← To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
Terry Moran: Trump, Epstein, and the Giddy Cruelty of the Moment
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- [00:00]
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Charlie Sykes
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Charlie Sykes
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Terry Moran
This is Car Tracks with Turtle Wax. Your car says a lot about you. So if we asked your car what it would say about you, what would it say? Listen, you dropped one of those tiny.
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Charlie Sykes
Cheeseburgers under the seat like last week.
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Terry Moran
And now we're both dry heaving at the stench. Do us a favor, grab some Turtle Wax and let's get to work. This has been Car Tracks with Turtle Wax. You are how you car.
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Charlie Sykes
Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes and it is Monday day and, well, is there anything else that we really ought to be talking about other than, well, kind of, you know what? And so I'm joined by legendary former network reporter, now Substack star Terry Moran. Hey, Terry, how are you?
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Terry Moran
I'm good, Charlie, thank you. That's very kind introduction.
- [02:15]
Charlie Sykes
Well, we're both in the Midwest today, so we're. We're both sort of, you know, kicking back your living cabin life. I'm. I'm down in the basement here in Mequon, Wisconsin. But we. Okay, so we have to chew over this. There are so many different angles on all of this. The Trump Epstein story where he tried over the weekend to emulate Barbra Streisand, the Streisand famous Barbra Streisand effect. And telling people, whatever you do, don't talk about this, came out with, what was it? A thousand word truth social post where he basically crapped all over his MAGA base, told them they were wasting their time, that Pam Bondi was just the best thing ever and we should just stop talking about the Epstein files, which. Which apparently now I'm not sure. He's sort of acknowledging that he. That they exist and he's read them, but it turns out they were written by his political enemies. Crooked Hillary, Obama, just everybody you can imagine. And I don't know about you, Terry, but what do you say? It didn't seem that it worked very well for him.
- [03:17]
Terry Moran
It, it didn't. And that, excuse me, that is one of the fascinating things right now that's going on in maga. He's asking too much of them. He usually follows as much as he leads. And he is now asking them to forget about something that he has pushed for years. He's turned on a dime. Last year we say the Epstein files will get Hillary, will get all the, all the people in them. And it's pretty clear that they make him very uncomfortable. It's also pretty clear that a lot of it was just bs that in fact there wasn't is a wretched, depraved man with powerful friends who ought to be ashamed of themselves. Was it a network of pedophiles that were being flown to an island? Probably not. I mean, the FBI certainly would have been on that under Trump, under previous presidents. But what he's doing is he's asking them too much. He's saying drop it. And he's trying to silence them. He's given this movement voice. That's one of the things that's empowered them. And now he's saying shut up. It's not going to go well.
- [04:23]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. I'm trying to remember the last time that he was this crossways with his own base. And the only example that I can come up with was when he was briefly booed at a rally when he told people, go take those vaccines because he was still pro vaccine for about five minutes. The base was against it. We know what happens. RFK Jr. Is, you know, is in the, is in the cabinet. But so this is, you can sort of imagine why Donald Trump fought that this would work. Why did he think that, that he could put out a bleed and have it silence the issue because he's done it so often in the past. But as you point out, this is different because MAGA cared very deeply about these Epstein files and they've been talking about them relentlessly. So let's just start right there. Why has the right been so obsessed with these files? How does it fit in to their worldview?
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Terry Moran
Well, it makes diabolical everybody that they disagree with. They can put anyone into the conspiracy, the theory and they have ludicrously that people are preying on girls and young women. And believe me, that happens plenty right in Hollywood and Washington. Around the world. But they stitch together through this QAnon fraud, this guy who doesn't exist, who actually I think is arguably one of the great comedians of the 21st century, because he's. Somebody's laughing at the money he's made. And they bought into it completely because it enabled them to make demons out of their political opponents. And that is something that Trump has been good at stoking. They kind of took it over. He latched onto it even. Even though there isn't really a shred of evidence for it. And so it became their, their bedtime story almost, or their, their narrative of wickedness for people who they disagree with.
- [06:17]
Charlie Sykes
Now, this is the part that I don't understand. I mean, you know, for some of them, they thought this was how they were going to bring down the Clintons, because Bill Clinton association, there were a lot of people on that plane. Jeffrey Epstein had a hell of a network. Whether it was a conspiracy, whether it was a client list, whatever, he was very, very well connected. But this is where you get a little bit of cognitive dissonance, because there are so many pictures of Jeffrey Epstein, if he is the symbol of all evil with Donald Trump himself. I mean, again and again and again, everybody has seen all of these pictures. Donald Trump has given interviews, he's given quotes about how Jeffrey Epstein's a great guy. And specifically then sites we share the taste in beautiful women, including on the young side or whatever like that. So how in the minds of MAGA did they think that, okay, the Epstein files. This is the mother load we are going to use to discredit our enemies. When you have the elephant in the room, the big orange horn dog in one picture after another, how did they think that was going to play out?
- [07:19]
Terry Moran
You know, that is that cognitive dissonance. He's John Doe 174 in the court case that was brought. And he's got 14 versions of his phone number Epstein does in his book for Donald Trump. And so one of the things that Trump has been able to do is point the finger elsewhere. I am the savior of this. But now all of a sudden, he looks guilty. It looks like the shadow of the nervousness of the guilty is upon him when he's answering questions or ranting on social media. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And I also think, though, that one of the reasons they bought into Trump's I was the good guy is there is a story that was put out, maybe true, that at a party, Epstein went after his daughter or no, went after somebody at a party. And Trump said, no more of that. I'm done with you. And that breach makes him innocent of previous transgressions, I think, in the storytelling that MAGA is doing on this. But really, it's just the power of Trump. They don't want to believe that he's bad.
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Charlie Sykes
Yeah. So I mean, this is also example I mentioned the Streisand effect, which is calling attention to something by trying to cover it up. Because the upside story had kind of faded from the headlines. And look, I mean, Donald Trump is the President of the United States. He's a convicted felon, tried to overthrow an election, has been found liable by a federal grand jury, I mean, a federal jury of sex abuse in Eugene Carroll case. He's publicly bragged about grabbing women by the. You know what's in all of this? Has publicly bragged that he would walk in on Teen USA contestants when they were getting dressed. I mean, there's so much. And none of it mattered to Maga. None of it actually kept him out of the White House. So then the question is, what? Why is the Epstein thing feel so different? And I think you put your finger on it, he's handled it in such a way as to bring something back from the dead and make it look like he has something to hide. And I will tell you, I was surprised by something over the weekend. I thought that as MAGA was clearly breaking with him and you could clearly see that you had a communications problem over the weekend. Megyn Kelly is out there, Laura Loomer saying Pam Bondi has to be fired. And I'm thinking, look, what does Trump do whenever he gets in trouble? He picks somebody, throws him under the bus. He has no loyalty to anybody. He could have easily gotten out of this by firing somebody, moving on. Instead, he puts out that bleed, basically says, there's nothing there. You all should shut up. And I am 100% behind what you think is Pam Bondi's, you know, blundering cover up. So he's taken ownership of it. So he's taken this case and he's made it kind of a credibility test for himself with his own base, which has never been a problem for him before.
- [10:18]
Terry Moran
Yeah, he usually fails credibility tests, except in the big way, which is that that hardwired connection that he has, and they trust him. And despite all that litany of grossness that you just recited, they think he's a good man. They believe he's a good man. I was in the Vatican. I was in Rome for the election of Pope Leo and a priest, a conservative priest from a conservative. He said to me, he is a vicious man. He's full of the vices, all the vices. But they forgave him that. Except now, partly because Bondi at the White House had the stunt where the guys walked out with the binders saying, Epstein files Volume one and all that. So he's stuck with it now. And my prediction is that he gets out of it by indicting Comey, Brennan, some of his political opponents. We're gonna have show trials. Every time he gets in trouble. This regime will have show trials of their political opponents. They're already investigating. That's one way classic for all kinds of authoritarians. Distract the masses from the problem by demonizing somebody and putting them in the dock.
- [11:30]
Charlie Sykes
Well, he's been trying that. I agree with you. That will be his play. So, I mean, the day this was turning toxic for him, they announced the criminal referral for Comey and Brennan going back to Russiagate. And, you know, that created a stir, but it didn't really change the narrative. I mean, the fact is that just not as sexy as Epstein and the Sex Files. And then on Saturday, he went after like, I'm gonna pick a fight with Rosie o', Donnell. I'm gonna throw out that. I'm gonna take away her citizenship. That also didn't distract. So he's having a. You know, and then, as you and I are speaking, he's announcing that I might actually get tough on Vladimir Putin with some sanct. And even the tariff thing doesn't really distract because he has picked the one most. Well, I mean, obviously the sexiest issue he could have, even for the Fox News audience. I mean, especially for the Fox News audience. So this is a hard one to distract from, isn't?
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Terry Moran
Is. And you have a better fix on this, on this movement, I think, maybe, than I have. How big is that QAnon Epstein is. We got to get to the bottom of it. How big is that in terms of that whatever was seventy plus million people who put him in the White House again?
- [12:45]
Charlie Sykes
Oh, wow, that's a great question because, I mean, you have those concentric circles. I mean, the QANON is kind of a discrete small group. I think it's always important to distinguish between the hardcore maga, who will never break, no matter what, even if they're mad about this. And then you have the MAGA adjacent folks, the MAGA curious folks, the Joe Rogans of the world, the more casual voters. And the reality is, and I think that we sometimes Excessively complexify politics. Because if you're sitting at a George Webb restaurant in northern Wisconsin, they're probably not talking about tariff rates or whether he's going to fire the chairman of the Fed. But if you bring up Epstein and you bring up this sort of thing, I don't know, it's got a little bit of leg. So I always think that we tend to focus too much on the MAGA base, not MAGA adjacent MAGA suburbs, because I think they're a little bit squishy. But again, look, our default setting, and you and I have been doing this for a decade now, our default setting should always be nothing matters. This is not the tipping point. This is not the pivot. But let's talk about something you just mentioned, other things that are coming up. In my newsletter on Monday, I talked about Tom Homan, who is really kind of the, kind of the face of the, of the new brutality. We are at a point now where, you know, there are polls showing that the public is softening on immigration, that they're, they're not all down on, on, you know, building walls and deportation and renditioning and all of that at the very moment. And I think this may be a slightly undercovered story, feel free to push back on me that, that in the big beautiful bill there was this massive, I mean, over the top massive increase of funding for the Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Donald Trump deportation. But we're talking about $170 billion in money for everything, for more deportations, for the detention centers, for the wires on the wall, whatever, including hiring 10,000 ICE agents and so whatever. People have been, I think, shocked by some of the brutality that we've seen aimed at migrants. I think it's just beginning. I think that you listen to people like Tom Homan, you see the money and the resources that are rolling down the hill and the worst is yet to come. So tell me about what you're looking at and how you think that's going to play out.
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Terry Moran
Well, I think you've already said it, which is that somehow the Republicans, this administration, I should say, in a matter of months, got the balance back in the public mind about immigration. Most of my adult life, most Americans have said, yeah, immigration's about right, maybe a little more. It's probably a good thing for our country, given the nature of our history. And the Democrats, frankly, screwed it up so badly through a crackpot ideology in some ways about, well, maybe there shouldn't be borders to, well, it's racist if you have borders, all that stuff. And Then Biden kind of wanting to be a more decent and charitable person than Trump said, let them in as asylum seekers will solve it at the, at the end of the day now we have these millions of people here, and the loss of control, the loss of order and even decency at the border with the children dying and all the rest of it, and the drugs coming through changed, swung the pendulum that way. And so, yes, it might have needed a lot of money and maybe even large holding setters in order to enforce the law, which is not racist. It's self government to have laws that are enforced. And yet Trump has found a way to turn people's, including Joe Rogan's mind away from this. Joe Rogan saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. Snatching people off the streets, separating families, going to Home Depot. I'm not on that team. He says, because he's a normal American, more or less, I mean, aside from, you know, his wealth. But, but I think a lot of people, Americans are basically common sense, practical, decent people. And they saw what happened with the border as not sensible, not practical, and in ways indecent. And they thought Trump would get tough and fix it. And now he's just, he's got the largest domestic police force we've ever had. And I wouldn't mind the $170 billion to clean up a big problem, maybe even big holding centers, but not these guys. Not these guys. They've demonstrated themselves to be untrustworthy on this issue.
- [17:24]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and the way that they will be using this, this massive law enforcement. Again, I want to underline this because I'm not sure that people have fully taken this on board, that this is the, this will dwarf the FBI, this will dwarf any other law enforcement agency. I think that ICE will now become, will have more money than the Marines will have, and this will be in the hands of the people who defend, you know, the masking of these, of these officers. And of course, look, you know, parenthetically you have to ask, who are these 10,000 officers going to be? How are they going to be recruited? Where are they going to be recruited from? How will they be trained? What are their expectations? So whatever brutality you see on the streets right now, everything gets ratcheted up at the same time. You have ICE over the weekend, you know, both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that they are moving ahead aggressively in deporting migrants to third countries, to places like the Sudan, including one memo that says with as little as six hours notice. So it's like they are feeling Emboldened. There's a feel like they think that the wind is at their back. And I honestly, and as I said in my newsletter, I'm fully prepared to write lots of stuff about the delusion of Democrats. But right now, I think the Republicans have a delusion that this is what people want.
- [18:48]
Terry Moran
That's a great point. Americans, we're middle of the road, middle class, decent, practical, pragmatic. People want life to get better. If the government's not working, they'll change it. They aren't. Most of them aren't. You know, they don't want to revolutionize the nature of American democracy. They don't want this. It seems to me, and I think my heart sank when you described this situation with these people being shipped to countries they've never been before into prisons where they will have no recourse to a proper justice system to get out. Is that the United States of America doing that to people who are, you know, basically picking up your garbage or picking your fruit or whatever it is they're doing? These are not hardened criminals. And even there we should have respect for decency and due process in the way we punish people. But this snatching people off the street and flying them to some wretchedly governed country where they will have no understanding the language, no access to decent healthcare, anything to prove a point, I believe, and this, I think, is part of it. The cruelty is the point. The coercion is the point. To the rest of us.
- [19:56]
Charlie Sykes
Yes, to the rest of us. I think that that is important to understand. And yet the other statistic that I think that people ought to really focus on is, I think it was the Miami Herald that went into the new detention center, the Alligator Alcatraz, which I want to talk about in a moment, and determined that 60% of the people that have no criminal whatsoever. So, again, if we're talking about, you know, rapists and murderers, okay, you know, there's not going to be a lot of sympathy for them. They need to have their rights respected. But, you know, again, we're not going to focus on them. But we are now talking about the fact that they're going and they are treating people who have not committed any crimes whatsoever. So that feels like a bait and switch. Okay. Can I confess a moment of real naivete, Terry?
- [20:39]
Terry Moran
Sure.
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Charlie Sykes
You know, I mean, after 10 years of this, you think that you would, like, get it all, like you're cynical enough that you're not going to miss something. I admit that when I heard about the Alligator Alcatraz, I mean, I understood what they were doing. I didn't think that was going to be the official name of the prison. I mean, in case people have missed this, this is not just a moniker. This is not just what they're using to sell merchandise and T shirts. The apartment official name of the facility is the Alligator Alcatraz. And you have even the Attorney General of Florida, who is marketing golf balls and cozies and mugs and hats with the name of this, which overtly celebrates the fact that if you try to escape, you'll probably get eaten by an alligator. Now, again, I actually had a brief discussion with my wife last night. I said, okay, I understand. It's the Florida alligators. It would be like, you know, the Badger Alcatraz, if it was in Wisconsin. No, no, no, no. They made it very, very clear what the point of this. So, again, it's this gleeful celebration of the cruel and unusual punishment that's so.
- [21:51]
Terry Moran
Extraordinary, that glee that. That giddiness over harming, you know, people who have no defenses. If they're here unlawfully, the law should take care of them. I think most people agree with that. If they've got a legitimate asylum complaint and case, they. They should. Should be recognized. But this, it is the point. And for Alligator Alcatraz, never forget how much Trump has learned about branding and about stirring that giddiness and glee in that segment from wrestling, from pro wrestling, that the intense emotions, the big, big labels on things, the exaggerated postures and posing, the delight. And that Stuart and that combination with his ability, his unique ability, in my understanding of American history, to reach down into the guts of his followers and open up the bodily juices, giving them permission to let themselves be the worst version of themselves. He lets people who are ordinarily decent folk become almost monstrous.
- [23:04]
Charlie Sykes
Well, this is what's interesting is that. And I want to focus on the ordinarily decent, because part of the tragedy is, I think so many of the people that go along with this would have gone in a different direction if the kinder angels of their nature would have spoken to them and said, you don't want to be this, they could have gone in a completely different direction. But there is something about kind of the mob mentality where people will do things when they are caught up in that kind of emotional excitement that they would never do, you know, if they were just with their families or they were calmly thinking through what they believe. So, speaking of what now seems like a much less interesting issue, so Donald Trump has succeeded, maybe turning. Turning, you know, turning public opinion on immigration. But he's also, maybe this is me. He's kind of even made tariffs boring. I mean, it's like 30%. Remember, like when we were much younger and you hear 30%, 50%, oh my God, what does this mean now? I think people are going, yeah, get back to me next week when he changes his mind. I mean, so what do you make of the, of the tariff strategy and how that's playing out?
- [24:13]
Terry Moran
Is there a strategy, Charlie? Because you remember he was asked last week, what's the formula? What's the formula you're using? And he's like, well, it's, you know, basically gibberish. What came out? He doesn't, it's his gut, it's whatever sounds good at the moment. But I think the most interesting thing on the tariffs is not what's happening in this country. We will have him maybe do a taco trade, maybe not. Maybe these high rates are here to stay. It's what's happening with the rest of the world. They've decided for the near and considerable future that the United States is not a safe partner. And they are making their own arrangements with each other with Europe and China and India and Brazil. And the big economies in the world, not us, are saying, okay, the United States has been the dominant common economy since World War II, but it's a basket case. It's going to harm us. Our safest bet is to do the most business we can with them on their terms and get rich elsewhere. It is just the worst self inflicted economic wound in a long time.
- [25:16]
Charlie Sykes
No. And I think that most economists would agree with that. But I want to go back to the incoherence of the non strategy. So I haven't had a chance to talk about this on the, on the podcast yet, but Trump is Now threatening a 50% tariff on Brazil, which is a major, major economy, which is bizarre on a couple of different levels. Number one, because we actually don't have a trade surplus with Brazil, we've had a trade deficit with Brazil. And the reason that he's doing it has nothing to do with economics whatsoever. It's because he's mad that they're holding their sort of the, the Trump of the tropics. Was it Jair Bolsonaro accountable for. Bolsonaro tried to do what Donald Trump did. He tried to overturn the election. He tried a coup. Unlike the United States, Brazil's courts are holding him accountable. And Donald Trump is coming to this guy's defense. So he's attacking the judicial system of another country. For holding a fellow coup leader. What was interesting about it is, you know, there is a law, believe it or not, there still is a law that gives the president certain powers when it comes to terrorists, but there are limits on it like national security or economic, you know, and there have been a couple of people like Paul Krugman who said that clearly this is illegal. But I thought what was interesting was when Kevin Hassett, is he the chairman of the, you know, economic advisors, was on television yesterday morning. I don't know if you caught it. Jonathan Karl is asking him, can you just justify the, the tariffs on Brazil? And I have to say that Kevin Hassett is kind of a nice, seems like a nice guy, not the, not the stupidest guy in the administration. And he was reduced to absolute gibberish just about, well, we're just getting our house in order for the golden age that is coming upon us. And he just could not explain or justify it. And it was, it was kind of a little bit eye opening. Like, man, you, you, you don't even have a talking point on this. You got nothing.
- [27:19]
Terry Moran
And I almost felt bad for him, but not quite because he was kind of defending this indefensible policy. Trump is like, thinks he's king of the world or he's the don. Everybody has to kneel to him. And whatever happens with this particular tariff, what does that do to the reliability of the United States? What do you think Brazil's gonna think about future governments of Brazil? The American people have done this twice now. So, so if you're the leader of another country, you cannot count on this country. You cannot count on this country economically or in terms of interference like this. And Hassett has got a hard brief to defend to begin with. Every normal economist will tell you that these level of tariffs are going to cause inflation. And the last time we had him this high helped trigger the Depression. So he's in a bad spot. But the really bad spot is us. Our country's economic reputation say nothing about how people are looking at us. Just the practical effect on our ability to make money around the world for our people is being damaged by the day, by this.
- [28:32]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and also the sort of quasi imperialistic colonialist implication that we can tell a sovereign country's judicial system how they should operate. If we think that countries are not going to push back on that, if we think that's not going to create a certain anti American nationalism around the globe, we're naive. Which brings me to a more cosmic question. You and I are both old enough. I'm older than you to remember a time when many of these stories that we've been talking about would have consumed the news cycle for months and now they last for hours. You know what I'm talking about? I mean, just the pace of the news cycle. You have things that happen that, I mean, the open corruption of, of Donald Trump, I mean his crypto scams and everything in and of themselves. They would be the subject of, you can imagine, a whole miniseries devoted to it. And now because there's just so much happening. So give me your sense of how the media ought to be covering all of this, because I've argued, and I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but I've argued that Donald Trump has broken the media model and that major media just cannot figure out how to cover him, particularly using the traditional rules of the media. Obviously you've given a lot of thought to that. You've paid a price for all of that. So how should the media cover somebody who is basically a fire hose of bullshit and outrageous every couple of hours?
- [30:12]
Terry Moran
Yeah, that's, that has been a problem for 10 years. But also I think the problem goes, goes before that. I think something happened while sort of, while I was at abc, which is that, you know, feelings, emotions, buzzy pictures, buzzy moments, all the, all the cotton candy and popcorn level of news that will grab viewers and make them watch became dominant.
- [30:36]
Charlie Sykes
Talking about Epstein.
- [30:37]
Terry Moran
Yeah, yeah, well, but, but what really happened was the explanatory, the stuff that, that you do so well, the explanatory journalism, the investigative journalism that really went by the wayside across much of certainly the television, the traditional television network news. And so by the time Trump came around and his first term, he was blocked. He didn't know what he was doing. All that stuff by the time this term came around where they had the roadmap to overwhelm that firehose, overwhelm the media's capacity to do anything but gawp at it and point at it and, you know, try to do their best to tell people how different this was and how negative an impact it will have. It's overwhelmed. You can't do it in a couple of minutes. You can't do it in the timeframe that they allow for. And those muscles are gone in some ways. The, you see them Frankly More on YouTube in these spaces.
- [31:39]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [31:39]
Terry Moran
People who can dig. Judd Legum is here. I don't know if you on, on Substack, the amount of reporting he does on these issues that are amazing, truly enlightening There's a lot of people doing great work, Johnny Harris on, on YouTube, who are doing the kind of meaty and yet quite vivid. And you can, you can enjoy it. Reporting that seems to have, seems to be very difficult to do on the mainstream networks.
- [32:10]
Charlie Sykes
Well, you know, it's not new that the media is a business. I mean, it's always been a business, although, I mean, I actually come from a generation, my father comes from a generation of newspaper people who we were so isolated. I mean, I think back on how isolated we were from business concerns about whether it would sell newspapers or not sell newspapers. And now, of course, that's the whole thing. But. So the media as a business has been evolving for some time. It feels as if we've crossed the line with the corporatization of media. Not just talking about abc, I'm talking about cbs. All of them, where they're part of large corporations that have other interests and other entanglements with the government. And as a result, it feels as if the ground has shifted beneath our feet. So give me some your reaction to not just the trivialization of the media, but the corporate pressures. I mean, obviously ABC had the experience of settling that bogus lawsuit, which was really one of, I think one of the tip felt like one of the tipping points. Cbs, of course, in Paramount have essentially given in to Donald Trump's extortion on another bogus lawsuit. We've seen what Jeff Bezos has been willing to do with the Washington Post, given all of his intent. So talk to me about that a little bit.
- [33:35]
Terry Moran
I think that's it exactly. Look, we can't trust these big corporations in getting at the truth of what's happening in the government. They will knuckle under to Trump every time. And I'm not talking to anyone. Forget me. It's Stephanopoulos. It's Paramount. It's, it's the Washington Post and beyond. And it's partly because they all of a sudden find themselves with something they don't want anymore. Right. News for a long time was considered a public service. It kind of, you know, burnished the image in some ways of these networks. Although they fired Murrow when he got a little inconvenient. But for the most part, even if they grumbled about some of the content, some of the criticism of the government or the government's criticism of them, and every, every president has complained about the news media they could deal with. Now, politics is such a fraught subject in America, and this administration is so radical that any reporting they will bring the Hammer down on Right. You know, CBS did nothing wrong in that, in that they paid Donald Trump for doing nothing wrong. And that hammer. Now, my belief is that that as has happened with msnbc, I think eventually, when they're not too far distant future, these giant corporations want nothing to do with news. Those are dying businesses in many ways. Just demographically, is it too much of a hazard? Yeah. Why would they want to keep a news division? I want to ask a top Disney executive 20, 30 years ago, I said, why does Disney own a news organization? And, and he said, well, you know, it can be theatrical. It can be when there's a big event, it feels like a great show. Well, that's not why we do the news. I mean, we do the news to try to empower people and all that. But I don't think it's long for this world because they will knuckle under and I don't think it's going to do them any good. I would bet that by the time in the next couple of years, Trump will, his FCC chairman will make an effort to strip one of these corporations, strip one of the corporations of ownership of the news division because it's not operating in the public interest and have it sold.
- [35:59]
Charlie Sykes
I agree with you. And I think that anybody that thinks that that goes too far is just not paying attention to what they are doing. I mean, they do control the fcc. This is something clearly that Donald Trump would like to do. And look at the way that he targeted Harvard. He wanted to make an example of Harvard. Now Harvard is pushing, you know, he's going to make an example of one of the news organizations. I also think that you're right that the news organ, these, these companies, the corporations are also going to find out something some of these big law firms have found out, which is that they thought that surrendering would be the safe option, that they, that they could make a deal with Donald Trump. And they're finding out that it doesn't work that way. Okay, so let me ask you this question because I'm. You and I have been talking now for about 30 minutes, and you look tanned and rested. Okay, so tell me about how you're feeling about your own exit from abc. How are you doing about that? I mean, how are you feeling about that?
- [37:01]
Terry Moran
Thank you. Thank you for asking. It's a brave new world. Look, somebody said to me that the word is skiting. You're scared and excited. It was, was a shock. But I do feel that this place and places like it, these spaces are about tomorrow. I loved Working at abc. I love the people I worked with, almost all of them. I respect the work they do. But it was, it felt like yesterday. And, and the. This is where it's happening. This is where it's going to happen. I think we already saw in the 2024 election, the election last year, some of the biggest interviews were happening out here, right? The ones that mattered. Okay. The 2028 election is going to happen a lot more in places like this. It's just by demographic fact than it than than everywhere else. And so I feel like I have a terrifically daunting challenge to. Because I've got, I've got these beautiful. I call my inappropriately young children. I've got a 29 year old married in New York with a wonderful guy for a husband. I've got 12, 10 and eight. The oops, oops. I did it again and again and again kids. So I have. But I kind of think I'm lucky. Sure. Do I spiral to 2 in the morning sometimes? Maybe. But more than that, I think, and you must feel this way, how lucky it is to have a purpose and a task ahead. Hard though it is at my age, right? I mean I get to do meaningful good work, get in good trouble. At this age, at this moment in our history, which I think is important as well, I can put my shoulder to the wheel.
- [38:44]
Charlie Sykes
Well, that's right. And you're liberated and I think you're gonna find that it's kind of nice not having to work with assholes or bosses, you know, But I repeat myself. So I mean there is, it is not as if that we don't have these options. I mean you think about all the times in the history of the media, you know, the rise of the independent media, the fact that we're having this conversation now, the fact that so many people have gone from network news to this new independent media and realizing that the times have changed and maybe your timing was absolutely perfect. Terry Moran, thank you so much for joining me and being with me today and enjoy the up north cabin experience.
- [39:27]
Terry Moran
Beautiful, Charlie, thank you so much.
- [39:30]
Charlie Sykes
This is what the Midwest is all about. Thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. You know why we do this, why we continue to do this? Because this is not a drill and we need to constantly remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [39:57]
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- [42:41]
Terry Moran
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