Morning Joe - ‘Ridiculous, preposterous’: Mika reacts to WH pushback over stunning Wiles interviews

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

‘Ridiculous, preposterous’: Mika reacts to WH pushback over stunning Wiles interviews To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I think the dam is breaking. Many Republicans may not have called him out, but last week, 13 Republicans voted with Democrats to overturn one of President Trump's executive orders, which enabled him to fire federal workers. We also saw Indiana Republicans vote against redistricting. He didn't call any of them traitors and call for primaries against them. But I would like to say that that is a sign where you're seeing Republicans, they're entering the campaign phase for 2026, which is a large signal that lame duck season

has begun and that Republicans will go in all in for themselves in order to save their own re-elections. Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green weighing in on President Trump's influence over the Republican Party. It comes as the administration is playing defense on a number of fronts as the end of the approaches while arguing there is nothing to see here amid fallout from head-terming comments by Trump's own chief of staff. Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It is Wednesday, December 17th. With us, we have the co-host of our 9 a.m. Hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lamere,

co-host of the rest is politics podcast, the BBC's Caddy Kay, opinion writer at the New York Times. Mara Gay is with us, and Professor of History at Tulane University, historian Walter Isaacson joins us this morning. He's the author of the new book, the greatest sentence ever written. And Jonathan Lemire, Marjorie Taylor Green, seeming to predict where we're going here for the Republican Party. It's not the person I expected to be hearing a lot of truth-telling about what might be. happening? Yeah, she's been remarkably candid in recent months, clearly had a conversion of sorts and we're very upset. And we've seen her speak at a very human level about some of the threats that she and her family have received after crossing President Trump. But she has broken with him

on a number of issues and laid it plainly there. And she gives voice to what more Republicans are starting to whisper. We don't want to overstate this just yet. But starting to whisper that President Trump, indeed, they're looking towards a future beyond him, that maybe he is entering lame duck status. He's clearly been on a real political losing streak the last couple of months. And Mika, they seem to be more willing to break with him and to call him out when they disagree. And they have a number of serious issues on which they could break with him, including and especially the boat strikes and the one specifically on September 2nd, where of the Secretary of Defense now says the public won't see that video, waiting to hear a real

response to that as to where we go, especially from Republican senators like Roger Wicker. But we begin this morning with the all-hands-on-deck pushback from the Trump White House over the stunning Vanity Fair interviews with President Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles. In those interviews, released yesterday morning, Wiles gives candid answers. about the president, his term so far, as well as those in and out of his administration. Wiles told author Chris Whipple, quote, Trump has an alcoholic's personality, though we should note the president doesn't drink. He also says J.D. Vance's conversion from Never Trumper to Maga Acolyte has been sort of political. The vice president, she added, has been a conspiracy

theorist for a decade. Russell Vote, architect of the notorious project 2025 and head of the Office of Management and Budget, is a right-wing absolute zealot, she said. When asked what she thought of Elon Musk, reposting a tweet about public sector workers killing millions under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, she replied, I think that's when he's microdosing, referring to the drug ketamine. But she says she doesn't have first-hand knowledge of that. Wiles also critical of Attorney General Pam Bondi for her handling of the Epstein files, Wiles said, quote, I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that was the very targeted group that cared about this. Wiles continued. First, she gave them binders full of nothingness, and then she said that the witness list or the client list was on her

desk. There is no client list. And it sure as hell wasn't on her desk. Whipple writes that he asked Wiles back in March, if she ever went to President Trump and told him this is not supposed to be a retribution tour. Yes, I do, she replied. We have a loose agreement that the score settling will end before the first 90 days are over. Whipple asks, Wiles again late in August, to which she responds, I don't think he's on a retribution tour, she said. A governing principle for him is, I don't want what happened to me. to happen to somebody else. And so people that have done bad things need to get out of the government. In some cases, it may look like retribution, and there may be an element of that

from time to time. Who would blame him? Not me. When pressed about accusing New York Attorney General Letitia James of mortgage fraud, Wiles responded, well, that might be the one retribution. And when asked if she's called out the president on that, Wiles, said, no, no, not on her, not on her. She's had half a billion dollars of his money. Wiles left. Now, Susie Wiles pushed back yesterday, calling the article a disingenuously framed hit piece with significant context disregarded. In an interview with the New York Post, President Trump said he hadn't read the piece, but praised Wiles as fantastic and called the author of the piece very misguided.

Vice President J.D. Vance and White House Press Secretary, Caroline Leavitt, also refuted the peace yesterday. You know why I really love Susie Wiles? Because Susie is who she is in the president's presence. She's the same exact person when the president isn't around. Susie Wiles, we have our disagreements. We agree on much more than we disagree. But I've never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States.

and that makes for the best White House chief of staff that I think the president could ask for. This is, unfortunately, another example of disingenuous reporting, where you have a reporter who took the chief of staff's words wildly out of context. Many people in this building spoke with that reporter, and those comments were never included in the story, probably because it didn't push this false narrative

of chaos and confusion that the reporter was clearly trying to push. Well, with respect, Jonathan Lemire, I'll let you take it around, but false narratives and misleading, I mean, that pushback sounds ridiculous and preposterous, especially given what Susie Wallace is quoted as saying and apparently recorded as saying matches what a lot of people close to the president are saying. Yeah, there are a few things here. Her initial response, and it was noted even yesterday and morning. is that she claimed she didn't say the thing about Elon Musk and using ketamine. But the author, Chris Whipple, produced an audio tape recording of the interview, which she clearly did. Beyond that, she didn't try to actually dispute her quotes. She did not suggest they were not accurate. Instead, fell back on the idea they were taken out of context and the like. But the issue is, I mean, this is an author, she spent an extraordinary amount of time with,

11 interviews over the course of a year, some on the phone, some in person, a couple even in the White House Chief of Staff Office just down the hall from the Oval Office. This was not a surprise that this happened. Chris Whipple wrote a book, sort of a definitive history on the White House Chiefs of Staff. Clearly, he gained her trust. She felt comfortable with him. And she, and let's remember, a lot of senior staff, including the Secretary of State and Vice President, all posed for photographs for, with that. Fair here. So this was full cooperation. You know, Walter Isaacson, it certainly adds to this idea, though, of a White House that's gone off the rails a little bit. Susie Wiles gets a lot of credit in Trump world for the campaign in 2024. And then the first six, seven months or so of this time around running a much tighter ship, better processes, a lot less in terms of staff infighting and dysfunction that so defined the first Trump turn. She gets a ton of credit. Trump's very fond of her. So that's why this landed with such a thunderclap across Washington yesterday because she would be such an unlikely source for such candid, in some cases, damaging assessments.

Well, you know, Mike Kensley defined a gaff in Washington is when somebody accidentally tells the truth and everything she said has the odious smell of truth to it. And there was a rallying around. I'm not sure this is a breaking of the dam on things. you look at what everybody said, they're going to survive this. They said it was disingenuous framing. Well, that's almost confirming the story is true. And you mentioned, Mara mentioned, too, the posing for the photographs. I just looked at him.

You know, it's Christopher Anderson, great photographer. He's a new Annie Leibowitz doing those vanity fair things. I think I hate to push back against the narrative. I think they're going to come out of this okay. Oh, no, I think there's no question. Her job is safe. president made that that clear yesterday. It just sort of adds to this idea, though, of some chaos that defined Trump 1.0 now seems back in some ways for Trump 2.0. But Marr, it's also

the reaction from the White House is switching. I wrote on this last night. I'm old enough to remember when Steve Bannon gave a lengthy on-the-record interview that contained candid critical assessments of those in the Trump orbit, and he was excommunicated from Trump world. Now he's since come back. But for a few years, he had to live in the wilderness because they were so angry that he did this. It was the exact opposite reaction last night. Not only did press secretary Levitt pushback. We heard from the president, an interview with the New York Post, but it was remarkable. Nearly two dozen senior official cabinet members in a coordinated effort floated the zone on social media last night, all praising Susie Wiles, a recognition

of just how important she is in the Trump orbit and how much, at least for now, the president still needs her. Well, undoubtedly so. The other thing is that she, I think, is giving this White House a sense of cohesion. It's clear. She's the adult in the room. And so it's going to be difficult to push her out. And I think that's, you know, inherent in the reaction from the president. But the thing is for the public, she's a reliable narrator. And so, you know, it's true that there's been extraordinary reporting out of this administration that has teased a part. much of what Susie Wiles said and told Chris Whipple, but hearing it from her is extremely different. And so she's telling a story that is pretty compelling and pretty consistent with

outside reporting. I also think it's a reflection of how comfortable this White House has gotten surrounded by friendly press. So, you know, the White House press corps looks a lot different in many rooms than it used to. This is a White House that has been able to pick and choose who it talks to. And so then they allowed a traditional legacy, really trusted reporter, independent reporter, into the room. And over a series of interviews, they got very comfortable. And now we're seeing that truth come out. And it's not flattering. And frankly, the photographs are not flattering either. No, no. And Caddy Kay, a couple of things. The president's going to be addressing the nation tonight. It'll be so interesting to see if he takes this on and how he handles this. So far, they've been accusing Chris Whipple of manipulating the narrative of this, which is attacking his work as a journalist. And I'll be watching to see how Vanity Fair responds and how this reporter responds.

to defend their work. Secondly, Chris Whipple will be appearing at the top of our next hour of morning shows so we can ask him a lot about that and about what they're saying so far, because I can't imagine that they're not preparing for this onslaught, which happened almost immediately with them defending themselves from what appears to be a complete debacle. I mean, all of those members of the administration posing for that picture, sitting on tables and leaning up in beautiful lighting, and I guess thinking that they were going to look like cool dudes or something. I don't know what they thought, but everybody was all in on it. And Susie Wiles did 11 interviews, 11 separate sessions with Chris Whipple.

Yeah, and I think that may have been the problem from Susie Wiles' point of view is you get comfortable with somebody, right? Maybe she, you know, 11 interviews over the course of several months. We as journalists can see how that work, you kind of get somebody into your trust and they start saying things that they may not say if they didn't have a relationship with you. It's a little hard for the White House to say that none of this is true because clearly we can ask Chris about this later, at least for some of this, he has the tapes. So he has the evidence to back up what he said. I mean, I think the most important is something that Mara was suggesting at is that this is a this is a very radical presidency. And here you have a senior official in that presidency

saying that even people within the presidencies around the White House are concerned about some of the radical policies. And the fact that she says that she was aghast when she heard about USAID and that they do very good work. Well, the canceling of USAID is a huge issue for America and for the White House. And here you have the chief of staff saying that she has, was aghast when she heard that was happening. And yet somehow Elon Musk was just able to roll ahead and do it anyway. And where was the control there? Was this not meant to go through the president?

Was this not meant to go through Susie Wiles? If she was aghast and thought USAID did good work, why did they stop it? Was Elon Musk out of control? Was he out of their control? Then saying, you know, the tariffs were more painful than we expected. Saying that for Venezuela, effectively the president wants to have regime change. admitting that on the draconian immigration policy, mistakes have been made. I think if this article is to stand the test of time, it will be that.

It will be how she points to specific policies and shows how this radical presidency is causing concern even within the administration. Yeah, and Mika, it's far from the first and won't be the last administration to be seduced by the lure of a Vanity Fair photo shoot. We have seen that time and time again. Daddy makes a great point there in terms of the way Wiles sort of just gave up the game, particularly like on Venezuela. There's been so much speculation in recent weeks as to what exactly is going on.

This now confirms the president really trying to do a pressure campaign to force Maduro from office. And we know just in recent – and she also acknowledges that they would need congressional approval for ground strikes, which is something we haven't heard from this White House yet. So there's a lot here beyond the – beyond the palace intrigue, beyond the politics of it, like, oh, Susie Wilde's up or down. There's a lot here of real substance and consequence that now the American people hear from the most important person in that White House

beyond the president of self. And they're standing by her, so there you go. We're going to get back to this. We want to get to some of the other stories making news this morning in Rhode Island. The Providence Police Department has released new video of a person of interest in the deadly mass shooting at Brown University

over the weekend. Investigators say This enhanced video came from a neighborhood near the scene of the shooting and shows a masked man in a dark coat walking and loitering in neighborhoods near campus on the morning of the attack. Authorities say they hope someone will recognize the person's gait and posture in the video. Officials say they believe the person was casing the area as early as 10.30 a.m. on Saturday, just hours before the shooting erupted at an engineering building. classroom. Two students were killed, nine others injured in the attack, and officials say they still do not have a motive, and they're asking if people recognize his gait and his posture. Additionally, local authorities say that even though a suspect has not been taken into custody, there is no specific threat to the community at this time. A person of interest

detained Sunday was later released after investigators concluded he was not connected to the crime In the meantime, finals were canceled, and most students have left campus for winter break. And then, Nick Reiner, the son of Rob and Michelle Reiner, has been formally charged with killing his parents. The 32-year-old faces two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders, as well as a special allegation of using a dangerous and deadly weapon to carry out the killings, which the Los Angeles District Attorney says was, knife. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Authority said yesterday no decision has been made about pursuing a death

sentence. Officials say Nick Reiner, who has been open about his struggles with drug addiction, was arrested near the University of Southern California late Sunday, just hours after authorities found the slain bodies of his parents in their Brentwood home. Reiner's attorney says his client is waiting for a medical screening before making his first court appearance. And in Australia, families and friends of the 15 people killed in the anti-Semitic attack on Sydney's Bondi Beach have begun laying their loved ones to rest. Hundreds gathered yesterday for the funerals. The victims ranged in age from a 10-year-old girl to an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor. The first farewell was for 41-year-old Rabbi Eli Schlangler, a husband and father of five. He helped organize last Sunday's Hanukkah by the sea

event where the attack unfolded. Meanwhile, the 24-year-old suspected gunman in the massacre, one of two, has now been charged with 59 offenses, including 15 charges of murder. He remains in the hospital recovering after he was shot by police during the rampage on Sunday. The other suspected gunman. The man's 50-year-old father was killed in an exchange of fire with police at the scene. We'll be following both those stories. And still ahead on morning, Joe House Speaker Mike Johnson confirms there will be no vote this week to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies. What it means for health care costs for millions of Americans. Plus, Defense Secretary Pete Hexas says the full video of the September 2nd boat strike that killed two

survivors clinging to wreckage will not be made public. We'll show you what some Republicans are saying about that. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Rayneau, Bernie, how's it looking this morning? Mika, the cold is gone. Yay. Take a look at temperatures today. Your Acuether exclusive forecast in the 40s with some sun in Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C. There will be a little bit of wind in Boston and New York City this afternoon. Sunshine, nice day in Atlanta, Charleston, 65. Watch for some showers, thunderstorms Houston, toward New Orleans. If you're doing any traveling, the wind causing some minor delays in Boston and New York City. To help you make the best decisions

and be more in the know, make sure to download the Accuether app. Today, enjoy your Wednesday. Welcome back, where are you going now, my love? certain to expire at the end of this year after House Speaker Mike Johnson said yesterday there would be no vote on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits this week. A last-ditch effort by moderate Republicans to put an extension on the floor for a vote failed last night after the House Rules Committee blocked several of the amendments they were hoping to attach to a Republican health care plan released last week. Instead, today, the House is set to consider a narrower GOP plan that would allow the subsidies to expire and introduces

several small changes aimed at bringing down costs over the long term. But according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the legislation could lead to 100,000 more Americans becoming uninsured by 2035. Let's bring in Politics, Peer Chief and Senior Political Communist at Politico, Jonathan Martin, and MS now senior Capitol Hill reporter and host of way too early Ali Vitale. Allie, let's start with you. Any reporting on top of what I've already put out there in terms of what could happen here? Can the Republicans do anything to prevent people at this point from losing or from

these skyrocketing premiums or losing health care? Or have they given up the ghost here? Probably not. We don't expect that the House is going to be able to make any headway on this. The Senate had some bipartisan talks, Mika, that sort of revived themselves this week and then sputtered out. I think everyone on both sides of the aisle agree that this is now a next year problem. But for Americans who already know their premiums are going to be higher, it means that some of them are having to make the extremely difficult decision of paying more for health care and what that impact is for their household budget or deciding not to opt in to health care at all, which brings up a whole not. slate of problems. It's partly why, and I'm interested in hearing what Congressman Mike

Lawler says a little later on when he joins y'all in Morning Joe, the idea that he's so upset calling it malpractice to not do anything on these issues or even hold a vote on extending ACA subsidies. That, I think, is where the political meets the policy, and those two things have always been riding alongside each other. But for the speaker who has stuck so closely to President Trump, who has said that he prefers health savings accounts as opposed to an extension of ACA subsidies, it squeezes the speaker in a tough spot. It squeezes Republicans in a difficult spot. And it means that they're hamstrung to do anything as they go over this health care cliff at the end of the year. There's two things that could keep this alive going into next year. A,

the desire to do something bipartisan. Some Republicans, including John Thune, have said, well, maybe we do something on this in January. At that point, it's too late, toothpaste out of the tube, as Chuck Schumer was saying yesterday. But then there's also these discharge petitions. There's two of them right now. One is more bipartisan than the other. The first is a clean extension of these ACA subsidies for three years. The other's a two-year extension with some other pay-for is put in there. Not clear that either of those have the 218 signatures that they need right now. But if they got them in the early part of next year, that would mean that leadership would be compelled to hold a vote on either. And there's politics, too,

because people like Mike Lawler, for example, are in districts who are going to be screaming for help because they're the kind of districts that make or break the majority. And so the folks like Lawler are going to say, you have basically put the moderate like, you're not the moderates, but the sort of competitive, you know, seats in a corner for the last year, now you're going to tell me, I have to go into a tough reelection, having taken away health care for my constituents, no way. So I think you're going to see a hue and cry from members who are facing tough races already, given Trump's on popularity, given the macro conditions, who are going to say, you can't pile that many more bricks in my trip here up the mountain. I've got to get at least a vote on this, and I've got to get some kind of relief from my folks back home.

I just, I can't believe that those kind of members would allow their folks to lose health care and go into the cycle without that. Ali, broaden it beyond health care. You've got the health care issues and the costs that are going to spike after the end of this year. You've got the president and the speech that he gave in Pennsylvania on affordability, largely dissing Americans' concerns about health care, which, of course, an affordability in health care is part of that issue. What are you hearing when you spend your days on the hill from Republican members, how nervous, are they about the lack of support they're getting from leadership, whether it's leadership on the Hill or leadership from the White House?

It's not even being whispered about. In fact, in House Republicans' private meeting yesterday on the Hill, there were many members who were quite loud addressing the room talking about why they need to do something on health care, which is a very large chunk of the pie for people when they're looking at their household affordability and the costs that they put out each month. And so those issues are inextricably linked, I think, in the minds of both strategists and sources on the hill that I talk to who are going to be up for re-election themselves. The fact that the president is out here calling it a Democratic hoax, of course, doesn't

help. But I do think that it's notable that folks at the RNC, at the NRCC, even the president himself are acknowledging the fact that the macro conditions, as J-Mart talks about, already are out of their favor because they are the party in power heading into their midterm, where typically they are either shellacked or just lose some seats. But I think that they are recognizing that the special elections that they've seen have shown margins of plus 22, just district or a plus 30 district actually cut in half, which just means that if they're looking at the map, it means that more seats are in play. And, you know, who else knows that is Democrats in the House campaign committee as well? So on the issue of health care, I mean, this is something that

will be catastrophic for American families that are living on the edge and dealing with an economy that seems to be turned against them, or at least a very, very clear and present affordability crisis, Jay Mart. So I'm interested. Do you expect the president to address the issue of affordability and health care of the American people in his address to the nation tonight? I think it's going to be more of a victory lap about the country. It's great turnaround.

The A-plus-plus-plus economy that rating that he gives himself. I'm sure they're going to have to put something in a paragraph or at least a reference to health care. it's not going to be his focus. He wants to sell Trump. He wants to sell America and he wants to tell folks that they've, you know, never had it so good and Biden left him a mess and he's cleaned it up. I just have a hard time seeing him get beyond a paragraph that touching on health care because, A, it's not where his passion is. B, it sort of conflicts with his salesmanship about the country being back, right? Because, well, if we're about to throw, you know, millions of people, you know, into the cold here and lose their health care, It's a bit complicated. So I just have a hard time seeing him, Mika, delve too deeply into that tonight. Now, I can see a scenario in which we get into the new year. We get a lot closer to the moment in which people lose their actual coverage. And Trump says, I don't want that headline. Fix it. Now, he's not going to offer a detailed plan about how to fix it. Try to write checks, maybe. That's somebody else's job. But he's going to want to tell his folks to fix it. And by the way, that's what Congress is waiting for. All right? They don't.

don't act without Trump's green light. He hasn't given them that green light. And maybe it'll come when the bad headlines come. But until, until then, I have a hard time seeing that move, or at least finding a compromise. Yeah, when the president announced his address to the nation tonight at nine, he provided no details as to what the topic was about. Letting sparking some real speculation. But we did hear from White House Press Secretary Levitt late yesterday saying to J-Mart's point, that it'll sort of be a recap of all that this administration has accomplished this year. And Walter, there's a chance, knowing how the president likes to be his best, own best salesman. But that will only reinforce the idea that he and his party are out of touch right now what really bothers Americans.

We know he keeps calling the affordability crisis a hoax. He gave the American economy an A plus plus plus plus verdict grade the other day. And then his vice president did so again yesterday. He was asked if he agreed with the president. He did exactly that, the same number of pluses. And now we may have health care costs really surging, too. This is a Republican Party that's looking around going like, hey, we're getting real nervous about their political standard. Hey, the big thing is affordability, whether or not he poohs it.

And there are two aspects of affordability, housing and health care. And you're going to have to have some resolution, a big resolution on health care. It's going to be hard because it's not just about, okay, this subsidy, it's how are we going to deal with health care as, a public good to some extent in our society. Something since Benjamin Franklin started the hospital company of Philadelphia is a public, private thing. We've been wrestling with health care. My homeboy John Martin and myself in New Orleans, we have not only Speaker Johnson, but Senator Bill Cassidy. People like him, he's a doctor, understand that there's certain things that could be done, but Congress is not going to act until there's a crisis. Yeah, and, Mara, that crisis might

beyond the horizon. And we know President Trump is loath to ever admit that things under his watch aren't going perfectly. But as you remind us, day in and day out, most Americans don't feel that they are. Certainly not. And I think, you know, that's why you see an increasingly populist strain through America's politics, because there is a sense that this is less about left and right and more about bottom and top. And I think, as Donald Trump is ignoring and as the administration tries to kind of paper over what Americans are feeling and struggling with, it's especially awkward as he's building a half a billion dollar White House ballroom, as he's hobnobbing with billionaires here and around the world.

So Americans aren't stupid. They see that. And, you know, it's not just, we talk about affordability in kind of generalist terms, I think, and what's the price of eggs? what is gas at the pump? And those are real pains as well. No question. We also have food insecurity here. But fundamentally, health care and housing, as you said, Walter, this is about, this isn't just about affordability. This is about a sense of security. And let's not forget that, you know, other countries, including in Europe, other Western nations have figured out how to do this in a way that is humane and has a basic standard of living for people that we don't have here. you also see this struggle with Medicaid expansion.

And this is, this comes on the heels, this entire conversation comes on the heels, a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. So all of that momentum is leading up to a very difficult midterm year ahead, I believe, for the Republicans. All right. Politico's Jonathan Martin. Thank you so much for coming on this morning. We'll be reading his latest piece online. online now. Allie Vitale, thank you as well for your reporting this morning. And coming up

amid rising concerns about the effects of social media on young people's development, our next guests are out with a new handbook for living a happy and exciting life that isn't dominated by screen time. Morning Joe is back in a moment. Welcome back. If you ever found yourself struggling to convince your child to put down their smartphone and log off of social media. Our next guests have just the book for you, the amazing generation, your guide to fun and freedom in a screen-filled world speaks directly to kids and young teens. using colorful illustrations, eye-catching facts, interactive challenges, and endearing real-life anecdotes to empower them to look away from the screen. The book is not a lecture about what not to do, but is instead a handbook on what to do

to live a happy life separate from a smartphone. Gosh, I hope this works. Joining us now, the authors of that book, Jonathan Haidt, Catherine Price, Jonathan also wrote the best-selling book, The Anxious Generation, which is a companion to the amazing generation. And Catherine is the best-selling author of how to break up with your phone. So I love this. Jonathan, I'll start with you. The question is, tell us about the book and the book's ability to be successful in the goal here. So when I wrote The Anxious Generation, which came out in March,

24, the surprise was that mothers around the world picked it up, read it, talked to each other, and jumped into action. And also right away, they started saying, can we have something to give our kids? We want to bring our kids along on this. So me and my team, we realized we want to do a children's book. And I'd known Catherine and her amazing TED talk on the power of fun really helped me be a little bit more fun. So anyway, so we recruit, she volunteered for the position, and she did an amazing job translating the ideas of the main book for adults into one for kids. And if the family reads it together, so much good stuff happens. So, Catherine, I need to break up with my phone, but we'll talk about that later.

Tell us how it works. Tell us about the storylines, the narratives, the ideas in here. And what have you heard so far? So, yeah, we decided that we wanted to get kids before they had smartphones and social media, even though the book is applicable even if kids do have those things. So we aim for around 9 to 12 years old as our sweet spot. And we have a graphic novel interspersed in it, as you've seen by Cynthia Wan-Chang, who's an amazing artist. But we also have lots of stories from other young people who actually regret the choices they made when they were our reader's age

and suggest that kids wait for longer before getting these things. And the response so far from kids has been amazing. I've given a couple of talks to kids for early readers. And they're so excited about the book. And they have actually told me. Several of them came up and said, I thought I wanted social media and now I no longer want it. So I have two sons, 14 and 11. One has a dumb phone.

The other one has an extraordinarily stripped down smartphone. There is no social media. Guys, you're getting this for Christmas. Just spoiler, this will be under the tree. So as you talk to the younger audiences, as you talk to these kids, the teens and younger, you know, obviously you're going to get some sort of pushback. Like, you know, say, hey, I need my phone. My friends have this.

I'm going to be left out. What do you say to them? Yeah. Well, first, we get surprising little of pushback. So I haven't spoken to elementary school kids much. Catherine can speak to that. But I'm a professor at NYU. I speak to lots and lots of college students. I've spoken in many high schools.

They all know what's happening. At least they all know this is bad for them. And it's not that they love being on it. They just feel like they have to be on it. It's a trap. And so what we found over and over again, you find this internationally as well, the kids don't object as much as you expect.

If you have phone-free schools, everyone thinks the kids will freak out. They don't because it's not that they love social media. They're just terrified of being the only one out. But if they all get off together and we're offering them a life of fun and excitement, like parents back off, let the kids go outside. It's much more of a positive vision. We've gotten very little pushback from young people.

You know, this may be the most important social movement happening right now. And it's happening around the world. I know you've just been in Asia. Your book, The Ancest Generation, has been a bestseller for a long time. And the fact that you're doing it this way, both of you, which doesn't say the anxious generation, but it's the amazing generation. It's inspiring tales. How did you all, because you have been on this campaign about having fun, being out there, your first book was about being out there. How have you kept these two movements together?

This notion is not just about breaking up with your phone, it's about leading a good life. I'll start by just noting that you had Jonathan Martin on the show here earlier today, and he had an article in Politico in September. I think the headline was the last bipartisan issue left in America. Because what we found, as soon as the book came out, Republican governors reached out to me, Democratic governors reached out to me, because Republicans have kids and Democrats have kids, and everybody sees it. So it's been thrilling to see that.

It's the same in Australia. The great Australian bill, the age limit of 16, that also was completely bipartisan. And we see this around the world. Yeah, I would also add that fundamentally our work is about flourishing. It's about helping people live happy and meaningful lives of all ages. So we're not out there against tech for that, you know, in general. It's all about what do you fill your life with?

So to answer your question, it really is they're very complimentary. You take technology out a bit, then you have more time for the real stuff, for real connection, for real relationships, for real fun, for real experiences, real memories. So it's meant to be very inspiring because it is. Yeah. Catherine, I wonder on that note, if you could talk a little bit about some of the public investments that can be made by politicians of both parties in the United States to help facilitate that. I'm thinking about parks, about libraries, and about swimming pools, and about swimming pools, community centers, all of that would be great. We do need more opportunities for young people to go out and hang out with each other without their parents in public.

And I know you have many thoughts about things that politicians and leaders could do to help as well. Yeah. So I co-founded an organization called Let Grow. LetGrow.org with Lenore Skenezy. And we're advocating for reasonable childhood freedom bills. We've gotten it through an eight or nine states so far, which say that if your child is caught walking around outside, you can't be arrested. Like, parents get to decide if their kids go outside. Because at present, it's a gray zone. And we're all afraid if my nine-year-old is outside, someone could call the police. And then child protective services come. So we need legislation to make it clear. get to decide childhood independence is a good thing, not a public safety threat. We need a lot more recess in schools. We need third places for kids where they can hang out. So, yeah, there's a lot we need to do. Right. This is not just about taking the phones away. It's about opening the door and giving them a world that they can actually live in, especially from the age of eight or nine. We were all out by, you were probably out. You were five, I'm guessing. Well, we're in New Orleans. You definitely won't be out. So we've got to give some of that back to.

our kids. We took it all away in the 90s and 2000s. Hi, Jonathan. I was wondering if you'd thought you could kind of reverse engineer the role modeling here. I think when you and I spoke over the summer, I told you about my 19-year-old daughter who had spent a week going up to Scotland to visit family without her phone. She'd left it behind. We had to teach her how to use an Atlas to actually drive there, but she had a great week. She didn't miss it. And so that then pressured me. And I spent a week in September without my phone. I left it behind and went out to the countryside for a whole week. I didn't miss it at all. The thing that showed me the most was how easy it was. I had no FOMO. I wasn't reaching for it all the time. And I'm thinking with

this book, an extension of that could be kids who are saying to their parents, you're on your phones too much. Could we use our kids to get us off our phones? Absolutely. I also have that experience. I teach a course at NYU called Flourishing. I have the students go out and walk around outside, looking at nature without their phones, without any headphones. And they love it. And they say, wow, I'm going to do this all the time. And I assign that a couple years and I realized I'm not doing it. Like, you know, I'm always, I've got to take podcast. I've got it. Consume, consume. You know, be efficient. And so, yeah, now I, I've influenced me to, you know, live up to my own words. So yeah, we're hopeful that this is going to, again, it's the thing

is if the family does it together, if you get family norms, like at the dinner table, nobody has a phone. We're all together. It's very important for parents to be modeling the right behavior. It's very important and also kind of, excuse me, underscores the point that this is a very serious issue that's affecting all of us. It's actually affecting all of our brains, but it's especially affecting young people and children's brains. And so what's really wonderful to see is that we can protect our brains and our children can choose to protect their own brains by simply not engaging with these products. And as you're saying, life is much better when you use technology as a tool and you don't let technology use you. How is it affecting your brain? And healthier.

Well, for kids in particular, it's a really important stage of brain development. So when you're in your early adolescence, your early puberty, you're in the most rapid period of brain change since when you were a baby. So if you're allowing these products and these addictive algorithms to affect your brain to destroy your attention span where you're that age, those changes and increase your anxiety, it can stick around when you're an adult. So this resonates with kids. When I talk to kids and I say that this is an amazingly wonderful stage of brain development because you can choose to some degree what kind of brain you want to have for the rest of your life. It's also very vulnerable because you can let other companies and people affect your brain. So you get to make a choice. And the kids are really reacting to that.

They don't want to give their brains away. And that's why puberty is so important. That's why we have to protect puberty. We need to raise the age for opening social media accounts, as they did in Australia. Raise it to 16. It's not that at 16 they're ready, but at least you're protecting the main part of puberty where the brain is rapidly changing. Couldn't agree with you more. The New Book, The Amazing Generation, Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-filled World.

is officially out on December 30th. Authors, Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price, thank you both very much for all your work on this topic. We really appreciate it.