No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans make fatal mistake in critical swing state

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

Republicans make a fatal mistake by sticking with Mark Robinson as their gubernatorial nominee in North Carolina. Brian interviews the stars from The Apprentice, the movie that Trump sent legal notice to censor, Jeremy Strong & Sebastian Stan, about their reaction to Trump trying to block the movie and how it felt to do this project at such a critical moment in time. Donate to The Apprentice: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/releasetheapprentice/release-the-apprentice/descriptionShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Republicans' fatal mistake by sticking with Mark Robinson as their gubernatorial nominee in North Carolina. And I interviewed the stars from The Apprentice, the movie that Trump sent legal notice to censor, Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan, about their reaction to Trump trying to block the movie and how it felt to do this project at such a critical moment in time. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So by now you've all heard about Republican Mark Robinson. That's North Carolina's gubernatorial nominee, who, according to a. new CNN report called himself a black Nazi on a porn site message board expressed support for slavery and wrote a lot of other stuff that I literally can't even say on this podcast. That all came out on the final day that Republicans had to actually replace him on the ballot,

which, you know, I'm not going to lie, I was worried about because when your nominee gets exposed for calling himself a black Nazi, I don't know, that's probably the point at which the election becomes exponentially more difficult to win. And any party that had any sense or was in any way tethered to reality might take advantage of the opportunity to do exactly that. But here's where being the party of Donald Trump has changed things for Republicans. Trump graduated from the Roy Cohn School of Management, which, ironically enough, is a point that we're going to explore more in the interview coming up in a few minutes with Jeremy Strong, who literally portrays Roy Cohn in the movie The Apprentice. But part of that education is that Trump will never, under any circumstances, admit fault. And because the rest of the GOP now exists in the mold of Trump, they're doing the same thing.

And so even though CNN uncovered literal evidence of Robinson's history of porn usage and slavery apologia and Nazi apologia, he and the North Carolina GOP just decided to deny, deny, deny. Again, there is evidence. The guy literally signed up with the same email address and username that he's used for decades. Like, it's him. But Republicans are now so committed to the bit of just, trafficking in a reality of their own creation that they're just pretending it didn't happen. And look, that might work among the world's most undiscerning base.

You know, these people who blindly buy Trump's NFTs and coins and crypto and shoes and hats and his stock that's down 80% off its high. But let's remember, Republicans already have those people. Ostensibly, they want to expand their 10, expand their coalition, and actually reach out to people who aren't fawning magalunitics. to throw away their life savings on gold coins with Trump's face on them because they saw it on a screen alongside his rally. And those people, maybe they're Nikki Haley Republicans,

maybe they're independents, conservative Democrats, those people are capable of being just a little more discerning. And this new Republican strategy of yelling fake news and anything critical or rallying behind the most dog-shit candidates just because probably isn't going to fly with them. And yet that's what the GOP can't manage to do. to adopt any semblance of a strategy that includes people who aren't already super on board.

Trump went in front of 75 million people at the debate, you know, his last shot to reach a national audience and expand his tent, and instead of appealing to the very people he'll need to get beyond that 46-47% ceiling, he opted to just go full manic and insist that immigrants were eating your pets. How many undecideds do you think that he peeled off with that performance? The thing is, Trump is not capable of pivoting to anything resembling

a general election strategy because the instant gratification of getting some adulation from his base is just too appealing for him. He needs to go for the lowest hanging fruit and say insane things to undiscerning people in his crowds because the prospect of them clapping for him is just too undeniable. He can't even peel himself away from his rampant xenophobic comments for five minutes if it means having his little fanboys pet him. That's all he cares about. There is no strategy, no tactic. There is just a tiny man with a fragile ego who desperately, desperately needs affection wherever he can get it. And the way that that's manifested in the rest of his party may very well be the reason why they lose North Carolina and hopefully the general election in

November. Next up is my interview with Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan. Now I've got the stars of the upcoming film, The Apprentice, Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan. Thank you guys so much for coming on. Thank you. Thanks for having us. All right, Sebastian, you play Donald Trump. Jeremy, you play Roy Cohn. Both of you guys, first of all, pulled in a masterful performance. The movie was great, but your guys' performance was absolutely stellar. Just right off the bat to kind of level set here, because he may not be as well known as Donald Trump. Jeremy, can you give some insight into who Roy Cohn is? Sure. Roy Cone was a lawyer and essentially a power broker. He was Joe McCarthy's chief counsel during the McCarthy hearings, and one of the first things he did was send Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to the electric chair when he was in his early 20s.

He became a very, very successful, prominent New York lawyer who represented everyone from Cardinal Spellman to George Steinbrenner to the bosses of the mob families to Aristotle Onassis to Donald Trump. he was a controversial and infamous figure and he was undeniably a brilliant lawyer and he was a lifelong democrat so what did it mean for you guys to make a film and tell a story that is so relevant to the moment that we're living in right now well um hmm i think it was uh i guess pretty much uh same old approach as always uh for on my end i i guess maybe maybe more so on this one in the sense of just trying to really, you know, cross out the character names and go into it as you would. Yeah. I mean, I think there's, of course, a level of awareness of the subject and the big swing that we're all taking, you know, sort of our feet are to the fire on this one.

But as actors, you approach it the way you approach anything as characters and a story. But, you know, I think both of us have worked on a number of things that are based in real life and you feel a great responsibility to serve those stories. This one, I felt maybe an even greater responsibility than ever before to get it right and to hold the mirror up to, you know, to our society and to these people. Were either of you hesitant or nervous or excited about taking on these roles? Like, I'm sure the gravity of telling this story at this moment in time wasn't lost on you.

Yeah, of course. I mean, it's, I guess it comes with the job and this particular job. But for me, it was always about Ali Abbasi's involvement in the project and having a European filmmaker kind of add a lens to this particular story. And that was what was exciting to me. And obviously then, you know, when, when Jeremy came on, it got more exciting. because then it really felt like I had a partner going in with some. You know, Ali makes like these monster movies.

You know, he's like a subversive filmmaker and a kind of punk rock filmmaker, Border and Holy Spider. They're both incredible movies, but, you know, for me, this sort of cross-pollination of Ali Abasi and Gabe Sherman, who is a, you know, political writer for Vanity Fair and wrote a book, on Roger Ailes called The Loudest Voice in the Room that he adapted for television. But, you know, the combination of this meticulously researched journalistic veracity with a kind of David Lynch horror movie director felt just really exciting. You want movies to be one plus one equals three.

What was your reaction to finding out the news that Donald Trump had sent cease and desist to try to prevent this film from being released? Pretty predictable, pretty expected. I think Roy Cohn would have been very pleased with it. It's directly out of Roy's playbook, which is what the film explores. You know, his sort of malign influence and outsized influence on Donald Trump. But it's something that certainly Roy would have suggested and approved. Sebastian, what was your process for portraying Donald Trump in this film?

Like, there were moments when I was watching, and it was almost chilling to see how uncanny it was, but in the most subtle way. But you're not exactly doing like the Alec Baldwin version of Donald Trump here. So how did, how, what was that process and how did you prepare? Well, you know, I mean, I guess there's a technical piece to it, at least for me, in terms of, you know, a real life person, I really think it's very similar to kind of learning how to play an instrument like a piece of music. on a piece on a piano, you know, you go there every day and it's slow and you go back again the next day and you keep practicing and keep practicing until you sort of like get to a point where you can do it in your sleep and you don't even think about it and you can play it while you're doing a million other things and it just sort of like there's an osmosis process to it.

And then obviously there's a whole research piece to it. You know, in this particular case, it was a lot of footage and a lot of information to go out there and kind of download and digest. And, you know, I actually also really looked at everything that everyone else had done to sort of figure out what not to do. And I don't usually think about that. But in this particular case, you know, there had to be some things that are very familiar and recognizable.

And then it was about sort of getting ready to, you know, for anything. that could happen on the day because that's how we were working. We were sort of, we would go there and Ali would throw these curve balls. And one take, we could be sitting here. The next take, we could be talking about, you know, whatever happened in 1978 and who the pitcher of the Mets was or whatever. So all those facts needed to meet, you know. How did you consider the fact that, like, the Donald Trump that we have today is the

natural conclusion of, you know, 78 years of who he is? but he wasn't always like that. Obviously, like, this is the, this is, this is, this is him at his maturity. How were you able to kind of capture him before all of the, the characteristics that he conveys now really settled in? Yeah, well, you have to remove all judgment. You have to look at what is in the script and what, what, how are you serving the story? And if you go back, particularly for me, the Rona Barrett interview in its entirety. it's about 45 minutes to an hour or something, and it's on YouTube.

It really captures so much of what I didn't know and of this person at that time that's very different than the person today. And it's actually the evolution of where we got to today has happened over time, and I guess I was trying to figure out how that happened. Jeremy, you just finished Succession, which seems to be. be, you know, loosely based on the Murdox where you played Kendall Roy. There are some obvious similarities in terms of these New York right-wing power players that you've portrayed. Is that by chance, or is there just something about playing these characters that appeals to you?

No, I mean, it's totally by chance. But I would say that I tend to find the most compelling stories and the highest stakes are usually around real people and real events. So I think it's a really rich terrain. And Cohn is a fascinating, terrifying character, figure whose shadow we're really experiencing right now in this country. in an incalculable way. But no, I mean, you can draw a line that traces these. You know, Murdoch is at a party at his house, and I introduced them to each other in our film.

But, no, I'm just like a, I'm like Zellig as an actor that happens to be around these people, I guess. Just for a quick note for viewers watching right now and people listening in, I should note that this film was, again, blocked from distribution in the U.S. after Donald Trump's lawyers had the production with a cease and desist. The filmmakers turned to a grassroots solution, including launching a Kickstarter to help pay for promotion. That Kickstarter is live right now.

So, for, again, people watching and listening, you can donate to stream the movie after it hits theaters, or you can even donate to get your name in the credits of this movie. So I'll put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video, and you can head over to the Kickstarter. Sebastian, you detail Trump's journey largely influenced by Roy Cohn to where he is today. On one hand, there could be sympathy for him, given the fact that it was Roy who kind of molded him into who he is now. But on the other hand, Donald Trump is a grown-ass man.

He has autonomy, and he's responsible for how he acts. Did playing this role in being part of this story change or influence how you felt about the person that you're portraying? I can't remember where I heard it, but I can remember maybe you said it, or I heard it recently where someone said, like, after a certain age, like 30, we can't no longer blame our parents for our actions, you know? I mean, you could, obviously, I'm not a therapist or a psychoanalyst or anything, but if you can trace certain things that sometimes can lead to other things in terms of, you could. you know, there are seeds there that perhaps at the right time, at the right place, lead to something else, you know, and that could be an argument you could make here with him and how much was there before were influenced in what was taken.

But I do feel like, you know, we all come into this world as babies and we're essentially a blank canvas, and we don't come into this world with opinions and things we inherit a lot a lot of things and traumas and relationships and obviously our parents have to do with it. But after a certain point, right, you've got to take responsibility in some way. And that's all of us, essentially. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that you say that because not taking responsibility is a hallmark of who Donald Trump is, even to today.

And so, you know, it's, that actually is his character. With nothing. Yeah. Always claim victory. I mean, you know, I would say. that Roy Cohn really, his legacy is a legacy of denialism, of an intractable defiance of reality and a denial of reality, a denial of his own reality and a denial of reality. And that is one thing that he passed on that we're all seeing. Now, I also want to

to say, I think it was important to all of us. We approach these things as actors, as humanists. We're attempting to understand human nature. So while it's a monster movie, I think it's important to not say, that's a monster over there, I'm not a monster, that's a monster. You know, a lot of the trouble that we're in in America right now is because it's become so easy to demonize and otherwise other people and take no culpability on ourselves. You know, Roy Cohn was in me. I was able to locate Roy Cohn in me and find where he lived. And I think the movie holds a mirror up both to the country and this time that was a kind of crucible that

formed Donald Trump's worldview, but also holds a mirror. up to ourselves and our own complicity in creating someone like this. Roy Cohn, again, is a pretty reviled figure, a pretty intimidating figure in history, obviously given his, you know, what he was responsible for, not just with Donald Trump, but just unto himself. But by the end, he was completely subsumed and overshadowed by Trump, who was everything that Roy Cohn was, but just to the nth degree. And, you know, he was ultimately reduced to a shell of who he once was relative to Trump, both physically and emotionally. Did that impact how you perceived the actual person you were playing?

Was there a degree of sympathy at what he'd become? Or again, like, is, you know, was there not? Sure. I mean, sure. I mean, I think I felt sympathy and pity for him. That doesn't enter into what I'm doing as an actor. but me, Jeremy, you know, I can feel that. And maybe it's a character flaw, but I can feel that, you know, I think, yeah, I think it's

important to be able to empathize, not to say to just give everyone a free pass to whatever they want. But yeah, you know, he believed that success and winning was the only moral measure. And that's a very scary system of morality. And he, you know, his, it's in the film, but, you know, deny everything. and never admit defeat. I mean, we saw that yesterday morning after the debate. You know, these principles that he passed on

are very much alive. How does that hit you when you see something that you just created as art in this film, but to such a broader degree that Donald Trump might transpose it onto his leadership of the entire country if he wins the presidential election? I find it harrowing, beyond harrowing.

Yeah. No, it validates, I think, the significance, I think, of the story and of the film. And again, we're living in a very selective thinking mentality in world right now. And that's, I think, very, very dangerous. And there is a denial of reality. I mean, it's really, it's disconcerning that we have all this technology at our hands to be able to, to educate ourselves on things and research things. I mean, these things that we're talking about are what that are in the film, really, they're out there to be discovered and to be researched. They've been well documented, but yet the choice is being made to go to the Wikipedia page or to whatever is more, you know, convenient and can't have any convenient approach to, certainly not artistically, because then we don't know how to communicate. Was there a single moment in this movie that best summarizes who your characters are, a certain scene, for example?

Yeah. God bless America. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Roy threw these parties at his townhouse on his 68th Street that everybody went to, the left and the right, everybody. And there's a scene where we're chanting, God bless America, and he's saying that America is, his only client. You know, there was a moment at Trump's wedding where in one take,

we did a lot of improvising in this movie around the text. And in one take, he said that your family and I kissed him on the cheek and said, I love you. to me that you know every great movie is about a relationship and this is a

relationship movie it's not a political act right it's about these two people it's about a friendship and it's about the love between these people not a platonic love I'm talking about but there was real love and real affinity and connection both in their

in these sort of these well i don't want to judge it but that moment was a gift and gave me an understanding of that relationship you know we talked a lot about midnight cowboy when we were making this movie and i think i think this stands on its own as a movie that you don't have to be interested in politics and it's it's not a it's not a polemic uh it's an attempt to understand how we got to where we are now. Do you guys feel any connection to the news cycle as, as, you know, Sebastian, when Trump says that migrants are eating your pets, does that have any, have any impact on you? Well, I think, I think just as much as it would on anybody witnessing a world that seems

very uncertain by the day. And I think, you know, we're in this business, but obviously the same can. you said about Washington where if you are a public figure, you know, the truth doesn't really matter seemingly. It's, you know, I find, I find that it's gotten very, very easy to just people seemingly are denying reality. They really are like, and I feel like we're in this thing now where it's so easy to just take anything as fact. And I worry about that a lot. I get a lot of anxiety about that.

My hope is, and I think the hope of a lot of us who were involved in making this movie, and thank you for, you know, helping get the word out. I want people to see this. I want everyone to see this. It's opening on October 10th on 1,500 screens. It's going to be in every state in this country. And do I think seeing this movie is going to change hearts and minds? I don't know.

But I do think that if enough people see this movie and it becomes enough of a lightning rod cultural event, that the conversation around it, like the conversation we're having now, could help move the needle in this election, which is, I think, the most important election in the history of the modern world. Perfectly put. It seems like a perfect place to leave. So Sebastian and Jeremy, thank you so much for taking the time today and for the work that you did in this film. Again, for people watching and listening, highly, highly, highly recommend that you not only check out this film when it's out, but head over to the Kickstarter. Make sure to support it. Donald Trump, again, is doing everything that he can to prevent you from being able to see it, to try to censor this movie from coming out. And I think it's going to be, that's a testament to how powerful the movie actually is. So again, thank you guys for taking the time. Thank you so much. Thanks again to Jeremy and Sebastian. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week.

You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels,

or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more. Thank you.