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- [00:02]
Jon Favreau
Welcome to the Bostics, starring Lauren Bostic and Michael Bostic. Together they are the Bostics.
- [00:10]
Michael Bostic
Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Bostics. Today we are sitting down with Jon Favreau, who is the co founder of Crooked Media and co host of Pod Save America, a wildly popular show that I'm sure many of you have heard or listened to. He is a former presidential speechwriter, podcast host and political commentator, best known for being the head speechwriter for President Barack Obama where he helped craft some of Obama's most memorable speeches during his presidency. After leaving the White House, he co founded Crooked Media, like I said earlier, and now host his wildly popular podcast where he breaks down current events and US politics in a more conversational, accessible way. We had an incredible conversation with John. It's wide spanning. We talk all about speeches, speechwriting, we talk about the state of politics in this country. We talk about how it's okay to talk to different people from different walks of life and different political ideal beliefs. We also talk about empowering the future of America through political education and what it really takes to bring people back together again again. This is a wide ranging conversation, really enjoyed sitting down with John, easy to talk to fellow podcasters and hosts with that Jon Favreau. Welcome to the Bostics. Okay, so I'm just going to keep it going, Jon first. We'll do the intro later of course, but welcome to the show and what I want to keep rolling, what we were just talking about, which is this is your world, but everything these days feels like it's getting blended into some political conversation. This show is 10 years old now. We started Health Wellness, Marketing Relationships, how to build an Online Brand. Now you find yourself navigating these potholes of conversation. So I would love your perspective because it's like, obviously this is your world, you're in politics. But does everything these days have to be political?
- [01:49]
Jon Favreau
Shouldn't have to be. It's a real careful what you wish for situation. Because, you know, I was in politics for many years and I believe very deeply in organizing and the power of politics to change people's lives. And so I've always wanted more people to get involved and participate in politics. Not quite like everyone is today, which is, you know, it's like crisis to crisis. And it has infected almost every area of people's lives and not for, not always for, for good. And it's not like everyone's having, you know, thoughtful conversations and debates about the best way to, to change the world. And so I think to the extent that politics has invaded everything in a way where it's like hobbyism, like, people are sort of view. Viewing it like they view sports and who's winning, who's losing, and, you know, what's the drama of the day. And it's like a reality show. Like, I don't think that is obviously very helpful. What we try to do is, you know, help people who may be following the news but are not political junkies like us, to sort of make sense of what's going on.
- [03:01]
Michael Bostic
You give it in layman, like, you make it digestible for people to understand.
- [03:04]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [03:05]
Michael Bostic
I think, like, what's challenging in media these days, not just on this platform, but just in media in general, is, to your point, like, it's become this spectator sport where there's one side or the other, one's gonna win, one's gonna lose, one's good, one's bad, depending on which side you're on. And we've largely got to a place where, I think, when I think we're around the similar age when we all came up, like, you could have different conversations with different people and with different thought patterns. Now doing something like this, we'll put a trailer out sometimes, depending on someone leaning left or right, and be like, you son of a bit, like people. Like, before the content even comes out. It's almost like you're allowed to talk to some people. You're allowed to not, like, depending on which side of the audience you're on. And I think that's a. It's a challenge. It's a challenging time to be in media navigating all that.
- [03:56]
Jon Favreau
I think the Internet has played a huge role there as well, because I still find that when I talk to people in person and people who may not share my politics, I can have very reasonable conversations with them. We may walk away disagreeing, usually we do. But you can have a civil conversation. I think when you are having all these conversations mediated by all of these algorithms, then what you're exposed to, and especially if you're someone in media, is you're exposed to the most extreme opinions on both sides. And it would be nice to say, oh, that doesn't have an effect on you as someone who's in media, but it does. It has effects on all of us. Like, none of us are impervious to, like, seeing all that crap all the time. And so I think that actually, unfortunately, continues to, like, polarize the conversation more deeply. And that's something I talk about that a lot on. I have one podcast Called Offline, where we sort of talk about how the Internet is breaking our brains and society and making democracy harder. And, you know, there's a lot of research on it, that it's just. It's not a healthy thing, both for us and for the country, for the world, to just be getting all of our information through our screens all day long.
- [05:15]
Lauren Bostic
We have to talk about the art of speechwriting.
- [05:18]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [05:19]
Lauren Bostic
Can you tell when a speech is written by chatgpt?
- [05:23]
Jon Favreau
Yes, for now.
- [05:25]
Lauren Bostic
Okay.
- [05:26]
Jon Favreau
Because first of all, a lot of speeches aren't very good. Before ChatGPT came along, they weren't very good. And so. But, you know, now that we've had, I don't know, a couple years of large language models, especially ChatGPT, you can tell the em dashes. And, you know, it's not this, it's that. And, you know, you're not just right. You're really right. Like, it's just very recognizable.
- [05:56]
Lauren Bostic
It's like a rhythm.
- [05:57]
Jon Favreau
Yes, it's a rhythm. I don't think it'll be like that forever. At least according to all the, you know, people who are building AI they think it's gonna get smarter and smarter. But I do think that AI will be able to replace a lot of speeches, because, like I said, I think a lot of speeches were pretty pedestrian. I think there. It will then incentivize people who are really creative to write better speeches and to give better speeches. And I think that will sort of be the test.
- [06:26]
Lauren Bostic
You should launch a speech AI Chat.
- [06:31]
Jon Favreau
I'm sure that will come along.
- [06:33]
Lauren Bostic
You have to do it yourself. I feel like it would crush it by you.
- [06:36]
Michael Bostic
I view it as, like, the early. Remember the early days of social, when, like, people would squeak in those. Those ads that were, like. They were scammy, and people would, like, think it was real. Real. And then, like, over time, you just get really good at recognizing, like, hey, that's. That's. That's BS or it's not good. Same with, like, the AI slop. I think that is what will happen with AI with humans, I think we'll just get really good at recognizing because a lot of people take a more pessimistic view, and they're like, oh, my God, we're never gonna be able to tell what's real and what's not. I think the opposite. I think humans are gonna get very good at being able to distinguish, like, that's human. That's not human. That is. And I think we'll crave more of the human.
- [07:08]
Jon Favreau
I think that's Right.
- [07:08]
Lauren Bostic
You become the youngest political spe. History. That's crazy. What was that like for you?
- [07:14]
Jon Favreau
I mean, it happened by accident. I was so. I was in college. Went to the College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts. I grew up in Massachusetts, just north of Boston. And there was an internship program. My junior year in college, I interned for Senator John Kerry, who was my home state senator. And I did that because I thought maybe I'd be interested in politics. But it was a good opportunity to take an internship and go to D.C. for a semester with a lot of my friends who were going. So I did that. I sat in the communications office. I sat next to his. Senator Kerry's communications director, who also happened to be a speechwriter and just learned a lot from him, especially as they were preparing to launch John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2003. You know, he gave me the opportunity to start writing constituent letters, maybe an op ed in a local newspaper. And so I got the taste of, like, writing for someone else. And I thought, oh, this is kind of cool. Graduated college, joined the Kerry campaign as an assistant. I was the press assistant to six different people in the press office. And that was like, wake up at 4am get all the news clips, fax them to everyone, because it was 2002, 2003, and get everyone lunches and all that kind of stuff. But at one point in the campaign, John Kerry was losing in the primary. Howard Dean was winning. They thought Howard Dean was gonna be the nominee.
- [08:34]
Michael Bostic
God, about Howard Dean.
- [08:35]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I know a lot of people did. Someone mentioned today, like, remember, Howard Dean was too crazy because he yelled a little loudly at the end of a speech.
- [08:44]
Lauren Bostic
Yeah.
- [08:44]
Michael Bostic
He seems very tame now.
- [08:46]
Jon Favreau
I know. But when John Kerry was losing, like, a bunch of people quit the campaign. Some people were fired. He had to mortgage his house. They ran out of money, and they needed a deputy speechwriter. And I originally asked if I could have the job, and they said, no, you're too inexperienced. You're only like 21. And. And then when they were really out of money and they couldn't, no one else wanted to join the campaign because it was a sinking ship. They were like, all right, let's. You can have a chance being deputy speechwriter, because this thing's probably going to be over in a couple months anyway, and we don't have to pay you more. I was making $24,000 a year, and so I got the job. And then John Kerry wins the primary. And so I was speechwriter all through the general election. And then when we lost to Bush. My former boss in the Kerry campaign had gone to work for now Senator Barack Obama. At the time, he had been running for the Senate. And so he wins the Senate. And Robert Gibbs, who had been my boss, reached out and said, you know, he wrote that 2004 convention speech himself. He doesn't think he needs a speechwriter. But I think I know he needs a speechwriter because he's in the Senate now, and he's gonna be giving a lot of speeches, and he's not gonna have time to write. And so would you come down to D.C. and have breakfast with him and see if you guys mesh? And had breakfast with Obama his first week in the Senate in January of 2005. And we hit it off, and he was like, I still don't think I need a speechwriter, but you seem nice enough. So let's give this a whirl, and we'll see how it goes.
- [10:10]
Michael Bostic
When you met him, did you know right away the talent that he had? Because, I mean, I think he's probably one of the best speakers of the last few generations. Right? Like, I mean, just, like, natural. I don't know how much of that is maybe you tell me. It's not natural, but so talented. Do you recognize that right away, or is that something you guys work on together?
- [10:27]
Jon Favreau
The first time I met him was at the 2004 convention in Boston. He was the keynote speaker, and I was on the Kerry campaign, and I was backstage at the convention, and my job was to go over a lot of the speeches from the different speakers at the convention. And I saw the Obama speech, and I remember reading it for the first time and thinking, oh, this is different. It's a pretty good speech. And then I got a call from my boss who was on the road traveling with John Kerry, and he said, there's a line in the speech being delivered by Barack Obama, the keynote speaker that John Kerry wants in his speech. And so we need to take it out. And I was like, okay, why are you calling me? He's like, well, you need to go find Barack Obama and take the line out of his speech. And I'm like, okay. So I walked down the hall, and he was practicing the speech for the first time. It was the first time he'd ever used a teleprompter. So he was practicing, and I went up to Robert Gibbs, who had been my boss. I was like, okay, I don't have to talk to Obama. I can talk to Gibbs. And I told him the whole story, and Gibbs is like, I'm not telling him to take out that line. He loves that line. You go talk to him.
- [11:33]
Michael Bostic
Oh, God.
- [11:34]
Jon Favreau
So that's how I met Barack Obama. And he came up to me within, like, an inch of my face and was like, are you trying to tell me I have to take out my favorite line? And I think I blacked out for a few seconds. And then when I came to, man walked up to me, introduced himself as David Axelrod, and he said, son, let's walk outside and we'll rewrite the line together. So we did. And then I heard him deliver the speech that night. And when I heard him deliver it, I was like, this guy is special. And then when I sat down with him a year later in the Senate office, I had read his book at that point in preparation for sitting down with them. And I read Dreams for My Father. And when I read that book, it's like the fact that someone who wrote this honestly is now in national politics and was this vulnerable on the book and this, like, if someone like this can make it in politics, like, I need to be part of it.
- [12:30]
Michael Bostic
And that was a different time in politics. Cause people weren't doing that at the time. Those books were real dry back then.
- [12:34]
Jon Favreau
You know, I mean, he talked about, like, drinking, smoking weed. There was cocaine mentioned. Like, it was all in there.
- [12:41]
Michael Bostic
All the taboo stuff that you just couldn't do.
- [12:43]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. And it was also just beautifully written. And it was like a. You know, he's talked a lot about race and just the things that politicians didn't do at the time.
- [12:50]
Michael Bostic
So from your perspective, for people that are interested in giving speeches or speechwriting, what makes a compelling speech?
- [12:58]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, what makes a compelling speech is it should be as close to a conversation that you're having with someone in real life as possible.
- [13:08]
Lauren Bostic
Huh.
- [13:09]
Jon Favreau
And that's a good tip. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people sit down and there's the formality of a speech, there's the professionalism. And so you think you have to write it like you're. As. People especially do this in politics. But in all aspects of life, people write like they're writing for history or they're writing to, like, read it in the book. And if you want to really connect with an audience, especially now, where so many speeches or, you know, commentaries are delivered just on a screen alone and someone's just watching it, you have to speak like you're just chatting with someone. And, you know, it's not a hard and fast rule because it needs to be elevated a little bit. If it's a speech. But too many speeches, like, start up here at, like, 10,000ft. And they need to. You need to write the speech as if you're trying to convince or, you know, persuade or talk to just a friend at a bar or at a restaurant. That's how. That's what I always try to think. And you were trying to tell a story, right? Like, a good speech is telling a good story. And so it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it should be. It should grab people at the beginning. It should have humor. It should have some emotion. And it also should not be that long. No one has ever left a speech and said to themselves, like, that was a great speech, but I wish it was just, like, five minutes longer, ten minutes longer. And everyone writes too long. And speeches are always too long.
- [14:33]
Michael Bostic
So take note, wedding toasters.
- [14:35]
Jon Favreau
That's my main advice on a wedding toast. My main advice. Cause everyone, first of all, all the wedding speeches are, like, very cliche. And there's a lot of, you know, talking about the process of writing the wedding toast. Like, when I was told I was gonna do this, I had thought about all the stories.
- [14:51]
Lauren Bostic
I would not want you in the audience. When I was doing a wedding speech. Then I'd be like, fuck.
- [14:55]
Jon Favreau
Well, the annoying thing is when I'm So many weddings I've been to, even when I don't know the people super well, like family members, giving the speech will be like, and I know there's an Obama. There's an Obama speechwriter in the audience. And so it's always a. I'm like,
- [15:09]
Michael Bostic
you get the call out.
- [15:11]
Lauren Bostic
You know what's so interesting when you're saying what makes a good speech? This is, like, very weird. But that makes a good piece of social media content, too.
- [15:19]
Jon Favreau
It does.
- [15:20]
Lauren Bostic
Like, when I'm. When I am, like, when I hop on my Instagram story, I try to hit what you're talking about, which is like feeling like you are talking directly to the person. And you've seen people like Alex Earl, who's obviously blown up, and her whole thing is she talks to the audience like she's FaceTiming them.
- [15:38]
Michael Bostic
Yeah.
- [15:38]
Lauren Bostic
So. So in a weird way, it's a little bit like creating a piece of content for social media, obviously on a bigger stage. But it's similar. It's similar points.
- [15:46]
Jon Favreau
Very similar. Yeah, very similar. And look, I think there's a slight difference. If you're delivering a speech to a crowd of, you know, 5,000 people, 20,000 people, like, you're gonna want some lines in the speech and moments in the speech where you get applause or you get people on their feet or you get people feeling emotion. So you know, depending on the venue and the audience, it can change a bit. But I still think it is, it's a hard and fast rule to make the speech as conversational as possible.
- [16:15]
Michael Bostic
So on the personality side, and I'm sure you've analyzed this and thought about it before, if you were to look at Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Trump, what do you think that they, cuz obviously like they all became president, one is still president. What do you think each of their strengths are and weaknesses are as it relates to giving speeches? Because obviously like they're able to, these people have been able to resonate with audiences.
- [16:39]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I mean I'll start with just their. I think that people who rise to that level in politics have a confidence and a self assuredness and it is this belief that like, this is who I am and this is what I believe and you like it or you don't like it. And you know, I knew that watching Obama firsthand and getting to know him really well. You can clearly tell that from Donald Trump. And I do think, I think Biden has an element of that too because I think he has been in politics obviously for a very, very long time. But you know, the Joe Biden, I mean, and I got to know him in the White House as well. But like the Joe Biden that was in public is the Joe Biden behind the scenes as well too. You know, he's just, he is who he is and he hasn't, he's okay not changing that. I think that for speaking, you know, with Donald Trump, like Donald Trump is at his worst speaking. If we're just talking about the style of speaking.
- [17:39]
Michael Bostic
Yeah, just, I'm just like the style of speaking.
- [17:41]
Jon Favreau
He's at his worst when he has to read off a prompter and you can tell that he is reading something that his staff wrote for him and he doesn't like it because he has this feel for the crowd. It's also, it's the same as he's better in front of a crowd than he is when it's just the camera because he has a sense of what's working and what's not working. Obama was like this too. When he was in front of a big crowd, he could just, he knew when a line was working, when it wasn't, when a riff was working, when it wasn't. Then we'd go back and retool it and he would Use the ones that were working well and not. And so I think that that ability to feel and sense where the crowd was going and how it was reacting is like a strength for both.
- [18:23]
Michael Bostic
They can like feel the energy of what's going on in the room, no matter how big.
- [18:26]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [18:26]
Michael Bostic
They know how to react to maybe moments that weren't planned.
- [18:29]
Jon Favreau
Yes. I think for Obama, one of the weaknesses, one of the challenges that we always had to overcome is he wants to over explain everything if something's not working or he thinks something's unpopular, like his instinct is okay, if I just explain more, more facts, more statistics than like it's going to land. And I think in this attentional environment, even back then, when you only have people's attention for a short amount of time, you can't just be like going deep into the weeds on everything. And so we would constantly have to like cut, shape, polish so that he was giving more of an emotional argument than like getting into the weeds on every single policy issue.
- [19:14]
Lauren Bostic
He needed to land the plane.
- [19:15]
Jon Favreau
He needed to land the plane. I mean, with Trump it's like that, but in a different way. Trump's not really trying to over explain, but he's just going on and on and on and I mean, like the two hour, two and a half hour rally speeches are. It's amazing to watch that he can just talk that long. I don't think it serves him that well. I think that, you know, he's probably at his best when the cameras cut to him for like 10 minutes at a rally. I don't think it necessarily works with the television audience, but it works with the people who go to the rally.
- [19:47]
Michael Bostic
You know what though, like, and I, again, like, I'm not so close to this, but when I just think about watching both of them give speeches now that I'm like analyzing it in this way, which I've never done. There's something about the way they speak where you just feel like they, they're speaking to you in such a common sense way. They're speaking to you in such terms that you can understand. It's like, it's so digestible, it's relatable is what it is. No matter like what's going on, like they're, they're able to, to deliver it in a way where you like, to your point, you feel like you're talking to your buddy and that they, like they understand.
- [20:20]
Lauren Bostic
Is that them or the speechwriter though?
- [20:22]
Jon Favreau
Well, that part's them.
- [20:24]
Michael Bostic
Because I don't, because I think sometimes where at least for me, like, it goes over the head is when you feel like you're being delivered some very coordinated and, like, polished and designed, or
- [20:36]
Lauren Bostic
someone uses way too big of words. I'm like, I can't do it. I can't get a theorist out.
- [20:41]
Michael Bostic
There's something like a spider sense that I think kicks in. And all of us, we're like, I don't know if I trust that.
- [20:46]
Jon Favreau
You know, what they both do is they break the third wall a lot. And Obama's humor was always at its best when he was making fun of the game that is politics and letting people know. Like, I know that a lot of this is bullshit, and believe me, like, I'm still normal. I get that this is crazy. I'm just going to tell you about it. And Trump does the same thing pretty well.
- [21:11]
Michael Bostic
Yeah, it's very human.
- [21:12]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [21:13]
Michael Bostic
And I think, like, what I think both of them have done, and Biden too, a little bit, but both of them have done, is they kind of took us out of the Bush, Clinton, Reaganry, like, polished political realm. And you talked about a little bit with the book, and they made it feel like, okay, I'm participating in this as opposed to just viewing it and kind of trying to keep up.
- [21:33]
Jon Favreau
Right. And because I think that, you know, it's no accident that that sort of coincided with just trust in political institutions, media, all institutions going way, way down. And so people are more primed to think that what they're hearing from a politician or a business leader or anyone is bullshit. And so if it sounds like you are reading something that is tightly scripted or that you're, like, reading the stage directions, then people aren't going to trust you fundamentally. And if you sound like you're just talking to them, then they're more likely to trust you. And I think a lot of politicians have a problem with that.
- [22:11]
Lauren Bostic
Can you explain to the audience how you conceptualize a speech? Like, say, say Obama came to you and he wants to talk about blank. You could give us a topic. How do you guys start to do it? Is it collaborative the whole time? Tell us the behind the scenes.
- [22:26]
Jon Favreau
Sure. So let's say. So last time I worked with him on something was the last Democratic convention when he spoke for Kamala. And I would talk to him and say, okay, what do you want to communicate? What is the one thing that you really want the audience to take away? What's been on your mind that's really bothering you about politics or bothering you about the campaign or you think you want to say so you Sort of I just get his thoughts and then he and I will usually just have a conversation about politics, what's going on the news, and I will sit there and just type everything he says and just get it all down on a piece of paper. And he will sometimes have an outline in his mind of where he wants to go in the speech. It is the real lawyerly part in him where I remember when during the 08 campaign, he gave this big speech on race about his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and it was this big controversy. And so he delivered this big speech on race. And he called me the Saturday night before the speech at like 11 o' clock at night, after he had been on the campaign trail. We were giving the speech two days later. I was freaked out that I had to write it so quickly. And he was like, I'm just gonna be stream of consciousness and tell you like what's on my mind. And then hopefully you can put something together. And then he starts going like, all right, I want to talk about 1, 1A, 2, 2A, 2B, then go 3. Like he had off the top of his head, the outline of what he wanted to say. Now, that didn't happen all the time, but he's very good at figuring out the outlines of the speech. Partly I think it's the lawyer and partly it's the storyteller. Because he knows that, like the speech, a lot of political speeches are just like applause line after applause line and. Or like this is gonna be quoted by the press, so I gotta put this line in. But they're not all like connected together. So he's very good at connecting different parts of the speech into a story. So once we get the story of the speech, the layout, the logic, the flow of the speech, correct, and I get his thoughts, then I go off and I'll do a draft and I'll write the speech. If there's research needed, I'll have. I have a team that would help do research for the speech. Whether it's like finding an interesting anecdote or a quote from history or just policy research, if we're doing a policy topic. And so I'd get all that input, finish the draft, I would send it around to all the relevant people in the campaign or the White House, depending on what it was. Then I would send it to Obama. It would either come back with a bunch of edits and markups and he would take a pen and just sort of like rewrite and stuff like that, or it would come back with very few marks on it and Like a notepad, a yellow notepad just full of writing, which meant, like, he wanted to really rework the speech. And which I ended up. I liked that because whenever he put a lot of effort into the speech and a lot of himself into the speech, it ended up being a speech that only he could give. And one of the better speeches he would give. You know, I mean, we were. When he got the Nobel Prize, we didn't have much time at all to write that speech. And I remember it was the morning that we left for Oslo that he handed us. I worked on the speech with Ben Rhodes, my fellow speechwriter. He handed us 11 pages of written material for the speech, plus the speech we had already written. And he was like, I like some of what you guys have. Here's what I'm thinking. Can you combine it all together and have it ready before we get on the plane tonight? And then when we landed in Oslo, he had to deliver the speech right after, like, an hour after landing.
- [26:03]
Michael Bostic
And this pre. ChatGPT. You can't just blend it all together.
- [26:05]
Jon Favreau
No.
- [26:06]
Michael Bostic
ChatGPT.
- [26:07]
Lauren Bostic
Is there a teleprompter there?
- [26:08]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [26:09]
Lauren Bostic
Yes. So he's reading a teleprompter as well?
- [26:10]
Jon Favreau
Yes, yes. And he's reading. And on that speech, I added the last page of the speech into the teleprompter as he was walking up to the stage. It was the closest we had ever gotten to not having a speech.
- [26:21]
Lauren Bostic
What's the worst speech you've ever seen in your entire life?
- [26:28]
Jon Favreau
Wow, that's a good one.
- [26:31]
Lauren Bostic
Be honest.
- [26:33]
Jon Favreau
I mean, you know, there's a lot of Trump ones that are pretty bad. I don't know that I could, like.
- [26:40]
Michael Bostic
Biden had some bad ones, too. Yeah, you know, he had some rough ones, too.
- [26:44]
Jon Favreau
Biden had some rough ones, too. Not as rough as the. I mean, the debate performance is hard,
- [26:48]
Michael Bostic
but you're also coming off the back of, like, one of the. Again, greatest speech givers of all time. So it's like, it's a hard bar. You know, you already got to work with, like, the top.
- [26:56]
Jon Favreau
I mean, there's speeches that are bad just because they're written poorly or the person delivering them is delivering them poorly.
- [27:02]
Lauren Bostic
Or they plagiarize.
- [27:03]
Jon Favreau
Or they plagiarize.
- [27:04]
Michael Bostic
Yeah.
- [27:04]
Jon Favreau
But then there's also. We were talking about this recently. There's speeches, like, sometimes we get in the habit of this in the White House sometimes because Barack Obama was such a great speaker, is people thinking that if there's a big problem, a speech will solve the problem, right? And like, no matter what, if we just give a speech and Remember back in 2010, there was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf. And remember, it just kept spilling oil over and over and no one could plug the hole. And Barack Obama was getting so much criticism for it. And everyone was like, we have to give an Oval Office address on the oil spill. I was like, great. Do we have a solution to stop the oil spill? And we didn't. And I was like, this speech is going to be terrible because no matter how well it's written and no matter how well it's delivered, people want to the oil spill to stop. And if it doesn't do that, it was gonna be judged a failure. So, like, people who give speeches, and I do think that. And we talked about it recently, because Trump's speech about Iran last week, the primetime address, was very similar. Like, the speech didn't have any news in it. So there was.
- [28:08]
Michael Bostic
People just don't wanna be at war.
- [28:09]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Like, he wasn't announcing the end of the war. He wasn't announcing more war. He was just, like, summarizing his free social posts. So, like, it wasn't judged well because it didn't do anything, didn't solve any problems.
- [28:22]
Lauren Bostic
What about a speech that blew your mind? Not political.
- [28:26]
Jon Favreau
Hmm.
- [28:26]
Lauren Bostic
Maybe it was at the Oscars. Maybe it was a TED Talk. What's something where you were like, damn, that person really nailed it.
- [28:34]
Jon Favreau
I'm trying to think of who.
- [28:35]
Michael Bostic
Those are hard questions, though.
- [28:37]
Jon Favreau
These are really hard questions.
- [28:38]
Lauren Bostic
I just think that you. I feel like you would point us to a speech where we could go watch it and be like, that's how you get the speech.
- [28:44]
Jon Favreau
It's an amazing speech.
- [28:45]
Lauren Bostic
Someone just gave one, I feel like, at the Oscars, but maybe not this time. Maybe it was the last time that was so good, that had everyone standing and clapping. But I can't remember.
- [28:53]
Michael Bostic
Wasn't Sean Penn.
- [28:54]
Jon Favreau
Was not Sean Penn. No.
- [28:55]
Lauren Bostic
I didn't see Sean Penn.
- [28:57]
Michael Bostic
Neither did anyone else.
- [28:58]
Lauren Bostic
Okay.
- [28:59]
Michael Bostic
He didn't show up.
- [29:00]
Lauren Bostic
I didn't show up.
- [29:00]
Jon Favreau
I'm trying to think.
- [29:02]
Lauren Bostic
There was. Matthew McConaughey is pretty good at speeches.
- [29:05]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [29:06]
Lauren Bostic
He's. He gets you going with that accent. He's got his mannerisms. There's something about him that looks pretty good.
- [29:14]
Michael Bostic
I like watching some of these guys go and speak at college graduation.
- [29:18]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [29:18]
Michael Bostic
Jim Carrey's done a good one. Remember that one?
- [29:20]
Jon Favreau
Oprah.
- [29:20]
Michael Bostic
Oprah, yeah.
- [29:22]
Jon Favreau
Oprah's. Oprah's excellent.
- [29:23]
Michael Bostic
Charlie Munger did a good one.
- [29:25]
Lauren Bostic
Do you think that's natural or all contrived or both.
- [29:28]
Jon Favreau
I think it is. I think some people are just naturally talented at doing that. Like, I think Oprah is just as good as people think she is. Like, when she gives a speech like that, you're like, oh, that's. That's something that only she could. She could do.
- [29:40]
Lauren Bostic
This episode is brought to you by Zyzol. I am so allergic to cats. The worst. And I use zyzole allergy 24 hour. Okay. If you're like me, if I like, even smell a cat, I don't feel good the next day. So it's really important that I always have my Zyzol allergy 24 hour relief in my handbag. It starts working and I can tell you guys this quick. It's like in as little as 45 minutes, Zyl relieves allergy symptoms, including sneezing, runny nose, itchy, watery eyes. I get a lot of watery eyes and an itchy nose and throat for 24 hours. It gives you continuous 24 allergy relief that won't fade. It's also designed to be taken at night, so it's already working at full strength in the morning when pollen levels are the highest. I'm also sensitive to pollen and Austin is is difficult. 24 hour prescription strength relief from outdoor allergies such as pollen, ragweed, grass and trees. And then you also are going to get relief from those indoor allergens such as dust, mold, pet dander. Visit www.zizal.com for more information. That's X, Y, Z A L dot com for more information. I am very much about unique tops. I really like a unique top because I am hosting and podcasting so much that the top needs to be really cool because that is what is on camera. And I love a bodysuit because it really sucks me in and makes me feeling hot. There is this bodysuit that I just bought by Alice and Olivia. It is the Keenan long sleeve polo bodysuit I sized up. Okay. It's black. It's amazing. It has the best collar. It's so chic and it really holds me in. I have been a fan of this brand for tops specifically for such a long time. This brand just hits all the things that I want. It has a sophisticated silhouette. It has a lot of, like, corporate cool girl essentials, and it has the perfect party top. I love their bodysuits because the founder, Stacy was on the quest to design the perfect pair of pants back in 2002 and she's evolved the brand into this incredible contemporary lifestyle brand. And I'm telling you, each piece is a wearable work of art. You have to see the bodysuits that I'm referring to and you'll get it. But I'm just a fan of this brand in general. If you're just looking for a great blouse or if you're looking for a nice collared top or something that just is really flattering, Alice and Olivia has you covered. Exclusively for the Bosstix listeners, Alice and Olivia is offering 15% off everything from new arrivals to bestsellers. Visit alisonolivia.com skinny and 15% off will automatically be applied to your cart. That's a L I C E A N D O L I V I a to get 15% off exclusions may apply watch Running Point Season 2 only on Netflix April 23 for a new season of the hilarious basketball comedy Running Point. I watched this with Michael. It was fabulous. Season two promises all the things higher stakes is Isla Gordon, who's Kate Hudson, is determined to prove her leadership of the Los Angeles Waves is permanent rather than a surprise temporary fix following last year's team scandal. However, she remains unaware that her brother Cam is secretly maneuvering behind the scenes to reclaim his former job as head of the sports empire. To survive family power plays and intense board scrutiny, Isla must rip up her old playbook and create a new game plan to stay on top. The roster grows this season with star studded guest appearances from Ray Romano, Max Greenfield and and cameos from Octavia Spencer, Nicole Richie, Scott Speedman and Lisa Rinna. Also, you should know that her brother Cam is played by Justin Theroux. If you're like me and Michael, you'll be cuddled up watching this on the couch with some popcorn and a big blanket. Watch Running Point Season 2 now only on Netflix.
- [33:53]
Michael Bostic
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- [35:35]
Jon Favreau
you know, filter in what way? Like, what am I?
- [35:39]
Michael Bostic
Like, how do you, like, just like, do you look at this and you're like, oh, this is B.S. i know exactly what's going on behind the scenes. It's a talking point. Or you're like, hey, this is something I gotta pay attention. How do you consume now, knowing what you know?
- [35:50]
Jon Favreau
I mean, when it's news about politics in the White House or campaigns. Even though I've, you know, now been out of politics since 2013, I think about my experience in the White House, my experience in politics, and try to judge what's happening based on that. So there's some sort of insight that, that gives me that I judge it on. I've also now been podcasting and in media for the last almost decade.
- [36:19]
Lauren Bostic
And you're a pioneer.
- [36:22]
Jon Favreau
I don't know if I'm a pioneer, but it's been a long time now.
- [36:24]
Michael Bostic
One of the early ones.
- [36:25]
Jon Favreau
One of the early ones. And so I judge a lot of the media content based on just, you know, what I've seen over the last, over the last decade. But look, I think one of, we sort of fell into podcasting and one of the reasons I like the medium so much is, I do think television as a medium. And a lot of the television news broadcasts, cable broadcasts. We talked about this with speeches. Like, they are at a point where. Because how television news and cable news is structured and how anchors speak, it's not how people consume information anymore. So if people are used to consuming information with, you know, watching an influencer on TikTok or Instagram and then they tune into the news and it's someone like sitting there with their papers and reading like their Walter Cronkite, then it's not going to feel as compelling because they're not going to feel as authentic. And there's. There's going to be that distance between the person delivering the news or talking about politics and the audience. And with podcasting, like, you're just sitting around a table, you forget that the camera's there, you're having a conversation with friends.
- [37:36]
Michael Bostic
It's not sound bites either.
- [37:37]
Jon Favreau
It's not sound bites. And so you just sort of let clarify the.
- [37:40]
Michael Bostic
Like you say something and something. Oh, well, what did you mean? Like, they're not used to doing that on these other platforms. Like, one question back, back, and then you're done.
- [37:47]
Jon Favreau
And I notice it now because I still do cable hits from time to time. And whenever I'm on cable tv, I'm like, oh, I have like two minutes, then there's going to be a commercial break.
- [37:57]
Michael Bostic
I'm terrible at it. I can't.
- [37:57]
Jon Favreau
It's still. I still am not. Like, I've gotten better at it over the podcasting has made me better because I now don't worry about the appearance. I'm like, whatever. It's going to be on. I'm sitting in my. Usually I'm sitting in the studio, the podcast studio. So I'll just talk. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not. But, like, at some point you don't care as much. You've, like, had enough reps that you're like, whatever.
- [38:18]
Michael Bostic
Speaking of that. And I wanted to talk to you about this. So. So again, we started this show, if you could go back 10 years. We started it Health Wellness. We were curious about the media and we were listening to a lot of shows, people like Tim Ferriss and Rich Roll, like self optimization, a lot of that. And we just fell into this and it's evolved into a medium where the types of people that will now come on shows like this compared to the early days is drastically different. Right?
- [38:42]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [38:42]
Michael Bostic
Like it was back in the day. If any politician or any. A list person went on any show. It was like in the podcast industry was like, oh, my God, somebody. Like, I remember Tim Ferriss had LeBron James and people were like, I can't believe this happened.
- [38:53]
Jon Favreau
I remember when Obama did Marc Maron.
- [38:55]
Michael Bostic
Yep. That was huge, too.
- [38:56]
Jon Favreau
It was like, it was like, I. People hadn't heard of a podcast before.
- [38:59]
Michael Bostic
Yeah. And so, you know, obviously it's a. We've evolved with the medium. Recently we had RFK Jr. On here. And obviously, like, that hits a nerve on both sides. Some people are very excited.
- [39:09]
Jon Favreau
I'm sure everyone was thrilled.
- [39:11]
Michael Bostic
No, but, but what I, what I, what we appreciate about the medium is whether you agree with someone's policies or not, if somebody's actively in office, they're going to affect you in some kind of way. So we had some clarifying questions. I've seen you talk about this in the past where you say you think more people on both sides of the aisle should do more long form content. And one of the criticisms we got, which I read, a lot of them, I ignore. I say, okay, like, the people are just angry because somebody's on, like, ignore. You know, people are like, do better, ignore. But some of the feedback was, hey, why do you guys have this person and not invite more people on the left? And what I don't think they see is like, recently we invited Gavin Newsom on. Gavin, if you're listening, and maybe if it got to him, not sure, but it for sure got to his people. It's a decline. And what I've seen doing this is there's maybe a willingness for more people on the right or the perceived right to come and do long form and maybe less so on the left. I don't know if you agree with that or not.
- [40:07]
Jon Favreau
I think that was, that has definitely been true over the last couple years. I think it's changing a lot. I mean, Gavin, I'm surprised he said no because he's been doing a lot.
- [40:16]
Michael Bostic
He's got a new book.
- [40:16]
Jon Favreau
I'll try to get to him.
- [40:17]
Michael Bostic
Yeah, I'll try to tell him. And listen, I'll put in a good word. Maybe he didn't even know. But sometimes, you know, like, I think maybe one of his people saw it and they're like, oh, they had this on. And they think it's. The perception is one way or the other.
- [40:27]
Jon Favreau
But, you know, that for him is not a problem because he has been among a lot of different Democrats. Gavin's good about this. Ro Khanna's good about this is like going on right Wing or not right wing, but even just like right leaning or not political at all. Podcasts and just like talking with people who may disagree with him. And Gavin has a podcast and he's had, you know, he had Charlie Kirk on, he had Steve Bannon on. So he's been trying this, like talking to people.
- [40:55]
Michael Bostic
He's trying to get into the medium. I've seen.
- [40:56]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. I think it's.
- [40:57]
Michael Bostic
Well, that's why I thought he would say yes.
- [40:58]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Because I think. And look, some of these things is he's got the book and he's running around.
- [41:02]
Lauren Bostic
It also could be also the people. Well, we can't just blame Gavin. It could be the people.
- [41:07]
Michael Bostic
Anyways, what I'm addressing is, I think like, you know, as hosts, all you can really do is extend the invites. Right. Like we have. And what I've noticed. And again, I won't get into particulars and put everybody on. I did that for Gavin because I want to pressure him to come on. But what I've noticed is we're typically able to get a few more yeses for people that are maybe considered in the right camp than we are in the left camp. And I don't think it's just this show. I just think there's more people in that realm that are open to doing long form like this and having these debates. I mean, maybe it's changing and I just wanted to talk to you about it.
- [41:40]
Jon Favreau
I mean, I think, I hope it's changing because I very much believe that Democratic politicians or left leaning political figures should absolutely be everywhere all the time. And I think the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians have been slow to realize that not everyone, in fact, most people aren't getting their news from CNN or MSNBC anymore.
- [42:05]
Michael Bostic
We don't even have the news in our house anymore.
- [42:06]
Jon Favreau
I mean, it's. We don't watch it in our house. It's not on. And I do it for a living.
- [42:11]
Lauren Bostic
That's crazy.
- [42:12]
Michael Bostic
That's interesting to hear you say that.
- [42:13]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Cause it's just. It's not. Well, I mean, also part of the problem is we have two little kids.
- [42:18]
Lauren Bostic
Yeah.
- [42:18]
Jon Favreau
And so I'm like, I can't put the news on.
- [42:21]
Michael Bostic
I go to my 82 year old dad's house and that thing is blasting and it's just like, it takes me.
- [42:25]
Lauren Bostic
Right. I put it on mute when I
- [42:26]
Michael Bostic
go ptsd right back to childhood.
- [42:28]
Jon Favreau
It's funny. No. My parents live up in Thousand Oaks and my wife always notes that when we walk into their house and the TVs on Ms. Now. And it's like they just always have that, that TV is on. Yeah. But I think that Democrats were slow to realize that people are consuming information in so many different ways and like, you just have to be there. And I, I don't think it's a, like a partisan reason for like, oh, we don't want to go in more right leaning spaces or places that aren't friendly to Democrats. I think it is a fear of like, am I going to do well? Am I gonna be normal? Am I gonna, you know, like there is this sort of innate caution that I think for Democrats is born of. Now having lost two elections to Donald Trump and a lot of most Democrats in the party don't trust their instincts anymore. Cause they're like, well, we lost the first election and then we won, but then we lost the second. Actually makes sense now we don't know what to say. So they'll be all stiff and you know, like, everyone's like, oh, Joe Rogan, everyone should go on Joe Rogan. Yes. But I could also like count on one hand the number of Democratic politicians if I was working for them that I would trust to go on Joe Rogan. Because a lot of them I think would be have no idea what they
- [43:36]
Michael Bostic
were getting into because he's so smart.
- [43:39]
Jon Favreau
Just because he would. He just because he would throw them questions on topics that they are totally not prepared for.
- [43:46]
Michael Bostic
Yeah. Like you could go down a line. Well, but I think that, but funny enough, I think that's what people are looking for. It's like, I want to hear your perspective on policy and ideas. I also want to hear how you think about. And I also want to think about what you do for a hobby and what you like. And are you gonna watch the new Star wars movie, the Mandalorian? I want it like, I think people want to know.
- [44:05]
Lauren Bostic
They want to know them. I think they want to know the behind the scenes.
- [44:08]
Michael Bostic
And what I've always viewed it as, because we've been doing the show for a long time, is whenever you start to broach those conversations, say, hey, wanna have this person? Well, what are the topics? What are the questions? I'm like, no, we're gonna like just have a, like we can give you ideas of what we want to talk about, but there's no, like, there's not like set talking points. There's no set questions. It's like we're having a conversation. And I think that throws some people.
- [44:27]
Jon Favreau
We have in the Democratic Party, we have a lot of front row kids who are in class, they were like, in the front row, raising their hand, asking for more homework. And I think the challenge is when they're in those settings and you're asking them, like, what are your hobbies? What do you like to do? They know the answers, but the editor's going in their head and they're like, what is safe? What if I say this and this upsets this person? If I say this, then this person's gonna be mad. And what if people don't like my hobby? And what if my hobby's lame? Like, the self editing starts and they're just too nervous to. Which is again, goes back to, like, what Obama has, which, like, you have to be comfortable in your own skin. And just like, this is who I am and these are my answers. And if people don't like them, whatever.
- [45:13]
Michael Bostic
Well, Obama can do it. And he does some shows. And I think he's great at. Obviously Trump does. And to Secretary Kennedy's credit, like, and I'll just say we had. There was no preempted questions. There was no script. We made him sign a release like everybody else ahead of time. There was no edit. It was like, it just had a conversation and he answered the question. And I thought that, you know, we tried to keep it very, like, down the line of, like, what's going on, particularly in health and health policy. But, like, we threw some questions at him and he at least had answers. And I think, like, people appreciate that because they want to see that the people in charge are at least thinking about trying to figure out a solution. Whether you agree with the solution or not. Like, we want to know, like, hey, what are you doing, guys? Working on over there?
- [45:48]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [45:49]
Michael Bostic
How are you thinking about taking care of us? Right. I think people appreciate once, even if they falter a little bit or even if they kind of stumble and they are trying. And you're seeing like they. They actually are thinking about it. Like, I think we're. We recognize the human element and appreciate people doing that.
- [46:05]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, no, it's just. I think it's also the only way anyone makes progress on anything is like having real conversations, sometimes difficult conversations, having sometimes disagreements and debates, lives that aren't like, perfectly mediated and, and planned and ahead of time. Like, that's. That's how, like, real change comes about. And persuasion.
- [46:27]
Lauren Bostic
Speaking of persuasion, you said politics is a persuasion game. What's. And this is from the team. This is not my question. I will say this is a team question. They said, what's a specific political belief that you've held that you were successfully persuaded to change.
- [46:45]
Jon Favreau
Well, I think this is. I think this is sort of over the last couple years, but when I was a Democrat coming up in Democratic politics, anytime you would give a speech about Israel or Democratic politician would give a speech about Israel, you would talk about how amazing Israel is and our closest ally, and wonderful. And it's like, you have to be pro Israel no matter what. And that's like the whole. That's all a core thing to the Democratic Party. And I think Even when obviously October 7th happened, and I was just horrified, I think it's like what Hamas did was the worst things you can do to other human beings. And I think when there at first was criticism of Israel's prosecution of the war in Gaza, I was much more likely to think, well, that's just people who are on the far left and they don't. And then as more came out and the war went on and the killing continued, I really did start changing my opinion of the Israeli government and Israel and what it was doing in the Middle East. And it's hard in the Democratic Party even now. I think it's a big split in the party because there's still people who say, well, that's our closest ally in the Middle East. I also think, like, you know, here in the United States, I very much believe that we have a president who is, you know, has authoritarian tendencies and wants to turn the United States into something that I don't, you know, believe it should be turned into. And so I'm always like, why couldn't that happen in Israel as well? Right. Like, that's just, I think that's what Bibi Netanyahu and a lot of the Israeli government has done there as well. So my opinion on Israel, and not to bring up an issue that is, I know this is an easy issue that everyone agrees on, but it's changed over time. It's changed over time.
- [48:41]
Michael Bostic
I highly consider myself independent, large, because I've never been in politics, and I try to take issue by issue, but I imagine when you have the party affiliations that someone like yourself has and are that close, and you start to change your opinion, is that a challenge to do? Do you lose friends over that? Do you start to have pushback? Do you have professionals reaching out to you saying, don't do that.
- [49:01]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, you do. I mean, on the, you know, people have gotten mad at, well, it's funny because when I was in politics, it didn't happen as much because you're really in the bubble when you're working in politics, you're either in the White House, you're on a campaign, and so you're just surrounded by people who think like you. And there is a bunker mentality, especially when you get to the White House. I think that's true of every administration of both parties. Once I started podcasting and being a political commentator, you still have some of that. Like, the first couple years, I think I still had that. Now I am much more willing to say something that I believe, and if people on my side get mad at me.
- [49:39]
Michael Bostic
Yeah, well, you've, like, really broken out and built your own thing, built your own media company show. So it's a bit different. But I imagine that's a struggle, because it might. It almost feels like you're, like, abandoning.
- [49:48]
Jon Favreau
I mean, this wasn't like, a policy issue, but the. The most criticism we got was after that first debate with Biden and Trump. And we all. Right. After that debate said, you know, Biden should really consider dropping out.
- [50:04]
Michael Bostic
Yeah, but I mean, like, people. I mean, like, I think. I think all of us at the time were like, well, there's something off a little bit.
- [50:10]
Jon Favreau
Well, that's what I mean, that's why we were like, are you. And we would get, like, so much pushback from the Biden campaign, from friends of ours in Democratic politics that we've had forever. It's like, what are you guys doing? You don't know what you're talking about. You were just. You were always jealous of Joe Biden and the Obama White House, and it's a vendetta that the pod guys have. And, you know, Hunter Biden was very mad at us. But of course, like, I was like, well, do you guys realize what most of the country believes right now? But that was, you know, and it's not like it was tough. I was very happy to do it. And I think we were right.
- [50:45]
Michael Bostic
Well, I mean, like, the country we have, we all have eyeballs.
- [50:48]
Jon Favreau
That's what I said. Yeah, exactly. You know, but it was like, it was, you know.
- [50:51]
Michael Bostic
Well, I think. I mean, credit to you because I think the people that didn't do that and kept up, like, you know, maybe were, like, carrying on a facade that they knew was not true. It's like they. I think a lot of those people lost a lot of credibility. Right. Because it's like the truth always kind of shines through and we can all see what's going on. And so if you didn't do that, I don't think you'd have the platform.
- [51:08]
Lauren Bostic
You have now, we were just talking on an earlier episode about how one of the highest signs of intelligence is flexibility of the mind and being able to change your mind mind. And it feels like sometimes in this day and age, if you change your mind, it's the torches and the trolls coming after you. We have to be able to get to a point where people are allowed to change their mind.
- [51:26]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [51:27]
Michael Bostic
Yes.
- [51:28]
Lauren Bostic
Like, I'm sorry. Just because I thought, you know, five years ago that I liked this or that doesn't mean I have to think it today.
- [51:35]
Michael Bostic
Well, and as it relates to politics, too. And again, I just will. I'll pick on the RFK issue one more time. Like, agree with his policies or not. Whatever. I want to hear somebody come on and give a counter idea or a better idea if you disagree. What I don't like is these people just fighting and attacking each other constantly. It's like, okay, if we all can step back and say, well, maybe there's a health issue going on in the country. We're all kind of aware of it. If that's not the right idea, I'm not highlighting a specific policy, then what's the better idea? But when people just scream and yell and say this person's this or that, like, I think it does a disservice to everybody in the conversation.
- [52:11]
Jon Favreau
Well, RFK Jr. Is a great example because I think that if Democrats just write off the Maha movement as a bunch of kooks, then that is not only wrong, but politically dumb. Because, you know, I heard. I heard some of the episode where you guys talked to rfk and like, a lot of it is stuff that Michelle Obama could have said when she did let's move as an initiative in the White House. And I get it. I'm very into health and wellness. I fiercely disagree with him on vaccines. And I also wish that a lot of what he believes about companies and food companies and what they do to our food, that there was actually more regulatory pushback in the administration. I think he has wanted some of that. And the rest of the administration has said no, which I think that glycephate
- [53:05]
Michael Bostic
issue he brought up.
- [53:06]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, like, I think. I think it says something about, like, the priorities of the rest of the administration. And I think actually some of the stuff that I probably agree with him most on, he hasn't made as much progress on as some of the stuff that I don't agree with him on. But I get that there is complexity there, even recently about Iran. Right. Like, I'm very against this war and I Want it to end. And you know, Tucker Carlson gave a 40 minute monologue on his show about the war that I listened to this morning and I posted it. And I'm like, I know I'm supposed to say I don't agree with Tucker, but he made a few good points. I'm like, I thought that 40 minutes of this, there were only a few things that I disagreed with here.
- [53:44]
Michael Bostic
This is where I think that we're seeing the breaking of the traditional parties in this country. Because there's people now that are like, I mean, there's things that again, we've been around a little longer than some of the audience. If you go back 20 years, some of these policies that we're all talking about used to be on the left. Now some were on the right and they like flip flop positions. But somebody's like, wait, I'm still on this side. And like, how'd that get over there? And that's over there. And so it's confusing.
- [54:08]
Jon Favreau
Right?
- [54:09]
Michael Bostic
Like, and you know, Bill Maher's been on the show and he talks about that all the time where he's like, you know, I, he's, he always says that he didn't change, like things have changed. And I think what we're viewing here is that people are wanting to take common sense, practical approach. I'm talking about the majority of American people. They just, they want to be healthier, they want their kids to be okay, they want to thrive, they want to be safe. They don't want to be in endless war. Those are things that people want. And I think sometimes if it doesn't align, they feel scared to say that. But we're all kind of looking for the same thing, which is prosperity for ourselves and our families.
- [54:41]
Lauren Bostic
Yeah.
- [54:42]
Jon Favreau
And look, sometimes people can very much agree on what the problem is and have very fierce and legitimate disagreements on the outcome. Like, healthcare coverage is a great example of that. You know, like you can have. Most of the country thinks that we pay too much for healthcare and that everyone in the country should have access to affordable healthcare. How to get that done is obviously a point of fierce disagreement with both parties. And I, you know, I have my views and other people have their views, but at least like you can agree on, on a problem. I do think there's like a, there's two different things we're talking about here. One is sort of policy differences and the other is like a larger sort of political, political strategy. How we, how we talk to each other, whether we give each other grace for making mistakes, for not Using the exact right words for everything, for, for changing our minds, for going back and forth on things, for making mistakes. And I think that both parties have had issues with that, especially over the last decade, especially in the social media age. And this goes back to our conversation about sort of going on other podcasts with people you disagree with. I think there was a time where it was like, don't platform this person or don't say that, or you can't be seen with this person or you can't be having, you can't be associated with this person.
- [55:58]
Michael Bostic
But they're not going away.
- [55:59]
Jon Favreau
They're not going away. And again, it's not like if you go on someone's podcast or you're associated with someone, you have to agree with all of their views.
- [56:07]
Lauren Bostic
I look up to Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters, I think interviewed Saddam Hussein.
- [56:11]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [56:12]
Lauren Bostic
No one on the Internet said you're giving Saddam Hussein a platform, but guess what?
- [56:16]
Jon Favreau
He had a platform.
- [56:18]
Lauren Bostic
I'm a media outlet. If I like to interview people of all different walks of life and I like to understand why people came to that conclusion, it doesn't mean that I'm co signing them. And a lot of people that come on here I don't agree with. Yeah, but it's up to the audience to form their own opinion. I don't have an agenda to work through the person to get to the audience well.
- [56:38]
Jon Favreau
And when sometimes the audience gets upset. What I always try to tell folks is like when you're listening to something or watching something, the point of it is not to make you feel that all of your pre existing views are validated, because maybe it is. But if that's the case, then like what did you get from that? It's like it's comfort food. Right? It's like, I believe this. I listened to this and I was like, absolutely.
- [57:02]
Michael Bostic
It's like you turn Seinfeld at night to go to sleep.
- [57:04]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [57:04]
Lauren Bostic
It's not chatgpt.
- [57:06]
Michael Bostic
No.
- [57:06]
Jon Favreau
Like I want to be challenged. I want to listen to a challenging conversation between people. Like what if like the criticism of that that we get sometimes, and I take it seriously, is the four of us on Pod Save America. Like we agree a lot. We're really good friends. We've been around each other forever. So it's like, it's, it's hard to disagree. But sometimes we try to like have debates or sometimes we try to bring people, we often try to bring people on that we don't agree with. Because I do think, and we're trying to do that More because I do think that for the audience, you want to hear our perspective, but you also want to hear perspective challenging us. Because otherwise it's just a whole bunch of people agreeing with each other. And you. And I don't know that anyone gets anything out of it.
- [57:42]
Lauren Bostic
I also think, I think that you have to think, what kind of dinner party do you want to host? Yeah, we don't want a dinner party
- [57:48]
Michael Bostic
where everyone is slapping each other on the back. I'm bored with that.
- [57:50]
Lauren Bostic
I'm bored to tears. Like I'm meditating with my weird showing up. And no, I want some different, I need some different color. I want some different opinions. I want a little. Maybe it's Thanksgiving, Aunt Bertha says something weird. I need like a lot of different energy.
- [58:03]
Michael Bostic
You're dramatic, Laura.
- [58:04]
Lauren Bostic
No, I love, like, I want different opinions.
- [58:07]
Jon Favreau
I am. At the Democratic convention last time in Chicago, we were in our little area and got a knock on the door and these two young kids and they were like, oh, we're from Jesse Waters show. He would love to have you on the show. Would you like come upstairs to the Fox studio right now at the convention and go on? Jesse Waters and some of my staff were like, you're crazy. You can't go. You're going into the lion's den, you're not prepared. And I was like, why not? Who cares what's gonna happen?
- [58:35]
Lauren Bostic
I agree with you.
- [58:36]
Jon Favreau
And it was funny. Cause I like, I walk up there and it's like being in the mothership and it's like, there's Laura Ingraham and they're all walking around and I went on Jesse's show and he gave me shit and I gave him shit back. And we like gave as good as we got and it was fun.
- [58:51]
Lauren Bostic
My prediction is that that kind of content, what you just said, that's off the cuff and not so planned out and methodical and is going to go viral. I think you're going to see all. That's what people want to watch. They want to watch different people.
- [59:06]
Michael Bostic
Having got. He's done very well with it. I mean, again, like whether he's done very well building his show independently with this kind of conversation and just having different people. I mean, I think he, you know, he. It's an eclectic group that he has on.
- [59:19]
Jon Favreau
That's a hard one too because I've seen Here's the show and it's like when you have a bunch of people who are all remote and they're all in the boxes and it's a lot because Then you're, then you're yelling over that. I'm like, maybe it's good tv, but I, maybe that's not for me. But like sitting around a table with a bunch of people, you disagree like that to me is, I could do that for sure.
- [59:39]
Michael Bostic
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- [62:39]
Lauren Bostic
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- [65:59]
Michael Bostic
So the way I look at it is we're all entrepreneurs, business people, and I look at it through the lens of like, if I'm trying to do a deal with someone, or if I'm trying to, you know, build something with someone, and I start by just personally attacking them and screaming at them and telling them how shitty their ideas are, it's gonna be hard for me to do anything with anyone. And what I worry about in American politics, and I guess now world politics in general, is that if that's how every conversation is starting and every kind of negotiation is starting, like, how do you ever solve anything for anyone? Because if the idea is that you're a terrible person and all your ideas are shit, and then write back same thing, you could never in the business world get a deal done that way.
- [66:40]
Jon Favreau
Well, in politics, the analogy is the people I think who understand how to persuade the best are people who've knocked on doors, like the organizers. Because if you've been on a campaign and you have to go knock on a bunch of random doors, first of all, you're not. Sometimes you're knocking on doors and just reminding people who are already gonna vote for your candidate, like, get out and vote. But a lot of times you're going into neighborhoods where people either might not vote or they might vote for the other candidate. And, and you get all kinds of people on the doors. And it's not even like you get like hardcore right wing people with all right wing views. You get people with like everyone in the country, such complicated views. And so they could be very liberal on one issue and very conservative on the other. And sometimes they could give you a crazy conspiracy theory that's not true at all. And sometimes they could be nice and sometimes they could shut the door in your face. And so I always find that people who have been on campaigns who have organized door to door and have talked to actual voters usually are better at persuasion, more practical, more pragmatic, wherever you stand on the ideological perspective, you could be far left and pragmatic because you've knocked on doors and far right and pragmatic. They are more pragmatic and persuasive than people who only argue about politics on the Internet.
- [67:54]
Lauren Bostic
What makes someone persuasive?
- [67:57]
Jon Favreau
I think empathy to me Is like the, probably the most important value there is. And I think about this all the time as a former speechwriter. And now in what I do is put myself in the shoes of someone listening to this who may not agree, put myself in the shoes of the audience that I'm speaking to or that the person I'm Right. Thinking, the person that I'm writing a speech for or speaking to, and what are they thinking? What are their hopes, what are their fears, what are their. Based on their backgrounds, based on their demographics, like, what might they be thinking about politics? And then also, once you've thought about that, what do we have in common? Because the whole thing falls apart if we cannot find in this country the thread that connects us all. Because if we don't have that. And look, that doesn't mean that we're always going to agree on everything. We are divided, and we're probably going to be divided for a long time. I think the hope is, can we live together even with these divisions and these disagreements? That's the test now, right? Because otherwise the whole thing falls apart. And I think you need to have politicians who, and this is why I always think of, like, there's this thing now when a Trump voter has someone in their family who's deported, they're like, oh, well, good, you voted for that. You know, and it's like anyone who, who experiences a harm like that or who's thinking twice about the political decision they made, I want to be open to that person and like, welcome them over and say, like, come on over to our side. And I think we, I think the
- [69:33]
Michael Bostic
Democratic Party kick them while they're down.
- [69:35]
Jon Favreau
No, I think Trump did that well in 2024. And now I think a lot of the people that came over to Trump in 2024 are probably now the first ones to leave because he didn't, he hasn't quite delivered what they thought. But I think in the campaign, they were very skilled and RFK Jr is an example of that. Like, people who hadn't been in the tent, they were like, welcome. You can be part of our crew. And I think Democrats need to do that as well.
- [69:59]
Michael Bostic
What do you think needs to happen in the country? And again, if you could wave a magic wand for us to get to a place where we're not so divided,
- [70:10]
Jon Favreau
I do think that we, we put too much emphasis on the actions of politicians and political leaders. I think that if we only see politics as a transactional enterprise, which is every couple years, politicians campaign, they ask for our votes, we say okay, this one seems better than the other one. Gonna give you my vote, and then I'm gonna go back to my life, and then you're gonna go fix my problems. And if you don't, then I'm gonna be pissed off, and then I'm gonna throw you out, and then I'm gonna elect someone else. Like, we will continue to be disappointed and divided. I think more people need to be involved in the act of governing. And when something doesn't happen between elections, reach out to your member of Congress, run for office yourself, get involved in your local community. I do think that because politics has become so nationalized because of the. The media environment, and like, everything's about politics. Everything's not about local politics or state politics. Everything's about national politics. I think that real change happens on a local level. And so I would love to see, like, more. I think if more Americans got involved in their community, in their neighborhood, first of all, you would encounter more people who don't agree with you necessarily. Even if you're living in a blue area or red area, there's still people with different views. And so you would learn more to work with other people and get things done with other people who you don't necessarily agree with, with. And that would filter up, as opposed to us hoping that we are going to elect the perfect person to then filter the good feelings and the unity down. Right. Like, I think that we. We just see politics too much as transactional right now. Because, look, like you get the. You get the politics that you. That you fight for, that you deserve. And if we don't have good people running for office, then the way to change that is for other people to run for office, and it's for other people to get involved in politics. And so I do think that, like, political participation and more political participation, not just political hobbyism, which I think is just watching politics unfold, getting nervous about politics, commenting on politics, yelling online. I think treating it as a sport, I think less of that and more of the actual work of getting stuff done and changing things on a local level. I think that's gonna help a lot.
- [72:23]
Michael Bostic
Is this where I announce my run? Lauren?
- [72:25]
Jon Favreau
There it is.
- [72:26]
Lauren Bostic
If I win an Oscar, will you help me write my speech?
- [72:29]
Michael Bostic
Wait, you gotta be an actor?
- [72:30]
Jon Favreau
Absolutely.
- [72:31]
Lauren Bostic
You never know. I'm multifaceted. I might win an Oscar. I'm gonna put it out there. Will you help me write my speech?
- [72:36]
Michael Bostic
Or if you have to get any
- [72:37]
Jon Favreau
speech, the number of, especially since I moved out to la, the number of potential award Winners who, like, through their agents or other people, have been like, hey, will you write so? And I'm like, I'm out of that business, but I will. I usually say I'm like, I'm happy to look at a draft and have a conversation with the person, but I can't do anything from scratch because I don't have the time to do that. So I've done that a few times.
- [73:00]
Michael Bostic
I feel like you've already been to, like, the speechwriter's version of a superpower.
- [73:04]
Lauren Bostic
That's a big ass.
- [73:06]
Michael Bostic
Okay, I wanna switch just a little bit of gear one more time with you and talk about your business.
- [73:09]
Jon Favreau
Sure.
- [73:10]
Michael Bostic
We have tremendous respect for you and what you've built because we know ourselves firsthand how hard it is, one, to build a show, but then to build a media company beyond the show, create other shows, work with other people, have that, be successful. When did you decide you wanted to start Crooked with your partners, and what was the motivation behind it?
- [73:31]
Jon Favreau
The podcast that is now Pod Save America started as a podcast called keeping it 1600. And we did it during the 2016 campaign and we did it with the Ringer, which is Bill Simmons Media Company. And I had known Bill previously. We both went to the same college. We got to know each other when he came to the White House to interview Obama and he said, you know, we do sports and entertainment and culture, but, like, I'd love to do politics. It's an election year. Would you be. You've moved out to la, would you be interested in, like, doing a. Doing a podcast? So me, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor, John Lovett, we all started this podcast and then we all had our other jobs and we thought Hillary Clinton would win and then we would be done and we would go back to our lives and be retired from politics. And then Donald Trump wins.
- [74:16]
Michael Bostic
You didn't know that year last.
- [74:18]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. And we. And then Donald Trump wins. And we were like, oh, maybe we curveball. Maybe we're not retired from politics. And maybe, you know, we had talked before about when we were in the White House, oh, the media is failing because of this, or we don't like it because of that. And wouldn't it be, we should have more progressive media companies and wouldn't it be cool to start one? And it was always sort of a, you know, a conversation you'd have intermittently. And then once Trump won, we were like, we should continue doing this podcast, but we should build the media company that we've talked about. And just started from Scratch and started Pod Save America. And we. So there was Lovett and Tommy and I sitting at my kitchen table in West Hollywood at the time. And we hired a woman named Tanya Sominader as our chief content officer. And she had worked at the Obama White House. We got introduced to her through my now wife, and we had her. We hired Sarah Wick, who was our. Our chief, our COO again, through a friend, and she had, like, worked on some startups. And then we hired an assistant, and it was literally the six of us sitting around my kitchen table. We went to the bank of America in West Hollywood, and we were like, we'd like to open an account for our media company. The woman's like, great. Do you have money? And we're like, no. Do we need money? She's like, yeah. We're like, do you have 10 bucks? Here, let's open it. I mean, it was just so, like, we had no idea.
- [75:42]
Michael Bostic
Former company at the time, or you just.
- [75:43]
Jon Favreau
We. We formed a company. We, like, talked to some lawyers, but, like, I would say it was raw hiring. I mean, you guys know this. Like, hiring people to do that, to, like, build the business, is the most important thing you can do.
- [75:55]
Michael Bostic
When I started this, I tried to find a CEO that would. I was like, okay, now I gotta get a CEO to do it. And nobody. Like, I had this woman, and she at the last, was like, I don't want the job. Well, who the hell. I was doing something else. I'm like, well, who's gonna do. Who's gonna do that? And then I was like, why? I guess, like, I have.
- [76:08]
Jon Favreau
Well. And you realize at the beginning, you do everything, you know, and you're in every meeting and your mind is pulled and your time is pulled in a million different directions. And now we mostly. The founders, we mostly do just hosting. And, you know, we do, you know, we're on the board. And so we have board meetings and we do big strategic directions and have, you know, meetings. But we have a CEO who's, like a very experienced CEO and an adult Lucinda Treat, who's been at the company for a while. And. And thank God for her, because now most things happen the company and we don't even know.
- [76:43]
Michael Bostic
But, you know, at the time when you guys did it similar to this, I think people, like, now everyone knows. Like, I used to explain to people, like, we used to create social videos that we would put on her Instagram stories showing people where to find the podcast application. Because at the time, people were like, what the hell's that? And now everybody. And now I just call them shows at this point. Right. Because they're audio. Video. I mean, there was that weird period, like, is it gonna be video and audio? And like, that was a big thing.
- [77:07]
Jon Favreau
Now we've all just recreated television.
- [77:08]
Michael Bostic
Exactly. But people forget. There was also, like, much fewer ways to monetize. So it was hard. There was very few people taking the medium seriously. It was like the weird stepchild of media. It's like, oh, you're doing a podcast.
- [77:21]
Lauren Bostic
It was other.
- [77:22]
Michael Bostic
It was like, I'm sorry you do that, you know, and so the reason I have so much respect for you is because I think for the early people that were able to, like, slug through it, those and like, kind of form the market. Like now, if you want to do something like this, yes, it's more competitive, but the market's very well established and there's some huge tailwinds and it's. And you can make real living doing this. But at the time, it was like, is this gonna work or not?
- [77:44]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, well, look, we had a theory and it wasn't even. It wasn't a business theory. At least it wasn't, you know, thought of like that. It was like, okay, what is missing in media, in political media right now? What is missing in political media is, you know, we all just worked in politics for the last 10 years, and the conversations we would have, even in the most heated, serious moments in politics, were still accessible to people. They were. We had gallows humor when things were bad, we joked around when things were good. We approached the job with joy. We were like, you know, made friends that are our friends for life and this. And like, what if we could bring that to the public? Because I think right now most people think of politics as what they see on cable news or what they see when a politician gives a speech which is stilted, boring, self serious. Basically, the people who are in political media were too self serious and they weren't treating the topics with the seriousness they deserve. And we wanted to flip that and say, let's treat these issues like they are life and death, serious issues. But let's do it with humor about ourselves and not take ourselves too seriously and joke around and just be who
- [78:58]
Michael Bostic
we are, you know, well, and clearly it resonated, Nick. So, no, I just thought I wanted to hear the story because obviously from afar, we've. We've viewed a lot of what you've done. But what I find interesting about early adopters in this medium, if you kind of just a lot of people that that became successful. It just started as, like, a passion or as, like, a need to fill a gap that they weren't like, fair enough. Same thing. Like, we just weren't finding what we were looking for to service our own show. We were like, okay, well, we'll just, like, do this for fun and maybe if it works, it works.
- [79:25]
Jon Favreau
I'll never forget, like, it was maybe a month into the company and we were invited to the upfront summit here, and Kara Swisher was going to interview us on. On stage. And she sits and she's like, okay, so what is the. What is the business plan? Like, what is the revenue plan? And John, Love, it just goes. He's like, honestly, we just turn the microphones on, and then the money just starts coming. Like, that's just been how it's working so far.
- [79:53]
Michael Bostic
She's like, what?
- [79:54]
Jon Favreau
And we're like, but that is like. And it was a joke. But it was also like, we had not. We did not have this, like, detailed business plan the whole time.
- [80:01]
Lauren Bostic
It's pretty cool.
- [80:02]
Michael Bostic
Yeah, it's really cool.
- [80:03]
Lauren Bostic
Democracy or Else how to save America in 10 easy steps. Go check out the book Pod Save America. What else? Where can everyone say hi to.
- [80:13]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, you can find. I'm unfortunately always on Twitter all day long on Favreau and Instagram, and I also host Offline with Jon Favreau. You can catch that all the time. And Pod Save America and our YouTube channel. Now we're always just churning out content on the YouTube channel.
- [80:28]
Lauren Bostic
You're busy, man.
- [80:29]
Jon Favreau
Very busy.
- [80:30]
Lauren Bostic
Congratulations, John. Thank you for coming on the show.
- [80:32]
Jon Favreau
Thanks for having me. This was fun.