Pod Save America - Stephen Colbert, South Park, and Donald Trump’s War Against the Media

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

It's a scary time for political media. After decades of shifting business models and consumption habits, news outlets now have to navigate lawsuits from a president who uses the full weight of the government to punish his enemies. Was CBS's decision to axe "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" purely financial, as the network claims—or was it related to the merger they wanted Trump to approve? Brian Stelter, chief media analyst at CNN and author of the "Reliable Sources" newsletter, sits down with Tommy to discuss what exactly happened to Colbert, whether other networks are kowtowing to Trump, and the episode of South Park that no one can stop talking about.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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a session with the therapist at the click of a button helping you fit therapy into your busy life plus switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash psa that's better h-e-l-p dot com slash p-s-a Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Tommy Vitor. It is a very scary and unsettled time for the media business, especially political media. After decades of shifting business models and consumption habits, corporate consolidation and downsizing, news outlets now have to navigate the threat of lawsuits from the President of the United States who is more than happy to use the full weight of the US government to punish his enemies. In the last several months

we have seen Trump initiate lawsuits against CBS, ABC, against a pollster who released some data he didn't like. The ABC and CBS suits resulted in eight-figure payouts to Trump, Mike, the ABC and CBS suits resulted in eight figure payouts to Trump, reputational damage to the networks involved, and a major shakeup at 60 Minutes. And then earlier this week, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, News Corp, and Rupert Murdoch. You know that big lib, Rupert Murdoch. That context is why CBS's decision to cancel the Late Show with Stephen Colbert did not sit well with a lot of people.

CBS claimed it was a purely financial decision, but CBS's parent company, Paramount, was in the process of trying to get the Trump administration to approve a merger with Skydance Media. And firing a longtime Trump critic like Stephen Colbert sure seemed like a good way to placate the president. On Thursday, we learned that the Federal Communications Commission has approved that merger. To try and make sense of all this, I talked with Brian Stelter.

He is the chief media analyst at CNN Worldwide, where he also writes the reliable sources newsletter. It's an excellent newsletter, by the way. You should subscribe. He's also the author of three books, the most recent being Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy about the effort to steal the 2020 election.

And look, as long as we're talking about changes in the media business, I'm going to ask you to help Crooked Media by subscribing to Pod Save America on YouTube. You may have noticed that right-wing accounts dominate YouTube, and that is a serious problem because when normal people search YouTube for political news, which they do all the time, they get garbage. They get the Daily Wire. They get TP USA. In fact, a known plagiarist who literally took money from the Russian government had the fastest growing political or politically adjacent YouTube channel over the last three

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Here's my conversation with Brian. Brian Stelter, welcome to Pod Save America. It's great to be here. I think, I don't know how this is going to go. We'll find out. I think this is going to go. We'll find out. I think this is going to go great. All right, let's talk about some breaking news or big news. Last week, CBS announced they were canceling the late show hosted by Stephen Colbert.

CBS insists this is a purely financial decision, but it came just days after Colbert unloaded on CBS and its parent company Paramount for caving to Trump in what most people think was a pretty frivolous, ridiculous lawsuit. Now, you know, Brian, you know it better than anybody. These are tough times for broadcast media, for late shows in particular. The late show was reportedly losing $40 to $50 million per year. Do you buy the claim that this was a purely financial decision or do you kind of entertain that the timing at least

could have been part of a broader effort to make Trump happy as Paramount sought Trump's approval for a merger with Skydance Media? Narrowly, yes, I buy it. And if any other president were in office, that would be the end of the conversation. You know, when I would call up sources at CBS last week, even on background, even when they're given anonymity, even when they know I'm going to protect them because I've known them 20 years, they still say they still insist that this was financial. I do narrowly believe that I wrote about James Corden ending the late late show a couple

years ago that was on after Colbert and it too was unprofitable. That show went off the air in 2023. There is a history here. It does make a lot of sense. But when the president of the United States hates Stephen Colbert, wants him off the air, trashes him on true social, when CBS is trying to get a merger approved,

when you have this entire political backdrop, then I think you have to consider the broader context of all of this. And Tommy, I think it's one consider the broader context of all of this. And Tommy, I think it's one of these situations where when you're really close to it and you're zoomed way in, you can talk about all the details of the financing and all that. When you zoom way out, you actually might have a better perspective of what's going on.

Do you know what I mean? I totally agree. Yeah, there's a lot of context here. You're also reminding me that a couple of years ago, I had breakfast next to James Corden at a restaurant, and he kept saying to his little daughter, I believe, please stop playing bongos on daddy's bum bum. And I thought that was the funniest, cutest thing I'd ever heard, was this adorable little moment.

See, maybe Tommy, that's what we're losing with the death of late night television. And that's the problem. As a business story, that's an important business story. It's an important cultural story. It's an important cultural story It's just impossible to disconnect it from the politics Well, so that's my next question Is it a matter of time until some of these other late-night shows are canceled given the changes the industry people are cutting the cords

Advertisers are moving elsewhere or does it make more sense to downsize a show to make it financially viable? I mean weirdly in the short term Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel might benefit. You know, yes, the pie in general has been shrinking for years. The ratings have been slowly declining. And that's not necessarily the fault of these comedians. Look, there's a thousand other options now on our phones at all times.

Actually, millions and millions of other options. So of course, the late night audience pie has been shrinking. But in the short term, once Colbert is off the air next May, in theory, Fallon and Kimmel should benefit. For the people who are up at 11.35 and are flipping channels with their old fashioned TV remotes, and I'm still one of them,

I still have my old fashioned cable connection, for those folks, maybe Kimmel and Fallon will actually draw new audiences. But that's in the short term. In the long term, the trend lines all do look the same. And here's the unanswered question that I have about CBS. The late show trend lines were what they were. The show was becoming unprofitable more so every year.

Why not take action in 2023 or in 2024? Why not right size the budgets? Why not cut costs? Now, maybe some of that happened and we're unaware. I've not heard that from sources personally. Stephen Colbert's contract was coming up next May, so maybe in that contract cycle there would have been a renegotiation. Maybe he would have taken a pay cut. Who knows? But my point is, why not try to save the show rather than let it sink? Yeah. It's an iconic show. There's not a lot of monoculture properties like that. It does

seem shocking just to kill it off 10 months from now, fully. Well, last question on CBS. There's been a lot of rumors out there that CBS might hire someone named Barry Weiss to sort of oversee their journalism. Someone named Barry Weiss? Are you playing like you've never heard of her? So for our audience who doesn't know Barry Weiss, I'm just trying not to assume knowledge. I'm trying to be a pro like you, Ryan.

Got it. Got it, got it, okay. Barry Weiss, she worked at the New York Times. She quit, you know, sort of like citing feelings of that cancel culture had run amok within the organization. She started a company called The Free Press that she is now reportedly trying to sell for something like 200, 250 million dollars. But there's also these rumors of her maybe going to CBS

and just, I'm not entirely sure what the role is. What are you hearing about that? We know the talks are happening and we know the talks are serious enough to involve bankers and lawyers, but that does not mean a deal will get done. Barry Weiss has been at this with this startup for about five years.

She may well feel that, you know, another two, three, four, five years from now, this is gonna be twice or three times as valuable. So maybe she will decide not to sell. But I understand why from David Ellison's perspective, he's the incoming Paramount owner, he's the CEO of Skydance. Skydance is taking over Paramount

now that the FCC has approved the merger. I understand why from David Ellison's point of view, hiring the free press, acqui hiring Barry Weiss and bringing over the free press as an acquisition, it's a dramatic move that makes a statement. It's a way to put your stamp on a news division. I can see the logic. It's like an interesting and sexy story to bring in an acquisition in this way.

And yes, it does also, again, you can't disconnect it from the politics. It says something about his politics perhaps and definitely about his desire to change CBS News. This idea of the free press as an anti-woke brand, as being heterodox, as being center-right, there's lots of different ways people describe it. I think of it as a more centrist or right-leaning version of the Atlantic.

It's more of a magazine than a news outlet. Right, yes, absolutely. Meaning it's about essays and analytical pieces and columns and first person. It's not a news operation gathering news 24 seven the way CBS News is. So if you believe that CBS News and its website and its digital assets need a jolt of energy,

if you believe they need a subscription business plan, if you believe they need live events and podcasts, well, bringing in the free press can make a lot of sense on paper. Do you buy it or am I totally, am I totally bullshit? I hear what you're saying. I kind of think that there's a very small, very kind of elite audience for what Barry's selling.

It's sort of a center-right take on the world. I'm a little skeptical of people that are kind of say they're anti-cancel culture but then don't have a lot to say when pro-Palestinian activists are being thrown in ICE detention centers for months, right? That seems to be the kind of front of the cancel culture wars that we should really worry about when we're talking about government censorship. But I don't know. I'm not trying to diminish her or cast aspersions here. I just kind of – it's hard not to divorce it from the context, as you just said.

In April, like Bill Owens, not to divorce it from the context, as you just said. I mean, you know, in April, like, Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, resigned. He told his staff that he said, quote, over the past months, it's been clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.

So over time, I did what I could. I'm stepping aside so the show can move forward. That really struck me, Ryan, because I mean, I'm not sure what not be allowed to run the show as I've always run it meant. I'm not sure if you know, but it does seem like he felt like there was a chilling effect and the sort of corporate overlords telling them what to do and installing someone like Barry seems to be kind of the next step in that. Yeah.

Bill Owens is referring to pressure from Paramount, especially from controlling shareholder Sherry Redstone, who is the one trying to offload Paramount to David Ellison. Pressure from the top of Paramount to try not to make a bad situation worse. And what I mean by that is, Trump was already suing CBS over 60 minutes. There were signs that the Trump FCC

was very slow walking the merger review process. And so from the Paramount corporate point of view, guys, you're reporting the news. We don't want to bother you. We don't want to get in the way, but please don't make our terrible corporate situation worse. Like from the Paramount point of view, they've been subjected to a form of corporate torture by these government regulators who've been reviewing the deal and by the president himself, right, whose criticism of CBS has been scathing and very personal.

So from the corporate point of view, that's the kind of interference that Bill Owens was then feeling in February, in March, in April, you know, Paramount bosses wanting to know in advance about stories, maybe trying to view them in advance, that kind of interference that he was not at all accustomed to. And it wasn't just about Trump and politics. It was also relating to Israel and Gaza. Sherry Redstone has been an outspoken supporter of Israel. She has been very vocal about anti-Semitism in the United States.

She was upset about a CBS morning show segment that she thought was unfair, that was bent in the wrong way. And so that concern also was affecting 60 Minutes. And here's the important part, I think, Tommy. David Ellison shares Sherry Redstone's point of view when it comes to Israel. He is also a strong supporter of Israel. And I suspect that when we talk about Barry Weiss

possibly coming over to CBS, that has something to do with what we're talking about because the free press shares some values that Ellison has and that would Potentially, right impact the news division when look we don't know what Weiss's role would be if she does Decide to sell the free press if she does go to CBS, you know I've seen people describe her as you know, some sort of editorial shepherd or thought leader. What I don't think, I don't think she's going to be put in some actual management role. They're not going to make her the president of CBS News, but they would give her some sort of role looking at the editorial.

I think the relationship between Ellison and Barry Weiss with regards to denouncing anti-Semitism and supporting Israel, I think that's part of the stew in the pot, so to speak. Posse of America is brought to you by Chili Pad by SleepMe. Let's be honest, if your sleep sucks, and mine does, everything else sucks a little more. Yeah, you suck a little more. Thank you, you can do all the right things.

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Sleep cooler, recover faster, perform better. Sleep cooler, recover faster, perform better. In the lead indoor conversation, I talked a lot about the lawsuits that Trump has waged against news outlets that include CBS, ABC, upholster at the Des Moines Register that he didn't like, News Corp. Are you hearing from your sources and various newsrooms that these lawsuits are having a chilling effect on their reporting decisions? Are they less likely to do tough investigative work on Trump given that backdrop? It's almost impossible to answer the question because we don't know what we don't know.

We don't know the stories that never get published unless someone else publishes them and says, I wasn't allowed to print this at X, Y, or Z, so I'm printing it over at ABCA. That dynamic is so confounding, and I've struggled with it in the past few months because there is a chill in the air, but that chill in the air does not mean that stories are going untold necessarily.

It means the temperature's dropped a little bit. I would put it this way and tell me if this is naive. The temperature's maybe changed a degree or two, but the climate has not changed. Meaning, there are lots of news outlets doing fearless reporting on a daily basis. The kind of journalism that President Trump does not want to see published. It's out there for everybody to read and view and see. I do get concerned that there's lots of people that never interact with it because of media silos and media bubbles and all of that.

But the work is being done. The climate hasn't changed, but the weather definitely has. The temperature has changed, and so I'll give you a very specific example. When the Wall Street Journal came forward that story about Trump's old relationship, his old friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and now Trump is suing the journal.

One of the journal's follow-up stories mentioned that ABC News was pursuing some of the same reporting the journal had. Not exactly the same story, but ABC was going after it. ABC was digging into it. In fact, when ABC called the White House for comment, or called the DOJ for comment on July 9th, there was a fight among some of the Trump officials as a result

of the ABC request for comment. So I went on the ABC website, I tried to find was a story published? Was this reporting that ABC was pursuing? Did it actually air or be published anywhere? And the answer is no. ABC kept reporting it out, kept trying to confirm it, but never published a story. And this is one of those unknowables. Did ABC decide to hold back from the story because it didn't feel confirmed, it didn't

feel solid enough, the bosses were not confident in the reporting, or did they hold back because Disney's, you know, the ABC's parent company, Disney, settled with Trump last December for $15 or $16 million as a result of a Trump lawsuit against the network and as a result the network is hesitant to Go there and break a big story about Trump, but it's unknowable And here's what happens when I call and ask this question number one. You're never gonna comment on the record number two you'll hear some understandable defensiveness saying

You know you can't accuse us of going soft or holding back or not having journalistic standards. You know, there's a real, you get it, I think, right? Yeah, I mean, I would be incredibly defensive about that. I mean, it's sort of like core to the DNA of not only these organizations, but the people who work there, like they live and they breathe this stuff. You're right. I mean, I'm sure it is sort of impossible to quantify.

I do wonder what it's like being a younger investigative reporter in a very unsettled industry where there's more layoffs than hirings. And you think not only will my bosses have my back if I report this out, but will my bosses like this? Is this the kind of thing they want me to pursue or am I a troublemaker if I'm going after this Epstein document or whatever?

Interesting. I can only tell you that from my personal experience, I've been back at CNN now about a year, every time that I write a story that I find is really tough, that when I'm writing it, I think, is someone going to wince at that paragraph? Is that going to go too far? Am I being too analytical?

First of all, the answer is no. It's important to share with the audience what we know, to be honest, to be very clear. But number two, I find that those stories that are strong, that are not holding back at all, those are the ones that end up on the homepage. Like those are the ones that end up getting push alerted out to millions of readers.

Those are the ones that end up having big, big audiences. And I find every time that happens, I view that as a positive sign. But take me out of it. I see that happening with colleagues at CNN. I see that at other places as well where big scoops, tough investigations, really strongly worded pieces of analysis, they do get rewarded with attention and traffic and engagement. So even though the pressures are so real and Trump's attacks against the press are so intense, I want to recognize how much good work is still getting out. Absolutely. Absolutely. Reporters are doing amazing work. And one piece of this that I

find fascinating, Brian, is kind of the Rupert Murdoch role in this world right now. Because as you mentioned, like the Wall Street Journal has done some of the Rupert Murdoch role in this world right now, because as you mentioned, like the Wall Street Journal has done some of the toughest reporting on Trump, period, especially there. The recent reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the Journal's editorial page, has been a harsh critic of Trump's tariff policies. And now Trump is suing the Journal, News Corp,

and Rupert Murdoch for only $10 billion, a little tiny lawsuit. You have reported on Fox News and the Murdoch family for years. How do you make sense of the disconnect between the journal's tough coverage and then the 24-7 propaganda and cheerleading we see on Fox News?

Rupert Murdoch wants to have it both ways. Having it both ways benefits him probably, I would say, emotionally, definitely financially. You know, because Rupert in his heart, even though some listeners will laugh at this, he views himself as a newsman, as a news hound, as an old-fashioned newspaper man with ink in his veins, so to speak. And that is how he grew up, that's how he built his media empire, it was on, it was through newspapers. So for him, he's really proud of The Wall Street Journal, he loves a good scoop.

I think he also sometimes likes to poke the president in the eye, as one person close to Rupert said to me. He doesn't mind being in these confrontations. We're talking about a 94-year-old who filed a legal battle against his own children a couple of years ago, trying to change the family trust to figure out how billions of dollars is going to be split up. This is a guy who likes to fight. So number one, you know, we shouldn't be surprised that he's willing to battle with Trump when he feels it's appropriate and necessary. But then number

two, he has Fox News as well, right? So he has the journal, he's proud of the scoops, he loves the paper, he reads it in print. But then he knows that Fox News makes him incredible amounts of money. It makes the shareholders a lot of money. It is what keeps the profit machine humming along. And so I think that's how he has it both ways. Why do you think Fox has figured out how to make it work, providing like MAGA comfort food for years and years and years, and they're dominating the ratings, they're dominating financially,

at a time when other networks are struggling. MSNBC is getting spun off, there's major changes of foot. It doesn't seem like that there's a sort of equivalent network on the left that has been as successful. And that's been true for 20 years. Yeah. If you go back into the history of cable news, when MSNBC started to become clearly left-leaning with Keith Olbermann, which really was 20 years ago, MSNBC was never able to grow to become as large as Fox News. CNN, of course, you know, trying to report the

news and not be as much of a talk show about the world the way the Fox News is. That's how I view Fox. I view Fox on as a, it's got a small news operation and it's got a giant opinion arm. It also has an entertainment arm, if you think about it that way. Fox is mostly a rolling talk show about the news. And in some ways that is inherently more popular versus live shots from around the world

and detailed reports. I want to acknowledge there's just a difference in the marketplace. Fox is selling a different product than everybody else. And most importantly, Tommy, to answer your question, Fox has a stranglehold on that audience on the right. You hear about Newsmax once in a while, you hear about One America News,

these channels are tiny flies on the back of the Fox elephant. And even though Newsmax has been out there for years trying, fighting, it has struggled to become even one-tenth as large as Fox News. So, whether you buy into the idea that it's a cult-like relationship or not, Fox has that iron grip on the audience,

unlike any other channel on television. And I have looked for signs of that changing. I've written two books about this and wondered if it would ever change. In 2025, I see no sign of that changing. Yeah, and look, I have Fox on all day, every day in our office. I don't agree with a lot of what they report,

but the number of times I've looked at a chiron on the screen and laughed out loud is like too many to number. I mean, I think they do a good job putting out an entertaining product. It's one that I don't find to be factual, but it's fun to watch. Listen, Roger Ailes talked about this a long, long time ago.

One of the only times I ever met the man, he talked about how bright the screen was, how colorful the screen was, how he wanted not just people, but the banners, the pictures to pop. If that's the business you're in, which is an entertainment and political propaganda business, then he's wildly, he builds something that's still wildly succeeding a decade after his death. Yeah. One duo that's not pulling any punches

are Trey Parker and Matt Stone over at South Park, South Park's creators. Did you catch the first episode this season? Well, I had to watch for work, yes. Yes, I did too. I was getting texts about it, what night was that? Wednesday night, I started seeing people posting on Twitter, the final scene is the first scene

I watched, which was an AI Trump crawling through the desert completely naked before his penis starts speaking, and then it says, I think the tagline is Donald Trump, he has a teeny tiny penis, but he's for us, you know, right, so the LA Times reported that Paramount rushed to finalize their merger with Skydance before the premiere on Wednesday to avoid a PR fiasco when I think the creators were at Comic-Con in San Diego Thursday.

A puck reported that South Park flagged the content of the episode to Paramount execs who then told the top brass about it and then those top brass had to explain the episode to Sherry Redstone, what I would give to have been in that room. Have you heard anything about, you know, look, ultimately they decided to air this episode, right? And they probably were smart enough to know that if they tanked this thing, it would be bad.

But the context is remarkable, given that Paramount just gave Parker and Stone $1.5 billion with a B for 50 new episodes and their entire back catalog. This season premiere actually was delayed two weeks. So add that to the mix here. Interesting. The creators were working on the new season,

ended up not coming out until here we are almost the end of July. And that does line up perfectly with this merger review timeline. Because if you unpack the entire month of July, Paramount settles with Trump on July 1st, agrees to pay $16 million to make that 60 minutes lawsuit go away. That court, you know, settlement, that out-of-court settlement was only finalized in court on Tuesday of this week. So you then have on Thursday the FCC voting to approve the merger.

So drop into the timeline, South Park on Wednesday night. So, you then have on Thursday the FCC voting to approve the merger. So drop into the timeline South Park on Wednesday night. Here's why it's more complicated than that though. South Park is on cable. It's not on broadcast. So technically, officially, the way the law works, the FCC has nothing to do with cable, cannot say a word about South Park, cannot make a peep about it. So if we're looking at this by the book, then South Park shouldn't matter.

But of course, this world seems more complicated than that. Right, yes. Or more transactional than that. When people look at the Paramount settlement over the 60 Minutes lawsuit, they see a quid pro quo. Elizabeth Warren has called this a bribe. Other Democratic senators have called this a bribe. And by the way, how interesting it is that we've seen these Democrats even bother to weigh

in about a media merger. It speaks to the environment we're in and the desire of some Democrats to show that they are fighting, that we've seen statements from these lawmakers about what's going on at Paramount. Because right now, all roads lead to and from Paramount. The Colbert late night show is about Paramount, the Daily Show and Jon Stewart, South Park, 60 Minutes, all of this under the same parent company. And my take on South Park is that because it is on cable

not broadcast, because the creators are known for, you know, taking shots at everybody, they're equal opportunity offenders, emphasis on offenders. They've, you know, been going after the left for years and what they think is excessive wokeism. Well, now they believe the biggest bully in the room is on the right. It's President Trump.

And there's really no way to tell them to knock it off without losing South Park, without losing the brand. And that's why the most important number you said is 1.5 billion. The Paramount just signed this new deal to keep streaming South Park, well, to be able to stream South Park for years to come. So how do we square the circle, right? Late shows going away, but South Park, vicious Trump criticism, it's worth 1.5 billion. The answer is in what matters on streaming.

What matters on streaming are shows like South Park. Shows that have a long shelf life. It's a great library. It's a 27 season library of television that people might be watching 10 or 20 years from now. Whereas, is anybody really gonna watch an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert five years from now? Probably not. ["The Late Show with Stephen Colbert"]

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Did I do it? Good. Nailed that. Let's turn to the White House and the White House Press Corps. The Trump administration has cracked down on the White House Press Corps in ways that would have been unimaginable to me when I was a very young flack working in the press office for Barack Obama.

They took control of deciding which news outlets are part of the White House press pool. For those who don't know, the press pool is the group of reporters that's much smaller that attends events with the president when there's limited space in the room. That process used to be controlled by the White House Correspondents Association, by the journalists themselves, but the White House took it over. They banned the Associated Press from pooled events for several months. They have moved to fully restrict pool access for major wire services. The White House has also now barred the Wall Street Journal from some events because they're

mad about the Epstein coverage. Brian, what do you think the impact of these sort of changes when all taken together has been? You know, first of all, in Trump 2.0, if there is a button that Trump or his aides can press to punish disfavored media outlets, they will press it. Like that is my takeaway from the first six months. We've seen a dozen different examples of pressure points

that have been exploited, whether that's the FCC opening investigations, whether it's defunding PBS and NPR, whether it's legal battles in the and NPR, whether it's legal battles in the courts, like all these different pressure points. And you're describing a really interesting one that, you know, matters a lot to insiders that I think most outsiders never hear about. This idea of who's in the press pool and thus really who is able to ask the president questions

on a daily basis. This is now a legal fight by the AP. The AP was basically the first to be punished this year. And should we refresh people's memories about why it was about the golf in Mexico? Yeah, please, because it's so stupid. I just feel like it's important to bake it in every time I talk about this,

because otherwise you start to think, oh, maybe the AP did something wrong. And what did they do? The AP, when you're growing up and you're in journalism school, the AP style book is the Bible. It is the manual for what names to capitalize and how to spell certain words. So in the AP style book, the Gulf of Mexico is still called the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump's proclamation that the US government must now call it the Gulf of America created a challenge for all these global newsrooms. What do you do? What do you call the Gulf? And, you know, the AP and other outlets basically decided other countries recognize it as the Gulf of Mexico. That's been the name for hundreds of years. We're gonna call it the Gulf of Mexico,

but also acknowledge Trump's decree about Gulf of America. So when I'm on TV, I call it the Gulf. I say it's the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by Trump as the Gulf of America. You just explain it. You just bake it into the news coverage. Not a big deal, not controversial, but Trump wanted to pick a fight,

so he started to ban AP reporters from White House events, and here we are, a big, giant legal battle that's probably gonna go on for months, where the AP's trying to fight for its access. In the meantime, the White House has totally rewritten the rules about access, so the legal fight may not matter as much as it did. Basically, up until now, an independent group

of press corps folks, the White House Press Correspondents Association, decided who was in the pool. And Carolyn Leavitt and her aides have taken that power. Now they decide on a daily basis who is in the press pool. For the most part, most news outlets that were in in January still are. We should recognize, you know, for the most part, it hasn't changed. But the mix has evolved over time. There are now Explicitly pro Trump outlets that don't do reporting that they're there to provoke and opine not to report they are a regular part of the press pool now and

Places like the AP are in the pool less often what I think has changed this month And is you know we have to watch out for is the Wall Street Journal being kicked off a trip kicked out of the press pool for a trip because Trump didn't like the story about Trump and Epstein, because he decided to sue the journal. So that's a clear, very specific example of retaliation going to start to do that on a more regular basis going forward. And there's nothing really to stop him from doing so. Yeah. And for those who are thinking like, why are you guys talking about this? Why does it matter? I mean, just imagine if every pooled press event, you just had questions to Trump from

like Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, I'm forgetting his name, Brian Kelly. Brian Glenn. That's a real thing. He shows up regularly now. Yes. And you know what he did a couple days ago? He asked a question about a bill that his girlfriend had introduced in Congress. Isn't that an interesting way to promote the bill?

No conflicts here. Yeah, that is remarkable. Again, these are like seismic changes for the nerds like us who know how this stuff used to work. I have found the White House Correspondents Association response to be basically nonexistent. Like, I think they sent a letter, they wore like pins one day.

I guess, I don't wanna be mean to them. I'm not sure they have that. Yes, you do. Yeah, I know you do. I think it's pathetic, but I also think that it's almost impossible to figure out a way to respond collectively when you have a press corps with a bunch of competing interests? And I'm just wondering if I'm being unfair to them.

No, you said it. You said it. Therein lies the problem. The audience can say and does say to me on Blue Sky every day, show solidarity. Work together. You should all walk out. And I don't think we live in a world where if 10 or 20 or 30 reporters all banded together

and walked away and refused to ask Trump questions, I don't think we live in a world where another 30 won't rush back in, will not rush in. There will always be reporters or people posing as reporters who want to ask the president questions. And so I think this is one of those areas where the White House does have a lot of leverage in terms of who is able to ask questions on a daily basis. And we should just, as people like yours truly, all we can do is point out, is Trump doing any real interviews?

Is he only going on Fox? When he goes on Fox, is he only going on with his friends? His daughter-in-law is a host on Fox. The president? You know, his daughter-in-law is a host on Fox. The president recently sat down with his daughter-in-law for a promotional interview. Is the word interview even appropriate in those circumstances? All we can do is observe it, point it out,

recognize what is happening, and this summer at least, yeah, Trump holds a lot of so-called gaggles where he answers questions from the press pool, but he is almost never sitting down for real interviews. Hmm. Yeah, that's a good point. Although, I do find myself, you know, wanting to kind of check my own views here because Trump is broadly more accessible

than any president that I could ever think of in history, right? I mean, he is doing constant, I mean, he, he, there was a time when he was having foreign leaders to the White House. Normally, when you have a foreign leader come in, you bring the press pool in for something called a spray, where they basically just shout questions and take photos.

They're out in two minutes. And he would do like 45-minute mini press conferences there. And then they would go to the East Room after the meeting and do another 45 minutes. I was like, what the hell are these guys doing? This is such a waste of time. They've slimmed that down a bit. But he is still willing to take questions

from the press basically every day, which is very different than Biden. It is very different, but whether he answers them honestly is a completely different metric. And we live in an environment now where the president calls a reporter a maggot, where he decides to respond to South Park mocking his genitalia. You know, we live in an environment now that is just, yes, it is an attention war. Yes, Trump is able to win the attention war, but at what cost and is it at all tethered to reality are the really hard parts to measure. That's right.

That's right. Do you think that the wave of media unionization over the past few years has impacted or changed how outlets cover labor or cover power generally. What have you seen from this trend? I haven't written about this, but I do think that there's more nuanced coverage of labor issues as a result of that unionization movement. That's the main thing I've noticed is I personally, I see more coverage of the topic and I see more nuanced coverage as a result.

Interesting. So, right. I spent like 30 minutes, uh, asking you about traditional mainstream media because like I have all this muscle memory of it from when I was in government. Yeah. Right. But, but podcasts, tick-tock social media, like that's the stuff that I've heard they're becoming popular. Yeah.

That's the stuff people think got Trump elected. I, I may have co-founded a media company, a podcast company. You still haven't saved America though. Oh, God. People don't seem to always get that that was sarcastic, including Hunter Biden. I read that this week. Yeah, he had some thoughts. It has been interesting to watch a lot of these new media voices turn on Trump over Jeffrey Epstein I'm also fascinated by the ways the Trump team is trying to Spin these influencers and get them on sides like Trump is making calls to people like Charlie Kirk JD Vance invited a stand-up comedian podcaster named Tim Dillon to Washington DC to have dinner with him now

It doesn't seem like any of this has really worked, but I'm wondering if you think there's a takeaway from this moment and the Epstein story and how diffuse media power has become and what that says about your ability to control a narrative if you're a White House. In some ways, it is similar to the relationship between Trump and Fox News, even though that's an old school brand, because the hosts on Fox News, they have a lot of power, they benefit from proximity to the president, it's a mutually beneficial back-scratching relationship most of the time, and yet they also can pull apart sometimes. They can go separate ways.

There can be breakups and then reunions. And I think there's a version of that now in MAGA media, social media influencer world, where the relationship is clearly mutually beneficial, there's an element of propaganda underway, and yet sometimes these men and women will break away, they will speak out, because they believe they're doing it for the good of the movement.

And in some cases they're doing it to help Trump. Some of the MAGA media influencers calling out the administration of Repstein, they think, I believe they think, they're actually helping Trump. They are guiding him to what is the right answer or the right solution. Furthermore, some of them clearly feel betrayed,

deeply betrayed. And that's what's gonna happen sometimes when you buy into a years-long lie, an entire architecture of lies that has been built around this topic. I don't know about you, I found this hard to analyze and talk about on TV because there's both a very real and horrifying scandal about Epstein and his crimes and his accomplices. And there is a lot more that could be revealed and there are documents that have not come out. That's all real and important and reality based.

But then there's also this sickening conspiracy theory that is festered and built for years about a child sex trafficking plot in industrial scale, abusing women, abusing girls on behalf of democratic elites. Like, let's face it, this conspiracy theory is about treating the other party as evil. And that made up conspiracy theory that's happening over there, you know, a lot of people have conflated

the two, a lot of MAGA media influencers see them as one of the same, and they feel betrayed because they've bought into those lies for years. They've also helped sell those lies for years. Am I making any sense about the difference between the two stories? Oh, absolutely. I do think there's a lot of different flavors of where people are coming from on this story. There is what you just described, which is almost basically QAnon continuation where

people think there is literally a cabal of liberals that maybe even drink the blood of children, the adrenochrome thing. That is a real thing, people think there is literally a cabal of liberals that maybe even drink the blood of children, like the Adrenochrome thing, that is a real thing people think. Then there's folks who just think that some of their political enemies are on this list and they're gonna get to finally prosecute Bill Clinton, for example. And then there's folks who I think just thought

Trump is pledged to be, he has these outside of a system, a system that we hate, and that he's gonna burn it down. And he's gonna take down all these elites that we hate, and now he looks to be covering up for them. I think that's why it's been so damaging kind of across the MAGA media universe, and he has really struggled to get on the right foot, even with all this talk about summoning

Galeen Maxwell to testify before Congress or releasing grand jury testimony. That is just clearly insufficient for a lot of people, including people like Alex Jones. And maybe that's in part because Epstein, as this is all shorthanded, but really the elaborate conspiracy theories as well as the reality of the unsolved mysteries, all of it is content. All of it is fantastic content for some of these producers, for some of these Instagram stars, some of these podcasters.

It is a storyline that keeps on giving. It will never be fully resolved. No matter what happens, there will always be an unsolved mystery at the heart of it. And that is in some ways, it's the reason why true crime podcasts are so popular. You know, that's what some of this, you know, alleged news content is about.

It's really an ongoing thing in that way. I've also, I gave up a long time ago on being able to convince people that they're elaborate fantasies or horrors about these crimes that you can talk people out of their beliefs about them. There was a, I remember there was a meme that went around Twitter,

like in, I don't know, 2018, 2019, a picture of my face and a couple other CNN anchors, and it said, why are they on the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs? And like, what are you supposed to do with a lie like that? Now, I know you and your former boss have dealt with this every day for a decade. Plus, but like, what do you do with a lie like that? Obviously, you know, to say it's not true

makes you feel like an idiot because you're having to debunk nonsense that comes from a fever or something. But the point is, when those kinds of me, and everybody, what do you do? You cannot talk people out of these lies. Yeah, it's horrible. And they can say some pretty extreme, scary things.

And you can feel like you're on a real island, but deal with it. Right. You'll hear more of my conversation with Brian Stelter in a moment, but first I want to tell you about some other great listening. Donald Trump says he can end every war with one phone call, but he just fired the four-person team actually trained to resolve global conflicts. This week in the What a Day newsletter, we dig into the exclusive story of the State

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6AM City purchased a network of AI-generated local newsletters called Good Daily. So Andrew Deck, who's the reporter at Nyman Lab who wrote this piece, said that when he first discovered Good Daily, each local newsletter tried to present itself as being run by someone in the community. They were kind of like fake testimonials, but really it was all run by one guy in New York City. Now 6AM says, we're buying this AI newsletter network to kind of seed a bunch of small markets

with these AI newsletters. And then if they start to see success, we'll invest in editorial with human beings and the ones that get traction. Now we'll see. But for me, like this was a reminder that AI is common for media jobs, AI is common for my job, just like any other industry. And I'm wondering if you are starting to see the impact of AI across newsrooms. You're making me think of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr,

who when he was out on his media tour, acknowledging the CBS deal, the merger approval, he kept talking about trust. He kept indicating that, he kept claiming that his focus on Paramount, his trying to get concessions out of Paramount, was all about restoring trust. That the American people don't trust the media

and they need to rebuild trust. Well, I understand complaints about bias and all the other topics that you hear about. But the biggest source of distrust, the most damage being done to trusted media right now, is all this AI slop, all this AI garbage. And in some cases, right, AI generated newsletters or news articles that are maybe mostly true

or might be true or maybe seem true and it's hard to tell what's true or what's human made versus what's not human made. The biggest pressure on trusted media, I think is coming from this AI environment. And in that there will of course be winners and losers. The biggest pressure on trusted media, I think, is coming from this AI environment. And in that, there will, of course, be winners and losers. I hope that really, really handcrafted human-made outlets are going to be the ones that can

benefit by promoting themselves that way, by identifying that way, by winning over paying subscribers. And we see some of that happening on Substack every day. We do see some of these subscription models working. The more human-made, the better The more human made, the better. The more personal, the better. But there's no doubt there's going to be further damage at the local level with even smaller amounts of local news being gathered in the first place.

And then what little local news is actually gathered by humans will be collected up by the AI bots and spat back out at you and you know, and regurgitated toward you. I don't know, maybe this dates me, maybe this just shows how old I am, but the piece of mail I look forward to the most every month is a monthly newsletter from the town near where I live. Human-made, real advertisers, families who write in letters,

pictures from the local schools, you know, that handcrafted newsletter is the most valuable piece of media that I consume every month. And I'd like to believe that if we're all overwhelmed by AI slop on Facebook, then enough smart entrepreneurs will want to go out and build more of those newsletters. And also obviously digital versions and podcasts and TikToks, but I have to believe that in an environment

where you can't believe a word of what you're seeing on your social media feeds, that hopefully people will seek out more local, personalized, handcrafted versions. But now I'm going to get a bunch of emails from people who say this is just totally naive and the business model is completely cratering and there's nothing we can do about it. No, I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. I think there will be people like you and people like me,

people of a certain age with certain consumption habits who want human beings to generate their news and who like really care about that kind of curation and seek out authentic, real stuff. And then I fear there's gonna be a generation, probably a younger generation, that's really not used to consuming the news like we have. And they're like, I don't give a shit if, you know,

my local town's newsletter is AI, like whatever. I just wanna know the sports scores of my high school. Historically though, as people grow up, as they get older, they do age into news. Meaning, you know, if you're a cable news network, a new 25 year old is born every day in the 25 to 54-year-old demographic that advertisers really covet.

In theory, as you grow up, maybe you have kids, you start a family, maybe you're going to care more about the schools, you're going to pay for your local news. That has historically been true. Big difference, of course, now is there are fewer of those outlets to sign up for in the first place. There are more and more people doing the reporting themselves, right? More and more citizen journalism efforts that you do see on Facebook and other outlets, other platforms.

Some of them are not half bad, by the way. I suspect that, you know, if you're 35, you're 40, if you're living in a town and you hear about some scandal, you hear about something that went down, you see something in your community, you're gonna want to figure out if there are reliable sources, whatever the zing, reliable sources.

You're going to want to see if there are reliable sources about it around. If not, you're going to hunger for that. So I'm hoping that basic human impulse will stick around and that the business models can catch up. And it can be frankly easier and easier to pay for news. There are times where media brands make it very hard to become a member, to become a subscriber,

to support the brand. The easier we can make it to pay and become a part of it, the easier we can make it to be a member, the more these brands will benefit. God, amen to that. The number of times I have paid for an outlet and for some reason it just doesn't keep me logged in when I like click a Washington Post link on Twitter or whatever. And I have to, it drives me insane. Like how is this not seamless at this point?

A hundred percent. But conversely, you know, I was down the shore. I live in Jersey now. So I was down the shore with my family the other weekend. And I wanted to know about Fourth of July plans. Is there a parade in town, is there this, is there that? I would have paid in that moment, $3 via Apple Pay for some sort of alert or information for the weekend. I might have paid five or six bucks. But of course, it wasn't that easy, it wasn't that simple. So that's where I find a little bit of faith about the future of media, is that if we can get to the audience,

get to the consumer, if we can make it really convenient, there is an audience that wants to know if the parade's happening. I think that's right. I think that's true across industries. I want great curation, whether it's a playlist, a menu at a restaurant, a wine store, or news. I don't need the Cheesecake Factory version

that's too much for me. I'm overwhelmed, right? I just want something good. Speaking of sort of new types of media that's out there, this is kind of a generational thing. I was talking to a younger YouTube creator yesterday who was asking me what I thought about Jubilee, which folks have probably seen clips of this.

There's a bunch that went around recently this week. Mehdi Hassan from Zateo News was basically debating 20 fascists. And when I first heard about Jubilee, it was like Pete Buttigieg with 20 undecided voters. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting. There's some real value here. And it has evolved to this place where it is kind of everything

I hate about media. It's like debate versus conversation and owning people. The most insane, out of bounds views sort of pitted against each other. And none of what I'm saying is a critique of Nettie, credit to that guy, right? He could debate anybody, he did an incredible job, he is one of the smartest, sharpest people I've ever met

or heard talk about the media. But I do wonder what you think about the value of this product from Jubilee, because it's very very very popular with Gen Z and younger people, but I'm a kind of skeptical of it This is gonna Get me in trouble. I'm a big fan of it, but I'm probably wrong Like I feel like I know I'm wrong deep down inside like just before we started having this conversation

I was about to read a piece on the bulwark that's all about why Jubilee is bad, a Sonny Bunch writing. These are really bad for society. I haven't clicked the link yet, so listen to me, but then go read his piece, and I'm sure that he's right, okay? I'm sure that he's right. Here's what appeals to me about it though, okay?

It is very long form, like almost two hours long. You hear a lot, people are moving quickly. You hear a lot. You get a real sense of how people's brains work or maybe don't work, I don't know. You really hear those extremely online arguments and you come face to face with what politics is really like in America.

It's why I loved every diner story of interviewing Trump voters, even though it was very popular on social media to denounce diner stories. I always wanna hear more, I always wanna read more of those stories. Now, here's the caveat maybe, right? I am abnormal and news junkies are abnormal.

Jubilee appeals to that news junkie brain, you know, but I also think Jubilee's, I think the company was surrounded. They're trying to appeal to a broader audience. Maybe they're trying to bring in people who have not had these conversations for years and cannot anticipate every counter argument. Maybe that's a good thing to be making more forms of media for people who are not already so saturated. That's been my takeaway in the past few years, especially when I was able to take a little

time off while I got fired, but take a little time off after being fired and I could hang out with my kids. To look around the media world and realize it's really well designed for junkies and it's not very well designed for normal people. If you just want to know what happened today, there's some CNN products I would recommend, but there's not a lot out there compared to if you are a junkie, you will keep scrolling. You'll never be able to stop doom scrolling. If the intent of Jubilee is to try to bring in people

who are otherwise engaging in politics, I would favor that. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. The most compelling criticism of Jubilee I heard was actually from another bulwark star, Tim Miller, who said he started watching the Jubilee clips because he had Mehdi on his show. And then he started seeing Mehdi going back and forth with some of these creators and looking at their feeds and then all of a sudden

his ex algorithm was full of these like neo-Nazis right and there is there is a change so like there's an interesting conversation to be had about how consuming this contact can can impact your algorithm which um you know as we know can can fundamentally change what you get served. Of course. My favorite button on Instagram, it doesn't pop up often enough, but sometimes it pops up when Instagram feeds me something that I'm not, from someone I'm not already following, and it says, interested or not interested. There's an X or a check mark. I love when Instagram services that. I recently said to an executive there, I wish you would show me that even more often. I'm glad that you're giving me at least the perception of having some power over the algorithm. You're giving me a chance to opt out of the junk.

I like that. And it would be nice to be able to watch Surrounded on Jubilee and then say, I don't want to see any more of it. Yeah, me too. Final question for you, and thank you so much for giving us all this time. One of my questions today was written verbatim by chatGPT. Which one was it? Which one was it? Shit.

The union question? No. Yes, you nailed it. Oh, yes. Wow. Here's why, here's why I went there. Because it was short and pithy on like all my other fucking long-winded nonsense. No, because I thought it was the least related to the other topics.

Even though it's foundational, it affects unionization and labor, it affects every other topic we've talked about. But it was a little bit out of left field. And so I don't think that the chat GPT understands us well enough yet. You know me better than I do. You nailed that one. Brian, thank you so much for doing the show.

Where can folks find you? What should we promote here? I suppose I'm on CNN, and when I'm not there, I'm writing the Reliable Sources newsletter for CNN. It's at reliablesources.com. Thank you. Subscribe to Brian's newsletter, and thank you so much for doing the show. Thank you.

That's our show for this week. Thanks for listening, and see you guys Tuesday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, please consider leaving us a review to help boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safare. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor.

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