← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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- [00:00]
Amy Poehler
Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice.
- [00:11]
Matt Bellamy
Just be yourself and the guests will come.
- [00:13]
Sponsor/Promo Voice
Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing.
- [00:16]
Matt Bellamy
I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two?
- [00:22]
Amy Poehler
Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast, so join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there, we're just trying to lighten it up a little bit. This episode is brought to you by Scene on the Screen, a podcast presented by Make It Universal and Rotten Tomatoes. Join me, Jacqueline Coley, as I meet the filmmakers, actors and industry insiders influencing entertainment. Each episode is an intimate, fun conversation about the impact of film as guests share their journeys, inspirations, and answer trivia about the movies that shape them. Seen on the Screen is available now. To listen, simply search Seen on Seen on the Screen. Wherever you listen to podcasts, this episode.
- [01:01]
Sponsor/Promo Voice
Is brought to you by Bleacher Report Football is back and downloading the Bleacher Report app puts you in the middle of the action. Make Bleacher Report your Go to this season for the fastest breaking news alerts covering NFL and college football and don't miss a moment with highlights, scores and live reactions in the app. Get expert analysis on your favorite teams and the news that you want this season. Download the Bleacher Report app today.
- [01:25]
Matt Bellamy
It is Wednesday, September 24th. As we all know, Jimmy Kimmel returned to much fanfare last night. Thought he did a great job. He went after Trump and Brendan Carr and the fcc, but in very relatable terms. And I thought he showed real emotion for Charlie Kirk and his wife. He emphatically said he never intended to link the shooter to the MAGA movement. Whether you believe that probably depends on your personal politics, but overall I think a big win for Kimmel and for Disney, which would definitely like to put this controversy behind them. But no, I don't think it's going away. Not yet. I live in Los Angeles, which thankfully is not home to one of the 66 ABC stations owned by Nexstar and Sinclair that refused to air the show last night and ongoing nexstar actually put out a statement today saying they're continuing to talk to Disney. They called it productive discussions, but they want to ensure that Kimmel, quote, reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve. It's very vague and while Brendan Carr has walked back his easy way or the hard way. Threat to Disney. He's still pretty openly siding with the affiliates, which are much more conservative in their leadership than the Hollywood media companies. It's actually funny. These station groups are not exactly mom and pop shops. They're also big public companies, but whatever. And Donald Trump, of course, has definitely not backed down. Last night he threatened to sue, saying, quote, last time I went after them, they gave me $16 million, referring to the Disney ABC News settlement. This one sounds even more lucrative. He said. Some mixed messages there and a lot of questions surrounding what the legal rights and leverage points are here on both the FCC affiliate side and the Disney side. Can Brendan Carr really go after the Disney station licenses for airing Jimmy Kimmel? Would Disney really pull football or retaliate in some major way against nexstar and Sinclair? Lots of tricky legal and government questions. So we've got Eric Gardner here to discuss. He's a writer for Puck, covers the legal world. He wrote about this topic recently. So today it's the Jimmy Kimmel saga. No, it's not over. It may actually just be getting started. Got the legal angle and what might come next from the ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellamy and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Eric Gardner, who in addition to being my colleague Ed Puck, is an expert on the legal and regulatory aspects of the Jimmy Kimmel saga. Has written about it a bunch of times, including in the Puck newsletter, what I'm hearing. Plus, first of all, welcome, thanks for having me. Secondly, I want to get into this because lots of people texting and emailing me and they have questions. Kimmel is back, but this is not over and this is gonna play out for the next weeks, months. And we wanna get into some of the issues that are outstanding and how they might go and be resolved. So let's start with the FCC and the affiliates. What are their options for the next steps here? Let's start with the fcc. What can Brendan Carr do or what do we expect him to. To do now that Disney has openly defied him? Put Kimmel back on. He's kind of walking back his threats. But what is he likely to do and what can he do?
- [04:45]
Eric Gardner
Well, I don't think he's likely to do anything.
- [04:47]
Matt Bellamy
Really? You don't think so? Even with Donald Trump threatening lawsuits on Truth Social?
- [04:53]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, I think he realizes that he'd be on shaky legal ground. But yeah, I mean, like, Donald Trump is prodding him. So there could be some news distortion complaint that comes to the surface and is, quote, unquote, investigated.
- [05:08]
Matt Bellamy
And just to be clear, the news distortion complaint would be the fcc, acting in its duty to uphold the public interest, has a potential cause of action against a news outlet that is pushing out distorted news. That standard, as we know, is very high for what is a distorted news item. But he could do that, and then Disney would have to respond with what I presume would be a First Amendment argument.
- [05:35]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, but let's be clear, because one of the things that doesn't really get talked about with news distortion is what the remedy is. And the remedy isn't fines or even the cancellation of license. What happens is you get like a demerit in your character file. And so when it comes time to renew your license, they can take it into consideration.
- [05:56]
Matt Bellamy
Huh. Is that, is that like double secret probation?
- [05:58]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I just think it's a little bit toothless. Yeah, theoretically it could lead to action. But if it did lead to action, you know, Disney would storm into court and 100% would win.
- [06:12]
Matt Bellamy
They would. It's just a question of do they want that? And optically, do they want to be litigating against the government and having all of the attendant noise around that.
- [06:24]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, I think that the bigger concern for them is upsetting MAGA Nation and Trump supporters. Not necessarily upsetting Trump or Brandon.
- [06:32]
Matt Bellamy
But that's part of why I want to do this episode, because I want to know if that is even possible here, because they have now chosen to go against the government and go against these affiliates, which is necessarily going to cause noise. And I want to know what the FCC and the affiliates have as options to stoke that continue with car. What are some of his options of what he can do?
- [06:54]
Eric Gardner
So, you know, I think what he can do most is, is back affiliates when they get into these sort of negotiations with the networks. So, you know, in the typical agreements between network and affiliate, the affiliates have to clear their, their prime time schedule for networks and there's. There's penalties if, if they go over it. So for, for instance, a standard contract I've seen says that the affiliates have to provide all their primetime agreement and they can only preempt up to 15 hours per year. Now, there's a big exception to that. There's an FCC rule that allows affiliates to reject programming that they deem contrary to the public interest or that they have a better local programming for. And this is something that rarely comes up, but it could come up in this context. And, you know, the affiliates could say that they're relying on this rule, this public interest rule, and so, you know, maybe Brendan Carr sticks up for these affiliates, saying that they can enforce this and that, you know, ABC can't hold back programming for them.
- [08:03]
Matt Bellamy
Well, okay, so that. A lot. A lot going on in what you just said, because there's been a lot of attention on this issue of how long nexstar and Sinclair can continue to refuse to air Jimmy Kimmel Live. And if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is, is that in these affiliate agreements, typically they are limited as to how much they can preempt, but if they can show that the content is not in the public interest for their audience, they could preempt it indefinitely.
- [08:36]
Eric Gardner
Yes, well, you know, some of it depends on the contract language because, you know, back in the day, there used to be some contract language that said, like, you know, if you had accepted this sort of programming in the past, you can't suddenly declare it out of the public interest or.
- [08:52]
Matt Bellamy
Well, that show's been on ABC for 23 years, so that'd be hard to say. Jimmy Kimmel Live is so extreme that we've been airing it for 23 years.
- [09:02]
Eric Gardner
Right, right. So, you know, a lot of this we don't know. We don't know what the contract is specifically between ABC and these affiliates.
- [09:09]
Matt Bellamy
A big A big if here.
- [09:10]
Eric Gardner
Right. But we can guess that the affiliates have fairly broad rights to reject programming that they think is contrary to the public interest. And they're also allowed to substitute programming which they deem has greater local importance, which, if you paid attention to what these stations were airing in lieu of Kimmel, a lot of them were airing news programming because they want to make sure that they're within these rights.
- [09:38]
Matt Bellamy
Maybe that's why Sinclair decided not to air the Charlie Kirk tribute special in the slot and put that on YouTube because maybe they want to make sure they're putting news programming there instead. Although, isn't it. Hasn't it been Celebrity Family Feud on a lot of these stations? No, that was what ABC put out. That was what ABC put out on their network.
- [09:58]
Eric Gardner
You know, those Family Feud things. They have these questions and we learn what the. What's in the public interest? Literally.
- [10:04]
Matt Bellamy
Sure. Steve Harvey is always in the public interest. We know that. Okay. And Brendan Carr is stoking this. I mean, one of his tweets of the last couple days is he's talking about the Democrats. He says they simply can't stand that local TV stations, for the first time in years, stood up to a national programmer and chose to exercise their lawful right to preempt programming we need to keep empowering local TV stations to serve their communities of license. So there you go. He is backing them. Now, you wrote in your Puck newsletter that Carr is not as powerful as he may think, and many may think he is, that he's actually doing these things and making noise because he doesn't have very many powers these days. So explain your argument there that this is all just noise.
- [10:55]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, well, a few things. Number one, he rules over broadcast television, but a lot of what's happening in entertainment is away from broadcast television.
- [11:05]
Matt Bellamy
Of course, but this has been true for the past five to seven years, that the influence of broadcast is waning.
- [11:11]
Eric Gardner
But there are people who keep cutting the cord that keep streaming. The youth of today, they're not watching television at all. So Brendan Carr rules over a very narrow sector of the television, which is.
- [11:24]
Matt Bellamy
Why he keeps trying to put his hooks into whatever little point of leverage he has. It's not just the license. He's talking about these deals that require FCC approval that he can get into it and use as points of leverage. And as we've noted, he has not made very many rulings or filed many cases. He has essentially used his voice box to threaten and try to get these companies to act on their own. And he's been successful in that regard. But it's a sign that he knows that his actual power is limited.
- [12:03]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, he uses his megaphone a lot of his bluster and, you know, to the extent that he has power in that megaphone, sure, he has that, but we give him that power by taking him seriously.
- [12:15]
Matt Bellamy
Well, but he's got Donald Trump behind him. We know that Trump is not necessarily dictating, but is certainly supporting all these decisions.
- [12:23]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, and egging him on and all that. But at the end of the day, if Bob Iger and network executives stood firm, they'd probably win a lot of these battles because there are broad First Amendment rights. And moreover, the Supreme Court in recent years has limited the power of these agencies. They say that, you know, these agencies aren't, you know, free to interpret statutes as they. As they, you know, wish they. They have held back these agencies from. From doing things that go too far.
- [12:55]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, and that's a big Republican talking point, is limiting the administrative states. And the FCC would certainly be part of that.
- [13:01]
Eric Gardner
Yeah.
- [13:02]
Matt Bellamy
You know, that's why they're going to lift the cap on how many stations you can own, because they say it's outdated. And a lot of people say that. I mean, listen, Disney is benefiting here, too. What was the first thing Disney did after Kimmel aired last night is they put the entire monologue on YouTube and distributed it far and wide. That is a dagger to these stations that have pulled it, because you know what? People aren't going to watch it there. They're just going to watch it on YouTube. And lo and behold, it is now the most watched monologue in the history of YouTube. I mean, we're talking about tens of millions of people are going to watch this monologue on YouTube, and those are people who are not watching on broadcast.
- [13:43]
Eric Gardner
Yeah, I'm sure more people watched it online and digitally than watched it live on television.
- [13:50]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, of course. We just got ratings for the episode, and it was about 6 million viewers. More than 6 million, which is more than three times the normal. Lucas and I were a bit low in our estimates the other day. Not bad. Especially since about 20, 23% of the stations were not carrying the show.
- [14:08]
Eric Gardner
You know, and to the extent that these stations are saying, hey, this is not in our local interest, I'm sure that, you know, someone can dig up stats that, well, there are people in your local community who seem to be digging it.
- [14:20]
Matt Bellamy
Right. So that's car the affiliates. Now, we know that nexstar put out a statement today. They say they are continuing to discuss the matter in productive discussions, they say, with Disney, quote, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve. What does that mean? Are they making content requests for Jimmy Kimmel Live and is Disney gonna let them?
- [14:50]
Eric Gardner
You know, it's a lot of gobbledygook, but I think it's. At the end of the day, it's just saying, like, we have the right to do, you know, what we want.
- [14:58]
Matt Bellamy
I think they're laying the path to walk this back. Right. They're going to be able to say, we got some assurance from Disney that Kimmel will be respectful of all of our audience's beliefs and we are going to bring the show back. Right.
- [15:15]
Eric Gardner
I think that they need to bring it back. I think. Why do you think consequences if they don't bring it back? Because everyone says that. Brandon Carr. They need to preempt Kimmel to clear their tecna merger with the fcc. I think it's the reverse. They need to bring back Kimmel or else all these state AGs, the democratic ones in places like California and Colorado and Arizona and New York, are gonna go to court and they're going to challenge the merger and they're going to try to get an injunction on the transaction. So I think their biggest political risk is not at the federal level. It's at the local level and they need to be careful.
- [15:57]
Matt Bellamy
That's interesting. Although Elizabeth Warren has said she's going to investigate this and, you know, that's the federal level.
- [16:03]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. I mean, there'll be some uncomfortable subpoena.
- [16:07]
Matt Bellamy
Requests and all that which they can ignore while the Republicans are in power.
- [16:11]
Eric Gardner
Right. We'll see what happens a year from now in the midterms. But for now, I think that the biggest risk for a next star is at the state level, not necessarily at the federal level.
- [16:20]
Matt Bellamy
So all of these state attorneys general can just band together and try to block this merger on a state level. Because most of these blue states have stations that are going to be impacted by this nexstar Tenga merger.
- [16:36]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. You know, I love these markets. Have, you know, a Fox station and an NBC station. And do you want this? The same owner of Fox owning NBC. And if you're having an owner say this Jimmy Kimmel, he can't be in our market. Well, suddenly you're blocking two big networks from airing the station. And I imagine that there are some regulators out there who would have a problem with.
- [17:12]
Amy Poehler
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- [17:41]
Sponsor/Promo Voice
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- [18:07]
Matt Bellamy
All right, so we've talked about the leverage on the FCC and affiliate side. Let's talk about the leverage on the Disney side because they now have this show airing. It's getting good ratings on the first night. They, I would argue they have the public on their side. I mean, obviously a lot of fans of Donald Trump don't like that it's back. But the first hurdle was achieved. Kimmel came back. He did a very emotional and a very funny monologue. He did attack Trump and Carr and those guys. But he also was very, not apologetic, but emotional when talking about Charlie Kirk and that he claims he never meant to imply that the shooter was maga. And I think that worked. I think it was convincing. Now, what leverage does Disney have?
- [18:58]
Eric Gardner
Well, the leverage doesn't come from Kimmel. The leverage comes from their sports. Disney has all these local sports, you know, college football games.
- [19:07]
Matt Bellamy
But are they gonna do that? Are they gonna pull sports from these affiliates and like, declare war? That is the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb.
- [19:15]
Eric Gardner
Right? Well, if the affiliates are not airing their programming, that could be, you know, caused to, you know, cancel the contract.
- [19:22]
Matt Bellamy
And that would be a contractual issue. If they breach the contract longer than what they are able to take this stuff off the air, Disney could say, you've breached, we are canceling the contract. Right?
- [19:34]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. I think that, you know, at the end of the day, the affiliates and networks are usually on the same page. They want to work together. That's the reason for having a relationship in the first place.
- [19:44]
Matt Bellamy
And it's a business for them. I mean, the overarching trend here is that the affiliate TV business is not as good as it once was. We know ratings are falling, the linear business is dying. All of these executives at these companies are in it for the next five to 10 years. And they know that eventually this business is going away. Disney, for its part, is putting all of its best content on the streaming service. It's directing people to the streaming service. If you go to a lot of these digital MPVDs, you know, the YouTube TVs of the world, they put the local stations there where people are getting this stuff digitally. They're not getting it through traditional means. So Disney knows that business eventually going away, but it's still a business and they still have to care about these, which is why I don't think they would employ a nuclear option like pulling SEC football.
- [20:37]
Eric Gardner
Not yet. Not just for, for Jimmy Kimmel. But if, if it gets to the point where, you know, the stations are just doing too much. They're, they're not just preempting the late night talk show, but they're also preempting the national news shows or the, or something else. It might cause some reconsiderations of the.
- [20:58]
Matt Bellamy
Relationship because the relationships are not good. I mean, the tensions between the affiliates and the networks are probably, one source told me today, as bad as they've ever been. Just because of the economics here. So what I think Disney is going to do is avoid the nuclear option and just stick them with little knives. You know what? Put more stuff on YouTube. Maybe take that show that was going to go to abc. Let's just do that as a Hulu exclusive now. Let's do the bare minimum of what we need to have to satisfy our affiliate arrangements. Maybe we don't give them the plum seating at the upfronts like we used to. We don't invite them to that steak dinner like we used to. They're gonna kind of just put little needles in them. And then when they get to the next negotiation, there's no fun and games anymore. It's what do we need to do to renew this on terms that are most favorable to the Walt Disney company? And the old time slap on the back is over.
- [21:56]
Eric Gardner
It kind of reminds me of, you know, the relationship between movie studios and theaters.
- [22:01]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, very good point. You know, it would've been unheard of 10 years ago for these companies to do a 45 day window or to put these smaller movies on Peacock from Universal after three weekends. But now they just don't care. They're like, okay, we have a business to run. And I think Disney will increasingly, to the extent they're not already doing it, increasingly, look at these affiliates that way.
- [22:26]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. You know, the funny thing about this whole thing is that it harkens back to how ABC was created in the first place, because Back in the 1930s, Congress passed a communications act. The FCC stood up and created all these ownership rules and stuck their head in the relationship between networks and affiliates. And that went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the supreme court backed the FCC's authority to make these ownership rules. And it basically forced NBC to sell the station group that it became abc.
- [22:59]
Matt Bellamy
That is interesting. And obviously that was at a time where there were three networks and that was the only way to watch visual medium. And now, I mean, I was frustrated being on the west coast last night because everybody I knew on the east coast was able to watch Kimmel live or, you know, taped live. And I just went on YouTube. Everybody just went on YouTube. So it just decreases their leverage, right?
- [23:23]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. I don't see really the point of the preemption. I think they're putting up a big fuss. They're like the kid who doesn't get what they want and they cry and they say, like, oh, I'm not gonna have dinner now. But in the end they'll probably take it back eventually.
- [23:38]
Matt Bellamy
So could Brendan Carr actually go after the ABC licenses.
- [23:44]
Eric Gardner
I think that the next time Disney needs to renew a license, let's say WABC in New York or KABC in Los angeles.
- [23:54]
Matt Bellamy
Disney owns eight of the larger affiliates, including New York, L.A. and Chicago.
- [23:59]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. So maybe there's something there. But overall, I think that we talk about Brandon Carr way too much.
- [24:07]
Matt Bellamy
He loves it. He is a media whore.
- [24:10]
Eric Gardner
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. He leans into this sort of thing.
- [24:13]
Matt Bellamy
But you know what? I think he overplayed. I think this backfired. I think they did not expect that people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Theo Vaughn, for Christ's sake, is now speaking out against Department of Homeland Security saying, take me out of your videos. Joe Rogan is against it all. None of these comedians liked the notion of free speech being taken away, especially from a president who championed free speech when he was running. And I just think that the manosphere is against you. They misstepped here.
- [24:45]
Eric Gardner
I also think that maybe he's raised his boss Trump's expectations too much. You know, now Trump thinks that Brendan Carr can do. Do this magical stuff, and when he's not able to accomplish that, that's going to make the big boss unhappy. And so it just puts him in a bad position. I think, you know, Brendan Carr is smart enough to realize that he's going to lose these court battles so often. He doesn't do this sort of thing to drag. He's been very good at staying out of court.
- [25:13]
Matt Bellamy
And now Donald Trump is on Truth Social saying, we're going to sue.
- [25:16]
Eric Gardner
Exactly. Exactly. We'll see where it goes from here.
- [25:20]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah. On the leverage front, I would so much rather be Disney than I would the stations right now for many reasons. But I just think the leverage favors Disney here.
- [25:30]
Eric Gardner
I agree with you there.
- [25:31]
Matt Bellamy
Which they should have recognized a week ago and not taken Kimmel off the air, or if they did so, they should have been very clear that because we're up against the deadline, we're going to preempt the show tonight and figure out how to deal with this and bring him back. Not just say, we are going to preempt this indefinitely.
- [25:48]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. And it goes back to my point that this is all about Trump supporters and the political atmosphere. And, you know, they were probably reading stuff on X and social media and, you know, not necessarily reacting to Brendan Carr, but to the atmosphere that this was going to be controversial.
- [26:05]
Matt Bellamy
There's a retribution aspect to the reaction here. So many conservatives feel that they were censored on social media and that the Biden administration was Urging social media companies to cancel people and de platform people. And Donald Trump got deplatformed after January 6th. And they feel that this is retribution and that the liberals are screaming bloody murder. But this is exactly what happened to prominent conservative voices. Different situation. And this is the government specifically urging a government entity to take action. But that's how they feel. And I understand that they feel this. It's a matter of how the government is responding this sentiment, and it feels like they overreach.
- [26:49]
Eric Gardner
Yeah. It would be great if we could all take the lesson that free speech is good and it's a reminder that we should all cherish it. But unfortunately, this will just lead to another episode a few years from now where there's retribution and people will say, well, remember the time when Jimmy Kimmel was off the air and, you know, and we'll go through another round or two of this.
- [27:09]
Matt Bellamy
Yes. I can't wait till the day that I am deemed hate speech by somebody. I think there are a number of publicists that would deem me hate speech, but that's okay. All right, Eric, thank you.
- [27:17]
Eric Gardner
My pleasure.
- [27:20]
Matt Bellamy
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, it's kind of amazing. We resolved the Jimmy Kimmel national nightmare and just the same day we have a new censorship issue on this Apple TV series, the Savant. Are you following this?
- [27:36]
Craig Horbeck
Yes. This is what I'm, I'm more confused about because this is essentially, this show is like this woman that Jessica Chastain is playing is like a one woman Minority Report where she infiltrates hate groups and thwart shootings before they happen, right?
- [27:50]
Matt Bellamy
Yes. And it's made by Apple, as we know, the company that is the most sensitive to PR and bad, bad associations, they decided to make this show about a woman who infiltrates hate groups. And then when current events, which is pretty predictable, have made this show very timely, they announced that they are indefinitely holding the show. Which, of course prompted Jessica Chastain to say she was, quote, not aligned on the decision to. To pause the release of the Savant. It was a very lengthy statement. She went on and on about all these examples of political violence and Charlie Kirk and the whole thing. And then she said, while I respect Apple's decision to pause the release for now, I remain hopeful the show will reach audiences soon. So my prediction here is that Apple is not Disney. Apple is not in the content business. They could pretty much care less what Jessica Chastain thinks about their release strategy and that this show will not air until at least the new year.
- [28:56]
Eric Gardner
Wow.
- [28:57]
Craig Horbeck
The new year.
- [28:58]
Matt Bellamy
It's what is three and a half months? Three months.
- [29:00]
Craig Horbeck
Well, Disney could feel the pressure from the FCC and from Trump. Isn't Apple a little bit more immune to that? I mean, this is releasing on Apple tv. Plus, there's not like government agencies breathing down their neck and threatening.
- [29:12]
Matt Bellamy
No, but they are in the phone business. They, they are not in the entertainment business. They don't need to release this. I mean, they'd like it. They made it. They don't want to piss off Jessica Chastain and the creators too much. But it's worth taking a pause and saying, okay, few months, we'll ramp back up, we'll drop it. They probably won't promote it as much. They probably won't talk about it on the earnings call, but they'll put it out there and she'll have her time and it'll be a less politically charged moment.
- [29:44]
Craig Horbeck
So you think the fear is just there is content in this season that is too close to home, that will make people uncomfortable.
- [29:51]
Matt Bellamy
I haven't seen the show, but a Variety critic who watched all eight episodes in advance said it basically looks at a, quote, sector of mostly white male individuals who believe that America belongs to them. Fueled by hate, bigotry, xenophobia and misogyny. They talk cruelly and candidly online about enacting harm and violence towards individuals or others who they feel are unworthy of being in their country. Doesn't name Donald Trump, and it doesn't sound like there's a Charlie Kirk like shooting incident, but who knows? Maybe there is. Not sure. But they want nothing to do with the association right now. They do not want to be accused of being insensitive. They do not want to become a political punching bag. Have Trump after them, and they will just wait. And there's no downside for them to wait.
- [30:38]
Craig Horbeck
Do you think there will be industry blowback for waiting?
- [30:40]
Matt Bellamy
Maybe. But who cares? What do they care? It's not the same as Disney.
- [30:45]
Craig Horbeck
It's not like this is the first time there's been a shooting. I know that this is obviously a very charged moment, but there's been mass shootings all the time, forever.
- [30:53]
Matt Bellamy
And that's the risk that you run in doing a show like this, which they should have known. I mean, Apple doesn't do a lot of potentially controversial subjects in their content. They just don't like that stuff. And the creators know it and the agents know it when they're taking projects out. That Apple is probably not the home for the hot button ripped from the headlines thing.
- [31:13]
Craig Horbeck
Right?
- [31:13]
Matt Bellamy
For some reason they decided to do this. They also love stars. Jessica Chastain is an Oscar winning actress and a big draw. So that's probably why they did the show. But it doesn't matter. They'll just hold it. You'll. We'll see. Maybe you're right. You're going to take the under on the New Year. Yeah, I am.
- [31:30]
Craig Horbeck
I was surprised that you said 2026, but that's, that's interesting. We'll see.
- [31:34]
Matt Bellamy
All right. Well, that's the show today. I want to thank my guest, Eric Gardner, producer Craig Horbeck, Art Justin Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you one more time this week.
- [31:45]
Eric Gardner
This episode is brought to you by the all new ESPN app. All of ESPN all in one place.
- [31:51]
Matt Bellamy
Your home for the most live sports and pictures. Best championship moments. It's the ultimate fan experience. Step up your game and get even.
- [31:59]
Eric Gardner
More than before with no annual contract required. Level up.
- [32:03]
Matt Bellamy
For more on the ESPN app or.
- [32:05]
Eric Gardner
At stream espn.com Sign up now.
- [32:13]
Amy Poehler
Adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New Teen the new fragrance by Miu Miu defined by you.