The Bulwark Live, with Brian Stelter

Hey. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all our friends.

I know he doesn’t need any introduction. Brian Stelter was a media reporter at the New York Times chief media correspondent at CNN, the anchor of its former Sunday show reliable sources currently is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair, He’s had a very interesting year, by the way. And he’s host of his own podcast inside the hive. He’s also a producer on Apple T. V.

The morning Joe. Which if you have not binged, I would recommend. That was inspired by his first book, top of the morning. He also wrote hoax about Fox News, and his new book, his new best selling book, which we’re going to be talking about, network of lies spoiler alert, the network is Fox. Brian Silver.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Forget the network of lies. This is the network of the truth. Right? This is Maybe it’s not a sexy book title, but it’s more important.

See, these are not the crazy ones. That’s the that’s the important thing. Okay. So I we have to start with this, a review of your book in the New York Times network obliged, Brian Stelter builds the case against Fox News. This may be the best book review ever.

I I I just have to say.

I Can we then tell people truth.

Yeah. Which

is that when I wrote top of the morning ten years ago, I had the worst New York Times book review ever. Yeah. It was so bad that Oh, the the one ten years ago describe my book as like a half, over easy breakfast. It wasn’t cooked right. And, and, you know, there were it was so bad.

Multiple websites wrote about how bad the review was. Okay? Well So this feels pretty good.

Unfortunately, you’ve got over that, though. Right?

I guess. I guess I did.

Well, and they describe it your book as as a thrilling account of the conspiracy to steal the twenty twenty election, the attack on the Capitol Tucker Charlie Sykes defenestration, and more and it it it it it describes you this way. Stelter, a young Fogi who once worked at the New York Times, has a one year disposition than another author we’re not gonna mention. He uses word like shenanigans. He wrote his book, he says health readers feel empowered. He’s like a Canadian mountain who has stumbled upon a gerbil stomping ring.

Honestly, the nice person who wrote a book about Fox is Dwight Garner because his description of Fox is perfect.

For a stelter journalism might be a humble calling, but it is a patriotic and a noble one, and it burns to see its ideals perverted. I just wanna read one more paragraph here, because we’re gonna get to, of course, to Tucker Carlson, what the hell happened there, the role of Fox News, How how Tucker Carlson and Fox News changed conservatism. Right. But first,

you want to soften me up. I get it. Go ahead. Yeah. Well,

they the the your reviewer said, they put the wedgie into wedge issues, which is one of those lines that’s a writer you wish you’d written.

Yeah.

I mean, it’s just Yeah. And then he goes on to talk about the trickle down effect of Fox News. We live in a stupider, more bellicose world. Democrats were led by the perennial law goes, well, Republicans are led by the gut. This has, by and large, been a healthy balance in America.

But what happens when the Republican gut becomes merely colon rectum, and anus. This book asks. And hot filth pours from it. Reading Stelter, I was reminded of a tweet that made the rounds a few years ago, quote, Fox News did our parents what they thought video games would do to us.

Would do to us. Yes. Would do to us. Yes.

So on any given night, how many people watch Fox News?

Too many. Yeah.

But I mean,

two point five three million. Okay.

But so how that’s not a big giant number, is it?

Well, it’s bigger than my bog. You know, it’s bigger than it’s but but the the and the point of Fox is not the average minute viewer.

It’s

It’s the impact over a day in a week and a month. It’s what’s called the cumulative rating. Is CNN forty, fifty million people tune in a month. Same for Fox. So over time, it’s reaching a lot of folks.

And as you know, all those clips are subject to not all the many of them are going viral on social media. So it it does punch above its weight. And you know, as long as you have every GOP elected official watching. As long as you have every campaign strategist watching. As long as they fear your network, then that’s the most most important, more than the ring.

Okay. So I’ll tell you what my reaction to your book was. When I first saw it, I thought, okay, Stelter on Fox. Got it. Nobody’s gonna say.

Right? Know the story, same old, same old. That’s not your book, though.

Thank you.

You relied on It’s

better than the times review.

All of them. Just enjoy what you can.

I know. Yeah.

But let me just talk about the let me talk about the methodology of all of this. Because I think that people think they know the story of the dominion lawsuit

Right.

With all of the discovery, the seven eighty seven million dollars settlement. But you I want to say stumbled on. You knew that there was this giant trove of text messages and emails. So just tell me what’s out there that you were able to craft into this book.

That’s right. There’s just so much more than, you know, the Daily News coverage had time to digest. And that’s not a critique. I was part of that daily coverage in April when the Dominion Fox case was settled. But Dominion did something really critical earlier that year, earlier this year.

February and March filing these summary judgment briefs, these really giant briefs. You know, the judge said you can have forty thousand words each, and they could have gone even longer. They were basically Dimini was putting all the best emails and texts right into those violence. And then on top of those that that that summer judgment brief, They had to file six hundred plus exhibits with the court, all the material that they might use at the trial, all the depositions they might reference. And those materials, although they are technically public, they’re hard to find.

They’re harder to digest. A lot of the quotes in the book, if you Google them up until Tuesday, they’re not on the internet because you know, they’re just not that accessible. It’s like a lot of things in government, local state national. It’s just not that accessible. I also use for this book, a lot of the January depositions, the testimony, the the the transcripts of the testimony because what was happening all day long, you know, at the capitol interviewing those witnesses a lot of material in there

as well. So this book does not rely on anonymous sources.

That’s the thing that I love about

it. Yeah. Yeah.

That’s the thing I love. I wrote a book about Fox in twenty twenty, and it was mostly an ominously sourced. And look, Sean Hannity is not gonna call me on the record and tell me how it really feels about the recarlsen. You have to use confidential sources sometimes. But the beauty of this book was that all of my anonymous sources are now on their record.

And that’s why I felt like I had to write it and shot to my editor, Julia, who’s here, who who was on board, who said, let’s get this out. Let’s let the public see what’s in these messages.

I was really struck by the fact that you have this two gigabyte file on your computer with emails and messages from Tucker, Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity. As well as Rupert and Lockland Murdoch, as well as documented conversations with Fox executives and producers, which is, again, what makes this so riveting as you’re reading it through. But I wanna start with this story for people who think they know, where the big lie came from and how it started. I have to say the most remarkable thing your book. And you may have different things that are most amazing.

I wanna talk about this random woman in Minnesota named Marlene Bourne.

Right. And

the role that she played. Tell me about Charlie Sykes

is someone who admits her ideas are wackadoodle, who gets her ideas, standing in line at the grocery store checkout line, overhearing conversations. She says she, is internally decapitated, not sure what that means. She wrote a multi page long email to Sydney Powell on Saturday November seventh twenty twenty. Which is the day that Biden was projected to be president-elect. So on the day when, you know, people are taking to the streets here in Washington, New York, and elsewhere, on a day when even Fox accurately reported that Biden was gonna be president, she sends this conspiracy via email to Sydney Powell.

What’s Sydney Powell doing on Sunday morning? She’s going on Maria Barto’s So Sydney Powell who’s working with Trump, although Trump later denied it. Right? Sydney Powell forwards it to Maria Bartoromo. Maria Bartoromo forwards it to Eric Trump.

So all of a sudden, there’s this conspiracy theory laid in email, this whackadoodle email, that’s her word that’s inside the trump family. And this email says it was Diminions fault. The election was stolen from Trump and its dominions fault. Okay. The machines were rigged in its dominions fault.

Okay. Just I want to set this. This is this is a Crazy lady from Minnesota. Coohoo describes how she has visions and that the wind tells me I’m a ghost

Are you telling me the wind doesn’t tell you you’re a ghost, John?

It does, but I generally don’t put it in an You

shouldn’t write

it down. I don’t. I don’t write it down. Right?

She she hears Don’t go to a lawyer.

She hears the theory about dominion where.

I think that is a mystery to this day, but this email was critical. Because

But it wasn’t, like, in a checkout line or something. And, well, that’s what

she said. She said she found these ideas from lots of different places,

including, like, and

it gets really detailed. She cites Nancy Pelosi, she she cites various politicians. She basically says they’re all in on it. And here’s what I found. It was amazing that it was hiding in plain sight.

This is like the best thing for a reporter and author. Went back and I watched Maria’s show the next

day

from Sunday to Memorial eighth. And I realized Maria’s looking down. She’s looking off camera, and she’s reading the email almost word for word. And it’s like, here here it is. This is the whole story.

You know, the conspiracy theory gets from a random moment Minnesota on the vive television on Fox within twenty four hours of Biden becoming president-elect. And of course, the email was full of shit. And, and, and you look at it and you think to yourself Is anyone at Fox paying attention? I don’t expect Maria Barto to seek out the truth anymore, but isn’t there anyone who cared about accuracy and the answer was no?

So they were looking for some way to say that what had just happened did not happen. Right? They were looking for a billing. So, basically, again, Donald Trump has lost the election, even Fox has declared that De Joe Biden is the Victor.

Right.

Maria Bartaromo books as her guest, Sydney Powell. Yes. Who then brings along this crazy email. Is this how it all started?

I believe this is exactly how it all started. Of course, Trump, you know, on election night he went out there and two in the morning and lied and said he had one when he hadn’t. But once the projections were made, then we enter a different phase of the big lie, a different phase of the story, a phase where you need to have a villain. You need to have an evil doer. And so it becomes these voting technology companies, dominion and smartmatic.

But what I realized when I was working on this was wasn’t Trump that came up with this story. It wasn’t it wasn’t born out of the White House. It was born out of Fox. It was born out of Sydney Powell to Maria Bartoromo, saying it on the air. And then within four days, Trump starts to say dominion.

Why? Cause his buddy, Sean Hannity, picks up on Maria’s lie and runs with it. Now, this was also happening in the fever swamps of the internet. But it doesn’t get mainstream without Fox. It doesn’t get into Trump’s brain without Fox.

Okay. So let’s talk about what we we know about Fox. At this time, there was pushback internally among the more remarkable things that we’ve learned is that even Laura Ingram and Tucker Carlson thought this was Bulwark.

Some of it, some of the time. Yes. Yes.

So how does it go from? Okay. This woman’s wackadoodle. She’s crazy. We shouldn’t be doing this.

I mean, where does that happen? Because we got okay. So what type of carlson’s not buying it originally? Right. Ingram’s not buying it.

Right. The Murdochs are not buying it.

And and some of the hosts who are willing to flirt with the idea. They do it in a, more creative way. They’re more clever about it. And that’s actually my worry for twenty twenty four, is that I’m afraid the lesson of DominionV Fox for Fox is just be a little more careful when you defame someone.

Like, just

don’t use their full name. Right. Just pretend just refer to them in a vague way. I mean, don’t say the word dominion, right? Because that’s what, Sean Hannity was doing.

He was saying, dominion repeatedly. But again, it happens within four days. Dominion starts to get the death threat, starts to get the hate, And it was so critical for them to find this email because once they once they sued, once they went to the discovery process, once they’re inside Fox’s servers, They type in the word dominion. They want to figure out what was happening inside Fox before we were smeared for the first time. And this was the crucial point the lawyers made to me.

The only email that said Dominion was this crazy email. Yeah. It wasn’t as if there was some, you know, semi reliable source. I can’t say reliable sources anymore. Actually, actually, I’m wearing my reliable sources socks.

So, I still can say reliable sources.

Is that like an NDA thing, maybe? What what are you? Oh, no. This is Are you

my lady

in the India.

The socks, when we got canceled, the one of the producers made them for us. It’s our way of, you know, all, showing solidarity. No. There was no search within Fox for a semi reliable source. There was no search for a, fact checker.

It was only this one email. So it wasn’t as if anyway, the point is that strengthened Dominion’s case so dramatically Yeah. And they realized this is the only source for the lie.

So, being some of this, we we we know about there was Sean Hannity who was basically saying, look, our listeners want to be told that Trump won, right? We need to respect our listeners. I mean, this is a perfect example of the audience capture.

Yeah.

So what drove this I mean, I guess what I’m getting at is this was not some conspiracy hatched in the upper reaches of Fox of the Fox corporation.

That’s right. It was not.

It was it was really bottom up. And so what Sean Hannity was saying, look, are people wanna be told us, we must serve

Yes. We must respect this audience, which of course was very disrespectful. Yeah. And if you lie to me every day, you’re not respecting me at all. But it’s Maria, it’s Hannity, it’s Janine Bureau, I think there’s a couple of of revealing quotes that that suggest some of them actually believed.

I was just I was pulling up this one from Ray Bartoromo. This is November twentieth. This was fraud. No one can tell me differently. Like, can you imagine a real journalist saying that?

I my mind is so closed that no one can tell me differently that this must have been stolen from Trump. But what that indicated was some of these folks actually believed. People like Hannah are more interesting because they’re all over the place.

Yeah.

His his his He’s going through all these different emotions every day, but Hannity never was named really in the Dominican lawsuit. Why? Because they only picked out the most egregious exam are the most nutty lies that they were easiest to win on.

So I I think

it’s important to recognize there were twenty claims of defamation. But it happened for weeks on lots of shows. And guys like Hannity, maybe they were a little more subtle, you know, maybe they didn’t say Hugo Chavez did it. Right? But they were still advancing the smear.

Yeah. I’m guessing that, that the words, Hannity and subtle don’t appear in many sentences.

So that’s what’s so sad that he had a producer emailing him or texting him that weekend of the weekend of the election saying, let’s be careful about this. You know, let’s you know, when we’re talking about undermining democracy, like, there were warning signs flashing at the time.

So this always comes back to this, this nagging question, this age old question. So naves are fools. Do they actually believe this Maria Bartaromo appears to believe these things? What about the others? Within fonts, Did did any of them convince themselves because the process of rationalization is very, very powerful?

Did they convince themselves that they were asking legitimate journalistic questions? What story were they telling themselves?

That’s what Barta Ramos still says to this day. When she was deposed earlier this year, she says, I still don’t know what happened in the twenty twenty election.

Well, I’m sure that’s true.

Maybe she shouldn’t be able to cover the next one then. Okay? But, but, for the others, you know, I, I think a lot of it, I think Tucker Carlson embodies this. I think and it’s true for others as well. I think he talked himself into believing.

Okay.

I don’t think he started out this way. I knew him twenty years ago. You might have crossed paths or you crossed paths. He wasn’t always this way in his heart, but his heart has been darkened. He’s I think he he said so much, shouted so much, he started to believe what he was saying.

And I think that’s true for a lot of these figures who get radicalized.

So let’s fast forward to to January six, the the the consequences of the big lie, which had really been promoted on on on Fox Air. Trump was pretty close to being drummed out of the party. I think we can all remember what the world looked like on January seventh, what the republican party looked like, what with Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, he thought the Republican Party was going to look like. Brett Hume, on Fox, and Trump was dead duck politically. There’s no

time back. Trump is elderly and retiring.

Retiring. Rupert Murdoch called him a non person.

Yes. We’re gonna make him a non person.

So what I I was struck by what you said about Fox changing its mind about Trump again because if trump, if they’d gone that way, that could’ve that could’ve been Once the GOP I’m just quoting you, once the GOP base gravitated to conspiracy theories that exonerated Trump for the riot, Yes. He regained control of the party and eventually of Fox.

Yes. Didn’t that true?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Because this is, you know, when I spent months, you know, reliving this, I I realized, wait a second. There there’s something happened here. Something happened. Trump was the platform. It is not a conspiracy theory that Trump believes that Fox is out to get him.

Fox was out to get him. It was a real conspiracy. Rupert Murdoch said we’re pivoting away from Trump. Sean Susan Scott, the head of Fox News emails Rupert and says, don’t worry, Sean Hannity is leading the seventy five million away from Trump. Sean Hannity, the shadow he must have was cutting ties with Trump.

Right? But my gosh, Hannity was so freaked out before January six. He was texting, Mark Meadows saying I’m really worried about the next forty eight hours. And he’s texting afterwards saying, we gotta land this plane. He he was acting like he was actually the responsible one.

So there was a real conspiracy. And it went on for months. It went on for a better part of a year. I think the difference maker was the Tucker Carlson, false flag, conspiracy theory. The difference maker was the Patriot purge of it all.

Really? The difference maker was,

you know, what? Patriot Perger was a little,

that documentary he made, but it summarized his view and Trump’s view, the this impression that was given to the base, that it wasn’t Trump’s fault, that it wasn’t your fault, that that it absolves you of all these sins because it was actually the feds. Right? You’ve all heard this. It was actually government agents that incited the ride and instigated the riders. And I think by telling that story over and over again in a hundred different little ways or big ways, it created a a permission structure, an environment for Trump to be welcomed back to center stage, for Trump to be not the the insider of the riot, not the insurrectionists in chief, not the coup butter, but this guy who was wronged by the deep state once again.

Well, that was also a key moment as I recall some, Fox contributors resigned a result of, Tucker Carlson putting that out. Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg from from from the dispatch. That was not actually aired on Fox News though. Was it?

The actual documentary was not. But Tucker was promoting it on Fox and Friends, promoting it on his own show. And honestly, he was taking advantage of all the the free publicity that was gaining, you know, people reacting to it as well. But I paid to repurchase just one slice of what he was saying.

I’ll care

about it for months. You know, there’s even a a rider, there’s a a guy who plead guilty, named Raleigh runners. He named it, actually, runs around Saint Louis Carlos games. And, and he was a Tucker fan. He was a trump fan.

He loved Tucker’s show. Posted about on Facebook. And then he gets caught up in the capital connection on January six. Cucker goes on the show and says, this guy Raleigh Runner, he’s clearly a a plant know, he had a guest on the air saying that. You know, this this guy, he he can’t be a really a trump supporter.

He must be a fed. He must be working with the deep state. And this poor guy, I can’t say poor guy. This guy in Missouri is watching Tucker being like, you’re lying about me. Like, you’re my guy.

And it’s so interesting. I think it’s so revealing that time and time again, even the folks that really trust Fox get burned by it that they get lied about on the air.

Alright. So let’s talk about Tucker. I should try

to interview that guy, actually. That’s interesting.

So I think you and I actually spoke. We did the podcast the day after

Doctor Tucker was d

did you

say defense straight?

D defense straight. That was the New York Times, term, but they used a lot of other terms as well, but the the firing of Tucker Carlson was came as a genuine shock. I mean, it came after the dominion settlement. And of course, he had not been a major player in that case. There were some tech that came out?

I think everybody was shocked. You were shocked at this time.

I was shocked.

Okay. So a lot of speculation about this that he, that he called, certain executives, the c word, or that he engaged in in in certain personal misconduct. I don’t know.

All all the above.

Okay. So, yes. So what happened to Tucker Carl. So why did Fox fire its biggest star?

First, can I just say what didn’t happen?

Yeah.

It is not Fox screwed up, and and maybe they had to do this for legal reasons, but they kept quiet. They kept the the claps shut. They didn’t explain why he was fired.

Yeah.

And they allowed conspiracy theories to form. Yeah. You know, anytime there’s an information vacuum, there’s these theories that are born, and of course Tucker was the one giving birth to them, encouraging people to believe that he was fired because of Dominion. Encouraging people to believe he was fired because of his view about Russia, Ukraine, encouraging people to believe that for some reason, Rupert had a new girlfriend, and he got engaged to her. And she was a big Tucker fan, but then he dumped her.

He wanted to piss off the ex fiance. So he fired Tucker to stick it to the ex fiance. I couldn’t follow it. I Some

of these were good, though.

They were they were they were really rich. And by the way, I think the answer to the question is all of the above. Yep. Maybe he was trying to take all of the ex fiance. Like, all of these contain an element of truth.

I mean, I it it comes it comes down to. It comes down to It’s sitting in a in a in a in a dark corner of his penthouse you know, Rupert Murdoch is sitting there and he goes, fuck that guy.

I’ve had enough. I’m right.

I just I’m right. I mean,

I believe the direct I believe the direct quote. Is, he got too big for his boots. Right? He got too big for his boots. And and that’s very true.

So I I have a whole bullet pointed list. You all see it in the Bulwark. Of all the reasons why Tucker was ousted.

Give me the top three.

I think top three.

Big big way, knowing that there’s others.

He he was he was a lot less profitable for Fox than it could have been, it should have been because too many advertisers were repelled. Why were they repelled? The lies, Hayden conspiracy theories. And that’s the second piece. Even though Murdoch was uncomfortable with some of the conspiracy theories.

And I think number three, his intolerability behind the scenes, the way he treated staffers, the way he talked about executives, the messages that came out, and that is why Diminion is an interesting factor. Deminion did not insist on firing Tucker. That’s nuts. That’s what Tucker wants people to think. It makes no sense.

I’ve walked all the way around this story. I’ve talked to all the people in the room, basically, and it makes no sense. But what does make sense is that when people who you are cursing about and slurring, are forced to read your messages during a deposition. Yeah. It’s a little different.

Yeah. It’s one thing to know. Yeah. Yeah. Tucker doesn’t like you, like, Tucker Tucker sometimes bad mousy at the bar.

It’s very sorry. He doesn’t drink anymore. Douglas, we badmouth you at breakfast. It’s very different. When you’re reading those messages, Tucker, telling you the c word, And, I think what it did is it forced the reality of Tucker into Fox’s orbit, into Fox’s face, And we do know that the weekend before he was ousted, one week before he was ousted, the Fox Board hired an outside law firm to go through all the other messages.

And see what else he was saying. So I I do think that was a contributing factor as well.

Yeah. I if you have more time, I get into the Fox board and the role of my good friend Paul Ryan played and all of that, because he and I had a very vigorous conversation about that. His role on the Fox board, and and he kind of threw

for the shareholders.

And he he threw Tucker onto the bus pretty pretty aggressively, but That’s true. You know, one of the the questions that, you know, you we’re talking about Marita Bartaroma and how she had changed. And, one thing that we deal we with, I think, at the Bulwark, is, you know, how people change. And believe it or not, and I know this is, you’re gonna be skeptical about this. And was once a time when Tucker Carlson was kind of a mainstream conservative who would not have been out of place at an event like this.

He wrote for the weekly standard, thoughtful guy, well respected in journalism circles as as as a as a as a good writer, you know, fast forward.

I went back and watched twenty years ago.

It’s kind of amazing. It’s amazing. Yeah.

It’s like we can actually have conversations about politics and not hate each other at the end. Like, wait a second. We can have fun. It’s guess that’s what this is.

So we could spend the whole night psychoanalyzing this, like, right? What happened? But you had an interesting, I I I thought point in the book where you talk about how isolated he became. He’d become a star. He’d probably become addicted to this celebrity.

And and, you know, I’m sort of feeling like, what I get away with? How can I keep pushing the envelope? Pushing the envelope? Yeah. But then he moved out.

He moved to a house in Maine, moved to Florida. And he became Well, you

don’t want to do that. So, what happened? I think

it I think

it I think it became isolated in every sense of the word. I think it became unglued. And look, he can do a show from anywhere, of course, and, he he he would say that he was in a more diverse environment in his wealthy enclaves on his islands, but But I think the the reality is that he wasn’t going into the office. He wasn’t seeing his staff in person. It’s kind of an extreme version of what some of us went through during COVID.

He he became You know, he was truly literally walled off in gated communities. He was literally on islands, and I think that did have an impact.

Okay. So what’s gonna happen to him now? There was a lot of people saying, well, he’s gonna become bigger than ever. Hanging out with Donald Trump.

Right. He’s

got a YouTube show I hear.

He, apparently. Look, I I think right now his stature is so far, down, so far fallen, but I’m not counting him out. I I I think he’s he’s young enough, smart enough, and he has enough, wealthy backers. That he can build something. And I think he is building something.

Okay. But I know I it’s very hard for anyone to reclaim the level of fame he had at Fox.

Alright. Let’s, move to the current day. Rupert Murdoch passing the baton this week

Yes.

To his son, Lachlan. Yes. What does that mean?

Rupert’s in New York. He was at a news call yesterday, having their annual meeting. He was walking the halls as if he still, well, yeah, let me put it this way. I feel like his stature is diminished like tuckers. He he is not, the swashbuckling leader, the media mogul, that people imagine from a couple of decades ago.

At least that’s what he claims himself. That still comes through in his dominion deposition. I read about it in the book in detail because it’s like the only time he’s been interviewed in Right? He never opens himself up to scrutiny our interviews, but he comes across as a guy who either is dumb or is playing dumb. And I think either either versions of that’s a problem.

Okay. So what does it mean though? What does it mean for Fox? Has Fox learned its lesson from the Dominion lawsuit? Right.

Will it change? How will they behave in twenty twenty four? What is Lachlan going to bring to this?

I’m going out on a limb, but I think a little bit Fox a little bit on autopilot, which is okay as long as there’s not like fall or lightning storm or mountains in the distance, right? Like, it’s auto autopilot, but it it did basically crash in twenty twenty, and there is a danger of it crashing again. I think with Lotham Murdoch, you’re getting a guy who is, Justice conservative or more conservative than his dad. It says all the same things about censorship and the culture wars. But he’s just not into politics the same way his dad is.

He’s not he’s not into journalism and politics. See, he cares a lot more about campaign ads spending at his stations. Than he does about the anti democratic conduct of the candidates. Some of his allies, Bristol, when I say that, but it’s the truth. If he wanted to come out and tell the truth about Trump and denounce what’s going on in this country, He would, and he doesn’t.

He he he is

If if he thought that was a good business decision, would he do it? I mean, it’s one thing to say, he’s not interested in democracy. He’s not interested in politics But is he going to be driven again by what the audience wants, what the revenue, what the ratings numbers tell him to do?

I think the answer is yes. If he viewed If he viewed this threat to democracy, if he wanted to pivot in order to be part of the solution, be one of the good guys. If that was a good business call, he would do it. He is trying to prove himself to his family and to his skeptics. And that’s an interesting part about this.

Public pressure still counts for something. Reactions, criticism, scrutiny, the protesters outside new score headquarters, all of it still counts for something. There’s an effort right now to petition the FCC, to hold Fox’s local stations accountable for the wrongdoing of Fox News. Those efforts really do matter. None of them are are, you know, immediate solutions But, you know, Laughlin Merrick does care what people say about him.

He he does want to be seen as this business leader, someone who can get through the cable, the the kind of cable to the streaming age and all of that.

Okay. Let let’s pull back from Fox just for a second because you were you’re a a media critic and and, you’re a young Fogi, and and I’m and I’m an old Fogi, and we come from we come from the schools of of journalism where certain models, existed, and those models seem to be badly broken. So I guess one of the questions, you know, and I think you and I have spoken about Donald Trump in many ways broke the model of journalism.

Yes.

And they have and and mainstream media, generally, we’re gonna generalize here, has struggle to figure out how to deal with him. And I know you dealt with that every single day for many years, but talking about the hair. Is there any indication that the mainstream media has figured out how to cover Donald Trump because I’ll be honest with you. I don’t see it yet.

I think individual reporters, some of, you know, some do a much better job than others. I think institutionally, this is a riddle. And, and it’s a struggle, and it continues to be a struggle. And, I feel like it’s a little bit like a video game. Again, I’m, like, since I’m the young folkie.

A video game where in order to defeat, to defeat the bad guy, you have to punch him that one spot, that one soft spot where you win. I thought that’s what trump did to the media. By by immediately saying the real people are fake and the fake people are real. Like, and he did that, of course, as you all know, within, before he was inaugurated.

Why was that the soft spot?

That was the soft spot because of all the things you can say about the press, of all the things that Nixon and others said about the press, despite a decades long campaign to discredit the media, Nobody ever went that hard, that one spot, against credibility, against really the existence of reality. Right? I mean, when he said CNN was fake, that’s about the existence of reality.

Okay. Okay. But, but this has been the theme on the right for many, many years. I mean, Spiro Agna built his until he crashed and burned, built his entire career in in attacking the media. You you go back into the fifties and the sixties, and this was a constant theme about media bias.

So what was different?

Well, I mean, it was different than it was, I was doing it on the Bulwark. Right? He was giving press conference in front of the big network cameras. Trump was mostly able just to do it on Fox and Twitter, and and, barely, see any other scrutiny. Is one of the big differences.

I I think another is the the ground was softened, the environment was softened, the people were softened for his claims. And I think right now, many in this country accept everyone in this room and listening to this podcast have experienced memory loss. We are going through like a severe memory loss in country. People do not remember what happened to us four years ago and three years ago.

Four weeks ago.

Well, then that too. Because if they did, there would not be such a casual sort of approach to what Trump is saying and doing now. And I’m hopeful, actually, that when the primary is actually being, when there’s voting happening, that we are gonna see more screwed we are gonna see not just more fact checking, but reality checking.

Okay. This is gonna sound like a personal question, but it’s not a personal question. Okay. No. Okay.

So you’re watching Donald Trump lie on a regular basis, a fire hose of disinformation Yeah. An invective. Yeah. He is an authoritarian who has tried to overturn the government as undemocratic. The media tries to figure out, you know, do we use the word lie?

Do we not use the word lie? How do we cover this?

You probably spent a year on that. We spent a year on. Should we say it’s a lie?

Okay. And then There’s this guy named Brian Stelter, who says, okay, we should call it a lie. This guy is a danger. This guy is a menace to democracy, and people say, Brian, you suffer from Trump derangement syndrome.

And the message is that if you say

those kinds of things Yeah. You’re gonna end up on the Bulwark podcast.

So, right.

So, I I mean, I guess there’s You know

what I suffer from in the trump years? Weight gain. It was, like, every ten year, like, every, like, every year was ten pounds. I feel like every month he put a pound on me because of stress eating. I really do.

I do. I just

when I’m talking about, you know, how to handle them? I mean Oh, yeah.

I don’t know. What do you do? I mean other than going to work out at the gym? What do. I Yeah.

I think part of the answer is that, you gotta be louder than the liars.

You have to

come up with creative ways to be louder than the liars.

But there’s pressure in the media. Why I said it wasn’t a personal question. There’s pressure in the media not to say those things. So as a result, we have, and we’ve had a series of town hall meetings and interviews, in which Trump is treated more or less like a normal candidate.

Mhmm. Right. I think it comes from this desire to among media institutions to to seem above it all, to seem above the fray, to seem like, well, institutions, right, to to seem like they can, they can handle all of this. And Yeah. And we don’t need to come up with a, with a, you know, a unique approach to a unique situation.

Look, I think CNN’s, an example for this. We’ve seen a lot of different, reactions by CNN, my former home, to Trump in the last year. And so we see him almost we almost see a network working it out in real time, for better and for worse, and maybe I’ll think eventually for the better.

So looking ahead, are you optimistic about the state of journalism? And the reason I’m asking that is I was reading a report today that something like one third of newspapers in America have disappeared. Right? We know that Fox has played such an crucial role in the creation of these alternative reality silos.

Yeah.

Do you ever wonder whether there is still a market of future for that traditional kind of old foggy journalism that you talk about in in the in this book? Everybody says we want fact based journalism. Right. But when the people vote with their clicks, they’re voting for the people that tell them what they want to hear. Right.

They’re into fan service. And I’m talking about on the right and on the left. People want safe spaces.

Right. What I get what gives me hope, it makes me optimistic. Number one, we’re sitting in front of a sold out audience. And I know that this kind of audience is also paying for their local news, paying for their local media. I I think there are, you know, look, there are there are we were to divide up the American people and their their news consumption, their news choices, you clearly have a minority, a a a sliver of the society that’s They’ve opted out.

They they don’t want anything to do with real news. They’d rather live in in Magaland. They’d rather believe what NewsMax tells them. They’re not coming back to to to, ABC. That’s the reality.

And, and, but then, I think you also have a decent number of, center right or or right wing listeners and viewers who are still reading their local paper. And then beyond that, I think you have a lot of people in the middle, on the left, and a lot of people who are casual news consumers or are, not watching or reading at all. Other words, I think there’s a lot of folks who might not feel as well represented who don’t hear their voices necessarily when they’re being shouted about at Fox, on Fox. But who are invested in the future of this country. The most, you know, average ordinary news consumer just wants to know what is real in the world.

They don’t wanna be spun. I really believe that. They don’t wanna be spun by noise and and and and then lodge. What’s that?

Do people really want the truth? When I look at Do they really want the truth? Here’s here’s the truth.

Here’s why I believe it. I believe it because when there’s a severe weather event in your community, even even some, you know, Trump flag waving guy still turns on the local meteorologists to find out if they’re in danger. Like, people actually do still trust the media they just all trust some different form of media. But Charlie, do you really think that this country, that the average American wants slide into autocracy. I don’t think so.

I don’t think the average American voter, even the average American Republican voter actually wants this country to become an autocracy.

Well, we will find out. No? I don’t see

it. I don’t see it when I look at the voting patterns a week or two ago. I don’t see it. I see a lot of people who are confused, some of whom are afraid, some of whom don’t know what to think, but they wanna know what’s real. They don’t wanna be lied to every day, Yeah.

They might want their emotions managed by Sean Hannity. You know, they they might want the news delivered in a pretty gentle fashion by Laura Ingram. But at the end of the day, they actually do wanna know what is true in the world. And, at least that’s what I’m gonna keep believing because The alternative is to give up. And I I don’t think we should give up.

I don’t think we should tune out. I don’t think we should drop out. I think that’s what the disinformation peddlers want. Think that’s what Steve Bannon, Doctor. Carlson won.

They want us to give up. They want us to shut up.

Brian Stelter, for from

from you from your from your I’m from you’re fired up now.

Yeah. From from your lips to god’s ears. The book ends here.

Network of lies. Thank you.

I’m gonna take a selfie with all of you. There we go. Got it. Thank you so much.