhoretz
Right. Anyway, what happened was that Gawker was destroyed by its misbehavior, and it should have been. Because if you. If there's no way. If there's no way for a business to be punished for its. Be particularly a media business to be punished for its behavior because of the scope problem, then there's no check on them. Imagine a world in which in 2004, George W. Bush, not only CBS News, comes out with its faked letters from 1972 claiming that he had, you know, escaped his National Guard service. Well, imagine a world in which he. Not only, you know, the world erupts and there's an internal investigation and Dan Rather is fired, but that George W. Bush says, I'm suing you for defamation because you're not just defaming me, you're defending every single person in the National Guard. You are claiming that people go in the National Guard, go in the National Guard for bad reason. You're wrong. You're wrong about me. But I'm doing this in order to create an accountability standard for the mainstream media. That could have been an epical moment. That wasn't anything that anybody did then. It is now something that people may do now. And the interesting response on the part of media critics and people on, you know, screaming nellies on Twitter and people who cover the media for the media. My favorite category of media reporter is of course, somebody who works for CNN or NPR or somebody like that, because their purpose is to protect the guild not actually to report on stories involving the behavior of the corporations that they're supposed to be holding, private corporations or they're supposed to be holding to account is, well, you know, this is all going to be part of the same world in which the Trump people are threatening to go after reporters and institutions for the way they cover them. And it's like, yeah, that's right. You don't get a pass. You get a pass because of the First Amendment. Truth is the ultimate defense. You publish something true, you are safe. By the way, if you publish something insulting, you're safe. If you publish something scabrous or that says that you're disgusting and you're a horrible person, you're safe. If you say that somebody raped somebody when there is no finding a fact that somebody raped somebody, you are not and should not be safe.
- [20:02]
Seth Mandel
And I think, by the way, how.
- [20:03]
John Podhoretz
Else are you going to prevent front page stories from saying that when somebody doesn't like somebody? Particularly now in the world of deepfakes and things like that? This is a hygienic moment for the mainstream media. This is a way for the mainstream media.
- [20:26]
Seth Mandel
We had such a moment earlier during the first Trump term, in fact, with the Covington kids. The Covington Catholic were a group of, you know, Kentucky Catholic school kids who, you know, made that trip to the Capitol and they were confronted by.
- [20:48]
John Podhoretz
Pro Life March, right?
- [20:50]
Seth Mandel
Pro Life March. They were confronted by.
- [20:54]
John Podhoretz
There was a guy in a drum.
- [20:55]
Seth Mandel
A guy in a drum suit, but off to the side there was apparently a black Hebrew Israelite taunting that people couldn't see. And it stirred up an atmosphere. And so the pictures that they published had no taunters and it looked like it just made Nicholas Sandman, who was the 17 year old kid who part of the trip especially, and we watched a ludicrous thing happen where commentators, like political commentators, pundits would go on Twitter and say, well, that kid has a punchable face. How many, how many people that we, we, we know that we could name if we wanted to say, well, that kid has a punchable face about a 17 year old. It was like a psychotic break in the. And people got off Twitter and some of the people who were, who were responsible for egging that on, God off, it was like this, this moment where people were like, ah, what have, what have we become sort of thing. And he sued and they settled with the Washington Post and they said CNN.
- [22:01]
John Podhoretz
CNN, yeah.
- [22:03]
Seth Mandel
And, and so that was, that was 2019, right? I think that was near the end.
- [22:08]
Abe Greenwald
Earlier though, I think it starts with Palin. I think it starts with Palin's defamation suit against the New York Times, which she did not win.
- [22:15]
John Podhoretz
Because that was an important suit. Because it was allowed to continue.
- [22:19]
Abe Greenwald
Right. Because it was the beginning of accountability. When the New York Times suggested that a PAC ad Palin had put out with targets around different Democratic politicians was somehow responsible.
- [22:35]
John Podhoretz
Not politicians, they're districts.
- [22:38]
Abe Greenwald
Oh, yeah. Not even people. Yeah, exactly right. It was the battleground districts. Target districts. Right. Excuse me. And then the Times suggested that was responsible for the climate that led Jared Loughner, a completely out of his mind psychopath, to shoot Gabby Giffords. And Palin sued and Nicholas Sandman sued. There. Clearly there is now a trend where you can hold these corporations accountable. And I mean, it's not, it's not defamation law or libel law, but the Bud Light boycott, I think, is similar as well. That, that is a case where a company was really hurt by, by conservative decisions to say, we're not endorsing this. And that is why I bring up the parent company of abc, because Disney did get embroiled in a high profile argument with Ron DeSantis and conservatives in the right did turn against Disney and it hurt Disney. And now I think it's logical to say, okay, clearly we've got all this wrong. We, we completely misjudged the climate in the country, the tenor of the country. Trump has won despite everything. Let us clear the decks. Let us kind of approach this next administration with a different attitude than the first. And I will say something similar happened after 1994. John, I know you remember, like when out of nowhere, it seemed the Republicans took over Congress for the first time in 40 years. There were mainstream media companies that were like, oh, who are these Republicans? We need to find them. And maybe let's be, let's talk to them for a little bit. And it lasted, what, eight months before that interview you talked about the other day of Connie Chung and Newt Gingrich, his mother. But it was there, and I think we're living through something similar.
- [24:25]
Seth Mandel
We got several nice profiles of how Newt Gingrich liked zoos for eight months.
- [24:29]
Unnamed Speaker
My wife and I have a disagreement when it comes to gift giving at the holidays. She likes to ask people what they might want and then provide it to them.
- [24:38]
John Podhoretz
I kind of prefer the act where.
- [24:41]
Unnamed Speaker
You think of something that somebody might not want to think of for themselves and do it that way. It's risky because sometimes you will make a big mistake and someone will not want what you want, or they will say, oh, my God, look what you've done for me. This is something I would never have done for myself. I like that feeling. And for quality gifts at an affordable price, that little bit of luxury that people don't know they're missing. My go to is Quince. Quince lets you treat your loved ones and yourself to everyday luxury at an affordable price. Something everyone needs in their closet in my opinion. Quince's iconic Mongolian cashmere sweaters which start at $50. I'm wearing one myself. If you watch our podcast on YouTube you will often see me in a Quince Mongolian cashmere sweater. Or for the ultimate year round gifts, check out their 14 karat gold jewelry, Italian leather handbags and European linen sheet sets. Whatever you're looking for, all Quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How do they do that? By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman which passes the savings on to you. Quince is on the nice list. They tell me they only work with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and they use premium fabrics and finishes for that luxury feel in every piece. Look, I got one free piece of Quint clothing when they decided to start advertising with us so that I could sample their wares. Since that happened, I have bought multiple Quint sweaters. I bought a couple of Quint shirts. I am a Quince fan. I am a Quince customer and so you should follow me and gift luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag. Go to quince.com commentary for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q U I n c e.com commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com commentary.
- [26:49]
John Podhoretz
But I do think they.
- [26:51]
Matthew Continetti
Do have a challenge here, the corporations that control these, these media outlets and that's that they the talent is not necessarily, necessarily going to go along with this new world. And I'm thinking of how the View has just turned into Sunny Hostin reading legal apologies every other day for everything that comes out of her mouth. And she's not. She's going to keep saying this stuff and they're going to keep letting her and then she'll have to apologize. Remember tension like having to clear the decks of the fan service that some of these media personalities are performing for Democrats. I'm not. That's going to be a tougher.
- [27:23]
Christine Rosen
Well, the fact to move the. Excuse me. The fact that the media is already treating this story not as a media story but as A Trump Pounces story indicates that the decks are not cleared at all. I mean, they're right back on it.
- [27:40]
Seth Mandel
I think they should have a dedicated segment. Sonny is sorry.
- [27:44]
Abe Greenwald
And every.
- [27:45]
Seth Mandel
Just because they're going to have to pack, they're going to have to plan out five minutes for this every day. But I think that's an important point, which is that it's like this is the. This is not. The hot stove test is not really working, is it? I have. People are going back and touching the stove again and again because they like touching the stove or because they think it's really important as a, as a journalist slash firefighter to keep touching that stove.
- [28:10]
Matthew Continetti
They're stunning and brave.
- [28:11]
Abe Greenwald
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Since the election, the media coverage of Trump has been completely different.
- [28:16]
John Podhoretz
It has.
- [28:16]
Abe Greenwald
Than it has been since 2015.
- [28:17]
John Podhoretz
It has. But. But look, not again to go. In my role as. Oh, I'm the grizzled old veteran that's seen it all and done it all. But I've been in. I have been involved as a plaintiff or a player in several major lawsuits against media organizations in my career, dating back to my early 20s at the Washington Times. And the reason that some of this does have an effect that you guys don't realize is you have no idea how intrusive an experience it can be to be involved in a lawsuit like this. You are talking about hours and hours and hours of depositions and preparations for depositions. You were talking about having forensic audits done of your own mail. This is even before email, mail, email, your taxes, looking the plaintiffs who's suing you, wanting to see if they can establish that you might have been paid by somebody to do what you did. And I was never even a lead plaintiff in any of these cases. They were usually because I was on a masthead. I was somebody in a position where somebody like Louis Farrakhan, who sued the New York Post at one point for $4 billion, put me on the lawsuit. And it was eventually was thrown out before anything went. But. But it is. It kind of ruins your life. And it's one of the things that any respectable lawyer will say to anybody who is having a cow about something untrue said about them is you have to weigh your choices here, because you are going down a road that will take your life over. If you decide to be Hulk Hogan or what's his name. Terry.
- [30:19]
Abe Greenwald
Terry Bollea.
- [30:20]
John Podhoretz
Terry Bollea. It's going to take your life over. It's going to be the One or one of the two things that you do for the next three years.
- [30:28]
Abe Greenwald
I can't wait to see him at the inauguration, by the way. Do you think he'll rip his shirt off?
- [30:32]
John Podhoretz
Rip his shirt off and have a.
- [30:34]
Abe Greenwald
Tuxedo under it, see President Trump?
- [30:37]
John Podhoretz
No, I think it would be great if we ripped it off and had like a full, you know, evening. Evening wear. Right. Tails and a top hat.
- [30:44]
Seth Mandel
I just want to say he could get confirmed easily if like, Tulsi flames out or something. Yeah, that's a 100 to 0 confirmation, John.
- [30:53]
Abe Greenwald
You're absolutely right. I mean, think about all that our friends at National Review have been through because of the Michael Mann lawsuit.
- [31:00]
John Podhoretz
That was not. That's right.
- [31:01]
Abe Greenwald
13 years in court and they had to go through.
- [31:03]
Unnamed Speaker
This is.
- [31:03]
Abe Greenwald
No one likes this. No one likes the judicial system, the legal process. It's awful. It's terrible. But it is, it is striking that ABC did this right now at this point. And I think it has to do with larger currents in the political and media space. And one thing too, about whether these hosts are going to keep. The talent is going to keep saying things like Trump is a rapist, saying falsehoods. They are losing audience share. We have to put this situated in the background of the larger media story of this election, which is the mainstream media is collapsing. And think about cord cutting, right? I mean, people are not watching these shows anymore. Maybe a very small audience is, and that audience is enough to drive a certain amount of revenue that keeps the show sustainable. But there is, I think there is a public veto that's happening about some of this commentary in some of these narratives.
- [32:01]
John Podhoretz
Let me, let me play out in real time. Let me throw that out to you in relation to this podcast. Okay? According to numbers that we saw last week and have been seeing since November, at certain times in the day on msnbc, MSNBC is scoring. The way, the way you do ratings in the United States is that you break ratings up into age categories because advertisers will tend to, to want to buy. The sweet spot is 25Americans 25 to 49. Why? Because Americans 25, 49, it's thought that they will brand switch you put before them a car, Maybe they'll think about buying a new crate, put before them a new kind of toothpaste. Maybe they'll buy them, put before them a new kind of retractable catheter. Maybe they'll try the new form of retractable catheter. I don't know. Anyway, that's obviously not for the 25-49s. But that is the prize demographic. And when people talk about ratings, a lot of the time what they're actually talking about is the rating within the rating. That is that number between ages between 25 and 49. And we have heard that at MSNBC, the audience that watches at certain times of the day is under 40,000Americans in the 25 to 49 demographic. And commentaries Podcast has more listeners than that on a daily basis. Now we are not in competition with msnbc. It's just us guys sitting here on Riverside a plat, a podcast video platform, talking. We don't have offices at 30 Rock. We don't have Richard Engel in the Middle east and Jacob Soboroff publishing propaganda at the border. We don't have any of that. It's just us five and you wonderful people helping us to keep the lights on here. That's a pretty staggering thing. Why does MSNBC still remain a viable entity? There's nothing to do with ratings. Cable channels get money from cable systems providers that pay them what are called carriage fees, essentially the right to carry the network. And in two years, a lot of these deals are going to be up. And it's hard to imagine that something as well known or as branded as MSNBC will simply disappear because Spectrum and, I don't know, Optimum, you know, all those.
- [34:57]
Abe Greenwald
Remember, it's going to be spun off sooner than that.
- [34:59]
John Podhoretz
Right, right. It's going to be spun off with the idea that when the cable carriage fees come up for renewal, that there will be money to be made by another company from cable carriage fees. But if MSNBC's numbers remain below Commentary's podcast numbers for the next two years, they're going to get 22 cents per subscriber as opposed to $4 per subscriber with $2 per subscriber. And they are going to go away. They will not exist anymore. And the View, similarly, though that's a broadcast show, so it's actually makes money on advertising. Yeah, if that, if things go the way that they're going. $15 million to pay off George. For George Stephanopoulos, he is a.
- [35:53]
Abe Greenwald
He.
- [35:53]
John Podhoretz
He is the host of the only valuable program on abc. Or there are two valuable. But Good Morning America, the morning shows are make the. Make the majority of the money that broadcast networks make as a national matter. And so he is a brand that they need. They can shut the View down tomorrow. Rupert Murdoch fired Tucker Carlson with the highest rated show in cable news in five minutes when he found it politically prudent. To do so Sonny Hostin is living on a knife's edge without knowing it. If you're Bob iger or Bob Iger's successor and you have to have 10 minutes of conversation a day about Sunny, Sunny Hostin, you're going to send Sunny Hostin and her show off into dreamland and put on the Mr. MyPillow guy.
- [36:47]
Matthew Continetti
But there's a lot of, there's something else going on, though, internally, I think, at some of these places. I mean, MSNBC is a good example. The fan service they performed during the first Trump term did bring them more viewers and lots of ratings and they made a lot of money during that first term doing what they did against Trump. So they're repeating a lot of their shows, are just repeating that same playbook without realizing, like a lot of people in the Democratic Party, that the election went in Trump not because the fans didn't turn out and vote for Kamala Harris, but because there's this vast middle that has really shifted dramatically in the last decade in this country. And they have never spoken to those people. They generally condescend to them if they mention them at all. And I was struck by on MSNBC the other night, Stephanie Rule comparing the murderer whose name I won't say, of Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, with Daniel Penney, because Daniel Penney went and attended the Army Navy game at the invitation of J.D. vance. And she said these two men are exactly the same. They both killed someone. And now the entire country is celebrating their violence.
- [37:48]
John Podhoretz
And guess what? Daniel Penney can sue Stephanie Rule.
- [37:52]
Matthew Continetti
Exactly.
- [37:52]
John Podhoretz
That was my literally, I mean, I mean, Daniel Penney was defamed by Stephanie Rule likening him and nobody's nod.
- [38:01]
Matthew Continetti
And but who that even for someone who leans Democratic, that kind of hyperbolic ignorance is not selling anymore. And that as to Matt's earlier point, that's a good thing. Now, Trump probably motivated that shift. But I think there's also a general dissatisfaction among consumers of cable news who roll their eyes at that and go, what am I? This is idiotic. It's not just that it's partisan. It's just dumb.
- [38:24]
Abe Greenwald
But I also. Go ahead, Ann.
- [38:26]
Christine Rosen
I just, I think when you talk about how they were successful in providing fan service to the anti Trump hordes in 2016 and the following years, the angry viewership now, the scared viewership, the enraged American viewership now, it's not directed at Trump. There's, they're not capturing what the thing is that people are upset about. And it's not, it can't be embodied in a person. It's. It's a sort of general distrust and resentment of institutions, Democratic and Republican and neither and private and public. It's more the embodiment of the drone phenomenon. It's like, it's, it's that it's no longer a partisan audience that you have to cater to. If what you're trying to do is harness American outrage, it's not partisan today, it's something else.
- [39:36]
John Podhoretz
And that's where you need to look to politicians, because I think this is an interesting. Moving on to the drones a little bit. So back in 2005, 2006, we had this very peculiar moment when Dubai Ports World was going to buy the port in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, outside, just across the channel from New York City. And the idea was, why not? It doesn't really matter who owns a port. What is it? Chuck Schumer, among other people, went completely ballistic about this, said, this cannot be allowed to happen. Dubai is a darab. You know, we've just been through 9, 11. The Bush administration was like, what? They're our allies. Dubai is fine, and it doesn't matter who owns a port. Like, that's just a real estate investment. It doesn't matter. And everybody but Schumer, who had a more tactile feel for this, as did politicians in New York City. When somebody announced they wanted to build a mosque at Ground Zero, which by the way, was like five blocks from Ground Zero, the people were like, well, it's free country to build a mosque. Islam is a religion of peace. And in both cases, the mosque was never built. And Dubai portsworld did not buy Port Elizabeth and the drones were back in it 20 years later almost. And the drone story is very grudgingly being carried. I don't understand it. None of us understands. It seems like a very weird story. Obviously, there's reason to think that if we're really going to look at this deeply, that the US Government may be involved in doing something for our own national security that it cannot reveal. But the newly minted senator from New Jersey, Andy Kim, a replacement for Bob Menendez, put out a 25 tweet stream this weekend saying, we need answers. Chris Christie said, we, you know, was the governor of New Jersey obviously said, I saw the drones over my house. We need answers. This is a story that a rational mainstream, like a suffering for attention. Mainstream media like CNN and MSNBC should be talking about 40 minutes an hour.
- [42:18]
Seth Mandel
Well, also, the follow up to that was that Andy Kim then went on Twitter with a thread explaining why he thinks they're planes and not drones and whatever. But the thread was he had to go personally out and investigate, not as a senator that he was able to, you know, bring an investigative body and call witnesses. He literally had to go outside at night with the cops.
- [42:43]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, right.
- [42:44]
Seth Mandel
With flight tracking information and whatever. And you, you're watching Andy Kim do this and you're saying how, how could, how could the news organizations pass this up? How could cnn, which loved, you know, a missing plane in the air, how could they not be the ones out there with the flight? Especially because they could say in the end that it's probably not drones, it's probably all planes. But how, how could you not put somebody out there with the same thing that a US Senator has, which is a cell phone and a, and a cop and you know, some, some data available freely on the Internet and go find out and get the answer. Nobody wanted to get the answer. So a senator went outside and spent like three nights camping out following drones.
- [43:34]
Abe Greenwald
We'd have to watch CNN to see if they're covering the story, which is for me a bridge too far. But John, I did have the thought today while listening to some coverage about the drone story that, and you know, I don't like to make predictions, but I, part of me thinks that New Jersey is going to have a Republican governor next year elected because of the drones, as he said, the drones. To hear, to hear the New Jersey residents talk about the drones is to hear the voice of outrage at authority and bureaucracy. And when you look at the election results in New Jersey as well, being a swing state getting very close to going red this time around, I think you can see a potential populist groundswell related to the drones that will help Republicans in New Jersey in the off year.
- [44:28]
Matthew Continetti
And well, Mayorkas, look over the weekend, Mayorkas did say that the federal government is now going to look into this, but that is a very, very much a too little, too late responding to.
- [44:37]
John Podhoretz
How nice this is.
- [44:38]
Abe Greenwald
He also said, I just have to say this. Listen to Mayorkas. He said he was asked, you know, well, can, can you shoot them down if they, if they're dangerous or you don't know what they are? And he said, well, we do have some authorities, but I think the authorities need to be expanded. And just, I understand this is a big issue. A lot of people are very concerned about the drones. We're seeing the drones everywhere. But can we just not expand Mayorkas authority in the, for the next month? Can we just, can we just wait until the transition, because with the authorities he's had on the southern border led to the greatest immigration surge in American history, most of which was illegal. So this is just like, let's just wait if we can be a little bit patient.
- [45:25]
John Podhoretz
That's all.
- [45:26]
Abe Greenwald
I'm.
- [45:26]
Seth Mandel
So you're saying trust him when it involves aliens?
- [45:29]
Abe Greenwald
I don't trust him at all. That's what I'm saying.
- [45:31]
John Podhoretz
I think, look, I think in the end, the reason that, you know, that the mainstream media, as they are constituted at the moment, will be an extremely different set of institutions five years from now is precisely because my sense is that they are so far up their own patooties that when this story came down, they did not. They could not suss out who cui bono, whom did it benefit. They were not going to spend eight hours a day doing a story that was going to help Trump on his way into office with the idea that something inexplicable and potentially dangerous to national security was going on. While Joe Biden was looking to release judges from jail who were sending children into private prisons for no reason that anybody can possibly discern while doing nothing else. And because it looked like it was going to help Trump, they very grudgingly climbed onto the issue five days after it started. Whereas Assess says when Jeff Zucker, then head of cnn, saw a plane disappear off the radar, you know, over, you know, wherever the hell it was in Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan or, you know, disappearing off the map, they spent a year talking about it four hours a day. This story is like. Is like populist catnip. And they are, this was over America. This is over America. They are harming themselves at a moment when they need ratings. They're actually making it harder for them to get ratings because this is something that people are just naturally interested in.
- [47:30]
Christine Rosen
And the, it's not even like they're, you know, doing this to, to help the Democratic candidate, you know, I mean, which is terrible on if that were the case. But the election's over.
- [47:46]
Abe Greenwald
What are they even doing, by the way?
- [47:48]
John Podhoretz
I gather that Kamala Harris said yesterday that she's not going anywhere and we haven't seen the last of her yet.
- [47:55]
Abe Greenwald
She's giving a speech tomorrow. She is in PG county. A whole speech to inspire.
- [48:01]
John Podhoretz
Will it be 22 minutes to keep up the fight?
- [48:03]
Abe Greenwald
That's good. And then she'll disappear again for a little bit. But CNN today we should just a little bit of politics. That amused me this morning. CNN today reports on the debate raging in Harris world over whether she should run for governor of California in 2026, which they view as a gimme, or hold out for the big enchilada and run for the presidency in 2028. And I just have to say, go for it.
- [48:34]
John Podhoretz
Go for it, Kamala.
- [48:36]
Abe Greenwald
It's going to be great. It's going to be great to watch.
- [48:40]
John Podhoretz
Okay, we're going to leave it there. So we'll be back tomorrow. Where's Seth, Matt, Christine and Abe of John Pot horiz? Keep the candle burning.