Pod Save America - “Yovanovitch-hunt.”

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

Multiple Trump officials agree to testify for the impeachment inquiry, Trump’s call with Erdogan leads to disaster in Syria, and the Democratic candidates prepare for their fourth and largest debate yet. Then Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow talks to Jon Lovett about his new book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, Lovett's interview with Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Ronan Farrow, the author of the new book Catch and Kill. Jordan, when I was introducing Ronan, I was like, how should I introduce you?

And I couldn't figure out what to say. And Jordan after was like, he won a Pulitzer. Say that. But I didn't. But you didn't. But I'm glad you brought it up. Okay, well, of course. I'm always there for you, Ronan. We have a lot of news to talk about first, from the latest on impeachment to the disaster Donald Trump has caused in Syria,

to a preview of this week's Democratic presidential debate. Lots going on, guys. Lots going on. Speaking of the debate, it's going to change our schedule a bit this week. We'll have a post-debate pod on Wednesday with all four of us instead of our usual Thursday pod. And during the debate itself,

you can follow along with us on our next edition of Group Thread, which you can find at youtube.com slash kroganmedia. Love it. How was your show this week? Great love it or leave it. Emily Heller, Shea Serrano, two returning champions, plus Beto O'Rourke stopped by and played queen for a day.

One of my favorite episodes ever. Wow. You don't say that too often. Oh, you know, we've been... That's the biggest lie you've ever told on the show. We've been slowly shifting the format, trying new things. The show is... It felt very good.

It felt very good. Excellent. Finally, if you haven't yet already, you need to subscribe to Crooked Media's newest podcast, America Dissected, hosted by the brilliant Abdul El-Sayed. Each episode goes far beyond the headlines to explore different issues important to our health, and the one coming this week goes very deep on superbugs and the growing resistance to antibiotics.

Six feet wide. Very scary. You know, I know it sounds scary. The size of a Chevy Nova. But Abdul's like funny and he has empathy for people in these situations. It's just really well done. He's a great host. Check it out. It's good because, you know, our healthcare discussion in politics is all about insurance and coverage and there's a million other topics in health that deserve attention. So he does that, which is great. All right. On to the news. Multiple officials who've worked in the Trump administration have chosen to defy the White

House's obstruction of Congress by agreeing to testify as part of the House's impeachment inquiry into President Trump. On Friday, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, told lawmakers that there was a concerted campaign to remove her from her post that was based on, quote, unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives. Yeah, no shit. Today, Monday, Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia advisor, will testify that Rudy Giuliani and the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, conducted secret diplomacy to carry out Trump's scheme in Ukraine

that included trying to oust Yovanovitch. And over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Sondland himself will now offer testimony that's expected to confirm that Donald Trump traded a White House meeting for politically motivated investigations of his political opponent and add weight to the allegation that he also traded taxpayer-funded military assistance for those investigations as well. Can I just say that something's occurred to me and I just want to say it now before we move on because I just want to say it. I just want to say it one time. Yovanovitch Hunt. Title. There we go. Write it down, Michael. Just wanted to say it one time.

Make sure it was said. Michael's too busy laughing to type. Guys, get it together. Get it together. Everybody's inconsolable. Tommy, what's the significance of these Trump officials offering testimony in defiance of the White House? Well, I mean, Trump himself has been hanging a lot on Gordon Sondland's text that there was no quid pro quo. How dare you suggest that? What are you talking about? I'm summarizing like Adam Schiff did at the hearing. Like Shifty Schiff.

Like Shifty Schiff did at the hearing. Like Shifty Schiff. Like Shifty Schiff did. Now, Gordon Sondland is telling Congress that the no quid pro quo line was just relaying what Trump told him and that he doesn't know the truth and that clearly there was a quid pro quo, but there was not a corrupt one, which, you know, kind of undercuts their main argument. It's fascinating philosophically to decide what, you know, the difference between a corrupt quid pro quo and a non-corrupt quid pro quo just one other thing that's baked into this that i haven't seen many people note that that what sonlin said is look and again i am paraphrasing which is a treasonous offense so everyone just be careful be careful out there paraphrasing is a crime but uh paraphrasing gets you the guillotine yeah Yeah. But what Sondland said is basically,

I don't know if it's true. It's just something Donald Trump told me. Right. And baked into that is the assumption that Donald Trump just doesn't tell the truth. And in any other administration, if a hack who worked for you said something like that, it would be a big story. Because what do you mean? You're saying the president's not telling the truth? Yeah. I mean, what I got from this on the Sondland thing is Sondland is neither a Trump loyalist at this point, nor is he some kind of a hero. He is just a guy who got a pretty good lawyer who's giving him good advice and he's trying to save his own ass. So like, in addition to what Lovett just said about, I don't know if President Trump was telling the truth. The other thing he said about, I don't know if it was a corrupt quid pro quo.

He's saying that because he's like, yeah, no, I know that there was definitely a trade of a White House meeting for a statement from Ukraine that they were going to investigate Burisma. But I didn't make the connection between Burisma and Hunter Biden, even though those reports were public. So fine, if Sondland wants to pretend that he was just in the dark this whole time, that's fine for him, but he has implicated Trump through this, or is expected to implicate Trump through this testimony. Rudy Giuliani is running around the world with a folder full of depositions and clips

that he pitched to his personal journalist, what's his name, John Solomon, over at The Hill or whatever garbage publication he works for now, alleging this quid pro quo. The Hill being the second most popular newspaper on Capitol Hill to bring to the toilet. But like, it's not credible. Number one is roll call. It's not credible that Sondland had not heard of these allegations about Hunter Biden and Burisma. Like in the way they're going to try to muddy this up, I think is like quid pro quos are at the heart of diplomacy, right?

You trade, you get a deliverable from some other country all the time to get a White House meeting. The problem here is the deliverable was a political favor for Donald Trump to attack his potential opponent, Joe Biden. That is the definition of a corrupt quid pro quo. Well, that's the point we were,

when we first were slowly learning about what had happened here. One of the first cautions being offered by those who were expert in this looking at this was to say, don't fall in the quid pro quo trap. It's wrong to solicit foreign interference, even if you don't have a quid to the pro quo. Right. It's just soliciting foreign interference is wrong, regardless of whether or not that there's a quid pro quo. So the whether it's, you know, this idea that there's some non-corrupt version of a quid pro quo in which the thing you are getting is foreign interference is just not possible. Yeah. And they're still ducking the issue of the hundreds of million dollars of military aid to Ukraine. We know that was being delayed. hundreds of million dollars of military aid to Ukraine. We know that was being delayed. It doesn't seem like it's a coincidence that it was right around this extorted extortion attempt of

Ukraine. No, and Sondland's expected to say that it was possible that it was withheld for that reason. He's not, he's very, at least in the reports of what his testimony might be, he is not going to say there was no withholding military assistance for the political investigations. He's going to leave open the possibility. To your point, John, Gordon Sondland is not going to say there was no withholding military assistance for the political investigations. He's going to leave open the possibility. To your point, John, Gordon Sondland is not a ride or die Trump guy. He was a Jeb Bush supporter who bought his way into this administration with a one million dollar donation to the inauguration via four. Count them for anonymous LLC. Well, yeah, I mean, this is I think I think a lot of times we we use as a shorthand of Trump loyalists.

And maybe there are some people who would be willing to go down for Donald Trump. But Donald Trump is a... Scavino. Right. Well, no, but this is this is like, it's worth thinking about, like, Donald Trump is a toxic, noxious human being that is known to everyone, even his most ardent defenders. So Sondland, Scavino, I don't know what I don't know. We don't know where his story ends, ultimately. But like Michael Cohen, right, considered to be one of the great Trump loyalist Trump goons turns.

Why? Because if you're the kind of person who will demonstrate loyalty to Donald Trump, means you're the kind of person who will demonstrate loyalty to anyone. Sondland is not a Trump guy. He's a Sondland guy. Michael Cohen was not a Trump guy. He was a Michael Cohen guy. And the second these people no longer saw Donald

Trump as a meal ticket, as a means to prestige, as a means to getting far beyond where their talents and skills ought to have allowed them to achieve, they're right off of that ship. They're pushing women and children out of the way to get right on that boat with the other guy. Look at Resistance Mooch out there tweeting away, right? Another perfect example. He was never a Trump guy. He was a mooch guy. Someday there's going to be an interview with Kellyanne Conway where she says, what White House? Yeah, right. I do think to that point, the other significance of the testimony this week of these current and former Trump officials is that despite the White House's best efforts to obstruct Congress,

their own people who either work there now or used to work there are just not going to listen. And I think a couple people, Fiona Hill, Yovanovitch, Sondland coming forward, could lead many others to come forward and cooperate with this impeachment probe. And we also saw news over the weekend that there are more whistleblowers out there now, too. And, of course, you know, we don't know what they're going to say yet. We don't even know if it's about Ukraine or about something else. And of course, Congress has to vet these people because, you know, you have to make sure that it's credible. But a lot of people coming forward now. People are playing ball here.

Yeah. Credit to Adam Schiff for not like writing 10 stern letters before getting to the subpoena. writing 10 stern letters before getting to the subpoena, there is no downside to aggressive oversight and investigating Donald Trump, you know, everywhere you possibly can. It's already paying dividends. Yeah. How do you think the testimony this week from what we've heard is strengthening the overall case for impeachment? That's such a good question, because the truth is we aren't really I mean, I'm trying to think of anything that we've learned so far or what we could learn that would be sort of surprising. I feel like what we're learning is confirming our understanding about the breadth of this corruption. I think it's the breadth. That's what I was going to say. I think that to me is what we're kind of understanding, that this wasn't about one phone call, although we still have more to learn about that one phone call.

This was a concerted effort across our government to use the tools of American foreign policy and diplomacy for the purpose of Donald Trump's political ends. And he enlisted many figures in many parts of the government to do this. in many parts of the government to do this. And with each passing day, the scandal becomes less and less spinnable for those trying to cordon it off, blame it on a paraphrase from Schiff or a whistleblower who didn't have firsthand knowledge despite the fact that the rough transcript confirms it.

It's getting harder and harder for them to find a boogeyman to attach as the source of all of the problems because the problems are so broad, touching so many different parts of the government. It was a conspiracy, right? It started, Trump said, and Giuliani, how do we get the Ukraine to help us slime the Bidens?

Number one, we're going to fire the ambassador because she doesn't want any part of this. Number two, we're going to have Rudy and his goons conduct secret diplomacy so that the rest of the government doesn't find out. Number three, we're going to hold out the promise of a White House meeting as a carrot. And then we're going to withhold security assistance as the stick. It's a whole plan, right? Way bigger than a phone call. And it's also important to note that it was personally directed by Donald Trump. You know, Gordon Sondland didn't call Rudy Giuliani before texting back, hey, no, no quid pro quo.

What are you talking about? He called Donald Trump. He called the president of the United States. We also now know that two associates of Rudy Giuliani were illegally funneling Russian money to get a hack named Pete Sessions, one of the worst former members of Congress that you can imagine to write a letter

attacking our ambassador. So to get to that, three of the people who helped the president carry out his Ukraine scheme are already in a bit of trouble. The New York Times has reported that Rudy Giuliani is under investigation by SDNY, the district attorney's office he once led, for potentially breaking foreign lobbying laws when he lobbied to get Ambassador Yovanovitch fired. The Times also notes that their investigation of Giuliani is, quote, tied to the case against two of his associates who were arrested this week on campaign finance-related charges, i.e., as Tommy mentioned, illegally funneling money to former Republican Congressman Pete Sessions in exchange for his help getting Yovanovitch fired.

The two goons, named Lev Parnas and Igor Furman, once paid Giuliani through a business called, I'm not making this up, Fraud Guarantee. And we're finally arrested. Hey, that's fraud. You can take it to the bank. Fraud Guarantee is what we're working with here. Not like these other fraud companies. All right?

They'll leave you high and dry, but not us. It is a fantastic name. It's too perfect. If it says Igor, you know, it's guaranteed. You turn in a script with that business name and it gets sent back. Like, give me a break. No one's believing that. And the reason that they were arrested before the full investigation of Giuliani and the You know, it's guaranteed. You turn in a script with that business name and it gets sent back. Like, give me a break. No one's believing that.

And the reason that they were arrested before the full investigation of Giuliani and the rest of them were complete is because they were trying to flee the country at Dulles Airport. One-way tickets to Vienna. I don't know why Vienna makes it more corruptish sounding. There's something about, there's something just, it's very, it's very 90s action movie. Yes. To go to Vienna, right? It's just like not, it's just a little bit, it's not Rome, you know? It's not Paris. It's very 90s action movie. Yes. To go to Vienna, right? It's just a little bit. It's not Rome. It's not Paris.

It's Vienna. A little off the beaten track. Also, we found out that Rudy was supposed to go to Vienna as well. Maybe they wanted to take in a- And then last minute decided not to join his pals in Vienna. Take in a quick walk in that cathedral. I mean, these goons set up an energy company just to funnel money to Republican political candidates.

They fired over $325,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC. They made $630,000 worth of donations to federal Republican candidates in PACs in 2016. I mean, these guys were just plowing massive amounts of money into the GOP establishment. And what a surprise. It opened every door imaginable, including the fucking got them access to George H.W. Bush's funeral with Rudy Giuliani. Yeah, what a weird thing to bring a weird thing to do to a weird thing to corrupt goons to a funeral i gotta say again it's not the most important piece of this story but a great deal of what's going on

in this country does have to do with the fact that rudy giuliani is a lonely man struggling with uh uh getting older and divorce uh and the fact that he brought his two friends slash accomplices to a state funeral i think is a pretty interesting interesting... Interesting is a good word for it. Interesting choice. But they also went to an eight-person dinner with Trump where they talked about the 2018 midterms

and Ukraine-U.S. relations. He was like all up in the Trump business. Which is amazing because when Trump was asked about it, he did the, you know, Kiki Palmer, sorry to this man,

I don't know who these people are. Maybe I took a picture with him, but I take a picture with everyone. No and he did maybe i took a picture with them but i take a picture with everyone no no buddy you did way more than take a picture with them you had fucking dinner with them and you talked about ukraine policy i mean obviously it's satisfying to watch rudy potentially get in trouble to watch these goons go down how does this connect if at all to sort of this larger impeachment inquiry well first of all i think we're still learning actually what, what exactly. I mean, this is approaching a point after which things start to get complicated and hard to understand. Right now, it's pretty fucking simple.

You laid it out. Like, this is the corruption that we're talking about. This is the abuse of power we're talking about. But, of course, as with all things Trump, there are tangled webs of connection to other goons, other attempts to subvert our democracy, other criminal enterprises. Because everyone's trying to get their beak wet around Trump, right? So it's like there's stuff like we're trying to fire the ambassador and change policy and beat Joe Biden. But there's also like everyone wants to make money. Yeah, but I got an oil thing going on over here that I can maybe just like, you know.

Right, everyone's got their side hustle, which really complicates the story. Right. And so, you know, we'll, I think, find out more. I mean, Rudy Giuliani's involvement in all this is strange. Like who's paying Rudy Giuliani, which complicates the story. Right. And so, you know, we'll I think find out more. I mean, Rudy Giuliani's involvement in all this is strange. Who's paying Rudy Giuliani, I think, is an important question we don't know the answer to yet. So these two guys getting arrested at Dulles, I don't think it made Donald Trump's life better. Certainly didn't make Rudy's life better. But I honestly think we're still watching the facts of that on sort of become revealed to us. Right. I mean, look, I don't want to do what about ism.

of that sort of become revealed to us. Right. I mean, look, I don't want to do what about ism, but those who are saying that it was inappropriate for Hunter Biden to seek foreign deals because he was politically connected should also ask themselves, why are you hiring Rudy Giuliani to do literally anything for you? He doesn't appear to be a great lawyer. We know he's not a good spokesman. He peddles himself as a cybersecurity expert while texting in like 48 point font. I know like with anyone, with anyone, again, to my loneliness point, you can text Rudy. You can do it. Brian Boitler was talking with them over the weekend, I believe. Yeah. Brian Brooks, some news, a couple other reporters were texting with him. It was, and some of them were making jokes. Like tell you 11 was saying like hey, Rudy, tell me about the crimes,

the big crimes, the little crimes, all the crimes. And he's like, I didn't do any crimes. I'm glad Brian texted Rudy. I mean, what a world. Brian texted Rudy saying, hey, have you, has Trump ever raised the issue? Have you ever discussed a pardon with Trump or anyone related to him?

Which I'm glad he asked, because I do think that Trump pardons Rudy was a really cool bet you could have made in the pool in like 2017 that would have been like giving you really good odds. They probably should have taken. Well, let me ask you guys. So Trump was first asked about Rudy when the news broke that his goons were pinched and he's under investigation on Friday. And they asked if Rudy still works for him. And Trump said, quote, I don't know. I haven't

spoken to Rudy. He has been my attorney. And then a few days later, he's eating lunch with Rudy and tweeting his support for him. Why? Why do you think he's sticking with them? What are your theories on this? Yeah, I think that Trump would throw Don Jr. under the bus if it got him out of trouble. But you have to assume that Rudy knows an awful lot of information. Yeah, that would be problematic in the long run for Mr. Trump. So keep him inside the tent. That's my guess. All right.

I want to turn to the Middle East, where Trump's decision to give his authoritarian counterpart in Turkey the green light to invade northern Syria has already led to the deaths of innocent civilians, executions of our Kurdish allies, and the escape of ISIS fighters and their families, who raised the ISIS flag again over parts of northern Syria. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced on Sunday that the U.S. would be withdrawing nearly all of its forces from northern Syria, while Kurdish forces reached a deal to get troop support from a Syrian government backed by Russia and Iran. On Sunday, Donald Trump tweeted, quote, the Kurds in Turkey have been fighting for many years. Others may want to come in and

fight for one side or the other. Let them. Tommy, can you talk about the consequences of Trump's decision here? Sure. I mean, it is true that the Kurds and the Turks have been fighting for many years. But I think the important point is they were not for several years in that region of Syria because we were working with them to take out ISIS. And the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, of which this Kurdish militia makes up the bulk of the main fighters, have been our partner working hand in glove to take out ISIS in northern Syria for several years. The campaign started under Obama and President Trump carried it on to his credit, I would say. And it was incredibly effective. The Kurds are good

fighters and we have supported them. There was an international coalition of about 80 countries, I believe, also working with them to try to ensure that the people fighting ISIS were not just Kurdish, so it was more multi-sectarian. There were Arab fighters as well. And now we have pulled our guys from that region. It sounds like we're going to pull all 1,000 U.S. troops in northern Syria from the country, maybe put them in Iraq. And now they're going to have to fight on two fronts. They're going to have ISIS on one side, and they're going to have the second biggest military in NATO, Turkey, fighting them from the other side.

And you have these Turkish-backed militia groups that at times are full of extremists who are just literally indiscriminately murdering people on the side of the road. And we know that because they're releasing cell phone videos of it. So our closest allies in the region are getting slaughtered. One of the excuses that seems to be emerging from the White House and from Donald Trump is Erdogan was going to do this no matter what. And we really couldn't have stopped him. All we could have done is just get out of his way. Can you talk about why that is bullshit or do you think it's bullshit?

It's true that Erdogan views a lot of these Kurdish fighters as associated with a group in Turkey called the PKK. And the PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish state for several decades. The Kurds, there's like 30 or 40 million Kurds in the world. Most of them live in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and they were promised a Kurdish state after World War I. They never got it and they want one. So Erdogan views them as an enemy. They're designated as a terrorist group in Turkey and I believe in the US. But our presence in that region was holding off a Turkish offensive to take out these guys. And what Trump basically did was he let himself get browbeaten by Erdogan over and over again. I mean, Axios reported that he would sort of listen to

Erdogan, talk about how he wanted to conduct this military operation and be like, well, Trump would say, well, if you do, you now own it, you own ISIS, you own all the problems. And he assumed that that was enough to convince Erdogan not to do it. And then this time Erdogan called his bluff and just rolled his guys in. But it seems like the U.S. president, right, and Turkey's, you know, theoretically a NATO ally, could have said to Erdogan don't do this yeah i want to be clear right it's an excuse right that's what i want yeah this a lot of people are drawing comparisons to obama pulling all troops out of iraq or various other points in history and it's like fine if you

want to criticize those things but what happened here is erdogan said i want to conduct a military option to take these guys out trump didn't, no, there will be massive consequences for you if you do so. He just let him do it. Right. He just caved to the guy. Can you talk about the effects on our soldiers too, because we're getting some reports of that? Yeah. I mean, you're seeing a lot of reports that the special forces guys in particular, who are fighting hand in glove with them, feel just horrible about this. I mean, imagine working with some Kurdish fighters one day to enable a counter-ISIS campaign. I'm sure they were friends with them. And then the next day, you

were literally not allowed under the rules of engagement to help them as they come under attack. By the way, you have artillery rounds landing like a couple hundred yards from our guys in an effort to intimidate us further out of the region. Unbelievable. What are the options now? Can you put this back in a box? Probably not. I know that some stuff's going on in Congress. further out of the region. Unbelievable. What are the options now? What's like, what can we do? Can you put this back in a box? Probably not. I know that some stuff's going on in Congress. It sounds like Lindsey Graham is leading the charge for sanctions on Turkey.

I hope that happens. But I don't know how sanctions now prevents us from continuing. And we still look and I think the one way this connects to sort of this larger impeachment inquiry and Trump's abuse of power is once again, we are left wondering whether Trump's foreign policy decision, decision about our national security was made because he thought it was in the best interest of the country or was made for personal, political, financial reasons. You know, he's talked before about how he has a conflict of interest in Turkey because there's Trump towers there. Or that, you know, that's one financial

possible reason. There's also political reasons, right? Like Trump in his mind somehow thinks this is, you know, he equates getting out of the way with ending endless wars, right? He thinks that's a political talking point, which is bullshit since our troops aren't actually coming home as a result of this decision. They're just being moved elsewhere. And like you said, Tom, you may be put in harm's way. So it does fit a pattern of Trump's abuse of power. Yeah. I mean, you know, we're once again left in the situation where we don't know what was said on the call, but it's hard to come up with an understanding of what's been happening without corruption as being one of the explanations, especially when he's, you know, when there are those when he's trying really kind of ugly way, vulgar way, American protection via our armed forces for Saudi Arabia. So there's this contradiction baked into all of this, that there's any claim to an ideology is immediately refuted. Any claim to a strategy is immediately refuted. The only thing that is left is a deeply strange phone

call that caused this about face in which Donald Trump has personal vested financial interests in what happens in turn. Let's talk about 2020. On Tuesday, the New York Times and CNN will host the fourth Democratic primary debate in Westerville, Ohio. It will be the most crowded presidential primary debate stage in history, with 12 candidates facing off in one night, everyone who was there at the last debate, plus Tulsi Gabbard and for the first time, Tom Steyer. In advance of the debate, CBS released a series of early state polls that show a three-way tie for first in Iowa between Biden, Warren, and Sanders at 21-22%, with Pete Buttigieg in fourth at 14%. In New Hampshire, Warren's ahead of Biden by 32-24%, and Biden is ahead of Warren in South Carolina by 43-18%.

Guys, the debate is three hours with 12 candidates only three of whom are polling in double digits in the early contests four in iowa um how does that change the dynamic what what's the dynamic of this debate first of all one thing people are not paying enough attention to is that the stage does slowly get smaller as the night progresses and so you have to not only do you have to debate you have to slowly build a bit of a a bit of a buttress to protect yourself, keep yourself on the dais. There's a moat, right? Yeah, there's a moat with alligators. A lot of people think that Beto might try to throw Buttigieg in the moat as his move to create some more relevance.

But again, we don't know. Do you want a serious answer? Tommy, did you want to give a real answer? What was the question? It was just like, how does this change the dynamic with this many candidates? And there's three who are, you know, there's three who are polling in double digits right now. And but there's nine more on stage who are not. I guess Pete is in Iowa.

What do you do in a 12 person debate? I just think it sort of makes the strategy a little more unpredictable. I mean, it seems like so there's some reporting. Obviously, we spent like a couple of weeks talking about Joe Biden, his family, what he did or didn't do in Ukraine. It seems like the other candidates so far have taken attack where they think that it helps them politically to defend Joe Biden from unfair attacks from the president. I think that's probably true for the main candidates. I don't know if that's true for Tom Steyer or Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard was planning to boycott the debate that she had made

like a couple of days ago. So I don't really know what these guys are going to do. It also, it probably makes it less likely that there's a focused discussion about Elizabeth Warren. Some people are starting to obliquely criticize her, right? Pete called her evasive about how to pay for her healthcare plan. In an interview with Snapchat's Peter Hamby, he criticized her campaign fundraising strategy. Biden's been out there saying, oh, we don't need just plans. We need a president. But, you know, I don't know if they will make those attacks on stage because, one, you don't know if they'll get the chance to or if they'll see it as politically advantageous. Yeah, it's you know, it's hard to see a debate with 12

human beings standing all side by side as having really much of an opportunity for anyone to change the fundamental dynamics of the race, one in which there are kind of three steady front runners. I mean, there's been polls out showing that Elizabeth Warren's been grabbing a little bit, not from Biden, from Bernie, but from a little bit from some of the other candidates. So I think one, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. We have to see what actually plays out. But, you know, you go into this thinking hard to imagine how this changes the dynamic, which means it rewards the front runners and not those who are trying to vie for a little bit more attention because it'll be hard to get. The other piece of this, you know, I've been thinking about actually since we talked to Cyrus Habib in Seattle, which is he made the point that this is going to be the first debate we'll have had since impeachment really began in earnest. debate will have had since impeachment really began in earnest. And I am just, it's such,

it's going to be such a big part of the race in 2020, how we deal with how the relationship of these campaigns to Donald Trump, to the investigations taking place in Congress. So I'm really interested in how they strike that balance, how they offer a positive case set against the negative case being currently crafted in Congress. I think that speaking time is such a challenge here. And like you said, I don't think this setup is good for any of the candidates except maybe Elizabeth Warren, because we're going to talk even more about all the different attacks that are being previewed upon her, and maybe Biden too. But I think for some of these candidates who haven't made who haven't qualified for the November debate yet, who at this point on the stage are Beto, Klobuchar, Castro and Tulsi Gabbard.

It becomes a, you know, this is it moment. between now and when the deadline is to qualify for the November debate, you know, then you're like Michael Bennett and Steve Bullock and some of these people we haven't been talking about for weeks because they didn't make the last debate. And so I think it's really hard. So we, you know, we had a debate two debates ago that was fairly nasty. Then the last debate was a pretty collegial affair. And I'm wondering now, even though there's a lot of candidates on that stage, if either people who haven't made the November debate or people who are sort of struggling in that second tier and sort of in danger of falling into a third tier, like a Kamala Harris, doesn't start getting a little feisty with the other candidates to try to break out. I'm not being critical. You know,

look, the DNC is taking plenty of shit for all these debate decisions. And I don't envy them because I don't think there's any decision that would have satisfied everybody, though I'm not super happy about 12 people on a stage. I will say one of the unintended consequences of this kind of objective slow winnowing through these debates is it's I don't really remember from previous primaries feeling as though each debate was like a level in a game to try to get to the next debate. Big boss. You know, like we're now at debate four dash three. And then, you know, the next debate is the water one,

you know? And I just think, uh, it's, it's unfortunate that that's where we're at and what, that there are so many candidates that a few of them are just viewing this as a place like in like, uh, in,

uh, um, tremors where you had to use a little stick to get from big rock to big right to, to avoid the monsters. I love that movie. And this is like they're just trying to get to the next rock. It's a good movie. It's a great movie.

So let's talk a little bit about, and Tommy, you started to do this, some of the lines of attack that the other candidates have been previewing against Warren. Right now it does seem a little kitchen sink-like. I think you're in danger as a candidate when everyone else is sort of, and the media too, is sort of coalescing around one major weakness in your campaign. I think the issue right now for everyone testing lines of attack on Warren is it's a little bit all over the place. So you've seen the Medicare one come up a bunch. Pete has been doing that. Like you said, she said she's been evasive on the taxes answer. Biden obviously hit her for that. But then, you know, as you said,

Pete said to Hamby in that Snapchat interview, we're going up against the sitting president of the United States. We're not going to beat him with pocket change. This is in response to Elizabeth Warren's decision or announcement that she's not going to do these high dollar fundraisers in the general election, which I don't know about that one, guys. I can't imagine an attack. Elizabeth Warren is not like is not more likely to absorb into her suit and then fire back out. Yeah. I mean, that that that is John Delaney level bad because it's like I can write that sentence right now. Now, there are people on this stage who think we need to go to the millionaires and billionaires to defeat Donald Trump, but I'm not going to rely on them. I'm going to rely on you. Applause, applause, applause,

nomination. Well, it's like, what are we doing? But there's even, I mean, you can make the, you can make the moral case, right? For like, we shouldn't be relying on billionaires and millionaires. We should be relying on grassroots donations. And then you'll get some Democrats and some voters to say, yeah, but, you know, we don't want to unilaterally disarm. We've got to beat Trump. And so whatever it takes to beat him. And even then, though, Elizabeth Warren can turn to Pete Buttigieg and be like, you know what? I out-raised you. That's also true. You relied on the millionaires and billionaires, and I only relied on grassroots funding. And I raised more money than you. And so did Bernie Sanders. Yeah. I mean, she can say, hey, I raised $24.6 million.

Bernie raised $25. I mean, I think Pete's strength and his weakness is that he's able to provide political analysis in a very interesting way, but it can make you sound like a pundit. And I doubt this was a prepared line. I don't think if you were looking at a bunch of polling about potential attacks on Elizabeth Warren, her inability to get big checks from big donors is very high on the list in the Democratic primary. But it's like when you step back and you do, you know, analysis of a race when you're a candidate, you always get into trouble. It happened to Obama. It's happened to countless candidates. It's also worth remembering, too, that some of the comments that have gotten candidates into the most trouble, whether it's deplorables. We all remember that.

Wait, what was that? Oh, it was a basket of deplorables. Right, right, right. It was very bad. Mitt Romney, 47%. Barack Obama, cling to guns and religion. Those are all things said at fundraisers with wealthy donors. Always.

Always. Look, it's weird to me, Pete's strategy over the last couple of weeks. He's clearly trying to stake out territory as people have telegraphed to reporters, the more electable progressive, right? And so, you know, in a way I understand that, but I think if that's going to be your move, it has to have been your move from the get go and not once you fell behind in the polls and then you feel like you need to catch up because it looks a little, it risks looking a little bit more calculated. And here's the thing. Pete started

off this campaign as a very bold generational candidate, which I liked. You know, he talked about the electoral college. He talked about the Supreme Court reform, right? Like he's talking, he was talking about democracy reform. That's what got people to like Pete. That's why I think he was such an attractive candidate and frankly still can be. But, you know, I worry for him sort of like I know someone's told him, look, at some point, you've got to draw contrasts if you're going to, you know, if you're going to get ahead of these people. And I think the Medicare argument is totally fair. You can disagree with them or not, but challenging other candidates on policy, it's completely fair, completely fair. Some of the other stuff has either seemed a bit more vague or a little off, like the fundraising thing. I would just say the counterpoint to that is that CBS tracking poll that you mentioned early on has Pete now at 14% in Iowa, which is a pretty decent place to be, I would argue, right about now. Yeah.

Look, Warren's campaign is going very well for her, right? I don't think anyone could argue that. But there is maybe some concern in the back of people's heads. Is she surging too early? Yeah. Do you want to be shot at this early? I do think one of the challenges for all the candidates trying to create a contrast with Elizabeth Warren is that it is hard to do two things. Create a contrast with Elizabeth Warren and do it while you look good.

I think it is not. It's a tough balance. It is easier actually to do it with some of the other candidates. It is, I think, easier to do it with Joe Biden, honestly, because I think he's taken some more moderate positions. So you can kind of argue you're bolder and you can argue for generational change. You can make all kinds of arguments in which you are making a case against Washington, right? But with Elizabeth Warren, I think, look, there's the conversation that happens on television. There's a conversation that people say, you know, when there aren't cameras. And I do think that there's this, the conversation is, is she too far to the left?

Is she electable, right? That is undergirding so much of this conversation. But for Pete Buttigieg, who wants to say, I don't think she's electable, and I think she's too far left. But he can't say it because it makes you sound very small, and it makes you sound negative, and like you're trimming your sails. negative and like you're trimming your sales. And so the other thing is, if you're going to say she's too left, you have to say, OK, well, which which policies do you disagree? And he's got them. And like I said, I think the Medicare for all argument for him is is totally fair. He can say she's further to left than me on Medicare for all. I believe in this plan. And that's that, you know, I think that's a totally fair argument.

I think when you start when you start getting into more vague things, right, like he said, he also said, I worry about a tone being set up where it almost seems like fighting is the point. We need to find a way to bring Americans back together. I do think there is a hunger out there in the electorate, right? He's going to tap into something where there's a lot of people who are sick of political warfare and do want the country to come back together. But the challenge there is someone's going to say, what do you mean by that? What specifically do you mean by that? And then you have to, then you have to. And again, like, I just think of, if I was a speechwriter

trying to deal with that in context, I would relish the opportunity to write a riff about, like, they think we shouldn't fight so hard. Well, I think we should fight against this. And I think we should fight against it. I just think the mood of the electorate is clearly they want someone who can beat Donald Trump. That is their first, second and third concern. I'm not sure we're at the come on, everybody, let's get along part of the campaign. We might get there when things get actually vicious. But right now, like people are framing Bernie saying Elizabeth Warren is a capitalist through and through and I'm not as an attack. It is such that is not an attack.

It is so ridiculous. Everyone's desperate for Bernie to attack her and he doesn't want to do it. I also, by the way, don't know if Bernie Sanders saying, all right, I'm going to finally draw a contrast with Elizabeth Warren and it's that she's a capitalist and I'm not is going to work for him that well. Like, you know, you saw this in the CBS tracking polls. Bernie Sanders supporters are probably more enthusiastic, or at least they are more enthusiastic, according to the poll, these polls, than almost any other candidate. They're sticking with them. So when you ask people, like, are you definitely going to vote for this person? His numbers are higher than either Warren's or Biden's.

So he's got his base. The question for Bernie, though, has always been, can you expand on that base? And I don't know if saying, well, she said she's a capitalist and I'm not is going to get you there well I also just think it was the answer to the question you know what I mean and I think it's an honest view of it which is that yeah I know some people think we're the lefties

but there's actually an important distinction here I am a democratic socialist she has embraced capitalism and wants to make her solutions fit within capitalism I think that makes her, that ultimately redounds to her benefit to have that be a contrast that's made. But I think Bernie views it as just an honest rendering of his politics. Yeah. I mean, I think the other big thing for Bernie at this debate is as simple as sort of how does he look, right? I mean, he had a pretty serious health scare. He had a heart attack. He's clearly recovered. He's doing interviews. He's out, you know, like Skyping into events and things. But we know that concern about age has shown up in some of these polls. Normally, it's more often been in a discussion about Joe Biden, I think probably in part because Bernie Sanders had such a vigorous schedule and was doing four rallies a day and was like constantly out there. And it seems like he's going to scale that back a little bit. Although what that means is seems to be in debate. But, you know, I think at the last debate, he didn't look well. And I think

they said he had a cold or he was feeling sick. You know, I wonder if that was the whole story, you know, and maybe some of these health concerns were bubbling up for longer. And he seemed to suggest as much. So I do think that's going to be a big question at this debate is like, is he recovered? Can he get back out there to people look at him and think, all right, that guy is going to kick Donald Trump's ass because that's all they want. Yeah, I imagine in debate prep right now, the only thing they're trying to drill into Bernie is energy. I bet he's, you know, Bernie can be quite funny. He has a dry sense of humor at times. You know, I bet he'll try to do that.

I bet he won't be as yelly. Right. Because I think he'll try to do that. I bet he won't be as yelly, right? Because I think he'll, I don't know. I think energy and he'll be the... I think the best thing he could do is probably put Julian Castro on his shoulders. You know, just to send the right signal, you know? Maybe grab, get Klobuchar up there too. But yeah, we're also seeing like some of the candidates ranking lower in the polls start to go after each other a bit.

I mean, you know, in that same interview with Peter Hamby on Snapchat, Mayor Pete criticized Beto O'Rourke. Beto O'Rourke has fired back this morning saying Pete can belittle the grassroots. He can call buybacks a shiny object. This is a debate about gun buybacks as a policy. He can say whatever he wants, but guns kill 40,000 people a year. Those people deserve action. I'll be fighting for them. So, like, that's a pretty hard shot for this primary.

And Booker jumped in, too. Yeah, Cory Booker did,er did too i mean he's cared about the gun issues for a long time yeah because pete called buybacks confiscation which is what you know how republicans talk about it actually reminds me a little bit of like 2008 there was this moment where maybe i'm thinking of 2004 i'm old but that uh, but it was about John Edwards, and there was a series of stories saying, John Edwards is annoying all the other candidates. He's the other candidate's least favorite candidate. Do you remember this?

No. And they pointed to a bunch of these kinds of things. And I do think Pete is, when Beto was asked about Pete, we've made fun of it all the time, but candidates tend to not invoke each other's name in the response when the candidate's name has been made clear before, so that doesn't sound as harsh,

but nobody was stopping Beto from saying when mayor Pete says this, here's why it's wrong. You know? Yeah. I'm, I guess I'm most interested in this debate to see whether Pete is as feisty on stage as he's been, um, about the other candidates to reporters and in some speeches, um, how Warren, you know dan made this point last week how warren handles these attacks if they come because she has led a fairly charmed race for the last couple months in terms of you know every debate you think okay this is the debate where they're going to chat someone's going to challenge warren and it doesn't happen and and she just moves on and i think it's gonna i think if i was the warren campaign I'd almost want the challenge because I mean, I think people who support Warren should want the challenge to like if she's going to go up against Trump, it's going to be the most miserable, fucking dirty campaign we've ever seen.

And people are going to need to see, can she take a punch? And, you know, this is what you mentioned this, Tommy. This is Biden's first debate since Ukraine. And I wonder. And of course, you know, it's CNN, The New York Times. Like, I wouldn't be surprised. We were saying this. Love it. If like the first question is going to be about Hunter Biden. How does he because Hunter is going to have done the interview that day. Right. It's in the news. It's going to be. How does Biden handle Hunter? How should he handle Hunter, do you guys think? And do you think the other candidates will stay, you know, away from this topic?

Or if they're asked about it, at least they'll continue to defend Joe Biden? Well, I mean, it seems like the campaign has started to roll out tools for Biden to use to handle this. Right. So we know that Hunter Biden is stepping down from the Burisma board. He promised not to do any foreign work of his dad as president. And then Biden is gave a speech recently and rolled out a policy where he said no one in his family or anyone associated with him will be involved in any foreign operation whatsoever. Period. End of story. That's a quote. lobbying reform policy that is attempted to, I think, kind of cauterize the wound and undo the damage going forward. What I'd love to see Biden do, and maybe this is a bridge too far for a candidate, is say, hey, if you're worried about the families of presidential candidates making money off of their dad, why don't we look at Ivanka Trump's trademarks from China? Why don't we look at Jared Kushner's sister hawking visas for 500 grand a pop? Why don't we look at Tweedledum and Tweedledummer, Don and Eric

flying around the world, taking meetings, going to major rallies with their dad and running the business that was supposed to be walled off? Remember that press conference around the emoluments clause early on before he took office where they had a stack of blank paper and they pretended this is a real policy? It's all bullshit. And we've just moved on because the fucking secretary of the Department of Homeland Security resigned on Friday. And it's the 20th biggest story of the weekend. You know what I mean? It's like we're living in La La Land here where there's lots of like ready made attacks for Biden. I do think that's true. That's exactly what I think he should say. I do also think if I were, I think the other candidates, I don't think there's very much equity in trying to make hay

out of this because I think the damage to Joe Biden is kind of doing itself, honestly, and you adding to it won't help. I do think, though, that if I were thinking about what kind of question to ask, the question I would ask is, does the fact that you've announced this policy tell you that there was something wrong with the conduct that happened before? And whether or not now I do. Do I believe that it's fair that that's become the focus of the campaign? Of course not. But I do think that that is the kind of question Joe Biden has to dispense with.

And I wouldn't be surprised if he has to dispense with it in this campaign, in this debate. I have to imagine they're prepping for that very question right now. Have to. I think, Tommy, I mean, he should absolutely do the Trump children attack as a response to this, because if he doesn't, I think it is a fantastic opportunity for one of the other candidates. And Pete actually did this. Pete on Jake on Tapper Show Sunday defended Biden by then going after the Trump children. And it was a fantastic answer by Pete Buttigieg. And if you're one of the other candidates and you defend Joe Biden and then go after the Trump children, you

get points for defending Joe Biden and you get points for being tough on Trump. Yes. The worst thing that could happen to Joe Biden in this debate is somebody says, don't worry, Joe, I'll take care of it and push Joe behind him to like to have Joe behind him while they do the fight. I think that is the worst thing that could happen. I mean, I thought, you know, you and Dan talked about this at length on a recent episode. And you were you guys accurately described how sensitive this clearly is for Joe Biden. It's not just an attack on his son, his son, who's had some challenges over the years, some of them very public. But also, you know, it's a family that has dealt with just enormous grief in losing

Beau Biden and a whole host of other things throughout his career. So like, God knows what kind of mental state he is, is in to be able to deal with these things at a debate, or, you know, throw more kids into the political arena as punching bags. But I do think that Jared and Ivanka are different because they work in the White House, and they're still making tons of money. Like 82 million last year, I think was one report I saw. Yeah. And then Don and Eric are clearly part of the campaign. Yeah. I mean, they're they're just 11 eager waiting to happen. But the but yeah, I mean, you know, and you're you're exactly right about that, Tommy, about the kind of like whatever the the there is a human story behind this. But it almost is beside the point because, look,

Donald Trump is going to gin up a set of attacks on whoever our nominee is, whoever it is. But we now know what the Biden one is. Yeah. Right. And if Joe Biden wants to be the nominee of this party, he needs to win this argument. And it's going to be tomorrow night. I will say I watched I hadn't seen it. Some clips of the speech Biden gave last week where he finally called for impeachment. And it was Joe Biden was quite good in that speech. He was he was sharp. And if he brings that kind of argument to the debate, then I think he will do himself some good. But he has to. I'm glad they got there. I mean, the argument you're hearing from Team Biden was that Trump deserved due process around impeachment

and he wasn't going to call for him to be impeached, which I just think is sort of a misread of the impeachment process generally, right? It's not a court of law. It's a political decision. You're not voting. Bad politics. Bad politics. Also, just I don't actually agree. Like, yeah, I don't know. You uphold our standards by upholding our standards. It's also just one other small point about this, which is, yeah, like I want to see Biden do that in the debate and crush this issue because if he's going to be the nominee, he has to. But it's also, I think, to our larger point, like this debate may not change the dynamic of this race. And I think one of the challenges we've seen for Joe Biden is that it did take him so long to come to the microphone and deal with this issue. And I think so it's not just about this debate. It's about

moving forward. Do they understand that Donald Trump is a for all his idiocy and chaos, he is relentless, creative, and will continue to be so. All right. When we come back, we will have Lovett's interview with Ronan Farrow. Joining us on the pod, he's an investigative journalist and the author of a new book, Catch and Kill, that documents his efforts to uncover sexual misconduct and the machine of intimidation powerful men use to silence women. He's also my golf buddy, partner. Partner. I think you can say partner, Jonathan. I call him Jonathan.

Hi, Ron. Ronan Farrow's here. Hi, it's good to be here. You let me on the podcast. I hear you have a podcast. You've heard rumors. One day you'll listen to the podcast, but now you'll just be- I have been on the podcast before, and I'm a friend of the pod, and I wear my t-shirt. I support it. When is the last episode of Love It or Leave It that you listen to on your phone? You know, I'm going to let my reporting in the book stand on its own. All right, let's move on. All right, let's start. So earlier today, Noah Oppenheim,

the president of NBC News, put out a long and blistering statement, attacking your reporting, calling what you say in the book a conspiracy theory. Now, I want to get to the sort of facts here. But, you know, this idea that you have an axe to grind, I think people don't realize how much your relationship with NBC shifted because of this story. Do you remember when you and me and Noah Oppenheim got a dinner early in his tenure, and we were so excited about working with Noah because it seemed like he really understood what you were trying to do with investigative reporting. Yeah, the book is very transparent about the fact that these were people I liked and respected. And, you know, outside of the troubling facts of the killing of the Weinstein story, I had nothing but positive feelings about them. You know, memos like that one accompany

virtually every tough story that I report on. There was a major smear operation that spun up about the CBS reporting, about the Weinstein reporting. Often they get very personal. But in all those cases, and in the case of Catch and Kill, I'm thankful to say that the reporting stands on its own. I'm really confident in it. In this book, the reporting is particularly meticulous. One of the best fact checkers in the world, a senior checker from The New Yorker, really raked over every sentence. And the thing is airtight. And I've been heartened to see the fact that people have rallied around that and seen this for what it is. So in this latest statement from NBC,

they continue to reiterate the position they've taken basically since the story ran, which is that you didn't have the story. Now, I do think it's worth saying, talking a little bit about what you did have. And then I do want to talk about how exactly they ordered you to stop reporting on Harvey Weinstein and how many times they ordered you and Rich McHugh, your producer, to pause or halt or slow down the reporting. But can you just dispense with this idea that you didn't have the story? Yeah, I mean, obviously, that's been roundly discredited by now. But for people just catching up at home, you know, this claim that we didn't have the story, the fact is who I reveal in this book, was the source of the police tape, was also named in all the versions of the story. Emily Nestor, another brave source, offered to go on the record, which they declined. So I think it's pretty hard to dispute that we had the story. And I walked across the street and a few weeks later, it was a Pulitzer Prize winning piece of reporting at the New Yorker.

But that's actually not the point here, Jonathan. You know, I think that's misdirection. The point is that they ordered a hard stop on reporting again and again. You know, this book documents and they haven't disputed this. Six occasions on which Noah Oppenheim, the president of NBC News,

explicitly told us to stop, to not take calls about this matter. Eight occasions on which Rich Greenberg, the head of the investigative unit under him, passed on that order to stop. Also, again, blaming his bosses for that and evincing a lot of discomfort with it. So this is a situation where a news organization behaved unlike a news organization. They actively pushed me to take the story elsewhere. And obviously, the social impact of the story shows that it was a good thing that I did. But the book kind of shows why. This was a company with a lot of secrets, as it turns out. like the actual, like, I think people will find this interesting. So the thing that was so crazy is I remember, I remember when, when I believe Noah first suggested you could take the story elsewhere, right? Correct. No, and it was a, it was a coordinated thing, not a, not an offhand comment. In the narrative of the book, it shows very clearly, and they haven't disputed this,

you know, Rich Greenberg, the head of the investigative unit, tells my producer, wouldn't this be a great Vanity Fair piece? Then Noah Oppenheim says to me, you know, Rich Greenberg, the head of the investigative unit, tells my producer, wouldn't this be a great Vanity Fair piece? Then Noah Oppenheim says to me, you know, you've got a great New York Magazine piece here. There was a concerted effort to get rid of this story. But that's what's so, I just remember at the time, you and I talking about this and just being like, they can't possibly mean that. I just remember us thinking, oh, they can't possibly mean that. I just remember us thinking, oh, this is just their way of trying to kill it without being held responsible for the story dying.

Because I remember at the time, before you even had walked into the New Yorker with the story, I remember us thinking, they'll never actually, if you really do ask to take the story somewhere. I remember us talking about the fact that they would never actually let you do it because if the story ran, it would create a huge scandal about why they let it out the door.

I mean, do you like I remember do you remember when you were crafting the text message to Noah to try to ask permission to take the story out? I vividly remember us talking about how careful we had to be and how careful you had to, because you just couldn't imagine they would let such a big story out the door knowing the blowback would come. Well, and you also have to bear in mind that this is in the context of Harvey Weinstein bearing down on me and sending legal threats letters from his pit bull attorney, Charles Harder, who was really laying siege to NBC at the time, saying explicitly, we have a deal with NBC. And we quote these letters in writing, there's a paper trail on it, in which they have given us written assurances they are killing this story, and in which they have agreed to assert a copyright

claim if you ever use any of the material. So all of this is against the backdrop of the very real threat that if I don't keep things friendly with these executives at the time, they might prevent me from ever reporting it anywhere. So it was, I think, your strategic idea, actually, to go back to him. This was after they kind of crossed a real red line by ordering us to cancel an interview with a rape victim, who, you know, whose story is told in full in this book. And it's pretty shocking that anyone would want you to cancel that interview, I think, once you review the facts. So it was clear that this thing was dead, despite the many, many months of us fighting to get it on air at NBC. And your idea was, take him up on his offer. Just say, Noah, I know you said go with God. You want to see this in

print first. Let's just do it. And then, you know, after that, even, I pushed to see if they would put NBC cameras in the interviews so they could at least have a follow-up story, even though they had made clear they didn't want to go first. And that, too, was rebuffed. And in the book, I document the other half of that Harvey Weinstein claim that he had assurances from them that it was going to be killed by showing 15 calls with NBC executives, which they had kept secret but are now acknowledging today, in which promises were made to kill the story. So let's go beyond Weinstein and NBC. You talk about the tactics Weinstein used to silence women, to silence the reporting at NBC, but they were also employed by a bunch of others. Can you talk a little bit about what you found out about Donald Trump's

relationship with the National Enquirer? So over the course of the plot that unravels in Catch and Kill, I follow a trail of clues that leads from NBC to Harvey Weinstein's alliance with AMI to AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer, deploying a lot of underhanded tactics to suppress stories about other powerful men, including Donald Trump. And obviously, a couple of the big stories I broke in the last year were about these catch and kill payments that they made on Trump's behalf during the election, where they were buying the rights to stories in order to bury them for him. And one of the new revelations in this book is that there was yet another example of that previously undisclosed, where the Inquirer actually, in collaboration with Michael Cohen and in conversation with Trump's folks, went after a claim that was raised in an anonymous Jane Doe lawsuit that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted an underage girl alongside Jeffrey Epstein. And now, as with so many of these

catch and kill stories, the point is not the veracity of the underlying claim. I make clear in the book, this woman accuser was elusive. Reporters couldn't get a hold of her. Independent cooperation couldn't be found. But it was of enough concern, I reveal in this book, that there was another case where AMI sent a reporter to pursue this in conversation with and under the supervision of Trump's folks. And this is related to the catch and kill process that went on for the Stormy Daniels affair, right? That the National Enquirer would be basically the vehicle for the payout to silence the women. That's right. This is a pattern. And I document a case in which there was another catch and kill operation where AMI went after buying the rights to the story of a Trump Tower doorman who claimed Trump had a love child there again.

It's not about the veracity of the underlying claim. We don't know if that's true, but the transaction happened and they killed that story as a result before the election. There was another case in which Karen McDougal, a Playboy playmate, went on the record with me for the first time talking about the fact that she too had the rights to her story bought explicitly with the goal of burying it. And then there was this Stormy Daniels case, which obviously everyone knows about, which the Wall Street Journal did great work breaking. And previously undisclosed, but present in this book is the fact that before Michael Cohen brokered that deal with Stormy Daniels directly, AMI had been approached about it. The lawyer involved, who had also represented Karen McDougal, went to Dylan Howard, the editor of the National Enquirer, and said, you guys should catch and

kill this one too. And the Enquirer facilitated it getting to Michael Cohen instead. Oh, and then Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels directly. Correct. Instead of it running through AMI. That's right. Using this hilarious contract where she's called Peggy Peterson and he's called David Dennison. And we reveal in the book for the first time that the reason for that is the lawyer, Keith Davidson, he had a high school buddy, like on his hockey team

or something named David Dennison. There's this quote where he says, you know, who really got fucked in all this? David Dennison from high school. You talk a little bit about what exactly AMI, the parent of the National Enquirer, what they were sitting on and what you uncovered about their efforts to destroy evidence of what they had gathered on and what you uncovered about their efforts to destroy evidence of what they had gathered on Donald Trump. So this is a book about patterns of corporate behavior designed to suppress stories on behalf of powerful men. And one of the best examples of that and most significant to the future of our country is all of the criminal investigation into AMI and its collaboration with Trump during the election. The book unravels some new details of that,

that during 2016, AMI compiled a comprehensive list of every piece of dirt it had in its vault about Donald Trump. And this has kind of been like a fabled, holy grail thing, like what is in the Trump vault. And for the first time in this book, a New Yorker fact checker and I saw the complete list of what is in that vault. And here again, it is not about the underlying contents. I mean, there were at least five affairs discussed, some of them have been public, some of them have not, there is at least one allegation of misconduct on that list from Jill Hearth, which obviously has become public. But what is significant and has been in the crosshairs of prosecutors, AMI signed a non-prosecution agreement admitting that they had undertaken this collaboration and it may have violated

campaign finance law, is the fact that the list was created and what happened to it. And what happened to it, I show in this book, is just before the election, there was a shredding operation where AMI, in a panic, as the Wall Street Journal starts calling them, apparently takes stuff out of the vault and just starts destroying it. And it's worth noting Dylan Howard and AMI deny this, as in every other case, we include all of that pushback, but we have multiple sourced accounts of them getting stuff out of that safe and making it disappear, and of senior people at that company checking that

vault a year later and realizing that there's missing stuff about Trump. And we don't know, and some of that may be just lost, just lost evidence, lost information. We just don't know what the only people who know are the people who aren't talking, the people that on Donald Trump's behalf destroyed what was in that vault. Correct. And it's a literal safe. You're talking about a literal safe. We're not like we're not using vault in a cool National Treasure Book of Secrets way. Like this is an actual physical vault. national treasure book of secrets way. Like this is an actual physical vault. People, I mean, I write in the book that there was subsequent coverage when people learned about this, that kind of described it like it was, you know, the, the warehouse from the end of, uh, Indiana Jones. I want you to know Ronan that I have counted how many times you've referenced,

as I say in the book, we it's, we know it's in the book. All right. You're going to sell the book. The book's going to sell in a damn book, damn book, Jonathan. Got to deal with it. But in fact, you're right. It was a kind of small, old safe. And they actually, there's a little episode where they have trouble getting it closed afterwards during the shredding day. And yes, we don't know exactly what is lost. And this is a significant fact because it is wrapped up in these ongoing criminal investigations. And so it's unsurprising that AMI has not only denied this, but Dylan Howard has hired lawyers in every part of the world to threaten to sue booksellers to prevent this book from becoming public. So I will let people interpret that as they may.

this book from becoming public. So I will let people interpret that as they may. Now, during this time, you were being surveilled by Black Cube, an Israeli private investigations firm with ties to intelligence organizations, and also AMI was being employed to kind of dig up dirt. was being employed to kind of dig up dirt. Can you tell the people how I managed to thwart AMI's efforts to surveil me? So I did receive multiple sourced accounts of, in addition to the very elaborate sort of high-end plot to deploy international operatives with false identities to go after me on one coast, that the Inquirer had a somewhat more homespun operation to surveil one Jonathan Lovett going to and from his home. And I do quote an AMI employee as saying that the subcontractor used for this purpose gave up eventually because your routine was too boring. because your routine was too boring.

I'm not going to say I'm shocked. I mean, in your defense, now, as with everything else, we fact-checked all these claims with everyone involved, including Jonathan Lovett, who does have a quote in the book pointing out that he is indeed interesting and went to an escape room one time. does have a quote in the book pointing out that he is indeed interesting and went to an escape room one time. I go to escape rooms on the regular. It's fine.

He's very interesting. I find him interesting. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I don't know. How's this interview going? What do they want me to do?

Is this like a Joe and Mika thing we're doing here? I don't think. Honestly, let's just face it. I don't think we're yet up to Joe and Mika quality banter. I just don't think we've been on air together enough. Yeah. I think when you're in a romantic relationship with someone and also awkwardly on air with them all the time, you get good at the banter.

You got to. I have nothing to say about that. All right, let's move on to a new one. So in all seriousness, I want to finish by talking a bit more about sort of the broader implications of the stories you tell in Catch and Kill. And David Boies, this is somebody who is considered to be a respectable lawyer, right? Famous for being involved in Bush v. Gore, famous for being involved in marriage equality cases, who I believe through your reporting, we find out not only is he representing the New York Times, but he's signing off on contracts for Black Cube to investigate

the New York Times and surreptitiously surveil and gather oppo on the New York Times, that you have someone like Lisa Bloom, who claims to be an advocate for women, representing Harvey Weinstein secretly. Can you just say what she said to you when you made this discovery? When I finally realized that Lisa Bloom was a double agent, which is not a term you get to use in normal life a lot of the time, I did have a conversation with her where I said, Lisa, you swore to me as a friend and as an attorney that you wouldn't tell his people. And she said, oh, Ronan, I am his people. And I just, my blood ran cold. I mean, it's a moment I will never, never forget because it just feels like bad movie dialogue,

and I also don't understand how someone says that of themself. I mean, she knew exactly what she was doing, and Jodi Kantor and Megan Toohey have done great reporting, you know, unveiling the fact that she was filing these expense reports and these memos saying, you know, I'm going to go after Ronan, I'm going to go after the women. There are people who say incredibly transparent things about the bad things they're doing all the time

is one of the reveals of this book. Jordan, our producer, her jaw literally dropped. It just dropped. It just fell down. Mine did too. And you can imagine, you know, at a time when I'm losing my job, when I am getting lawsuit threats that are coming, not a news organization because I was abandoned by a news organization, but at me personally. And when I'm increasingly suspicious about a conspiracy to surveil me that turned out to be true and documented to the nth degree and admitted to by everyone involved, what a ball of stress I was and what a pain in the ass

I was to be in a relationship with. Oh, who can say? I don't know. He can say. I think one Jonathan Lovett can say. And you know, he, before many people did, and as many people, including those executives were saying, this is not a story. It will never be a story. Do we care about it at all? It will never be a story. Do we care about it at all? John Lovett was saying, because he is apparently from the future, this is a huge matters, we matter. And people like Rich McHugh, my producer saying, I'm not going to fold to their efforts to tell me to lie about this. Things might have been very different. And those stories might not have broken. So, you know, I include that story, to be nakedly honest about what a low point it was for me, because I think there are a lot of reporters who are there, and I hope they can draw strength from it. And I hope all the people around those people can draw strength from Jonathan's story. Okay, enough. I can't. I just can't. I can't take it. I can't take it. One more question about all this. So the reason I brought up all those respectable people who

were involved in this, because I think they didn't realize or they couldn't allow themselves to admit what they were a part of. And I think that's something that goes to what you've seen at NBC, what they were a part of. And I think that goes to what you've seen at NBC, what you've seen elsewhere. So put aside all the hard evidence of the methodical way in which they tried to prevent the story from coming out, the intimidation that Weinstein uses, the way it was effective at NBC. Beneath the kind of hard record is a kind of harder to identify kind of baked in misogyny in how news organizations have been run, are continuing to be run. I mean, this is something Rebecca Traister and others have noted from Mark Halperin to Matt Lauer to many others. People in positions of decision-making around the coverage of our politics, of our culture, of our society, Les Moonves, others, put their monstrousness aside. Their assumptions about men and women,

their baked-in prejudices, had an impact in our political system and in your ability to get this story. I mean, do you agree with that? There were two things happening simultaneously during the killing of the Weinstein story. And one of them is a highly specific plot where there's a paper trail and very careful investigative reporting about the way in which NBC's secret patterns of sexual harassment settlements and other things were under threat of exposure. And this was a company that was panicking and making promises that they shouldn't have. That's specific, and it's about a specific group of people. But the story is ultimately a lot bigger than a specific group of executives, than a specific network. These are much more widespread patterns. And underpinning all of

those specific plot points is a more general phenomenon, which is a lot of our great institutions are run by an all-white, all-male chain of command like the one at NBC News with a specific set of attitudes about women. And, you know, I uncover in this book Noah Oppenheim's writings saying, you know, women walking into dark frat houses and getting assaulted want to be pumped full of alcohol and preyed upon. That's something that he put in writing and he's now had to apologize for. You know, we have other executives at the company doing very misogynistic things. Andy Lack, who's Noah Oppenheim's boss, is accused by two women on the record of, you know, sleeping with them when they were his underlings and then retaliating against him. approaches a news organization and starts to make points like, look, we were all acting like this. There is also, as you allude to, and as Rebecca Traister wrote about, a baseline of cultural understandings that I think now is starting to shift. But even a couple of years ago,

as this was playing out, was very toxic and very antithetical to waking up and understanding this matters and these women's voices matter and people are going to care even if we don't yet. Do you think if there had been one executive who had gotten behind you? You know, we talked about this, that not only, you know, you document all the ways in which they tried to stop you and how they were worried about the story and how they were squeamish about the story, how they waved, you know, Harvey would suggest that you were doing this at the, you know, to take some sort of psychological vengeance on Woody Allen. And the next thing you know, Noah would be saying the same thing to you. There's a lot of malfeasance and misconduct that went on in the handling of the story. But one thing that you and I had talked about a lot about is that there was also just something missing that forget doing all the

wrong things. There was just never anybody, like no one ever said to you, wow, this is incredible work. Keep going. This is such a, I'm so proud of you for getting this much information. What a big scoop this is. What a big story this is. How different do you think things could have turned out if there had been one person in the chain of command who had fought for the story? There's two things going on here. One is, yes, Noah Oppenheim heard that tape of Harvey Weinstein admitting to sexual assault and a pattern of sexual assault and shrugged and hemmed and hawed and said, people say a lot of things, getting rid of a girl like that, and is it really news, and it doesn't belong on the Today Show, nobody cares about a producer grabbing a lady, which obviously, the reaction when it was on every network, including their

own after I broke it in The New Yorker, was very different. And, you know, the other thing is just about passing the buck in corporate culture. So many of the stories I report are about institutional failures of culture. They're about failures of board culture where no one on a board stands up and says, hey, this is wrong, and maybe it's going to hurt our company or knock a billion dollars of stock value off it, as was the case with the CBS reporting I did, if we don't address this. I mean, CBS spent months knowing that I was working on this story, having crisis meetings every time they thought it was going to break, being aware that there were criminal investigations into executives there, and just covering it up and breathing a sigh of relief every time I actually broke an unrelated story and hoping that I wasn't still working on the CBS story. a microcosm for what happened at NBC, what happens at so many companies, where there is no one in a corporate chain of command willing to stand up and say, hey, it's my job to do the right thing. And if one person in that chain of command at NBC had said, you know what, this maybe is an

important story. And maybe someone here should say, we're not comfortable with the way in which this is being shut down. It would have made a huge difference. And the outcome, I think, would have been very different for NBC News. Obviously, you're seeing appropriately, I think, a lot of tough questions directed at them right now because no one did that. Now, at a working level, everyone did that. And I am so grateful for that. The great journalists at NBC were supportive throughout this, have been supportive since, are asking tough questions of their bosses right now, that's become public, and have approached me one after another to say thank you. And were it not for Rich McHugh, the working level producer on this, saying,

I'm not going to stand for this, this is being shut down, it's weird, it's wrong, I might have felt much more alone, and I might not have had the strength to go on. You know, it's also worth, I think, remembering, you know, throughout this, to go on. You know, it's also worth, I think, remembering, you know, throughout this, you weren't just alone at NBC in reporting this out. You know, you were working with Rich McHugh, a seasoned veteran news producer who was as gobsmacked and shocked by the conduct of his colleagues, people he used to respect. And I vividly remember, you know, you and Rich having these long emotional conversations because you just couldn't believe that NBC was doing this. It just seems so impossible that NBC would be so callous about this story. And a lot of people did the wrong thing. But

can you talk about Rich McHugh and how he did the right thing? Every working level journalist who looked at what we had said, we got to get it on air immediately. And you can imagine how Rich McHugh and I, having heard a tape of a powerful person admitting to serial sexual assault, were kept up at night by that fact, that we for months were sitting on a piece of hard evidence that maybe if we got it on air could protect other people.

And that's why we fought so hard. And it has made all the difference that I had that support from another journalist who was in the trenches with me and saw that it was wrong and honestly was more seasoned than I was and stronger up front. I was afraid for my job. I was being sort of gaslit by these executives telling me over and over again, this is not a story, this is not a story. And he knew from the beginning and never wavered in saying, not only this is a story, but we have the evidence and something weird is happening to shut it down. And obviously, my investigative reporting since shows that that is exactly what was happening. And he is one example of a larger trend over the course of this plot, which is not just about cover-ups and crimes. It is about brave people, where in every room where something bad is happening, there is also someone who says enough. And, you know, it's people like this secret source sleeper who passed me those contracts signed by David Boies to hire secret spies to kill the story. to hire secret spies to kill the story. And it's people like Igor Ostrovsky, one of these spies who was hired to surveil me and then developed a conscience. And there's this incredible twist

where he says, I grew up in the disintegrating Soviet Union in a police state context, and I don't want the powerful people in this country that is now my home to control the press. So I hope people close this book and feel hopeful, because I feel hopeful looking at the people who refuse to shut up, even in the face of spin machines and smear campaigns and legal threats. Yeah, it's moving in reading it. It's moving in just reflecting on it, honestly, just because there's no siren that goes off when somebody's doing the wrong thing. There's no siren in a corporation that goes off to tell you it's your turn to say the right thing, to speak out. And, you know, the past few years, we've seen so much misconduct across our government in companies like CBS, like NBC. And we have really relied on people who no one was telling them to continue to do the wrong thing. And whether it's a whistleblower on Ukraine or this person that managed to leak you documents about what Black Cube is doing, this Black Cube person, Rich McHugh, all these people

that's still inside of a system that was telling everyone to just go along, to get along, that we have been so lucky and fortunate that these people have been willing to recognize that they were in a moment where they had to make a choice and they couldn't just pretend that they didn't have a choice. And that actually, I think, is the mirror image of what happens in your conversations with Noah. Because as you see in the book, you see someone who refuses to admit that he made a choice, that he was responsible, that he bore some agency for what was happening inside of NBC. And thankfully, there were enough people who did decide the head agency that we got to know what happened. And that is my speech about your book.

Every conversation around this within NBC, there was someone in a position of leadership who passed the buck, who said, as Rich Greenberg says repeatedly in this book, this is above my pay grade. I don't know. I don't know. Does it have journalistic value, this interview we're canceling with a rape victim? I have a boss. It's not just me. And I think that the counterpoint of all of these brave whistleblowers who were surrounded by people who were also telling them collectively, don't do the right thing and cut against that grain, hopefully is a lesson that, you know, you can be an Igor Ostrovsky or a sleeper and not a Noah Oppenheim. I think that there is a way to be in a collective that's doing the wrong thing and to do the right thing in the face of that. Do you want to talk about our news at the end of the book? I don't want to. The book is out tomorrow, and guys, I would say that there is a satisfying conclusion to one Jonathan Lovett's arc in this book.

Okay, it's your arc in this book. Okay. It's your arc too, buddy. It's our arc. All right. Bye, Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow. Thank you for having me on. Thanks for coming on the show. I had to pull a lot of strings to get on here, guys.

Listen, it wasn't a sure bet. It just wasn't. Let's just face it. Let's say both ways. I'm a tough booking right now, too. Ronan Farrow, thank you for being here. His book is Catch and Kill. He's one of the nation's leading investigative journalists

who also leaves wet towels on the bed. I'm going to have to fact check that claim, but thank you for having me on, Jonathan. Thanks to Ronan for joining us today and uh again we will be on group thread tomorrow night for the debate tuesday night and then wednesday morning uh the three of us and dan will all be recording a post debate pod which will uh be out wednesday afternoon you know what i was also thinking about? You know they had to change the rules because Simone Biles was too good at gymnastics? Mm-hmm.

It's a little bit like Donald Trump is the Simone Biles of crime. So he's so good at crime that they have to change the rules? He's so good at... Republicans don't want to hold him to the standards they would hold other candidates because otherwise he would be like 10 out of 10 crimes. So they need to kind of lower the points

on some of his misconduct so that he fits in with some of the other presidents. Okay. Got it. This only works if there's music underneath. I hope there's been music underneath the whole time. I'm just going to keep workshopping that. Yeah, that's why I didn't say it during the episode. Alright everyone, we'll talk to you later. Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior talk to you later. Bye.