A (4:21)

Is it hard to take days off, though, in your world?

B (4:24)

It is. And in the Trump era, too, especially because every day, because whether you like him or not, he makes a lot of news. He creates a lot of news. It was something that we had to learn in his first term. And I still think it's probably questionable as to how much we've learned it in our second. But just if you miss this news emergency, there's going to be another one next week. Like, it's okay if you miss it. And for people metabolistically built like me, as a news person, it is difficult to be away from a story because you want to be covering the story. You want to be involved. It's a drive. I had a hot mic moment when I was covering the summit in Alaska. And one I'm not embarrassed about it all is we were having technical problems and then somebody was saying, like, okay, we're going to come to you. Are you ready? And I'm like, I'm fine. Give me back my show. You know, like, let's go. I'm going to, you know, and some of the click hunters out there thought this was some big gaffe. I'm like, what's. I'm a very ambitious, aggressive newsman who wants to be covering stories. This is not any revelation, but anyway, yes. So it is difficult.

A (5:33)

I say that like, as in a good way, as in, it's kind of cool to have a job where you want to do it. You know what I mean? Like a Lot of people don't have that luxury. I feel like I do. And it feels like you do where you have a job where, like, I want to do it, man. Like, part of the reward is that I get to do this really cool. It's hard, right? And you get criticized all the time. You know, that's part of the deal. But it's got to feel rewarding and like, you've earned it. To have a job that you want to show up and do it every.

B (6:00)

Day, it is a gift. And I know this because I have a lot of friends who have jobs that they love, and I have a lot of friends who have jobs that they do not love. And I am very lucky that I have a job that when all is said and done, forgetting the criticism and the difficulties of the news media and this era and blah, blah, blah, it's still just such a thrill to be able to cover this stuff. And I would be watching it if I were something else, a screenwriter or cartoonist or whatever. I have a very vivid memory of moderating or co moderating the Republican debate in 2015 at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. And there's like 11 candidates there, Trump's there, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, blah, blah, blah. I was like, I have the best seat in the world. I mean, I was also asking the questions, but it's just like, this is so cool just to be here, just to be part of this is historic moment.

A (6:57)

This is a selfish question. How do you, when you're preparing for something like that or just a big interview, or what is your process to come up with questions? And then how do you decide, okay, do I go to the next question or do I stay in this moment and ask a follow up? I'm just curious about how you approach that dance, because it's something I think about literally all the time.

B (7:20)

Yeah, I mean, and it is the big challenge with interviews and with debates, it's even more challenging, which is, you know, you have 20 topics and they're all really important. And if I do a follow up on this, that means I don't get to the question on veterans or I don't get to the questions on the environment. And when is it worth it? I should start off by saying any interview I do, any debate I moderate, it starts with this incredible team of really, really smart CNN producers and writers. I mean, just a fantastic team. And they don't get enough credit for that work. And that's not false humility, that's legit. These are really smart people. And, you know, and we have debates about what works and what doesn't work and what's the thinking. And then when there's an interview with somebody really of note or it's like a big moment, we talk about what's the most important thing in this interview? What do we want to come away from this interview? Because the easiest thing in the world is just to have a list of six questions and just ask each one and just like, there's six topics, blah, blah, blah, what do we do? And it's a balance, and you just have to figure it out and you don't always get it right. And there's the question of fact checking, too. And you do that in a debate. Do you do that in an interview? What is somebody's opinion that, like, look, they're entitled to think that Joe Biden was a horrible president or Donald Trump's a horrible president. Like, that's their opinion. Like, I'm not gonna. Am I there to push back on that? Am I there to stand up for facts? Am I there to say, well, the other side would say, blah, blah, blah. And it's all just subjective and imperfect and you're never going to please everybody. And you just try to do the best job you can.

A (9:01)

How do you deal with the criticism? Do you just block it out? Do you read it? Combination of things. Like, how do you handle all of the criticism?

B (9:08)

Well, there's a lot of it. And I try to filter out the stuff that is just personal attacks or from people that are just going to hate what I do, no matter what it is from the left and the right. And I'm one of these folks that gets it from both sides, which is.

A (9:26)

Probably a good sign.

B (9:27)

I mean, it can be. Not necessarily, not inherently, but it might.

A (9:31)

Not feel good, but I think it shows that you're trying to be impartial. And I know you're probably criticized on either side, saying you're not, but I would imagine that that's a good thing, right?

B (9:44)

Yes.

A (9:44)

Okay.

B (9:45)

I think so. I mean, I guess it comes down to this. Like, very few of my critics are people that I actually care what they think. And the people that I care what they think, I'm sure they have notes here and there. But folks who understand, like, I'm just trying to be a good faith operative here. I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. I don't have any ideological bias other than facts are important, decency is important. But beyond that, I'm just trying to, like, figure out, like, I Don't have. I don't know what the answer to the war in Ukraine is. I don't know what the answer to the tax code is, et cetera, et cetera. But I guess, anyway, to answer your first question, I do listen to criticism and I do read the criticism. I think that something for people out there, because everybody is an expert on the news media. I think when you are just relentlessly critical of somebody, me or whoever, nor o', Donnell, Chuck, Todd, whatever, those are just two people I came up with. Then people stop listening to you because they're like, well, you hate everything I do, so who cares? And constructive criticism actually can be effective in the social media age when anybody. When a waitress at a, you know, at a Denny's in Tacoma park can. Or in Tacoma, Washington, I should say, can reach anybody. You know, you can theoretically reach anybody. And I think constructive criticism, or I think it actually can be much more effective than, you're a hack. You suck. I hate you. Joe Biden's the best, Donald Trump's the best. Whatever. Like, you actually can have an impact if you calm it down and offer a substantive critique. And I have heard those. There's a guy named Elon Green who's a really, really gifted writer, and he used to be very critical, relentlessly critical of me for not covering climate change enough. But he was right, I wasn't. And I listened to him. And I think it shocked him when I would cover the environment and say, hey, just wanted to make sure you saw this, because I respected him. I didn't care for all of his tweets, but, I mean, I understood where he was coming from. So, I mean, I guess the point is just like the average person can have an impact on news coverage. Hey, I saw your story. Have you thought about covering. This is much more effective than you're ignoring blah, blah, blah. Like, odds are the person doesn't even know about blah, blah, blah.

A (12:05)

Right, right. I'm curious about this pinned Tweet. It's since 2017. To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. From George Orwell. Why have you left that as your pinned tweet since 2017?

B (12:23)

In full disclosure, I do. When I have a book to sell, I usually replace it for like that month or two.

A (12:29)

Okay.

B (12:29)

But. But generally speaking, that is my pin tweet, because I think it is some of the most. I just thought it was really profound. Orwell was writing about the fact that the Japanese and the Germans. He was writing during World War II about the fact that the Japanese and the Germans were going to lose the war. And that was something that the Japanese and German people did not see because they were constantly being lied to by their leaders. But the evidence was all there. And it's just a constant reminder for me, it's advice, honestly, that I wish I had taken more seriously. When the evidence of Biden losing his acuity started really presenting itself in 2023 is right there in the Biden book that I co wrote with Alex Thompson of Axios Original Sin. We have that Orwell quote in the opening of the book because it's like it was right there in front of our noses and then we were just being gaslit by Democrats and the Biden administration. But it was right there. And I think that is the stuff that is the easiest to ignore. The stuff right in front of your face. Like, I don't know what the example is going to be. Maybe more than one in the Trump era. You know, it's just a question of are we actually looking and seeing it.

A (13:41)

Yeah. You mentioned when you have a book coming out, and it's crazy you have one so quickly. That's why when I was talking with your team, like, he's got another one.

B (13:48)

Yeah. Well, this one, Race Against Terror.

A (13:50)

Yeah, it's called Race Against Terror Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the dawn.

B (13:54)

Of the Forever War.

A (13:54)

And you said, I was curious, like, how this book happened. As I was digging in, you're at this paintball birthday party for your son Jack, and somebody says, comes up and talks to you and says they know a guy, Dave Roller, who's a US Veteran, who you wrote about in the Outpost, which amazing book has got made into other stuff as well. How did this book come about from this paintball birthday party?

B (14:15)

So, first of all, let me just say, like, I've been working on Race against terror since like 2021, 2022. So the Biden book was a rush book. I put everything aside in November, December, January, February, worked on that. But this book was almost done before that. Gotcha. Except, except for editing. So this was a multi year process. So we have a paintball party. You have only girls or do you have. Okay, so you're probably not having paintball parties.

A (14:40)

So I'd be down for it. I think maybe a couple of them would do it. But we have not had that birthday party yet, actually.

B (14:46)

So we, we had. So we had a paintball parties period when my son was really into paintball. And it's like, you know, I live in D.C. it's like an hour outside of D.C. so when I do the invitation, I'm like, parents stick around. I have pizza, I have drinks. So they don't have to make four one hour trips, right? It's just stick around for a couple hours, hang out with the grownups. So one of the dads comes over to me and he says, oh yeah, Dave Roller from the Outpost. I know him. And I'm like, oh. And we start talking about the Outpost, which is a book I wrote about Afghanistan in 2012. And I said, yeah, you know, that book is really tough to write because the military, either they keep horrible records or they just don't share them. And I was doing the history of this one outpost for three and a half years, and it was really tough. I had to figure out who was in each unit. They just don't help. It's a shame, really, honestly, because it was a very pro soldier book. Anyway, so I said, the military keeps horrible records. And he says, tell me about it. And then he tells me this incredible story. It starts off on the deck of an Italian cruise ship that's been commandeered during the Arab Spring. Bertlusconi, the prime minister of Italy, has commandeered the ship to bring all these refugees from the southern Italian islands to the mainland because it's a huge refugee crisis in the Mediterranean that summer. And there's an Italian guard on the ship and this 5 foot 6 African guy in a ship full of Tunisians and Libyans asks him for water, and he gives him some water, and he notices that the guy has bullet wounds. And he says, where'd you get those? And the guy's like, I'm a fighter with Al Qaeda. I got them fighting Americans. So they take this guy to another room and they interrogate him, and the guy starts freaking out. And then they sedate him and they bring him to the Italian mainland. And they call the Americans, they call the FBI. We have this guy named Spin Ghoul. He says his name is Spin Ghoul. Have you heard of him? And the Americans. So this is now the Eastern District of New York, the Brooklyn prosecutors who are in charge of terrorism in Africa. Each division has their own, you know, terrorism cases that they do. Like Southern District has Europe. Eastern District has Africa. So he says, yeah, we've heard of Spin Goal. And they've heard of him. Not you. And I haven't heard of them. But they have because of all the detainees in gitmo. This is 2011. So all these detainees in Gitmo are talking and they've heard of Spingo. And what happens is, because this is the Obama era, nobody knew is going to Gitmo. The Italians say, okay, well take them, we don't want them. We can hold him for a month or two for disrupting stuff on the boat, but he didn't do anything to us. And Spin Ghoul is there confessing and saying, I killed Americans in Afghanistan and I tried to blow up the US Embassy in Nigeria and blah, blah, blah. And the Americans have basically a ticking clock to build a case that will stand up in a court of law before the Italians free him. It's a race against time to prove that this random guy from Niger who has all these wild claims and there's no evidence that anything he did, he can't even tell you what date the attack was in Afghanistan to lock him up. Because if he really is who he says he is, he's, you know, he's a mass murderer and wants to kill as many million. Like he loves the 1998 embassy bombings. So it's a race against terror. They have to race and build a case against this guy before the Italians free him. And it's just this incredible story that Dave Bitchower, who's one of the prosecutors, who was also the dad of one of my son's friends, tells me it's just about this, like, and then we did this and then we found this guy and then we tracked down a guy who took this Quran off the battlefield and then we sent it to Quantico and it had a fingerprint, you know, just. And it's just this CSI story, but real.

A (18:28)

Wow. How are you doing this? Like all this research and writing and listening to stories while at the same time being a full time head of CNN and husband and a dad? Like, how are you balancing all these things?

B (18:46)

Well, I mean, I'm obviously a little nuts. I mean, that's got to be part of it. But very wired and driven and like always researching and interested in stuff and just always was like that. And you know, when I was a kid and I would be in the library a lot and, and reading stuff and just like, if I liked something or thought something was interesting, I mean, like, I'm just thinking like in 1981 I was really into the TV show MASH, and then I went to the local library and then I was looking up every article I could read about MASH on microfiche. People out there don't even know what microfiche is. You know, it's like Every Newsweek from 1977 is on this file. And like you, I mean, it's just always how I've been wired just to, like, I find something interesting, and I want to find out everything I can about it. And thankfully, now I have an outlet for it that's not just a nerd sitting in a library reading microfiche about Alan Alda. Like, I'm actually doing research. And this book was really interesting to write because there were just so many stories about it. And what happens is then you become more of an expert almost, than some of the other players, because the prosecutors, for example, don't really know everything that the FBI is doing. The FBI doesn't know everything that the soldiers went through. The soldiers don't know everything that the Gold Star families went through. And on and on. You actually end up being the expert on this whole thing because you know enough of all of the stories, and then you can. And then you just figure out how. Okay, now, how do I present this to a reader that is the most interesting and compelling way to bring it to them. That was the thinking of this book. When I, you know, I'm going to want to write it like a thriller, except it's 100% true. And, you know, when I would tell people about the book, halfway through that, friends of mine, they'd be like, is this way. This is fiction or nonfiction? Because. Because I've written some novels, too. I said, no, this is all true. Every bit of this happened.

A (20:39)

That's what's wild when you read it, you're like, how is this real life, Jake? One of the things I've seen amongst leaders who have sustained excellence over time is that thing you just talked about is they have this kind of peculiar desire to chase down their curiosities with great rigor. They just go. And they go and they keep going. And then they find other things they're curious about, and then they go deep. And before you know it, you've written a ton of books and you've talked to presidents, and then all this crazy stuff. Because it seems like this one central theme of your life is the chase down what you're really curious about. I just love to hear your thoughts on that kind of approach you bring to both your life and your career.

B (21:27)

The main thing in my career, I think, has been hard work. And whenever people, like when young reporters want to know the key, I feel like sometimes they just want to hear, like, oh, I'll hook you up with this agent, and then everything will fall into place. And that's just. It's just not how it is. And I actually, unbeknownst to me, had a philosophy that I've since heard Steve Martin talk about when he talks about when young comedians come to him, Charlie.

A (21:58)

Rose, that one, that. That famous interview with Charlie Rose, he.

B (22:01)

Says, be so good that they can't ignore you.

A (22:03)

Yeah, I love it.

B (22:05)

Yeah. And that is. When I was a campaign reporter at ABC News. I started at ABC in 2003, I wanted to be a campaign reporter. In 2004, they did not give me a candidate. And then in 2008, by then, I had earned, you know, through fact checking and being a congressional correspondent. Then I was going to get a candidate, and I was competing. Like my fellow ABC News correspondents were, all of them just excellent in different ways. There was David Wright and Kate Snow and Dan Harris. There were just so many, and they were just so good. And I knew I had to be better than them in order to be the White House correspondent, which is what I wanted. I couldn't be smoother, I couldn't be prettier. I couldn't be a better broadcaster. I could work on all those things, but the one thing I could do is work harder. I could work harder than all of them, and I could break more stories than all of them, or try to anyway, and I could aspire to do that. And I had to be so good that even though on a broadcasting level or an appearance level or whatever, like, I wouldn't be the number one pick, but I had to. I had to be so good that, like, David Westin, the head of ABC News at the time, had to give it to me because otherwise he would look foolish, he would look bad. Why would you not give it to him? He broke five stories or whatever. That was always my philosophy. I had to just work harder. And even if that meant pissing off a lot of people, not internally, but by breaking as many stories as possible, back then, people had blogs, reporters had blogs, and I would. If I couldn't get it on air, I would just put it on the blog. And the blog just became like a place where I broke as many stories as possible. And I was just. The point was, I was just constantly working. Constantly.

A (23:58)

What sacrifices did you make in order to be so good that you couldn't be ignored?

B (24:04)

Well, I mean, I'm sure there were a lot of sacrifices, obviously. So this is 2007, 2008. Well, I know that I sacrificed time at home because I was on the road the whole year, 2007, 2008, covering the presidential campaign. My daughter was born in 2007. My son was born in 2009, so I missed some important time there, which sucks. But thankfully my wife understood that I was trying to build this career that would ultimately be able to provide for the family in a way that there would be like a payoff for it at the end. I'm sure there were sharp elbows that needlessly provoked other people because I was younger and clumsier and whatever. I'm sure I pissed off a lot of political operatives when I broke stories they didn't like, or maybe broke them in such a way that I could have broken them better. When you're constantly churning out work, that's a risk unto itself because especially if it's about politics, something that's so inherently controversial. So there were a lot of sacrifices. I think that working hard has been how I've been able to achieve whatever I've been able to achieve and also follow, follow, follow interests, because any single thing I've done of major significance in my view. And I would. I would say aside from the TV work, I would say the Outpost. I would say that I wrote a story for the Atlantic about this guy that was one of my dad's. My dad's a pediatrician, one of his former patients that he thought was in prison unjustly. And I wrote a story for the Atlantic about his case and ultimately that helped get him out of prison. He's. He's a free man now. That C.J. rice and the Biden book, those are probably the most impactful non TV things I've done. And every single one of them, people were telling me not to do it. Every single one of them, I was told not to do the Outpost because I didn't have any expertise in military reporting, which I didn't. It's true, I didn't. You know, when I started that book, I'd never even been to Afghanistan anyway. It's been hard work and it's been following my curiosities. Even when people told me, I'm not interested in that, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to support you. Don't do that. That's been how it's worked, for better or for worse.

A (26:28)

What's made you go in the face of that, which is maybe called rejection or people telling you not to do it. I don't know if these are people that you trust and love and that.

B (26:39)

Love. Yeah, yeah.

A (26:40)

What makes you keep going?

B (26:42)

Not family, but professional people. No. My wife has been. My wife's incredible. My wife supports everything I do. It's just the curiosity of wanting to know, of sensing a project that was worthwhile, figuring out that even if I didn't know enough about it, that I could learn. Before I wrote the Outpost, I didn't have any experience covering war or, I mean, I guess I'd been to Iraq, but I didn't really have any major experience covering war or writing about these things. And I think it's the humility of accepting that I didn't know enough about these things. When I was writing the Outpost, I would send chapters to people who were there, who were experts. I found a couple guys who, like, one of them had served in this part of Afghanistan with the State Department. Another guy was a linguist who was an expert on this particular region in Afghanistan. It's called Nuristan. It's. It's a. Where the man who Would Be King Takes Place. The Rudyard Kipling book. It's like the Afghanistan of Afghanistan. It's like this incredibly isolated, dangerous place in Afghanistan. And they would come back with harsh criticism, really harsh criticism. And I came to value that so much because it hadn't been published. So it was okay, I could fix it. And, you know, they were unrelentingly harsh. I don't believe the story. This is so ethnocentric how you're writing this. This is like white savior complex, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, great, great. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback, because you can fix it if it hasn't been published yet. So I think that's also one of the things that's important is having the humility to accept that I am not an expert on any particular thing, really. I'm a journalist, which means I try to be an expert on whatever I'm covering at that moment. But having the modesty, the legitimate humility of saying, I don't know what a battalion is, you know, versus a. A company, like, explain that to me, has been an important part of the process. I think.

A (28:48)

I think this willingness to be a beginner, this willingness to show up in places where you're not the expert or you don't know everything of. Of what you're talking about is a superpower. I think it's a useful skill for leaders to have, and I think it is a skill because it takes. You got to be tough. You got to have some inborn confidence that's been created throughout your life so, like, I can show up and be a beginner. I've never done this. I don't know what I'm talking about. But I'm willing to chase down my curiosity. I think more leaders would benefit from developing that skill. Jake, that leads me to another question I have. That's leadership focus. So you've interviewed presidents, generals, world leaders, and I'm sure there's lots of different things you've picked up from those conversations you've had. What are some of the most useful leadership lessons you've learned from talking to some of the most powerful people in the history of our world?

B (29:47)

I think the humility part of it is really important. And I don't know, some of this is from interviews. Some of this is just from observation. I mean, I've been a journalist now for almost 30 years, and, like, I have this theory, the great people often achieve as much as they can to the point that they are able to remove from their inner circle anyone who tells them they're being an asshole or making the wrong decision. They often do that. They often, you know, remove any critic from their inner circle. I call it the Jar Jar Binks theory. It's kind of a bad name, but it's because I think Jar Jar Binks is a horrible creation in the Star wars movies and that somebody should have been there telling George Lucas, please don't put that Jamaican frog in the movie. It's a horrible idea. The movie still made $6 billion, so whatever. But I think of it that way because it doesn't even matter about the success of the project per se, as it is about the worth and the quality of the work. So, for instance, Joe Biden is a good example of somebody who, by the end, was surrounded by his top aides and his family who they were not honest about what was going on with him. There are a lot of presidents who have had that problem. I think that that is the number one thing. It is very important to surround yourself with people, and not just a spouse who will tell you when you're airing, as my wife without question does, but also, you know, your executive producer, your chief of staff, your top a. Like, you need people around you not just to keep you humble, but to protect you from yourself. And I think that that is the most important lesson in leadership, because I see it violated all, like, every day, all the time. I mean, it's just over and over and over, you say, why would they do that? Well, because they have removed every critic from their inner circle. So they don't even have a clear view as to how they look or what this might look like. They don't have anybody like that. And this is, you know, not to beat up on Joe Biden, but we saw this in the. When Alex and I wrote the Biden book, Original Sin, like that was something that we saw was the removal of any skeptic from the White House. It is something that in Race Against Terror, you don't see because these are incredibly collaborative people working and pushing and stress testing. And also the guys, the heroes of this book is not, they are not like, it's not the president, it's not the attorney general. It's like assistant U.S. attorneys. It's like people who are, they are the ones to tell other people when they're screwing up. So because it's like upper mid level people, they don't have the hubris. They have people on top of them pushing down. But I think that's a really, really important lesson and I see it violated all the time.

A (32:39)

I've seen this too, and it's, it's funny. I actually just had this conversation with my close group of friends, like the coaches I work with. I maybe point to an example of someone who has kind of lost it. Meaning they've surrounded themselves with yes men and women and I'll say, do not ever let that happen to me. Yeah, I'll do my best to do the same for you.

B (32:58)

Who do you have in your life that does that? Who's who pushes back on you?

A (33:01)

So I work with a group of coaches. One of their number one skills, not only for me, but just in life, is they are truth tellers. I think excellent coaches can see the truth and they're not afraid to tell you and they're not afraid to say it. Now a big part is they have to have this underlying care and love for you. Genuine care and love. Genuine. Because some people that are in your life are a little bit envious. They're a little bit jealous. I know you've got these people, even if you don't want them because you're a powerful person. You've risen up. And so yes, hopefully you have those truth tellers. It sounds like you do. But also there are some of those that are kind of on the fringe or around that are like, I don't know, man. I don't know if I like Jake, but do I love them? You know, you want the people who love you and care for you and also will say, jake, dude, what are you doing here?

B (33:49)

Right?

A (33:49)

You've lost it. Or you're just wrong or what you said last night. I don't know if that was the right way to go about it. What if you said it this way and then you to say, ah, like, I know he loves me and I appreciate that. You know what I mean? Like, I assume, like, is that how you try to design your team, where it's not only welcomed but encouraged to speak up to you, to say, hey, I think we maybe approach that one wrong. We should maybe look at it like this.

B (34:18)

Yeah. I mean, and I'm not deluded enough to think that, like, the power imbalance doesn't have an effect on whether or not people are willing to say something right to me or to other people. But without question, I have my executive producers and I go back and forth on stuff. Do you guys fight?

A (34:37)

Like healthy fight?

B (34:39)

Yeah. I mean, right now I'm thinking of my State of the Union producer is this incredible executive producer named Rachel Strifeld. She's fantastic. And she. And I disagree. Like, I would rather, you know, like, I would like to have. And this is just, this is just a regular TV show discussion, but, like, if it were up to me, I would do one interview for like half an hour and she would rather do two or three. And like, it's a television programming and also a journalistic debate and it's a discussion and then we lock horns on it. There's no right answer or wrong answer. But we disagree on that. Look, I, and I value that. I don't want a yes person. I want somebody. Like, it's a fight we continue to have because it's not like I'm right and she's wrong or vice versa. It's. We disagree and it's a healthy tension and it's about something substantive. You know, it's not like I'm trying to book Kim Kardashian. It's completely. There's no right answer on that. Sometimes I'll do an analysis, a news analysis, and we'll discuss whether or not I'm going too far or I'm not going far enough. I mean, that's a healthy conversation that we have in the newsroom. I certainly encourage people to speak up, but like I said, I'm not naive enough to think that means like a 23 year old desk assistant is going to feel like she can just come in my office and say, I don't like this topic or whatever, like she should. But I know that it probably is intimidating. But I hope that there is at least that kind of environment fostered where even if it's not brought up at a meeting, it can be voiced.

A (36:13)

Why do you think so many powerful leaders struggle with this? Is it stem from an insecurity. Technically, it's more comfortable just to have people blow smoke and tell you how awesome you are. My background's in sports, and so I'm used to getting, like, annihilated by coaches every day when they watch practice film and game film. Like, I almost feel like I'm not living if I'm not getting critical feedback, because it's been hammered into me since I was 5 till, like, 26. And so I need it.

B (36:43)

I need it.

A (36:43)

Give me some feedback, like, critical feedback, so I can get better. So I get better. Because, like, the people who I love so much in my life were coaches and.

B (36:50)

But I'm. I'm the same way. It's funny.

A (36:52)

Yeah. You know what I mean? But, like, now you're seeing it, whether it's presidents or other powerful people where it's like, dude, who's around that guy to tell him no, man, why do you think this is such a thing?

B (37:05)

I think any sort of leadership is difficult, and I think any sort of leadership comes with a. Especially in this day and age, comes with a tremendous amount of criticism and often. Let me just put myself in the shoes of Donald Trump just for the sake of this exercise. President Trump has a very difficult job. This is just like, remove what you think about Donald Trump. Like, anybody listening, remove what you think about him, whether you love him or you hate him or you're in between. He's a very difficult job. And if you go online, you will find the nastiest, most personal attacks, not only on him, but his appearance, his wife, his daughter, his sons, his grandkids. There is the nastiest stuff out there. In addition, and this could apply to any president. So don't think this is about Trump. But in addition, he's getting death threats. He had assassination attempts. He literally has to walk around in a protective bubble because people will try to kill him. So you put yourself in that environment, and then you say, well, why isn't he listening to criticism?

A (38:10)

Yeah, that's a good point.

B (38:11)

You know, like, his entire life is criticism. Yeah. Now, that doesn't mean I don't think he should listen to criticism. I do. And I think he could probably be an even better president if he had more skeptics around him. All that stuff, as I thought about Biden, et cetera, et cetera. But to any smaller degree, let's say I'm just going to keep picking people who people won't expect me to sympathize with. Let's say Sean Hannity, right?

A (38:36)

Yeah.

B (38:36)

Sean Hannity. Same thing. He does a show every night. I'm sure he brings his best to it. I'm sure he thinks he's doing the best show he can do. And he's providing entertainment and news and analysis, and he's getting. He's making lots of money for Fox this and that. And again, he probably has to have a security detail. The criticism on him, I'm sure, is unrelenting. So in a situation like that, it might not be like the first impulse of somebody to say, like, okay, give me some criticism. Yeah, right. So I understand how it could happen that somebody removes critics from their sphere. And I'm not saying that about Trump or Hannity. I'm just citing them as two examples of how tough it can be and to be in the public sphere. So I think it makes sense. Now, add on that if you're a general, you're literally getting shot at, right? If you're a Hollywood star, your life or death is like whether or not you get good reviews and the movies come out. And if your movie fails and literally, maybe you're going to lose your job and your money and your power. And I mean, so the stakes are very high on a personal level. So I understand it. My point isn't that the criticism makes me a better person. My point is that it makes me a better journalist. That's, I think, the point. And I'm humble enough to know that, like, every day I could stand criticism about what we could have done better yesterday and what we should do better tonight.

A (40:09)

One of the attributes I think you're exemplifying that we all would be better served having is the ability to legitimately put yourself in someone else's shoes. I don't think most of us do that hardly ever. We don't, like, sit there and actually think, wait, what would it like? A lot of time, a lot of times this happens in a company. It's just so easy to criticize the CEO when you're, you know, down multiple layers below. It's so easy to criticize the senior leadership. But if you've never taken the time to have an understanding of what their life is actually like, what are they faced with, what are their struggles, their problems? What you just kind of showed is it actually, like, helped me be a little bit more reasonable because, like, I don't know what that's like. I don't know what death threats and having to have, you know, assassination attempt, like, I don't know what. Nobody really knows what that's like. But you're sitting There, hey, why don't you guys think about that a little bit? It might make you just a more reasonable person. Now, that doesn't say, hey, you should just surround yourself with yes people. But I do think in general, a good leadership skill is to try to understand the world through somebody else's eyes. And if you can do that, you'll probably have higher eq. You'll be able to better relate with people and probably become a better communicator and understanding of others. And that's a good leadership skill in itself.

B (41:28)

One of the things that's tough about it, and I know this from personal experience, is that, like, it's very difficult to try to maintain that when you're talking about people that are being relentlessly unfair to you.

A (41:40)

Yes.

B (41:41)

Twisting things you say and attacking you personally and attacking your family personally, this and that. I have experienced that to a much smaller degree than President Trump or President Biden, but I know what it's like and it sucks. Well, one of the things I think is so interesting about President Trump is he drives so many people crazy. But it's not just his supporters who are driven to the point of illogic that they'll support anything he says or does, even if it contradicts itself or whatever. It's also his opponents. He drives his opponents crazy where they are just like knee jerk opposing anything he says or does, twisting this, that, the other. And they often beclown themselves in their hatred of him. Again, I understand it because it's difficult when you're in the public eye and people are just like, really coming at you like other public officials, to try to maintain the state of decorum and grace and respect for them when they're not doing it for you. So I, I get it. I understand why President Trump or others are like, so angry and so inclined to lash back because psychologically it's, it's not pleasant. And I can't say that I've maintained 100% like I have in my mind tweets that I wish I hadn't written, etc. Since deleted. So you can't find them, but I'm sure they're out there somewhere. But, like, you know, moments where I was like, I got mad and I betrayed the best version of myself that I want to be.

A (43:13)

Yeah, well, I think the other thing is to realize, and I've, I've realized this after 650 of these things is every single person I've talked to have, they've sustained excellence, they've done amazing things, they're also humans. And humans are messy. And the world's not black and white. It's really gray. Right. And we all do stupid stuff from time to time. And I think that's life, man. Like, I think it is weird. We put people on pedestals, we think they're not humans, but then you get to know them and you're like, yeah, impressive. Super hard worker, really smart, gets after it. Good leader, good person. Also a human who makes mistakes and does dumb stuff sometimes. And I think that's a realization we need to come to.

B (43:53)

Yeah, no, we're all fallible. I was just listening to the. I'm a big Dave Matthews fan. I was listening to his channel on Serious.

A (43:59)

Oh, my God. He's. I've been to 80 plus shows. Are you one of those guys, too? Like, you go to tons of them?

B (44:03)

I. No, I go to one or two a year. I mean, I've been listening to him since 91 or 92 is the first time I heard him. He came to Philly. He opened for the Spin Doctors at the Chestnut Cabaret at Penn. We went to go see the Spin Doctors, and we're like, who's. This opening act is really good. I don't know how many times I've seen him. I just saw him in Montana with my brother. It was incredible. An incredible show at the Big Sky. So anyway, I was listening to his channel on SiriusXM, channel 30, as I'm sure you know.

A (44:30)

And Nikki Glaser. Yeah.

B (44:33)

And he's talking about Ozzy Osborne, who had just passed away. And he was just saying, like, every time he said. He said something along the lines of, they say don't meet your heroes because they'll always disappoint you. And basically that's true. Except for Ozzy. Ozzy was always awesome. And I was thinking, like, wow, you're Dave Matthews. You've met everybody. I'm like, who disappointed you? Like, you know, I. I wanted to find out, like, who was awful, but I'm sure, you know, because he catches them backstage at a concert and they're exhausted and 70 years old. 80 years old, you know, and it's like we're all. We're all so broken and, like, imperfect and, like, it's okay to acknowledge that.

A (45:16)

Yeah. Jake, I meant to say this earlier, but I really dug deep into your work back in 2019 because of your daughter Alice.

B (45:25)

Oh, yeah.

A (45:26)

She wrote a book called raise your hand, which we have read as a family quite a bit.

B (45:31)

Because you have how many daughters you have four or five. Five. Amazing.

A (45:34)

And so I'm.

B (45:35)

I'm curious, how many bathrooms do you have?

A (45:38)

Not enough.

B (45:39)

Okay.

A (45:41)

Mine is overtaken from time to time. But I'm curious, like, how you balance an excellent career. Right. You just dropped your daughter off at school and college, which I can't even imagine that day. I'm going to lose my mind. But you just dropped her off at college. She wrote this great book called raise your hand. And I think it speaks to, I mean, certainly to girls and to women, but also just to, I think, leadership in general. Right. I think raise your hand is a good idea. How have you balanced, again, an amazing career where you've sustained excellence over decades, both writing books, bestsellers, and the main dude on CNN for quite a while now with also being a really good husband and being a great dad.

B (46:24)

Well, first of all, let me just say Alice and her mom get all the credit for raise her hand. Alice noticed when she was like eight or nine that all of a sudden the girls in her class weren't raising their hand, and the boys in her class were.

A (46:36)

Yeah.

B (46:36)

And even if the boys didn't know the answer, they just raised their hand. She talked about it with her mom, my wife Jennifer, and they took it to the Girl Scout troop, and they came up with a patch, the raise your hand patch, which is basically, you promise to raise your hand in class if you think you know the answer. And you promised to get three other friends. And if anybody's listening out there who has any connection to Girl Scouts, this is a patch that anybody can get. She did the patch. I was so proud. I tweeted about it. Barry Weiss, who was in at the New York Times, saw that, said, would Alice like to work with us on an op ed? She did. That came out online. Penguin book saw that, said, would she like to write a book? Yes. And she worked with the editor and wrote a book called raise your hand. And I'm very proud of her. But that's all Alice and Jennifer and the Girl Scout troop. Honestly. I mean, look, I have tried to be the best and most supportive dad I can be. We have a son, Jack, too. He's 15. I can't sit here and pretend that I've always been here and there have been no sacrifices or that I'm a perfect dad or anything like that. And in fact, when Jennifer and I dropped Alice off at Michigan, I came home and I wept for the first time in since 2021, when Alice was sick. That's another story. But she's 100% fine now. She wrote it, there was a follow up book called use your voice about speaking up at the hospital. That's another kid's book. In any case, one of the parts of my weeping was about everything I missed because the 18 years goes like that and I thought about like all the time. I wasn't there because I was at work or because I was in Iowa or Afghanistan or whatever. So, you know, there are sacrifices and I think, you know, what I've been able to provide for Alice is unconditional love, hopefully reasonably wise advice, good editing, and I'm a good editor for any email my wife, son or daughter want to, although my son's never used it. But anyway, and support and like financial support so she can do whatever she wants to do. The truth is that's what I cried about, is the stuff I missed that I wasn't there for because I was chasing a story or on assignment or whatever. So, you know, that's something I've been thinking a lot about because, you know, she's not, she's a college, she's not gone from this earth. So there's still time to rectify that.

A (48:57)

Yeah, we've talked about this a little bit earlier. I just happened to look at the clock and realize how much time has passed so quickly.

B (49:03)

This has been such a good conversation. I haven't.

A (49:05)

Yeah, I really, really appreciate it, man, because like I said, I've followed your work for a long time and I love people who are able to take these wild stories and turn them into books because I've done it a few times and I know how insanely hard is and how much I doubt and struggle through the process to get a book to the finish line. You've done it so many times and they're so, so good on, on top again of doing all the stuff you do at cnn. I'm just curious for people who, a little bit earlier in their career, and again we hit on this a little bit earlier for that person who's like, you know what? I want to leave a positive dent in the world. I don't know how yet, but I do. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person?

B (49:49)

I mean, so the first thing I would say is if they're interested in journalism, like anybody can be a pundit. And especially in this day and age when punditry is just basically just people insulting other people online, be a reporter, be a journalist. Like I, this is famous last words. I can't imagine writing a memoir because I. It's really, who cares I think you should. No, Well, I, I have. No, maybe when I'm 80 and I need to figure out a project and I got, you know. But I'm telling you, the stories of other people are so much more interesting.

A (50:25)

Yeah.

B (50:25)

And what other people think about issues going on, whether it's like Jonah Goldberg or Ashley Allison, another Democratic pundit we have or whoever, like what they think is much more important than what I think. And what politicians think about issues are much more important than what I think. So as a general rule, other people are more interesting than you. In terms of journalism, hard work is very important. The advice I give to young people, especially people in college, who have never really experienced it, so much of life is rejection. There's so much rejection in life. It's non stop. It is just a constant flow. You cannot stop it and you cannot revel in it, you cannot marinate in it. It just is. And just know that. And like, know how much there is out there and don't take it personally or if there is some constructive criticism that's part of it, then learn from that to improve your game. Truth is, like most fields in the humanities, there's a tremendous amount of rejection. Journalism, history, English, fiction, interviews, whatever. So just knowing that and like coming to terms with the fact that Dr. Seuss's first book was rejected by 47 publishers or whatever, you can go through a list of them, they're just like, there are so many examples of really worthy artists and projects being told you're worthless. And like you just can't let that be the final word. So rejection and hard work. And then the other thing I always tell young people is nobody will give you a job to be nice. Like, it just doesn't work that way. People are nice to you throughout grade school and high school, even college. But the idea is nobody will do anything for you, generally speaking, in the professional world to be nice. They'll do it because you have something they want. And so just have that thing. And then it doesn't have to be like Steve Martin's advice of be so good they can't ignore you, because obviously so few people are born with the skill of Steve Martin. But for most fields, hard work is enough. For most fields, hard work is enough. For journalism, hard work is enough. And that means like, I really want this job. I will be here at six in the morning and I will be the last one to leave at night and I will do anything you want. Tell me where to go, tell me where to be. You know, here are my clips Blah, blah, blah. I mean, it can be that simple. And then once you kind of accept those truisms, for me, life can become a lot more pleasant, because then it's. It doesn't feel like just an unrelenting wave of rejection. It's just like, okay, remember in Survivor where Tom Hanks is, like, trying to get out his raft? He's trying to leave the island, and there's this one wave his raft cannot get past, but he figures out how to do it. It's just like this timing, and it's like every seventh wave, you can sneak in. Like, if you work hard enough, you can sneak past the wave on the seventh time. I mean, it just. Every code can be cracked.

A (53:40)

Yeah. You got to keep going. I try to remind people, too, that you get hired to make that person's life better.

B (53:49)

Yeah.

A (53:49)

To help that company, to help your boss, to. Again, they're not hiring because, like, oh, my God, you're amazing. It's like, wait, you can solve a problem? Yes, I can solve a problem. I will figure that out. I will help you. I will make your life better. That's why you do it. And you get promoted for the same reasons. Like, it's amazing how it works, but you kind of got to get out of your own head to do that. And I love the idea of just. You got to keep fighting through the rejection. If you look at the stories of people who have sustained excellence, they've all faced some sort of rejection or adversity, and they just kept at it. They kept at it. Part of winning is just staying in the game. Too many people quit, and that's why they lose, because they don't have a chance.

B (54:27)

Oh, to win 100.

A (54:28)

You know what I'm saying?

B (54:29)

Yeah. Yeah. And look, I mean, so Original Sin was the. The Biden book I wrote. And I. Look, I have no idea how well this book is going to do. I hope. I hope it does well. But honestly, to me, it's just. Like, I wrote this book. I'm proud of it. I hope people buy it. I hope people enjoy it. I mean, I'd like it to be a bestseller, all that stuff. But, like, it is the work that it is, but original sin, just to bring it back to the rejection thing. Alex and I started working on the book the day after the election because we're like, what happened? That was not normal. And I still don't like, how bad was it behind the scenes? And we start working on it, and Alex and I. And I said to Alex, like, we were working on the book. We didn't have a publisher. I mean, he had an agent, I had an agent. And they were working on shopping around. You know, we wrote a proposal, and then they work on shopping it around. But I said, I don't care if we self publish this and put it on ebay. I just want to answer this question and write this book. Now, it turned out that there were a couple publishers that were interested, and ultimately Penguin Random House published it. But I'll say there were publishers that rejected it that didn't even want to read the proposal, and then there were publishers that offered a low bid or whatever. Again, that's fine. It got almost universally positive reviews from the mainstream critics, the New York Times, Washington Post, et cetera. And it was on the bestseller list for seven weeks. It was number one on the nonfiction list for the first and second week. So it's like, I only say that by saying, like, whatever you think of Joe Biden, whatever you think of me, the book was successful. Publishers rejected it. I mean, I'm not going to name them, but there were publishers rejected the book. It was a success period, full stop. So, like, you know, I'm probably at the top of my craft right now, or at least with the top that I'll ever achieve. And, like, just for anybody out there struggling or whatever, like, I get rejected every day, every day. And it doesn't matter that I've had New York Times bestsellers before or whatever. It's part of life and it sucks. But you just have to keep fighting through and beating that wave. On the seventh one.

A (56:35)

I think that message is super inspiring because some would assume, like, well, you just kind of can do whatever you want. Of course everybody wanted it. Of course, you know, because we've seen the numbers it's done and the impact it has had. And another one that I've read that is wild that I recommend people reading, too. But, yeah, I mean, this current book, it's kind of like a movie is how I would describe it. That's how it reads. I mean, I love watching movies, but it feels like that. So I think it's really hard to make the written word feel like a movie. And this book, Race Against Terror, Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the dawn of the Forever War, feels like a movie, like you're inside of it. It's really, really well done. I really appreciate your team sending me an early copy and for them to connect us, because I really enjoyed this, Jake.

B (57:25)

Well, this is a lot of fun. I'll just give two for any Aspiring writers out there. I'll give you two bits of advice that I think I achieved in this book and the last book, and maybe not in any of the previous ones, which is, one, have a really good structure. Like, that's an important part of a book, is, like, the beginning, the middle and the end. There's the old aphorism, like, act one, chase your hero up a tree. Act two, throw rocks at your hero. Act three, get your hero out of the tree. That's the basic dramatic structure for everything. And so having a good structure is important. And then number two is, have a good editor and be willing to kill your darlings, as they say. Faulkner, I think, said it. This editor I have for this book, Sean Delone, he's fantastic. I would send him a chapter. I'd done the outline, and I was sending him chapter by chapter. That's how we wrote it. No, I'd send him chapter seven, and he'd be like, jake, you need to rewrite chapter seven. It's too much like, chapter four. Here's my idea for it. And I'd be like, fuck, I don't want to do more work. I'm doing so much work.

A (58:30)

But this tells me it's good, man. Yeah. I wouldn't be loving you. That wouldn't be showing you the love.

B (58:34)

And literally, I'm sitting here and I sent an outline for a project to my agent, and, like, I'm just waiting for him to say, like, this is good. This is bad. It should be a screenplay. It should be a novel. Like, whatever. He might say, it sucks. I mean, I don't even know. But if something I've spent the last two months working on, and, like, again, it could be nothing. He could say it's awful. Like, this is all just part of the process. And then if it turns out, like, I don't think I can sell this, or this isn't any good, or blah, blah, blah, or it needs work or whatever. Like, I'm 56, but, like, I might as well be 22. It doesn't matter. Like, it's still. I'm facing rejection. And, yes, things are a little easier for me now. But, like, that doesn't mean, like, I'm not in it still the same way as I was back when it was 100% rejection. Now it's only 95% rejection.

A (59:24)

You feel. It feels like you're speeding up.

B (59:26)

Yeah.

A (59:27)

Is that accurate? Are you speeding up, like, right now? Like, you're going harder? You're not, like, taking it easy and resting on your Laurels and all the money and everything, you're kind of getting after it even more.

B (59:37)

Yes, that's accurate. I don't know how much longer I have this window where people are paying attention to ideas I have or thoughts I have. I like having multiple projects going. I know if there's anything I've learned from watching peers and older contemporaries, it's that relevance is ephemeral. And when it leaves, it looks brutal. I mean, it hasn't left me yet, but it will at some point. And I just want to make sure that I'm producing as much as possible while I still can.

A (60:13)

I think it's inspiring, man. I love the idea of speeding up. Like, I'm gonna go, man, I'm gonna maximize this thing. Let's get after it. Let's try to help people. Let's make an impact. Let's tell stories again. I think it's inspiring when you see somebody who's hit the top of the mountain and they run faster and they go harder. You know, maybe that's not for everybody, but it's for me, man. I love that kind of approach to this thing. And I think it's inspiring for others to see that. That you're speeding up at a time when maybe some would relax or would coast. And I think that's. I appreciate that.

B (60:48)

I thank you. And I have to say, your metaphor is making my. My bones ache. The idea of me hitting the top of a mountain and running, running faster sounds incredibly painful to my knees and lower back. But I. I know you mean it as a metaphor, so I'll take it in that spirit.

A (61:04)

Oh, this is great, man. Overall, I really appreciate this, Jake. I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

B (61:11)

Absolutely. This has been so fun.

A (61:16)

It is the end of a podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of a podcast club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan learningleader.com Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jake Tapper. A few takeaways from my notes. Be so good, they can't ignore you. As Jake said, I might not be as good looking as you are. I might not be as smart, but I am in control of how hard I work. As leaders, it is our responsibility to work so hard that we become the obvious choice for the job or the promotion. Be so good, they can't ignore you. And then the one leadership skill that is massively important to develop, do not insulate yourself with quote, unquote, yes, people, you have to have truth tellers in your life? Who are your foxhole friends? Who are the people that are willing and able to tell you the truth? Who are the ones who love you and care enough about you that they'll let you know when you've messed up? Those people are gold. We all need them. And then I thought his life slash career advice is really good at the end. Dr. Seuss was rejected by 47 publishers. Rejection is part of life. You have to stay in the game for a chance to win it. Keep going and nobody, nobody will give you a job to be nice. What value do you bring to a company? How will you make your boss's life better? You get hired to solve a problem, not because someone wants to be nice. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader show with Jake Tapper. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Apple podcasts and Spotify and you subscribe to the show, you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review. By doing all of that, you for giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.