No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Supreme Court makes bombshell announcement

Episode Date: January 7, 2024

The Supreme Court makes a bombshell announcement about the question of Trump’s disqualification from the Colorado ballot. Brian interviews former CNN host Brian Stelter about the future of Fox News, Tucker Carlson, and whether covering the right has ever impacted his own safety.Buy Brian's book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1668046903/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=Shop 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 the Supreme Court's bombshell announcement about the question of Trump's disqualification from the Colorado ballot, and I interview former CNN host Brian Stelter about the future of Fox News, Tucker Carlson, and whether covering the right has ever impacted his own safety. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. All right, this week we've got major news out of the U.S. Supreme Court. They have granted the petition to review the Colorado Supreme Court's decision disqualifying Trump from the ballot based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. and we've spoken about this case a lot, obviously, the implications of Donald Trump being permanently taken off the ballot aren't escaping anyone.

But here's the point I think is worth making. And this is for Democrats, by the way, just as much as it's for Republicans. Would this be one of, if not the biggest Supreme Court ruling of our lifetime, if they uphold the lower court's ruling, that Donald Trump isn't eligible to serve as president? Of course. I don't doubt that for a second, and obviously the implications for the election would be massive.

It would mean in an instant that Trump's political career is over. and in an era where one party's identity is wholly predicated on its fealty to that person, the significance of that move obviously can't be overstated. But here's what's more important. The implications of the Supreme Court ignoring the plain text of the Constitution in deference to Donald Trump. If the Supreme Court reverses the lower court's ruling and allows Donald Trump to remain on the ballot, it is effectively saying that Donald Trump is above the Constitution. Remember, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is clear.

It says that no one who's engaged in or aided those who've engaged in insurrection. are eligible to serve in office. Trump was found to have engaged in insurrection. A trial court in California found this much after hearing testimony and reviewing the evidence that was Judge Carter. A trial court also found as much in Colorado that was Judge Wallace.

The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with the lower court in Colorado also finding that he engaged in insurrection. And grand juries found that he engaged an insurrection in Washington, D.C., by way of the probable cause standard, which is why that grand jury voted out the indictment in that case, and the grand jury in Georgia essentially found the same thing by way of the racketeering charge, which is why that indictment was voted out.

So the facts of this case are beyond dispute. Donald Trump engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021, and the Constitution's provision is beyond dispute as well. There's no ambiguity in the language barring an officer of the United States who's engaged in insurrection from serving again. And I know that Republicans are trying to parse words and pretend that somehow the president of the United States isn't an officer of the United States, which is absurd, or that the authors of the 14th Amendment went through all the trouble of.

barring insurrectionist from running for office, and yet left a glaring loophole only for the most powerful office in the nation, both of which are laughable on their faces. So again, the facts are beyond dispute. All that remains at this point is whether the Supreme Court will do its job by upholding the Constitution and its provisions. And it should go without saying, but just because the consequences of upholding the Constitution will be profound, is not license not to uphold the Constitution. Will it be catastrophic? Of course it will be. But again, to my whole, whole point, so will ignoring the Constitution just because it'll be impactful. It places one man above the Constitution. It will make him a dictator. It will mean he isn't constrained by the same

laws and rules as every other human being in this country. I tend to think that's a hell a lot more profound because it's an abandonment of the most sacred foundational values that no one is above the law, that we don't have a king, that we don't have a dictator. So I will not be swayed into thinking that the Supreme Court should be too scared to act just because the consequences of for Trump's disqualification will be too great. Donald Trump should have considered that when he incited an insurrection. He made that choice himself on January 6, 2021. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment had already been written 150 years earlier.

This wasn't some surprise for Donald Trump. No one sprung a 150-year-old amendment on him. So no, it's not the Supreme Court doing this to Trump. It's not the Democrats doing this to Trump. It is no one other than Donald Trump himself that is responsible for him being held to account for his own actions. I get that Trump in his mouthpieces want no. nothing more than to blame everybody else, but Trump has agency.

And in the same way, he chose to summon a mob to the storm in the Capitol on January 6th. He also chose the consequences that come with it. In the meantime, I want to be clear that for us, for those of us who care about democracy, nothing changes regardless of how the Supreme Court rules. Whether he's disqualified or not, we continue to organize and stay engaged and vote. Because whether he's on the ballot or not, his influence will be. And there are plenty of lunatics who would love nothing more than to pick up the mantle and carry out the MAGA agenda, and deny the election results, and remove us from NATO and

kowtow to the Russians, and usher in far-right rule for the United States. I promise you, they've all got the playbook. So we fight equally as hard regardless of what happens, because at the end of the day, we can't rely on the courts or the state parties or the lawyers. It is our responsibility to protect our democracy. We did it in 2020. We did it again in 2022. And this year, 2024, is absolutely no different. Next up is my interview.

with Brian Stelter. Now we've got the author of the new bestselling book, Network of Lies, the Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy. Brian Stelter, thanks so much for taking the time. Good to be here. Thank you. So let's dive into the Fox of it all here. Do you think that the $787 million lawsuit will have the effect of deterring Fox News from lying in the future?

Or do you think that these massive sums of money are just, you know, the cost of doing business? You called it a lying tax in the book. So is this not just built in? Fellow Brian, that's the hard question, you know, how much of this actually changes Fox's behavior? And I think the answer is that around the edges, it already has changed Fox's behavior. You know, around the edges, for example, they don't have Donald Trump call in on the phone anymore.

They usually don't interview him live anymore. They tape the interviews. And that's literally because they're trying to limit their legal exposure and their legal liability. They can edit out any defamatory claims before air. So there are those examples of how these lawsuits have had an impact on the editorial, as well as, of course, the huge financial impact. And I think, you know, honestly, the financial impact was was the most severe. But going forward, I think we should be realistic about the fact that Fox's audience wants oftentimes to be deceived, wants to be comforted by in you know by by a fantasy that fox tells that that's very far from

reality and you know you mentioned a lying tax i love that phrase i saw carolina or bueno the disinformation researcher uh use that phrase right when the dominion settlement with fox was announced she said look fox just paid a lying tax they're going to probably have to pay more of those lying taxes when smartmatic and other cases go around and it's just the cost of doing business. Well, you know, another casualty of that $787 million dominion lawsuit was Tucker's show on Fox. But if the lying tax was built in, then why would Fox also let go of its biggest star? Like, they've already paid the price, literally and figuratively, for Tucker's lies. So why not at least keep him and take advantage of his ratings? It did all happen in that very short time period in

April that makes up the core of my book. But I really don't believe Tucker Carlson's firing was directly related to Dominion. He has said that. He has tried to claim that, but I've interviewed a lot of people around this story, and I just don't think it adds up. I think Tiger Carlson was on the way out anyway. But what Dominion did do is Dominion dredged up why he was intolerable. Dominion forced Fox to look in the face, look Carlson in the face, and really see who he was. A guy who was sending emails internally calling female executives the C-word, who was acting in ways that no boss would tolerate with any employee. He acted like he was untouchable. He acted like he was invincible. And so what the Dominion litigation did, because Dominion was able to read all the

emails and read all the text messages, was it dredged up that intolerability and made the Fox board confront it. Now, you know, why not keep them anyway? Why not keep on tolerating his intolerability. Well, I think Lachlan Murdoch and the Fox board, including Paul Ryan, they made a calculation that if they could bring Fox just a little bit, they could tone it down a little bit. If they could, if they could lower the temperature just a little bit on Fox, they would benefit economically and reputationally. And honestly, Brian, I think it's kind of worked. I think there's less scrutiny now of what the Fox prime time stars do. There's a little bit less of that, you know, controversy stoking that happens on social media, even though the network

is still unhinged every night. Yeah. But to that point, I mean, I do think that the Jesse Waters of the network kind of aren't viewed with the same, I guess, gravitas that Tucker was. I think like he's kind of viewed a little bit as a joke. And I feel like Hannity was never viewed so insidiously as Tucker because Tucker was younger and he just, he took himself more seriously. And so, you know, we say that now then again, but five years down the road, we might be looking at Jesse Waters as like the next, you know, the second coming of one of these awful people in history. You're making a critical point. Carlson was uniquely conspiratorial, uniquely poisonous within the Fox prime time lineup and within Fox overall. And I think there's a great, really

vivid example that we all remember of this. When Carlson came out and lied about January 6th and tried to portray it as a false flag operation, tried to call it a fedsurrection, got a hold of those surveillance tapes and tried to spin a story about how it actually was more like a tourist visit than a terror attack. That bullshit from his show did not air on the rest of Fox. Like other Fox shows didn't pick up on his so-called scoops.

So it was too much even for his colleagues. And I think when we look back, that was the tell that Carlson had gone too far, even for his Fox colleagues and managers. Yeah. Brian, do you think that the Murdox and even the Fox host to some degree actually believe that they could help Donald Trump overturn the election, or were they just going through the motions because they had to tow the Trump line? I think, unfortunately, the audience was in charge more than the Murdox. You know, what we see in the emails and the text messages that Dominion obtained is that

the Murdox were, they showed a shocking lack of leadership. They privately were disturbed by Trump's behavior, particularly Rupert Murdoch, horrified by Trump's conduct, wanted Trump to stop, wanted Trump out of office. After January 6th, Robert Murdoch said, we're going to make Trump a non-person, we're pivoting away from Trump. You know, this is the patriarch of the company, recognizing that the country has been under attack and we need to move away from this threat. And yet, here we are, you know, three years later, and Fox is very much in Trump's corner.

not nearly as comfortably. Like, maybe it's a little bit awkward, but they're still in his corner. Yeah. So I think what that shows is that Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan, the board, they're protecting their profits. They are protecting what they view as this profit engine for the company. And if that means holding their nose, they'll do it. Well, you know, we've seen, to your point, and you explain this in the book as well,

we've seen the internal tech showing that the big wigs obviously know the truth about Donald Trump's lies regarding the 2020 election. I know this might come across as like a ridiculous question, but knowing that those people know the truth, do you think there's any regret about the harm that they've caused to democracy or is the attention and the ratings and the money and the partisan allegiance just too strong of a pull for them to care? It is a valuable question because we shouldn't lose our humanity and our morality as we study this political world.

Right. It's tempting sometimes to try to come across as like super savvy and act as if, you know, these people have no values or morals and it's all about the money. And sure, to some degree, there's there's truth to that. But there's also this truth. There are people at Fox who still feel shame, who still react to public pressure, who still care about what is written about them, who still seek advertising dollars from sponsors who are not all in on, on, on. crazy lies, you don't live on planet Trump, but actually live on planet Earth, right? So that's like, that's the tension in this conversation, right, Brian? There are, even though if you're the average Fox anchor, average Fox host, you know, in Florida, live in the Palm Beach lifestyle,

totally walled off from any liberal or progressive criticism, like, you know, a lot of these hosts, they're not going to go to the grocery store and run into some critic. They're not going to get, they're not going to feel awkward at dinner. Like they're only, they are, they are really surrounded, you know, by that Mago world that already agrees with them and protects them and supports them. But with that being said, these people, they still do, in some of them, in some cases, feel shame, feel embarrassment, right? They don't like what's written about them if it's critical. Do you see what I'm saying? There is still some of that. And but how much do you think that that impacts like the conversation moving forward, I guess? Well, you know, that that is

where I know these are, by the way, I know this is like an impossible question for, Well, it's where the audience being in charge is really the troubling dynamic here. Well, to that point then, is there, is there, if the audience wants a certain thing and they have an insatiable appetite for that thing, which is that Donald Trump is always right. The, the evil communist, Marxist, Democrats are always wrong. They're always out to get Trump. Donald Trump is always the victim. Right. Is there no end in sight, I guess?

Well, when it comes to Fox, I think about it this way. I think about someone like Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, Sean Hannity. we think they're driving the car, but they're actually the passengers. And I think it's important to recognize that. So when the car runs off the road, when the car drives into a ditch, when the car crashes, the people that we think are driving the car actually are not. And so that's my framework for thinking about 2024, that there's nobody actually driving the car. What I'd like to think, though, and maybe this is going to be too optimistic, is that the voters,

You know, the viewers do do have a credible amount of sway here. The viewers of Fox are engaged right now in a GOP primary. And the viewers of Fox, who are going to go and vote in Iowa, to Hampshire, other states, they don't all back Trump. We know most of them do. But there is very much a contest still underway within the GOP. And I know that, you know, the conventional wisdom right now is we're heading to 2024 is that Trump's going to be the nominee.

But there's such an interesting divide within the party. And, you know, in some ways, you know, Foxx, both embodies and also suffers from and benefits from all of the above, all of those things from that divide. In other words, it's not a done deal. The story is not baked yet. Hakes not baked yet. You know, the media landscape is changing right now.

The fact that I have a show is a testament to that. Where does Fox fit into the future of cable news? And how is the 2020 election saga impacted where they stand? Well, Fox is dominant on cable, but it's nowhere online. It struggles online. Its streaming service has struggled to gains. subscribers over the last five years. It is very much a business model for the past generation, you know, for 60, 70, 80 year olds who are addicted to Fox, who view it not just

as a channel, but as a lifestyle brand, as an identity, as a way of life. And that audience skews so old, but I want to add a caveat to the conversation about the demos. There's a new 60-year-old born every day, right? So even though people will look at Fox and say, well, Fox doesn't matter to the youth, to younger people, they're not reaching 30 or 40-year-olds. Okay, that's mostly true, but they are still defining what the GOP is, defining what the party cares about, and there are people aging into the Fox audience every day. So even if they can never really make a dent online, even if they can never really matter that much on YouTube, they're still influencing the public conversation and GOP politics by virtue of the fact that they have that addicted elderly

the audience on cable. Well, then what about Tucker? Do you think that his new network is going to be a successful venture? I think he has loyal fans who are willing to pay, but not nearly as many as he had on Fox. You know, the reality is, we've seen this before with Glenn Beck and others. They are able to make a go of it, but they're never able to be as influential and powerful as they were on television because this beast that Rupert Murdoch and Roger L. It really is bigger than any individual star.

It's bigger than the sum of the parts. Let's fast forward to right now. There always seems to be some major disinformation campaign that Republicans are pushing to hurt Democrats. It was Hillary's emails. It was Benghazi. It was the 2020 election being rigged against Donald Trump. Now we're in the midst of the Biden impeachment effort.

Do you think that this is going to be the next big disinformation campaign for Fox and the GOP? And do you think that Democrats are doing enough to bat back the disinformation campaign now before it really sticks? I think it was Brian Butler recently wrote a piece about how Republicans have adapted, conservatives have adapted to this information in war space better than Democrats. And it rang true to me. It made a lot of sense to me that the way folks communicate. And let's talk about younger people, less likely to watch Fox, more likely to watch your show.

The way that we, if I can say, I'm 38, the younger folks communicate, you know, not just, I don't want to minimize and say through memes or through videos. But there's actually something very real to that and very substantive about that. The way that we communicate is wholly different than older generations. The way we can share links, share information, being in constant chats about it, the way that that shapes our view of the world is different. And I think it's an interesting question, you know, or have Democrats adapt to that well enough?

I don't know is the short answer. I'm sure some are and some are not. John Federman's trying his, you know, one way. others are trying other ways, right? But, you know, trying to figure out ways to communicate younger audiences. When I look at this in terms of the disinformation campaigns that you mentioned, they are spread on every platform, right? These attempts to, the way that I view the Biden impeachment process is try to smear up Biden

the same way that the Trump has been, right? To try to dirty up Biden with all the allegations. So that everybody looks dirty. Everybody looks terrible. Just give up, just tune out. Don't vote, don't care. Or just stay with your side, right? And stay with your side and don't think too hard about it, right?

Because whatever they say about Trump, it's true for Biden also. That's clearly the GOP message. You know, we lived this in the schoolyard decades ago. I'm rubber, your glue. Anything you say about me bounces back and sticks to you. It's, you know, it's the oldest trick in the book. And I think most people probably see that for what it is, including a lot of Republicans. They know what it is.

It's an attempt to create a false equivalence. They're in on it. They're in on the joke. And, you know, there was a, I think it was Troy Nell's. There was a congressman walking over to the house. And somebody, a reporter says, what do you want out of this? And he says, Trump, 2024, right? That's a, you know, to the extent that this is really obvious to people, that's a good thing. It's why media literacy is so important, right? Get people the skills to see how these tricks are played. Give people the skills to see how this information is spread. And by the way, that's a recurring phenomenon on the right because in the same way that Troy Nels came out and said that that the whole point of this thing not was not to like was not to have accountability for Joe Biden it was to it was to prop up Donald Trump Kevin McCarthy came out 10 years ago almost and when he was asked about the point of the Benghazi select committee he said that it was to hurt Hillary Clinton's poll number so they've been kind of telling on themselves only because they're not

smart enough to do it subtly enough for so long but that doesn't change the fact that for most people it works anyway but but to the Hillary emails thing, Democrats were largely silent as the whole Hillary email thing was happening because I think we probably believe that it was so ridiculous on its face that we didn't want to validate it by even responding to it. But the practical effect of that is that it created a vacuum that Republicans then filled with their disinformation. And it became a huge story.

So that strategy obviously failed. What do you think is the most effective way to shut down these Fox News Republican disinformation campaigns like the emerging Biden impeachment one. Well, I think number one, it's, you know, it's worth recognizing the limits of any individual or any media company's power. The reason I start with that point is sometimes there's an attitude, I think, from, from partisans of all stripes. So like if we just wave a magic wand and make the media do something differently, then everybody will be informed correctly and the outcome will be as desired. The reality is it's just not the way the world works, not possible. I've come to really reckon with how limited the news media's

powers are. When I say powers, you know, I mean that in a rhetorical sense. Like, I think about 2016 and I was at CNN at the time covering the Trump campaign, covering the Clinton campaign, I'm really proud of the fact checking that was done, the scrutiny that was applied to Trump. And yet we know that that media scrutiny sometimes helped drive votes to Trump, right? Because he was canny and cynical enough to turn the media's scrutiny into one of his superpowers. So I just always start by saying, let's recognize the limits of the power here. But that said, that said, I think to let people be in on it, to show them how it works, to deconstruct how these disinbo-ops work is really powerful, because then they can do it

themselves, see it with their own eyes, recognize when they're being manipulated, recognize when they're being deceived. most people, Republicans, Democrats, aliens, they don't want to be deceived. They don't want to be fooled. People don't want to feel like they're marks or suckers. They want to know what's true in the world, not what's false. And, you know, that gives the high ground, the moral ground. That gives the high ground to the truth tellers and the reality-based people in a world

where the Elon Musk's, you know, will use their platforms to spread hate and disinformation. Let's hold on to the high ground and focus. on what is actually true. And, you know, look, I've even seen some figures at Fox point out a little bit once in a while on the air that there seems to be nothing to these Biden claims that, you know, we're not voting for Hunter Biden. You know, the person running is Joe Biden. And so every so often, the truth breaks through even on Fox. Yeah. Okay. So this is a question that's been nagging at me for years now. But do you think the straight news anchors at Fox, like the, the, the Brett bears insofar as one believes he is a straight news anchor, do you think that people like

that validate the real draw for Fox, which are the opinion host by giving the network plausible deniability that they're a real news network? Yeah, the short answer is yes. I refer to it in Network of Lies. I think I quote a source saying, it's like the Murdox play a double or a triple game because they benefit from the propagandists and how profitable the propaganda is, but they have these news anchors and this newsroom that provides credibility and cover for it. By the way, that newsroom is shrinking. Fox does have journalists as journalists in the Middle East, for example, but the news operation part's been shrinking over the years while the propaganda operation is expanding.

So I think about it as Fox being many things within one body, all uncomfortably living together. And yes, there are many examples at this point to say that Fox uses its journalists, its news shows as cover to say, well, look over here. Don't look over there. We said this, but we also said that. That's what was so destabilizing about 2020. Fox reported the truth, said what was true, and then started to shout the lies about voter fraud. So both, they were all happening within the same place. Brian, what was the most interesting part of the book to write?

To write. That's a great question. No one's asked me that during this book tour thing. I think what I enjoyed writing, there were two parts I enjoyed writing the most. One was the day-by-day TikTok of November 2020. Election night turned into election week. Then remember Saturday morning when Biden was projected president-elect, people took to the streets in New York and D.C. and L.A. On Fox, though, Trump lost, which means Fox law.

the host lost and thus marie barteromo started to create this alternative reality where maybe he won maybe he was robbed maybe he could still win maybe he could get to the supreme court maybe he can have a second term so fox created this this universe this you know alternative universe so the tic-tok of how that happened day by day was really fun to write and then it was really interesting to revisit the 2022 midterms because the so-called red wave that didn't break the red wave that didn't happen was another reminder to me that what these propagandists do is ultimately a disservice to their audience when they lied about voter fraud in 2020 when they promised a red tsunami that didn't come in 2022 they are misinforming and disinforming their

viewers and actually hurting them yeah and look brian you've you've been in this you know in this world for a while i was at cnn for almost a decade i think a lot about whether i'm helping a little bit or am i doing harm it's even true the first day i covered a natural disaster for the new york times i was in joplin covering a tornado and i was driving toward the town the have been decimated. And I thought to myself, the first rule of journalism on a day like this is just don't do any harm. I'm about to interview people who are having the worst day of their lives. Don't make their lives any worse, right? Don't do harm. I think, you know, I don't want to be pompous about it. Certainly in political journalism, the stakes might not be that high every day.

The stakes are different at least. And when it comes to commentary and all of that, you know, it's a rough and tumble game. But we shouldn't be doing harm. We shouldn't be doing a disservice to our audience. And the parts of the book I liked writing the most, they were about the recognition that what Fox does harms the people they're trying to help, disrespects the people they claim to respect. Yeah, I think that's such a great point. That's a point I try to bring up in my videos too. It's like, look, the last thing that you, at a bare minimum, you want the people who you've entrusted to represent you to not treat you with such oozing contempt. And to your exact point. Nobody wants to be lied to. Nobody wants to be manipulated.

But that's exactly what's happening. And it's only happening to the people who've imbued these Fox hosts and these Republicans with so much trust, only to then turn around and leave them so ill-informed to your exact point. It is in some ways a very, very twisted relationship. And I don't know how to really untwist it for the loyalists, for the junkies, for the addicts. I do believe there's lots of Republicans, lots of moderates, lots of folks who even watch Fox, maybe even for entertainment, who aren't really true believers, know what it really is. Like, you know, I think we shouldn't, you know, it's important not to

paint with too broad a brush. There are, there are lots and lots of persuadable people out there. But among that core constituency, that MAGA base that has decided that all real news is fake and all fake news is real and Trump is the only truth and Fox is the only truth. Yeah, I think they're not, I think they're not getable anymore. And we should focus our efforts. You know, me as a journalist, you know, you as a commentator, as a host on reaching everybody else who, who is open to new information and new facts. Yeah, perfectly put. I think that's definitely the best use of our time.

Brian, the book was extremely enjoyable, really easy to read. For anybody watching, definitely recommend that you grab it. It is Network of Lies, the Epic Saga, of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy. Brian Seltzer, thanks for taking the time. Thank you. Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks again to Brian. That's it for this episode.

Happy New Year, everybody. I'm looking forward to getting it done in a big way this year. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode,

please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.