Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/14/25: Tulsi Flips On Illegal Spying, WAPO Traffic Plummets, Rachel Maddow Saves MSNBC

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Tulsi flips on illegal spying, WAPO traffic plummets, Rachel Maddow return to save MSNBC.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. So we've got confirmation hearings set to start today. Pete Hegseth is up first, the nominee for Secretary of Defense. We're also taking a look at the way that some of Trump's nominees have changed their tune on key issues in an attempt to get across the finish line. So some very interesting stuff there. Got a bunch of media news for you. Jen Rubin is leaving the Washington Post and starting a new venture with a very interesting launch video. So we'll show you that. The big news,

though, is MSNBC. Rachel Maddow is being put back in on a nightly basis, at least for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. I think an indication of how much MSNBC is struggling in the ratings and sort of trying to find, regain their identity and plan for the future, etc. So really interesting development there. Huge potential news in the Middle East may be inching close to a Gaza ceasefire deal. The details on how that was all achieved, obviously the timing as Trump is set to reenter office, all of this very significant, very interesting. So we'll dig into that. Also have some updates for you on a potential TikTok sale.

So there was a report that they might be looking at selling to Elon. Who knows? They're denying it. I don't know. It's interesting. We've also got the latest back and forth with Steve Bannon just absolutely torching Elon Musk in this continued sort of intra-MAGA war. We are going to once again attempt to have Matt Stoller on today.

We had some kind of technical issue yesterday. We wanted to get him to weigh in on Mark Zuckerberg's appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast and what he had to say there in particular about the CFPB. So we're going to try for that again. I think we've got all the tech issues resolved,

so it should be good to go this time. And James C. Fox has a new documentary out about the UFO program. So Sarah's going to talk to him about that. I'm sure that will be quite interesting. It will be interesting indeed. James, one of my favorite UFO filmmakers. He's made some phenomenal films and documentaries in the past.

Highly recommend you guys watch them. And we will show you where you can, as well as talk to him a little bit about what we learned. But as Crystal said, the hearings are off. We are off to the races. Pete Hegseth will be in the box today, very shortly after we finish taping this show, actually, on Capitol Hill. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Pete Hegseth will be the first of Donald Trump's nominees to appear before the United States Senate for his confirmation hearings, but quickly followed within the next week or so that you guys should pay attention to. So after Hegseth goes up, Kirstie Noem is set to

testify on Wednesday at 9 a.m. for DHS secretary. Marco Rubio will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Pam Bondi will also be up before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week on Thursday. You also have some hearings that have yet to be scheduled, which is kind of interesting. Those include RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services, Kash Patel for FBI Director, Linda McMahon for the Secretary of Education, and Tulsi Gabbard. Now, the reason why those in particular have been held up is that you have some of these nominees who are going through the vetting process and the ones who appear to be a little bit more precarious. Although, we'll talk about this. I think we both generally were either probably all going to make it. It just could be more of a rocky

road. One in particular has been Tulsi Gabbard, who has not been able to get a confirmation hearing scheduled and has herself come under a lot of pressure to change some of her past positions on FISA. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This was a key signal from Tulsi Gabbard. She was willing to play ball with the Republicans by completely reversing her past position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. You guys have probably heard us talk about it in the past. But what it all comes down to is that Section 702 reauthorization has been a key issue, actually since the beginning of FISA, but in particular became a bipartisan issue after it was used to spy on Carter Page, the Donald Trump associate from 2017. This is a key part of Russiagate lore.

So ever since that happened, there's been kind of a MAGA push to try and to end Section 702. The deep state has fought tooth and nail to keep it. And they've succeeded. And frankly, this is just more evidence of why they succeed. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma literally said,

he's like, I will not vote for her unless she reverses her position on 702. And she was like, OK. And he wasn't the only one. And he was not the only one. He's the only one who said it out loud. We'll recall in the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, who previously had said some interesting things on 702. Mike Turner, who's in the Intelligence Committee chair and others significantly pushed.

And all of a sudden, miraculously, 702 just sails through the House GOP. And I'm talking about hundreds of people in the House GOP have spoken against Section 702. Here again with Tulsi, I mean, I don't think you can find a figure who is more emblematic of the at least bipartisan push originally. She went from literally Democrat to Republican, but I think we could say she's generally been skeptical of the deep state, et cetera, in the past. And for her to switch her position on this is really disheartening. I mean, it just means that even here when you have people who have had this longtime position and who want to get through the confirmation process, that is un, you know, it's basically, it's just not possible to be confirmed. And then also, it just shows, if you're willing to play ball on this,

what are you gonna play ball on next time? You have a lot of talk about Epstein files, JFK files. People often are like, why are you so pessimistic? Or whenever, you know, I meet a lot of people, people are very excited. They're like, oh, we're really gonna get the files this time. I'm like, yeah, maybe. You know, I would love to.

Listen, nobody would love it more than me. But, you know, I've seen too much of this game here in Washington, and this is perhaps the most high-profile example. Yeah, I mean, Tulsi has changed her political stripes in any number of ways and shifted her positions on any number of issues. But this is, like, the core of what she has, like, consistently stood for. And just as a reminder for people, I'm sure you have heard us and other programs talking about Section 702. Effectively, this was, you know, passed alongside the Patriot Act. The idea was that they could target foreign individuals for surveillance. But in the context of that, if that foreign individual happened to be talking to a U.S.

citizen, guess what? You're scooping up all their communications as well. Then not only does that occur, and we're talking a mass amount of U.S. citizen communications getting swept up in this, then not only does that occur, but U.S. agencies then are able to do these backdoor searches of that surveillance data that they have pulled without having to obtain a warrant. So this is effectively, you know, an end round around, an end run around the Fourth Amendment allows what I view as illegal unconstitutional searches of and surveillance of Americans, again, without a warrant. There was a huge fight during the Biden administration about the reauthorization. It ends up being reauthorized. There were claims that there were some reforms put into this reauthorization, which was set to last for only two years. So time to just sort of last out the Biden administration. And but as part

of those reforms, actually what privacy advocates, civil liberties advocates, people like Tulsi Gabbard herself said is that in reality, they actually, because the wording on these quote unquote reforms was so loose, they actually expanded the capabilities under Section 702. They opened it up, for example, to requiring the collection of data coming through data service centers. And even the language is so loose that it could require someone who's like a janitor at a data center to pull data and spy on their fellow Americans. So that was the quote unquote reform. So anyway, Section 702, it has not been dealt with. It has not been improved. There are no reforms that have made this any less damaging and any less concerning if you are a civil

liberties advocate. And yet that's exactly what Tulsi pointed to in the statement where she completely reversed this course and now says, no, I'm good with that. Don't really care. Think that it's all fine and good now. She says that she was, my prior concerns about FISA were based on insufficient protections for civil liberties, particularly regarding the FBI's misuse of warrantless search powers on American citizens. Significant FISA reforms have been enacted since my time in Congress to address these issues. So she says reforms were passed. We're good to go now. Don't need to worry about it. And our producer Griffin pulled a soundbite of Tulsi just eight months ago. We're not talking years and years.

We're talking just eight months ago after these supposed quote-unquote reforms passed, saying that the reforms actually made everything worse. She decried the very reforms that she's now saying have alleviated all of her concerns. Let's take a listen to that. The bill that would reinstate or extend the FISA authorities, the Foreign Intelligence Security Act authorities, for another two years. Section 702 of FISA gives our government the authority to surveil foreign actors, essentially, to try to identify terrorist threats.

But part of that is they have the ability to capture all of the conversations. If you talk to somebody in another country that they're interested in, they can then go in and capture all of your information as an American citizen. And they can do this without a warrant. This has been in place for quite some time. But this legislation that was just passed recently expanded those authorities so they can go and actually look at like your Wi-Fi history. If you're connected to Wi-Fi, they can look at everything that you did connected to that Wi-Fi signal and in some other ways. It took an already bad problem and made it many, many times worse. And again, they're just saying, well, it's for national security.

The problem here is... That's the thing they always say. That's the thing they always say. And it's like, you know, I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said, if, you know, if you are choosing security over liberty, you will neither be secure nor will you have liberty. So there she is saying those reforms that she's now saying, oh, they alleviated my concerns. She says that those reforms took an already bad problem and made it many, many times worse. And, you know, I like, obviously, Tulsi completely flipping on this

to get through the confirmation process. The cope I'm seeing is like, oh, she's saying what she needs to. And then when she gets in there, she's going to go return to form. Just tell me when that you've ever seen that happen before in Washington. And I don't want to let Trump off the hook here either,

because he has also said that Section 702 was a key priority. And, you know, perhaps if Tulsi is left there out on her own, as she kind of has been to get through the confirmation process, she's got to bend and twist to these senators' whims. If Donald Trump came in and said, no, this is a priority and this is happening and you're going to confirm Tulsi Gabbard, Tulsi Gabbard would get confirmed, holding on to her previous principled position with regard to Section 702, in my opinion. Yeah, that's always the issue. And this is part of the problem. The president cannot unilaterally

just stop the 702 authority. I mean, he can try in terms of how it works with the intelligence community. But as you see with congressional reauthorization specifically, that's why they always hang their hat on it. And it's the one thing they have always gone to war for. I remember reading like in the past, former, I think it's former NSA director, being like, this greatest single threat to the U.S. intelligence community is to not renew Section 702. I mean, look, let's take him at his word.

And if you don't like the intelligence community and you don't like the current methods, maybe we should not reauthorize it. But that is certainly part of the problem here. And just for people who see, this is how Washington works, guys. And I saw Glenn Greenwald, he did a fantastic segment about this, about the problems with 702 and exactly about how DC, you know, have shaped people to their, shaped people, even the people who are outsiders, the total outsiders who were,

you know, like Tulsi Gabbard, even they can be brought to heel. But I will say, you know, it's not just Tulsi. Let's go ahead and put A4, please, up on the screen. A lot of these people, again, outsiders, are colliding with the legitimate political system. And you guys will see that that does not mean that they have the authority that we may necessarily want them to have. So as you guys saw with 702, we just showed you. But RFK Jr., actually on two key positions, one is saying that, one is saying, he said, I'm, quote, all for the polio vaccine. This is despite some past advocacy against that. I have seen some people say, like he was talking about a previous version

of the polio vaccine. I'm not 100 percent certain on that. But what I do know is an absolute flip flop is abortion because he assured Senator James Lankford that he, as the HHS secretary, would not use any state or taxpayer funded resources to go towards organizations like Planned Parenthood or others. And that if there were some movement within the Trump bureaucracy, like against the, what is it, the abortion pill that's currently moving through the U.S. mail system, and others that, which again, the HHS secretary, the FDA, and these other organizations have significant regulatory authority over, that he would not interfere. So that is one where he's previously a pro-choice Democrat. You know, pretty key litmus test issue, I would say, but has changed. We also have here Pete Hegseth, who has previously opposed women serving in combat roles. By the way,

today, that is going to be the number one thing you guys are all going to hear about, so brace yourselves. I was just reading this morning that the Senate Armed Services Committee has seven Democratic women on it, two of them. One of them is Elizabeth Warren. But one, Kirsten Gillibrand, not a lot of people know this. Literally one of her key issues in the Senate is women in the military. And specifically adjudicating sexual assault in the military. She's previously tried to take it out of the hands of the UCMJ and make it like a civilian thing. Terrible idea, in my opinion, but whatever.

Disagreeable. Well, fine. It failed. The concern was that oftentimes women were having to report sexual assault up the chain of command to people who either may have had a close relationship with the abuser or may even be the abuser themselves.

So there were problems with the previous system. Not saying the previous system was perfect, but anyway. This has all been adjudicated, and it did not work, or it did not pass. My point is that those people, I think Maisie Hirono as well, who is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, are going to significantly press Pete Hexeth on the women in combat roles. One of them, Tammy Duckworth, obviously, she was wounded in combat. I think she lost two of her legs. So that's going to be a set piece. And they're also going to be pressing him on previous allegations against him. There's some talk here about the FBI report. So if there's any one that's going to be explosive, spicy for media content and others, I think the

Pete Hegseth one, certainly today. I also think the RFK Jr. one is a sleeper. I mean, this is still not one where you're 100% on confirmation. But as I said at the top, I have a reasonable expectation that all these people are going to get confirmed. Trump has stuck by all of them. He brought Joni Ernst to heel. She previously had been trying to stop Pete Hegseth's nomination. She is also a major proponent of women in combat, former veteran herself. And I believe she, didn't she say she was previously, she's a sexual assault survivor? She is, yeah. Anyway, so my point is that she had some objections to him, but, and she also wanted the job herself.

Now it seems that she's either endorsed him or she's like, I'm willing to hear him out in confirmation. Hexeth may have some of the biggest trouble. But Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and RFK Jr. I think are going to have some of the toughest confirmation hearings, especially with the way that the Democrats are going to try and to create viral moments and more political inquiry and create political conditions to make them unconfirmable. But considering what we've seen so far, I don't see anything other than some crazy kind of black swan event happening that would prevent any of them from being able to take their position. I think they're all likely to get through. I think Tulsi is probably the one that is the most dicey because I don't think a single Democrat will vote for her. I mean, you know, these things are personal. Yeah, a lot of this

is personal. She is the turncoat in terms of the Democratic Party. So they're not going to be excited to vote for her. And then they, you know, worry about her different foreign ties, et cetera, et cetera. But and Republicans are going to be, the hawks in the Republican caucus are also going to be somewhat skeptical of her, which is why this Section 702 thing was so significant. Her changing her stripes on this one is so significant in an attempt to get herself across the finish line, because I think she felt that, especially without, you know, again, I think if Trump came in and said, Tulsi is my, Tulsi is my pick. I want her through. I will punish anyone who doesn't vote for her. Section

702 is a key priority for me. You are not going to block her nomination over something that I support and is my agenda, the will of people, blah, blah, blah. I think he could get her over the finish line without her having to change her stripes, but that's obviously not the way that things are playing out. So again, I think she'll get through. I think hers might be the one that has the biggest question mark. And then you never know, you know, what could come up in an FBI report that causes a problem, you know, that sort of wildcard situation. Is there something that we don't know about these various picks that could ultimately

come out? But given the fact that, number one, the Republicans have really, you know, when Trump said vote for Mike Johnson, they all fell in line. They voted for Mike Johnson, right? When he called up Joni Ernst and said, you're going to be behind Pete Hegseth, which I'm assuming is what happened. She was like, all right, fine. I'm going to be behind Pete Hegseth. So I think the Republicans are going to fall in line and some of the Democrats are going to vote for, I think the Democrats are going to fall in line and some of the Democrats are going to vote for. I think the Democrats are going to vote for more of these picks than they voted for Trump's picks back in 2016 because they have decided a good number of them have decided that they're not really going to resist the Trump administration in the way that they did last time around.

There's just less of a desire to fight on some of these things. So, yeah, I think these picks are all probably going to get through. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still

out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.

She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?

And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple you said, the fall apart of the resistance. That's a good transition. So perfect example and how different this all is. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Washington Post editorial board has now issued endorsements for all of the Trump cabinet nominees. And hilariously, they endorse all but four of those nominees, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr., Russ Vought for the Office of Management and Budget, and the DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

Now, I think why this is ironic and kind of hilarious is just that it shows you how the Washington Post under Bezos is trying to strike this balance of resistance audience with respectability, Washington institution politics. Now, you can have one. You cannot have both. And as we'll show you soon with their traffic numbers, they're actually getting neither. But some of the most hilarious ways that they endorse people, you can just read, for example, Marco Rubio. Here's why they endorse him. The son of immigrants, Rubio is respected by Senate colleagues and understands the vital importance of American leadership. That's it. That's their entire Jeff Bezos tune on why you should confirm him. For example, on Pete Hegseth or RFK Jr., they just say with Hegseth,

the former Fox News anchor lacks the temperament and moral fiber required to lead the Pentagon. He persuaded Trump to pardon accused war criminals and has a well-documented history of womanizing and heavy drinking, though he says he'll give up the bottle if he gets one of the most sensitive and powerful jobs in the world. So they're switched between incisive things

that they want to criticize others on. And for those though, like Doug Burgum, they say the outgoing North Dakota governor and Stanford MBA built a successful software company that he sold to Microsoft. That's it. That's the only thing that they write for him. So the reason why this is funny is you have to pair this endorsement and all of that with what is also going on over at the Washington Post. So let's move on to the next one, shall we? Washington Post traffic from Semaphore has gone from 22.5 daily active users in 2021. Just after January 6th, that was the peak. Just after January 6th to about 3 million. 3 million. So you guys can do

the math on what that means. Daily active users down to 2.5 to 3 million. So that means that they have had a 60% decline now currently in the overall traffic numbers just month over month since they decided not to do that endorsement. And then the Wall Street Journal has previously reported that the post revenue fell from $190 million in 2023 to $174 million just last year. Keep in mind, both the $190 and $174 figure are not enough to cover their bills, and Bezos is still losing some $100 million or so per year operating the paper. Now, they've done significant layoffs and all of that. But part of the problem behind all of this is that the only time they were ever in the green and profitable is by highlighting the very resistance figures like Jennifer Rubin and others who were plot

twist, has decided to leave the paper. We'll show you in a second. But all of their democracy dies in the darkness branding, et cetera, it might have made Bezos a little uncomfortable and at odds with Trump. But it was the only market-based success that they could ever achieve. By ditching that, they both have gone from a paper that just, I mean, breaks some news, not a ton. They have great journalists, obviously. We have Jeff Stein here on the show. But it's not an institution in the same way The New York Times is at all. But also, by ditching the resistance and then trying to find this almost journal-esque medium, they just have no identity.

So it's a good example of whenever you're just constantly moving your principles around, especially your customers and others, you're going to find yourself in a position like this. Now, Bezos is filthy rich, and he probably just doesn't care. But if you run the paper, this is still like, this is what, second largest newspaper in the United States, one of the most nationally known papers in the entire world. And it's basically collapsing in front of our eyes. It's not inconceivable that this revenue drops below 100 million this year with all of these crazy cuts and things they're trying to do over there. And that more and more of their star journalists and others who were the only ones who brought in traffic are just going to leave. So, okay. I mean, that seems to be the case. All the top reporters I know of Lynn Stein are gone. They all left. They just decided they don't want to

deal with it anymore. Yeah. I mean, so just to go back for a second to the cabinet endorsement thing, which is not a thing I've ever seen any paper do before. And it's just like, weird. And the analysis is so shallow. Son of immigrants. For Kristi Noem, dog jokes aside,

she served in Congress in two terms as governor of South Dakota. So we give her a thumbs up. It's like, okay, but what does she believe? And does that qualify her

to be a Homeland Security Secretary? South Dakota population is less than one million, by the way. So just so we're all aware. But the other thing that's ironic, too, is five seconds ago, they were like, we don't do endorsements. Yes, yes. Yeah, good point. People decide, oh, now suddenly when you're going to endorse almost all of Trump's nominees, suddenly you're back in the endorsements game, lo and behold. So yeah, they've destroyed their brand. They built a brand very explicitly around Trump resistance, unlike, you know, the New York Times really bought a bunch

of businesses and tried to make it more than even just the news at all. They have all these other verticals that I think in many ways are more profitable, even than the main news business that they engage in. Bezos really went all in on Trump resistance. And by the way, there's still a market for that, a dramatically underserved market at this point, given the fact that the post is out of the game. You know, MSNBC has Joe and Mika making their little sojourn to Mar-a-Lago, and we'll get back to them in a second. CNN, the Democratic Party themselves, like bending the knee in many instances, all of these tech oligarchs, et cetera. Remember, I mean, yes, Trump won the popular vote for the first time. Republicans have a mandate, but he also only won the popular vote by 1.5

percentage points. There are still a lot of people in this country who are not excited about him being president, are critical of him, and want to see that reflected in their media consumption. So yeah, the brand is completely destroyed. As you said, Sagar, who is this for at this point? Because it's certainly like MAGA is not looking to the Washington Post for their directions. And I think it's very clear that for Bezos, the Washington Post is like a little blip on his bottom line. It doesn't matter whether it's profitable or not. What's much more important to him is how Amazon does his larger and like the cloud computing business that he has as well, which is a huge part of his bottom line. Under the first Trump administration, he felt,

I think correctly, that he was blocked from a significant government contract because of an adversarial posture vis-a-vis Trump. and he is not going to repeat that mistake again. So, you know, that's where his bread is buttered, and that's, you know, what he is going to shift the paper in the direction of. You also recently, I think we covered this while you were away, there was a cartoonist who had been at the paper for years and years, who was award-winning, prize-winning, whatever, who had submitted an editorial cartoon that had Bezos

and Mickey Mouse and the LA Times owner and some other oligarchs, Zuckerberg, I think was one of them, basically like bending the knee to Trump. And the cartoon was blocked. And so she decided like, okay, that's it. I'm out of here. And that's actually what Jen Rubin also cites that cartoon being blocked and that cartoonist departure

for a part of her justification for why she was ultimately going to move on. So yeah, I think as a business, obviously it's already a catastrophe and I wouldn't look to them for any really serious critical reporting because Bezos is only gonna let that critique go so far because of his other business interests and not wanting to get crosswise with this government.

Yeah, which is why it's hilarious. Let's put this up there on the screen about Jennifer Rubin. She has announced her departure from The Washington Post and has decided to join us in the independent sphere, starting a startup publication called The Contrarian, not owned by anybody. Hilarious. Yeah. It's just crazy. There is nobody less contrarian than Jennifer.

She's the most, like, purveyor. I don't know if people know that. She was, like, you know, a Mitt Romney, hawkish, Iraq war-supporting, like, neocon conservative. Yeah. And then, you know, she makes this transition in the Trump era, which, okay, fine. A rock war supporting like neocon conservative. Yeah. And then, you know, she makes this transition in the Trump era, which, OK, fine. But oftentimes, too, she's one of these figures. Obviously, MAGA hates her because she doesn't support Trump. But I mean, where is she even really politically is a really open question because she seemingly has completely flipped a lot of views in the Trump era,

which is convenient for a Washington Post audience, where she is and was, like, very popular. So it actually is kind of a blow to them that she is leaving. Oh, no, no, no. Business-wise, she's number one every time. It's crazy to me. Yeah. But anyway. Who are you? Who reads Jennifer Rubin Collins?

Yeah, she has a big audience there. So the fact that she's leaving, I mean, it really genuinely is a significant development for them. And, you know, I mean, on the one hand, it's like, all right, you are standing by your principles. You don't want to be controlled by, you know, Bezos or Ben the need of Trump or whatever. OK, but it is funny to call it the contrarian one. If you want to know what Beltway conventional wisdom is, just go and read a Jennifer Rubin post and you will be well-schooled in what the conventional wisdom of this town is at this point. Absolutely. That's why I'm excited for these people to get into the independent sphere because they have no idea what it actually means to cultivate an audience, to build a sustainable business, to be able to operate without Jeff Bezos cutting you W-2 income every year, be totally insulated from what it means to actually fend for yourself.

So welcome, Jen. We're happy to have you here in the sphere. Let's check in in a year, shall we? You know what? I actually think they might be successful. To be honest with you, I actually, because this market of Trump- Well, can we play the video first? Of Trump?

Yeah. Fair. Yeah? Fair. Fair. But, I mean, this market of, like, Trump resistance is really underserved at this point. And she is a known quantity in that space. And so I wouldn't write it off. Maybe you're right. I think it could be from a business perspective. I think it could be a successful venture.

I think it's possible. But, I mean, look, on the independent side, it's not like it isn't saturated either. You got the bulwark, you got that lady, what's her name, Heather Cox Richardson,

something like that. She's huge. I mean, she's one of the top sub-stacks in the country. Yeah. These Midas Touch dudes, look, not my cup of tea, but they're big.

They've built something real over there. Here's my thing. I don't like it, but I know that they're, I mean, I'm pretty sure they are funded by Democratic super PACs and all that. So it's not 100% legit. True. But anybody who can command a million views a video, I pay attention.

Somebody's out there. I've actually met Boom. Actually, I was in L.A. No, San Diego. And I was in an Uber. And this guy was like, he's like, you look familiar, you know, whatever. And then he's like, he's like, I think I've seen you before on the Midas touch. And I was like, no, that's not me. I have no idea. But then he was just telling me

about how much he loves the Midas touch and how they've, they've really opened his mind as to how Donald Trump is the next Hitler, et cetera. But I was like, hey, you know. Here's what I respect about them. He's getting his news somewhere. Is they're not too, like, self-serious to dig into the, like, diaper Don conspiracy. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like, they will chase every rabbit hole. And so, listen, that's what's allowed them to build an audience. And, you know, I think, like, there is a lot of churn in the liberal media space right now.

And a lot of people who are very dissatisfied with the Post, with the Times, and with MSNBC and you're starting something new, I do think that there is an audience there to potentially, you know, capture and become part of their daily media diet. Now, you know, there are no bad ideas. There's only bad execution and they may well suffer from bad execution as we're about to see in this launch video, which we've now teased extensively. But, you know, I'm just saying, like, I do think if they do a good job with it and fill that market need, I do think there is an audience out there for them. It would not surprise me. Certainly possible. As we said as to their chops itself, though, here's the launch video that they had.

Take a listen. Do politics. We're going to do law. But we know that any successful pro-democracy movement also has to be very vocal about culture. We'll have a humor column. We'll even have a cooking column, but we're gonna sprinkle in a little bit of pro-democracy flavor.

What is pro-democracy cooking? I love that energy. I love that energy. I know, I wanna, see, you wanna find out. You gotta subscribe to find out, Sagar. All right. Jen, we wish you the best. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,

I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband. It's a cold case. I've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills

I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder

Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that

to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's go ahead and move over to MSNBC where there are very interesting doings and put this big blockbuster news up on the screen.

So you guys probably know Rachel Maddow had taken a step back from the network. She was focusing on her own, like, you know, longer form productions and only hosting the show once a week. Plus, they would bring her in for any, like, big breaking news and she would sit at the desk with all the other primetime anchors, whatever. Alex Wagner had been brought back in to fill her, I believe, 9 p.m. slot on those other nights when she's not hosting. Well, they are bringing Rachel back in to host five nights a week, and sending Alex Wagner out into the field for Trump's first, at least first 100 days is what the plan is. They say it's a broader move by MSNBC to draw viewership to its coverage for that first 100 days. And they talk about the numbers in this variety piece and just

how catastrophic they have been for MSNBC after Trump's re-election. They see between the election and the end of 2024, their primetime audience between the age of 25 and 54, that's the only thing that matters, by the way, the key demographic is the only thing that matters because that's what advertisers pay for ads based on, dropped by 65%. 65%, according to data from Nielsen. They're making a couple other new moves.

Jen Psaki is going to launch a podcast called The Blueprint with Jen Psaki that's going to look at the future for the Democratic Party. Like she's the one to tell us what direction to go. Chris Hayes is going to debut a new recurring segment called Here is What is True that will scrutinize misinformation tied to news coming out of Washington and how it affects political discourse. But this whole direction saga, it just smacks of utter desperation. Oh, absolutely. Because and I do actually I mean, I do think that Rachel may be their only host left who really has that kind of like trust and credibility with the audience, especially after that Joe and Minka visit to Mar-a-Lago. It was devastating to them. It was devastating in the morning. Joe numbers

immediately in that same day that they announced that they did that, their numbers dropped some 40% hour over hour. That's in a morning show. An audience share is supposed to build hour over hour. And I really think that that stench of Trump capitulation has damaged the entire network, not to mention just normal, like, okay, the other team won, like, this is really depressing. We don't really want to watch news right now. Like that's a common dynamic and potentially they could rebuild from that they did last time that, um, that Trump won as well. But also last time they had Russiagate, which was oversold and this elaborate conspiracy theory. But it made for, that's part of why they indulged in it so heavily, it made for compelling viewing. Because every night it was like, oh my God, what piece of the

puzzle is Rachel Maddow going to unfurl and explain for us and help to fill this in and what's going to be the dramatic conclusion, et cetera, et cetera. All this cast of characters. And that's really how they made their comeback in the Trump era. It's not clear what would serve that same role this time around. Democrats in general are in disarray. There's no coherent view of how to oppose Donald Trump this time around either. So they're not all, you know, oars are not all rowing in the same direction. So the only thing they can think to do is basically bring back in the one person that they know still has the trust of the audience and see if she can right the ship. But the problem is with this strategy is she already left.

So, I mean, they probably had to pay her a boatload of money to come back for this 100 days. What about after that? You know, is the plan that, oh, they'll find their footing? I mean, I'm assuming that's literally what it is. They're like, oh, we'll figure it out. We'll see what the peg is. Rebuild those viewership habits.

That's what they're hoping. I mean, I don't either. Because, you know, it's really important to know the media was not the creator of the resistance. It was like a dual pathway where, yes, MSNBC and all these other people invented Russiagate to feed the resistance. But the resistance was a thing. I was here in D.C. There were people marching up and down the streets after Donald Trump won.

The day after Trump won, I was at the Trump Hotel for a work thing, and the entire place was flooded with protesters. I remember the Women's March. It was impossible to even get around. What was it? Four million people showed up here in Washington, D.C. Remember all those videos of ladies in their hats on the planes? It was big. It was big. All right, cringe, but big. But it was a thing, and was clearly like a demand for that type of content that's part of where the it came from this time i don't see it as much not at all i'm not saying that there aren't a lot of people out there don't like trump or they want to see something a little bit different but they're not it's not like a 9-11 style event to them um and they're tired or they've just been they've heard it all before so that level of engagement the illegitimacy that they viewed him as because he didn't win the popular vote, a lot of the arguments are just gone.

And at this point, everything they possibly could have done has been tried. You know, arrest, you know, the court cases, Michael Avenatti, Cohen. Even they are probably rolling their eyes at this point, no? They just have to say, I can't take this shit anymore. I think it is that exhaustion. It's not that they're any less depressed about his victory. It's like we tried everything. Like we were in the streets.

We marched. We protested. Like we watched Rachel Maddow every night. You know, we tweeted about Trump. We did. You know, he got arrested. He got charged. He did January 6th.

And, you know, people saw with their own eyes the, you know, the extremism. And there was this mass revulsion against the actions that he took and the actions he didn't take on that day. And I think the sense is like, yeah, we did all that. And like none of it worked. And even we, you know, managed to get Joe Biden out of the way and have a better chance at least at being able to succeed. So I think this time and there's also in 2016, he really felt like an aberration, especially because he didn't win the popular vote. And there are always, you know, Russia and Comey and there were all these like, oh, well, and Hillary runs a bad campaign and maybe she was a uniquely bad candidate. And so there was this sense of this was a blip. And that's not the sense now.

So, yeah, there's not the same grassroots movement against him. And there's certainly not media that's orienting itself in order to help to build up that grassroots energy movement of resistance, et cetera. And so, yeah. And then the other thing we haven't even mentioned is Comcast is selling MSNBC. Like they're being cut loose along with other cable news properties that are under the Comcast brand. And they're being like launched down into the ether as effectively a startup in the coming years.

They're being cut loose from NBC where that, you know, provided them with some news gathering and some like legitimate news gathering ability. So they're really at sea. And I do, like I said, the word that comes to mind for me looking at this bringing Rachel back in for the first hundred days is just desperate. It's the only thing they can figure to do to try to rebuild something so that when that sale, when that spinoff does occur, they have, you know, something of viewership, something that could even theoretically make sense as a business possibility. Because right now, given these numbers, it's not looking good. And they pay their, remember, huge overhead. I mean, the amount that they pay these hosts. Oh, it's millions. Yeah. I was just looking. Absolutely. Pete Hegsett's financial disclosure. This guy only works weekends. He's getting paid $2.2 million a year.

Totally work two days, two days a week. It's a nice gig. Must be nice. You know, that's over at Fox News. Obviously, it's probably a little bit higher over there. But, I mean, what, cut it in half a million? I mean, Rachel's pulling $30 million a year. And Joe and Mika make that kind of money. They make $10 million each. Yeah, huge dollar figures. I mean, every primetime host is making at least a million a year. Rachel's making way more than that.

Joe and Mika make way more than that. I mean, that's – if you're a startup, like even they said they'd be a well-funded startup. Yeah, right. Even a well-funded startup can't handle that kind of overhead when you're not bringing in the viewers. So yeah, the future not looking great over there. Another, this is not totally unexpected, but Semaphore broke the news. I can put this up on the screen. Chuck Todd has been meeting with Washington media organizations. He is going to leave NBC at the end of his contract. You know, he'd already been taken off Meet the Press.

So not all that surprising that he is looking to move on. It wouldn't surprise me, Sagar, if he also tries to get into the, like, independent media game. Chuck? Yeah, it's the hot hot spots to be and these people all think that they can make it in our world um and i don't know some of the ways um that he's been talking recently have seemed to me to be an attempt to transition into more of like an independent media space like giving some credence to bernie sanders that kind of stuff where um you know,

it's very different from the way that he used to approach these topics. Chuck also fancies himself intellectual. He likes to do like big history takes. So I could also see him trying to write some Bill O'Reilly style history books. That is, by the way, as a book guy, so depressing. Whenever you check the top 10 books in the United States, number eight is always some fucking killing so-and-so by Bill O'Reilly. Who are you buying this? I just don't understand it. I think it's like grandmas who buy them

as gifts for their grandsons. So they've gotten like ripped apart by fact checkers. Oh, no, no. Look, put the accurate side. It's mostly the killing books are just like aggregators. It's like reading a BuzzFeed article about an event like killing Lincoln, right? And it's like narrative style, basically narrative style aggregation. I actually tried to read Killing Lincoln once because I was like, okay, what's all the fuss

about? It's one of the top-selling books in the country. It's incomprehensible and bad. I just don't get it. But, you know, for Chuck, there's a well-trodden path out there. That's true. There's a well-trodden path. And he doesn't have the juice that Bill O'Reilly does.

No, he doesn't. Bill O'Reilly, listen, obviously I don't share his politics. Right. He really is kind of the goat of, like, the cable news format. Yeah. That man really made, you know the cable news format yeah that man really made you know cable news what it is like the the format and his style and you know his command of the audience and all that stuff like he really was you have to i have to respect the game i have to respect absolutely

i used to watch it growing up uh what was it you know the debate segments and uh that they used to have i mean listen it was at one point i O'Reilly was commanding like 10 million viewers a night whenever we were in the lead up to the Iraq war. I mean, he honestly has a lot of responsibility for that, for a lot of the problems with the Bush administration. It was a different moment in time. It was almost 20 years ago. It feels like forever. But at one point in time, like these people were the kings of American politics. So at the very least, thank God that that time is over. Yes, indeed. We've got one last piece here, which is more on the dismal television ratings and a new poll. We can put B3 up on the screen here. Americans exhausted by political news, TV ratings and a new poll show they are tuning out. So about two-thirds of American adults say they have

recently felt the need to limit media consumption about politics and government because of overload. You should probably do that. It's probably good for your health. Smaller percentages of Americans are limiting their intake of news about overseas conflicts, the economy, or climate change. Seven in 10 Democrats say they're stepping back from political news. Percentage isn't quite as high for Republicans who have reason to celebrate Trump's victory, but still about six in 10 Republicans say they felt the need to take some time off, too. And the share for independents is similar. Maybe. I don't know.

People are bad at really describing, like, what they should do versus what they are doing, et cetera. The fact that cable news ratings are, CNN and MSNBC in particular are massively down doesn't necessarily mean that news consumption overall is massively down because, as we discussed before, a bunch of left independent channels are actually seeing a huge surge right now, Kyle's obviously being one of them. So, yeah, I think there's a real, I'm sure there's some fatigue after an election there already is, but it also seems to me like what we're seeing is more of a reshuffling of media habits than a desire to completely step away. Yeah, no question. I totally agree with that. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives.

Like, that's what's really important and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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