Some More News - Even More News: Trump vs. The Media, Dan Bongino, and Gaetz Confusion w/Matt Gertz

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Hi. Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz joined Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to talk about the White House's takeover of the president's press pool, his subjugation of major media outlets, and the House's Budget Resolution which would almost certainly result in cuts to Medicaid. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link. PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenews MERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.com

Hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. Thank you, Katie Stoll. Thank you so much. I'm Cody Johnson. Welcome to the second of the week episode of the First and Only News podcast. For the first time ever. Joining us today, very exciting first time guest,

we have Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America. Hi, Matt. Hey, good to be here. Thank you for being here. Jonathan's also here, by the way. It's true. Bye.

That classic catchphrase. Matt, you are new here. Jonathan's also here, by the way. It's true, my. That classic catchphrase. Matt, you are new here. We're gonna chit chat, but first, very importantly, we have some holidays to acknowledge, to celebrate. Friday, February 28th is National Skip the Straw Day. A day to go without straws to help protect marine life. Okay.

Okay. Sure. That'll do it. Yesterday I got a, or a couple days ago, got a takeout coffee and they didn't even offer straws, but it had a little thing, a little lid, so it's a little sippy cup. This is great.

Do you think Trump's gonna celebrate and talk about how he got rid of straws for good? He's gonna change it to skip the paper straws. He unbanned, he unbanned them, he unbanned He's gonna change it to skip the paper straw. He unbanned them. He unbanned real straws. Yeah, celebrate the plastic straw. Or, well, actually he revoked a ban on certain types of plastic and framed it differently.

But whatever, we'll talk about other things that he does like that. Yeah, always. Saturday, March 1st. This one's fun, you guys. Is it? National dad gum, that's good day. Dad gum?

Dad gum? Dangun? Dad gum. Dad gum, that's good. National dad gum, that's good day. Ushers in a season of satisfying seasonings. Okay? Cooking and overall good time spent with a family.

Dad gum, that's good. It's much more than just a Southern phrase. And the title of John McLemore's best-selling cookbook series. Okay, so John bought this holiday? Yeah, no, he created it. His book series is called Dad Gum, That's Good. But he only had a couple in the early 2010s,

so it didn't really take. He didn't really take off as a food guy. But apparently, the seasonings make you say that trademarked statement that he trademarks, Dadgum, that's good. I kind of like Dadgum, that's good. It's kind of satisfying to say. Do you like that he bought a holiday and called it that? I would love it if you guys, our viewers would comment Dadgum, that's good.

Only if you think it's good though. Yeah, if you think it's bad, say it whenever you want. This episode is tasty. Dadgum, this sucks if you think it sucks, but don't, if you think it's bad, say it whenever you want. This episode is tasty. Dadgum, this sucks if you think it sucks, but don't, you know. Yeah. Don't do that. Don't.

You can say Dadgum, this sucks. If you don't have anything nice to say, just don't say it. Say Dadgum, I have nothing nice to say, and leave it at that. There you go. Nice compromise. Okay, Matt.

Enough of that business. I think that we're wasting your expertise with this holiday frivolity. I just wanna know if a holiday that is devoted to Southern dialects is even still allowed, isn't that DEI? I don't know. Oh, very good point.

I think we need to bring this up. Yeah, they don't deserve a holiday. Well yeah, we're banning Consarnet, we're banning- Tarnation. There's a snake in myhuh. I don't think that I think that's just woody. I don't think that's a whole something my boots is specifically woody Well Matt first off, how are you doing? How are you holding up? It's wild out there lots of political attacks on the media all the time Interesting space to be in I'm'm sure. How's it going? Yeah, you know, it's fun.

Things are great in the media space. You know, it's an industry that is just booming. And everyone loves journalists, so things are really going well. You know and over at Media Matters where we largely focus on what's going on in the right wing media, there's a lot of just totally insane slop happening basically all the time. So we always have that to look forward to at least. Oh yeah. Every hour now, every hour.

Some new slop to find out where it came from and what they're even talking about, what the claim even is. And then the next thing you know, the person pushing the slop is like running a department in the federal government. Isn't that exciting? It is. We're in the upside down now. We're not really running the department.

He's not really running the department. He's not really running the department. He's not involved. But he's running the cabinet meeting. Wait, who are they announced? Which one are we talking about? Oh, yeah. I was talking about an entirely different. I'm like, which one is it this time?

There's just so much slop. I believe Jonathan was referring to Elon Musk not actually being the head of DOGE. Yeah, it's Amy Gleason who we all know. Found out about it like four days ago while she was on vacation, I think in Mexico. Also, I just want to call attention to the fact that it's probably been a hard time for you having a name so similar to Matt Gaetz, especially online.

I'm so sorry for any distress that's brought to you. You didn't ask for this. I did not. And honestly, the day when he was named the attorney general nominee was one of those like, come on, guys. What have I done to deserve this? This is a career ruiner for me. Yes. But at least it didn't work out.

There's apparently some line that gets drawn either around someone who has allegedly engaged in sex trafficking or just been like a huge asshole that everyone hates. Whatever reason it was, he got spiked and now he's on Now he's on what America News a network that literally no one watches. So since then, things have calmed down. I'm curious if there is a line though, still. Because you're right, at least in this situation, there was a line.

But it seems like that line doesn't apply to other people. It's just that that is a particularly unpalatable person. If he was popular in any capacity, it wouldn't have happened. Hated by everybody. Yeah, I think that was what killed it. Literally, he's one of the most loathed people in American politics. And you know, I have, you know, become acquainted with a bunch of people who have known him

in various capacities over his life and career. And they're all like, yeah, this tracks, this is just what he's like. It just is, it's un-deniable. A huge scummy asshole, what are you gonna do? So if you're gonna be that type of person, you gotta have a little bit of that Riz is the takeaway. Yes, you need to be less unpleasant. It really seems like that's what tagged him.

Also take issue with what other people seem to consider Riz, but we'll put a pin in that. I think if he was nominated today, he might get through. He must really regret dropping out because it changed. So early, so quickly. Everyone else got through. He's the only one. He must have been like, ah, they're going to toss off.

RFK is not getting through. Headset has no chance. All these people. Wrong. Actually, anything is like, oh. Wrong. Actually, anything is possible, Matt. But also I assume at this point, and we'll talk about this later with all the press and media stuff going on, I assume that very soon Matt Gaetz will just be in the press pool,

right? Like he's going to be one of the people that they bring in to ask really tough questions of the administration. I can only assume. You know, I hadn't actually considered that possibility, but now that you mention it, yeah, that seems like basically a sure thing that at some point. Like next step for him, right? Yeah, he'll be like in the White House, you know, throwing off briefing questions.

Sure, why not? Yeah, doing- I hadn't considered it either. Lobbings of Yeah, doing this. I hadn't considered it either. Lobbings of softballs and yeah. For ruining my day. I'm sorry, it's inevitable. I'm sorry. Air Force One, yeah, why not?

I was like, we never got Warmbo his press credentials. I don't think that's in the cards, but we'll see. I don't think it was, I don't think it is either. I guess we should dive into it, why not? Hey, hey, Jonathan, why don't you set us up to have a conversation about media in the Trump era? I guess we should dive into it, why not? Hey, hey, Jonathan, why don't you set us up to have a conversation about media in the Trump era? Seems like a fitting place to start.

We'll dive into the press pool. We, oh. Where are we, oh, Cody. That's why I'm here. How dare you upstage. That's why I'm here. Katie's introduction to the news. I'm so sorry.

We were just talking about this. If you don't know, the White House Press Pool is a group of 13 rotating journalists that are allowed to follow the president in settings that are smaller than the traditional press conference. So they go on Air Force One, they're in the Oval Office and cabinet meetings, things like that. That group of journalists has always been chosen by the White House Correspondence Association

in the past, traditionally. And the White House took the unprecedented step of saying it was taking over this process and it booted out HuffPost's correspondent and the Royer's Wire reporter and invited in Newsmax and the Blaze. So that's just to start. The Associated Press was already kicked out because they won't call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. That's ongoing every week every day I'm like, this is unbelievable and it's not unbelievable, but it is

Unbelievable as all at the same time. How can you get away? How can you do this? We're just gonna let it happen We always do. Yeah, I love the the pushback online. It's like well, it hasn't been forever. It's been like since 1914. Okay. I haven't seen that. That's like three times in his life. Radio hits fine. Since modern media. Okay. It only predates the Spanish flu by a couple years. That is the essence of what I have seen in the discourse. And of course, I always have to remind myself the discourse is so fucking skewed

and not representative of necessarily of how things are landing because this is unpalatable to, it should be unpalatable to everybody. And we'll see, you know, I've also seen like, oh, well, we'll see if he actually does it. He'll end up just calling on whomever. No, no, I mean, maybe, maybe he'll call on whomever, but the principle

here is very, very important. Right. Like even if he's like, well, what if he just calls on who like, he's still doing this other this thing. Like you're, you're ignoring what's going on to be like, okay, but like, what if he does it differently or does it like in a good way? They just don't, they can't admit what's in front of them. Every single day, you're like, it's pointless. This is just flashbacks to the first term of like, okay, but imagine if Obama did that.

Okay, imagine if Joe Biden did that. Okay, imagine if literally anybody but he did that. You'd be freaking out, you'd be doing a January 6th or whatever. What I think back to from the first term is when Trump was suddenly taken to Walter Reed during the pandemic, and we later found out that it was because he had COVID,

and just wondering, you know, if there hadn't been a press pool of reporters who like took their jobs seriously, whether we ever would have found out, like when we would have found out that that's what was going on. I mean, the point of taking over the press pool is to make determinations about who's in it, to stock it with people who are propagandists who will just, you know, say whatever you want them to say.

That's why they're doing it. And so I think it questions like that, like real time updates, we need to know what the president is doing. That's what's going to get thrown aside. Yeah, it's, it's very obvious, like what they're doing and why they're doing it. And like, yeah, bringing in the blaze and bringing in Newsmax. Like, OK, so you just want like his buddies to control the information that gets out and control that ecosystem.

And we might talk about like, you know, today, the Epstein files have been released, even though you can go look at the flight logs now, you can look at his little black book right now. There's no list of names that they will actually release. Maybe whatever. We'll see. But like you're getting active, but Bill Clinton. Yeah. But like you're cultivating this group of people like Mike Cernovich and libs of TikTok and giving them these prop binders to create this illusion of like transparency like, oh, they're releasing this releasing this. No, it's all a pageantry to create that illusion for his people and then to control that. Yeah, that information pipeline. Yeah. I mean, you've got Jack Pesovac, who's, you know, a pizza gate guy, like someone who

pushed the insane conspiracy theory that a local DC pizza parlor had like a child sex trafficking ring operating out of the basement when the restaurant doesn't have a basement and it's insane that I know that but like that's the level we're dealing with. Anyway, Psobiak is now going on trips with members of the cabinet. Like he is a fully read in MAGA influencer stalwart and someone that they're going to to push out their message every day. Exactly. Yeah, he's a he's a also like a neo Nazi collaborator. He's worked with like actual neo Nazis and like there's so many tweets and DMs from like early 2016, 2015, where he's like

budding up to Richard Spencer and all these people. Like it's very he's one of the figures where I'm like, I can't believe he's gotten away with it so for so long and is still around and they're serious people who take him seriously. But this is all what they're doing. It's like, you know, in Hungary, I think they have like, it's sort of this liberal approach to press and democracy. We're like, okay, we're going to get rid of the mainstream media, which is all fake and we hate it.

And we're going to bring in our conservative influencer group to be the new press. And it's presented as freedom and like access to information. And it's just it's just a new propaganda arm. Matt, do you have a sense because, you know, NBC News and a few other major news outlets still get some access. They haven't been completely kicked out. Are they going to be reporting on what the news? Like if Newsmax or Newsmax reporter asks,

Why did Joe Biden let so much fentanyl into this country or tee up Trump for something that that will be news to what we consider the mainstream media? Yeah, I mean, generally speaking, all of that stuff is going to be, you know, filmed like that. That's all going to be stuff that is happening at, you know, press gaggles with the president. So they'll be there, they'll, you know, they'll be able to respond if they choose to. But there's definitely a sense now that they're, you know, widening the lens of debate by bringing in their shills who can ask softball questions. I mean, that that's really what they're going for here.

Because also I've seen, I don't know if you've seen this, I think Vance tweeted about it, a bunch of people are bragging about the number of questions Trump has taken. And again, it's this sort of like creating this illusion of transparency and of like information pipelines where it's like, oh, compared to Biden, who only answered like a hundred some questions in his first month, Trump answered like a thousand or something, the number of questions doesn't actually matter.

It's what was the question? What was his answer? What was your response to the answer? For example, literally today, a reporter reporter tariffs are paid eventually by American importers and consumers. Trump answers, no, I think they are paid for by the country. Well, that's just not true. Do you follow up on that? You want to answer that? The tariffs are paid eventually by American importers and consumers. No, they're not. No, I think they're paid for by the country. So not only are they bragging about the number of questions, Vance also talked recently about how

Trump is a very thoughtful speaker. He thinks before he speaks and he's very considerate of his words. Did I say that? I can't believe I said that. Next question. What? What? Two hours ago. Trump's superpower on this one is that because everyone knows that he's like a huge liar who was just constantly making shit up, he gets away with like what otherwise would lead to the, is he senile?

Does he not remember like a week ago when this happened? I mean, when he like put it out on Truth Social and then again in like a public forum, he just does this stuff and figuring out like what's him being crazy, what's him being deliberately lying, what's him being extremely old is just very difficult for anyone to tease out. It's always been. And because it's all those things, it's like, well, that's just who he is.

So it's good, even though it's like all three. It's impossible. It's just impossible to pin him, people just, I feel like more people get away with it, but he's the one with this superpower. And it's, you just can't pin him on everything. There's always the element of plausible deniability, I guess.

The George Costanza, it's not a lie if you believe it. Like that's a big part of it. I would love it if Trump pulled a Costanza and like showed up to the White House in 2021 on January 21st. Just like, yeah, I'm still the president, right? He should do everything Costanza does in that show. He should eat an eclair out of the trash.

He should take his shirt off when he goes to the bathroom. All of it. And then walk out with the spoilers for the end of that episode. Get the White House to donate to the Human Fund. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I'm sure we're deferring all that money for USAID and putting it into the Human Fund.

It is not far off. Oh my gosh, he is gonna start the Human Fund. Ah, geez. Hi, Cody here. You know, it's not the year 2085 yet, at which point you'll get the day's news lightning ported into your magnetized skull chip. For now, we've gotta just read it.

So that's why I want to tell you about Ground News, which you can find over at ground.news slash smn. We specifically ask them to sponsor us. It's a website and an app that gathers news from across the political spectrum that we use to compare coverage and verify our information. They don't have the future's scrumptious green news slurry, where you'll actually be able to drink the news. But they do have a factuality chart and a blind spot feed, which shows you which news

stories are potentially being ignored by more biased sources. With any luck, the future's knowledge-infused cosmic rain will make reading the news obsolete. But until then, you can get all the headlines plus context on each publication over at ground.news.smn. With that link, you can save 40% off unlimited access. What they do is extremely important right now,

in the present. So I encourage you to check them out. Again, that's ground.news slash SMN for 40% off unlimited access. The link is in the description. Bleep, blorp, zeep, zeep, zep, zep, zep, zep, zep, zep. Future stuff. I definitely wanna ask Matt about Dan Bongino

because you- Yeah, I do too. you followed him for years and years and you wrote a piece about him this week. Your sense is that there really is nothing to keep him from weaponizing the FBI for his purposes but what happens when those investigations come up empty, right? Trump wants an investigation, They do the investigation. Will we see a trial? Will we see charges brought based on nothing? Nothing. Yeah.

I mean, I think we could. That is the scary part of this. I mean, what we saw during the first Trump administration is, you know, he would spend a lot of time watching Fox News, watching his television, tweeting about what he of time watching Fox News, watching his television, tweeting about what he was seeing on Fox News, and then calling up the FBI or the DOJ and saying, hey, could you guys do an investigation into the crazy shit that I just saw about how all of my enemies are criminals? And they can't really say no. So they would, they would try to do the investigation.

And these were people, you know, Trump appointed US attorneys, Trump appointed head of the FBI, and so on and so forth, looking into this stuff. And then like a couple of years later, you get a news report that would come out, they'd be like, yeah, they've looked into this and they're closing the case because there's like literally nothing there at all. What can you do? But I feel like someone like Dan Bongino and Cash Patel, who will be his supervisor as director of the FBI, Pam Bondi, who is the attorney general and like a longtime Trump

stalwart and sycophant, Ed Martin, who is the US attorney here like a long time Trump stalwart and sycophant. Ed Martin, who is the US attorney here in Washington DC and has spent the last several years like defending January 6th defendants and is- B- Big libs of TikTok fan. S- Yeah, I mean these are the people who are going to be deciding what gets investigated, what gets prosecuted, taken to judges, and taken to trial. It's chilling. Yeah. I mean, I just, they don't really know how to make cases because they have no actual

experience doing any of this stuff. But they can take it pretty far anyway. And someone like Bongino, I mean, as you say, I've watched him for years. We're real sickos at Media Matters. I've watched him on like- What a masochist. He had an NRA TV show.

The NRA had like a streaming network back in 2018. They had to pivot to video. Yeah, they were pivoting to video. And I mean, the sort of bottom line on Bongino is that he's just constantly talking about how all Donald Trump's enemies are being falsely prosecuted and it's the downfall of the republic that any of this is happening. And he's constantly saying that all of Trump's enemies are criminals who need to be investigated and prosecuted. When you put someone who says that the one thing about his life right now is owning the

libs in charge of federal investigations, you're just looking at a really bad time. It's kind of all of these people want to own the libs. They just have access to crimes. They don't give a fuck about, sorry for saying the word. No, I'm not. They don't care about leading or... Also, is he going to have his podcast? So interestingly, so as of Monday, he went on his... He did his podcast for what I assumed was going to be the last time, but then he was like, no, you know, I'm going to keep doing it for a while.

I know that I have a lot of work to do since I'm about to take over an agency with 36,000 employees that I've never worked at. But yeah, I feel like I would be bad at this. I would, I would think that like like that would be a terrifying scenario and that I would want to like immediately drop everything and spend all of my time figuring out what it would mean to be in charge of 36,000 people. I also think that as getting hired in that job, I would imagine it's a pre-requisite, pre-requisite to not be hosting a right wing podcast, any podcast.

He's still going though. I don't know how long, but he said he had a few more episodes to do, so we'll see. He's going to go the entire four years. I'm sure he'll just keep going. Everyone's doing podcasts. Ted Cruz had a podcast for a few years when he was senator. Gavin Newsom has a new podcast out. Which I think is probably smart, even though I don't like it. And it might not work because we're not like them. We're probably not listening to Gavin Newsom's podcast, but I get why he's doing it. It makes more sense for a governor or a politician in that realm to have a podcast in the sense of like,

it's like a fireside chat kind of thing. It's like, yeah, you communicate to the people. Yeah, that's different than the deputy director of the FBI. It's a little different than Pongino's show. It's very, it's very, very different situation, in my opinion, anyway. Well, what if they find out something illegal is happening at one of his sponsors, right?

If Big Gun Coffee or whatever his sponsors are, There's like some malfeasance in there. He's probably gonna sweep that under the rug and You know blame it on Joe Scarborough or whoever I think corruption is just legal now. I mean after the Eric Adams thing I think you're just like oh, yeah, you're for Trump. I think you're just fine. Yeah after writing a letter that says you're You're for Trump. I think you're just fine. Yeah, after writing a letter that says you're doing bribes and extortion, maybe. Yeah, we're beyond that point. I will say my one non-depressing Bongino story is definitely he once did a promo for NRA TV that featured him wearing a shirt that said socialist tears and slowly putting several lemons into a blender,

after which it sort of goes to a card while you hear the blending sound play, and then he like pours it out into a glass and drinks it. And two things, one, that is not how you make lemonade. It's just not how any of that works. Two, this was apparently a hit on Don Lemon. That was the joke. I'm sorry, did he put the whole lemon in there?

No, the entire lemon, with the peel, three lemons, put them in, blended it, I don't know. The things we do to own the libs, oh my God. To each their own. Got to make the content. It's funny, obviously, but like it is really, really chilling and depressing to know that like a guy like that is like, yeah, you're just gonna go after your little perceived enemies and your idea of like, oh, I hate the scumbag commie libs.

None of those words make sense together. It's just who you hate. Yeah, I mean, we're basically just looking at a scenario where the president of the United States is picking high ranking federal government officials on the basis of who says nice things about him on Fox News. And how popular they are, how many people are fans of them. How rich they are.

Bungie knows got like $150 million, something like that. We are all in the wrong business. Oh my God, what are we doing? There's just so much more money on the other side. God. We really should send in an undercover podcaster to go on Fox News to say nice things about Trump. And then once you're elevated to a certain position,

you remove the mask. And I don't know. Look how easy this was. You're all rubes being duped. Oh my god. I'll put on a wig and create a fake Twitter profile, but I will get verified. When I see a contract for like a right wing podcaster,

like what they get paid, it makes me feel like we're just living in a different dimension. Well, we say no to sponsors. There was a story last year about how a bunch of different right-wing podcasters had gotten paid by, they didn't realize this apparently. Oh, yes. They didn't realize this at the time.

Passed through money that originated with the Kremlin, and they just all like happened to talk constantly about how Russia is good, etc. And you know, they all after the fact after after the the Justice Department indicted the people behind the scheme, they all said, you know, we were the victims here, we didn't know anything about it. But like the amounts of money, like millions of dollars, and they don't ask where the money is coming from, I guess, because like the payola is generally that good on the right and it's not surprising to get offered that. I don't know.

That's what they that's at least the argument. That's what they would like you to believe. Either way. I mean, it's a lot. But also it wasn't even like it's not even like a sponsorship. It's like this other kind of deal for licensing. And it's just absurd that they didn't know. To put stuff on their YouTube channel, Tenet Media,

which nobody watched, how is it worth it for them to pay this much money for 6,000 views on YouTube? Oh well, but to be fair, Tim Pool and Benny Johnson are dumb. That's true. That is a fair point, Jonathan. Well, okay, Dave Rubin's dumb too though. So he didn't get paid, did he? Oh, he got paid. He did, damn it.

Yeah, Dave got paid. I mean, oh good for him. Oh, the one thing he wants in life? Yeah, he got paid. Um. It's really good integrity there. This mystery money shows up, but if that's what we're gonna believe.

Okay, what else we got Jonathan? Well yeah, I wanna talk briefly about these lawsuits that have been settled. ABC News paid Trump 15 million to settle the lawsuit where I think it's because George Stephanopoulos said he was found liable for rape instead of found liable for sexual assault. Something like that was the defamation lawsuit

But they deferred and paid him meta agreed to pay Trump 25 million This is wild. Yeah, and then money and paramount really wants its merger with Skydance to go through So it's going to settle with Trump as well for the 60 minutes thing Where they edit interviews like you know how you edit interviews to go on TV? So they're going to settle and pay Trump there as well. So- But not this number you've got in the notes, right?

This is an astronomical number. No, no, no. He's suing for 20 billion. The settlement will be in the range of this other- 20 billion dollars? Yeah, yeah. You have to understand though that the editing hid the fact that Kamala Harris did a word salad, one of the word salads that she is known for, and therefore it is interference

with the election such that the only recourse is to pay Donald Trump huge amounts of money. 20 billion dollars. This stuff is absolutely insane. That kind of precedent is wild. I don't know how anyone could do an interview again after that. Exactly. That's what's-

Again, it's this chilling effect that like, and we're already seeing so many people like, not anytime someone's like Donald Trump, the rapist, they're like, you can't say that anymore. It's like, well, he is, because he did that. What are the ramifications of this? How does this affect people covering Trump during this time? And just the fact, I understand,

I do understand that when you are faced with a lawsuit, honestly, frequently the cheapest way to get through it is to just settle. It doesn't necessarily look good out there to the world, to people that are not being discerning. They're like, well, why'd they settle? I'm like, well, because it's better and easier and cheaper to settle than be paying lawyer fees

and end up in this and drawn out. But also it is absolutely capitulating to the president. It is absolutely trying to make nice in some capacity so that they don't get their press credentials revoked, so that they get their questions asked, so that they can stay somewhat relevant. It is... I sense that journalists are trying to do their jobs and their bosses are making it really hard for them to do it.

Yeah, I think what's happening here, I think that's really the key thing that it's not CBS that's trying to settle and it's not ABC that settled. It's Paramount, which owns CBS News that wants to settle. It is Disney, which owns ABC News, which wants, which settled. I mean, the real, the issue here is that I think everyone understands that Donald Trump is like constantly dumping on the media, constantly saying that they're fake news and undermining them at every turn.

What I think people don't quite grasp is that he has a keen understanding of how the corporate structures behind a lot of these institutions can be manipulated. He's president of the United States. He has oversight and control of all of these different federal agencies that can screw with the corporate owners

of these media outlets. And that makes the media outlets very vulnerable because CBS News is not going to contribute a huge part of the bottom line for Paramount in the same way that ABC is not contributing to the bottom line of Disney to a huge extent. And so if you put the executives that run the multinational corporations to the test on journalistic

freedom, they don't care. They need to make sure that the money keeps flowing. They need to make sure that the deals keep getting made. This is something that Trump tried a lot during his first term as well, particularly around a merger that involved CNN's parent company. And at the time, CNN's parent company really fought back and they went to court and they got their merger pushed through even though Trump was trying to block it because he didn't like CNN. But this time around, we're just seeing a very different reaction from the C-suites.

We're seeing them crumble and capitulate at every turn. And I think it's really a sign that they're just not gonna have their journalists back on any of it. Not cheering me up too much, but it's accurate. I don't think the fun news basically ever, like it's generally, I don't have a lot of happy things to say, unfortunately. Yeah, it's not really divided

into general generally anyway. Good thing we've got the first and only news podcast. a lot of happy things to say, unfortunately. Yeah, it's not really So it's just kind of on us podcasters. Good thing we've got the first and only news podcast. The only place to be depressed about the news. We can tell it like it actually is, folks. Like and subscribe, please. Yes, Soros, if you're watching, please like and subscribe. Do you guys wanna talk about this budget resolution? I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, we should. Yeah. We should. We should. We should. OK, so a few days ago, the Republican-led House passed its budget resolution 217 to 215.

Ooh, that's tight. Some Republicans were very wary about voting for it because the resolution calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut spending by $880 billion over the next decade. And that $880 billion can only come from a few potential buckets, most of which, I think like 98% of which is Medicaid and Medicare. And so they said they're not going to touch Medicare. The popular programs.

Which means you're probably, if you do this plan and you know it goes to the Senate it goes back to the house etc but if you do this plan there's no way out of it other than cutting Medicaid and about a fifth of Americans use Medicaid for health care and not just in blue states. Definitely not just. Yeah, many, many, many 70 million tons of children, disabled Americans, like so many people rely on this and to be like, yeah, we're just gonna cut other stuff is just a lie. So many people and so many of them in red states,

Trump supporters, gotta say I agree with Steve Bannon on this. What's his quote? Medicaid, you gotta be careful because a lot of mags are on Medicaid. I'm telling you, if you don't think so, you are dead wrong. I agree with you, Steve. It's like, yeah, that's true. And people are gonna get upset.

And people who voted for Trump are gonna be like, wait, what happened? That's not what I voted for. And maybe that'll make them think a little harder about other stuff. Maybe they'll just be like, OK, but like he's going after the Epstein list or whatever. So I so it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. It's just depressing every time I see that point being made. We're like, well, a lot of people voted for Trump are going to get hurt.

Yeah, everyone is. It's bad. It's bad when anyone is. And to use the MAGA card as like, well, you shouldn't do it because people who voted for him are going to get hurt. Well, sure. OK, that's not how we should operate. But again, obviously, yeah, it's still it's still true. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I just I know you don't think that. No, I know. We all said you agreed. So you I agree with don't think that. No, I know. We all understand. You said you agreed, so you agreed blanket with the quarter. I agree with Steve Bannon completely.

No, but it's like this hurts. And yeah. And again, just the people, the most vulnerable of people are the ones affected by this with the fewest resources that is going to continue to get worse and worse for this demographic. And this is a popular program that should be expanded, the fewest resources that is going to continue to get worse and worse for this demographic. This is a popular program that should be expanded, but instead we're going to reduce it. The ramifications of that are actually quite staggering, what that looks like materially when

this stuff actually starts to happen. It certainly doesn't help anything. Stan Mallow In the first month and change of a new term, it's very easy, I think, for Trump to still say, well, these egg prices are bird flu and Biden. Right? Yeah, I'm trying to bring prices down and I'm doing it very quickly, but this stuff, if you're still paying a lot, it's Biden's fault. This kind of thing, which is going to, again, depending on if they really end up cutting some of Medicaid, they're going to try to find a way around it because they don't want

to lose their seats in a couple of years. In the elections, that will definitely happen, and I'm very confident that that's a thing that's going to happen. But it's very tough to run away from that when you're actively taking away people's healthcare, low-income's health care in states that are important to you. Louisiana, 32.4% of residents are on Medicaid. 28.3% in Kentucky.

That is a huge percentage. I'm not saying Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg is going to win Louisiana in a few years. In the elections that will definitely happen, I'm very confident in it in 2028. But this is like, you know, Trump is gonna force them into a tough bind because he doesn't care about them or their seats

or whatever, they're just trying to not get yelled at by the MAGA crowd and, you know, just vote however Trump wants and keep their seats. And it's tough for the old Republican Congress people now. The time that Trump was at his lowest job approval think of everything that has happened over the last try don't think about it too hard. That's the problem Matt I can't hold it in my brain. I'll just say the time that he his job approval was at its lowest was when he and the Republicans were trying to overturn Obamacare back in 2017. It never fell to the same lows, but trying to take

health care away from millions and millions of people, especially when you're doing it because you want to give more tax cuts to rich people is just not a very popular thing to do because it's morally horrendous and everyone can kind of tell. Exactly, you can see it. But also, I heard that Obama makes about three billion dollars a year from royalties for the name Obamacare. So maybe we should get rid of it. Wait, where was that? It's out there. from royalties for the name Obamacare. So maybe we should get rid of it. Wait, where was that? It's out there.

That's one of the things? It's out there. It's a thing. Royalties for the name Obamacare, yeah. Sorry, didn't. The thing that he didn't name it, yeah, I know. He didn't name it. It was the Affordable Care Act.

Also, even if he did, it would be absurd. It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. And it is out there. We're all paying a slight fee every time we say the word Obamac absurd. It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. And it is out there. We're all paying a slight fee every time we say the word Obamacare. It's just pennies. Goes right into his pockets. Anytime someone says the word news, we get it.

That's how we're in the right-wing stratosphere. That's how you support us. Do you have something else, Cody? Oh, no. I mean, I just wanted to highlight, Matt, what you were saying. It's just like, when you do these horrendous things, it's not going gonna be popular.

People can tell. Even if you have criticism of Obamacare or you've been propagandized for 15, 20 years to be like, Obamacare is actually the worst thing in the world, once it's actually threatened, then it's gonna be a problem. And if the guy who's doing it was on stage like five months ago saying he only has the concept of the idea of a plan to replace it still

after so many years, that's just not good politics. I've talked to conservatives who have staunchly said like, no, it's idiotic to be up there talking about it if you don't have a plan. It's not like Obamacare is the best, but it's something. I'm like, thank you. Or people that- But I'll still vote for them.

That have had a knee surgery because of Medicaid. Yeah. This is not gonna be possible. Also, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. He's just slowly dismantling everything anyway. And this idea, you know, obviously they're going with all the people who are upset at these town halls

and stuff. They're all paid protesters. Well, yeah, obviously. None of them are real people. And actually, Trump isn't just the president with checks and balances. he's actually the will and voice of the people. He is the one person because he's a fascist.

The one true king. And it's a fascist movement. He's the one true king, right? Yes. To unite people. And they're leaning into that heavily and it's working on people. Yeah, if judges can just stop things,

then how is it a democracy? And then you have to like go through American history and explain how the system works explain what it is Legislative executive judicial etc. Do you do you guys want to watch this? Hakeem Jeffries clip Sure, even a Smith show. Well, let's cheer me up Maybe maybe yeah, let's give it a shot. Don't say maybe. You don't think it will.

You're lying, Jonathan. Maybe. Well, listen, extreme left protest me more than they protest Donald Trump. Because they literally, where have I go? So I think in part because I've declined, I've refused, I've chosen not to bend the knee to either people on the far left. What are they asking you to do? And certainly not to Donald Trump and the far right. We all have a responsibility to serve the

people we were elected to represent and the country and the constitution. And I certainly have not been bashful and will not be bashful in disagreeing with people who are trying to take this country in a direction that doesn't lift everybody up, whether that comes from the right or whether that comes from the far left. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm losing sight of what the far left, the extreme left, actually is because I don't feel super represented

by the Democratic Party in general. And to me, a lot of what has been scapegoated as the extreme left, the far left, the unreasonable demands of the left that doesn't do anything to lift everybody up, which I'm sorry, again, that's kind of the thing, is that the left wants to do their best for everybody, as many people as possible and has a different approach. I don't understand what the far left even is.

Is that wanting healthcare? Is that supporting LGBTQ plus? That what the far left even is. Is that wanting healthcare? Is that supporting LGBTQ plus? That's the far left? I assume he's referring to Gaza protesters is what he's talking about. Gaza protesters. Probably alluding to like, yeah, the anti-Semitic pro-Palestinian protesters

or whatever he frames it as. But also, yeah, people are protesting him and demanding him do more. He's meeting with all these Silicon Valley billionaires and like not, his messaging is not very good. And I would, I find it frustrating in particular, like even if you, even if you, Hakeem, feel like you are being unfairly pressured

or protested by the far left, whatever that means to you, you are one of the leaders of the opposition party to what is undeniably a fascist far right movement. That is what they are. That's what they talk about. That's what's going on right now. So if you're wasting any energy demonizing the left, then you're not actually operating as an opposition to fascism and what they're doing. And that's really what gets in my craw about it. It's very like- Well said.

What a waste of time. What are you doing? This is happening right now. They just want you to do better and to work harder. So to waste any energy complaining about the far left, we have Dan Bongino talking about how he wants to like put like he's gonna he wants to attack any person like nominally left in the world because of his weird access to grind. And when that is happening, maybe don't give them the rope like maybe don't help them out.

Again like all last year, all these people being like, oh, these Gaza protesters, they're all fake and it's all bought and paid for and stuff. You're helping, you are pre-helping what is going on now, which is that they want to like deport people who are protesting for Palestine and all this kind of stuff. But it's interesting that he's going, you know, he's been on TV a lot lately. He's the House Minority Leader. He's on the Stephen A. Smith show. And I'm sure, you know, Stephen A. Smith talks about sports a lot, but he's on ESPN every

day. He has this separate podcast where he talks about other stuff, culture, politics. So it's interesting that he's going on there to try to make the case that I'm the reasonable one here. So you should look to us as the resistance. The resistance is not these people out in the streets, whether it's for Gaza or anything else. It's me, the guy going on a podcast. And by the way, when Hakeem Jeffries is up there saying like I'm trying to find out what leverage we have What exactly should we do? I don't have the perfect answer for that But it just seems like trying to make your

Your media outreach. Well, I'm gonna go on the Stephen a Smith show. I don't know how valuable that is to Resisting Donald Trump. Yeah, like what's that? What are you who are you trying to reach?, like what are you trying to reach? What are you trying to accomplish there? And then of course, if he had defined the far left, I would have appreciated that. Yeah, just a little bit more information. What do you, again, it's this sort of vague like,

oh yeah, the far left and the far right hate me. That's just bullshit that people say. Easy fill in the blank scapegoat kind of thing to me, is how it scans. And yeah, who are you trying to reach? What, just the dead centrist? I don't know. You know, I miss Nancy Pelosi a lot.

Isn't that interesting? I miss Harry Reid a lot. Oh sure, yeah. We're basically looking at, you're the first sort of Republican trifecta with a re-elected Republican president since 2005. And I don't know, those people were really good at mobilizing.

Yeah. Mobilizing, organizing, resisting. I've never, I'm not that- Being an opposition party. Hugest fan of Nancy Pelosi. She's good at her job. And I had frustrations last term when, you know, there's this song and dance of,

oh, I'm gonna step down and help then groom the next set of leaders, which I like they did, and that didn't happen. And here we are now, and people haven't had the experience or have learned how to stand up and doesn't have the same media training perhaps, and there are plenty of criticisms that are valid of Nancy Pelosi

and yeah at this moment in time with Trump's second administration it's like whoo I really wish we'd have a little bit more of that flavor and backbone yeah I'd let her trade a few million of Starbucks stock or whatever in order to get you know more organization going on So do you wrap things up with Trump gold card? Let's do it Trump on Tuesday said the US would sell a gold card to wealthy foreigners They could come to the US and get a path to citizenship. It's five million dollars. He clearly named it He said you have a green card. This is a gold card. And he suggested that 10 million people could take this offer,

despite there not being that many people with five million dollars outside of the United States in the world. I would also posit that if you have five million dollars, you're not going to spend all of it on this gold card. Oh, sure. So like you maybe need actually like a little more than five million to participate in this. Since a lot of those people with 50 plus million dollars are Russian oligarchs, he was asked, would you give the gold card to Russian oligarchs? He said, yeah, possibly.

I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people. That brings me back to one of my favorite moments from the first time. Remember Paul Manafort? Oh yeah, for sure. Oh, that guy back in the day. Daddy's blood money? Yeah, he was on some news show and he was asked point blank.

So what you're saying is Donald Trump has no relationship, no financial relationship with any Russian oligarchs and his answer is amazing, because he was just like, yeah, that's what it is, that's what I said, that's what our position is. That's what what I said. That's what our position is. And that's the answer. That's what our position is.

Perfect, the perfect answer. That answer alone is like, oh, so the Russia stuff is totally real. All I need is that five second answer. Not against immigration if you are extremely wealthy. That's good to know. Friend of the show, Jason Calacanis, it was his idea, apparently. He proudly was like, this is my idea. He's got a know. Friend of the show, Jason Calacanis. It was his idea, apparently.

He proudly was like, this is my idea. He's got a lot of really great ideas. He said 500,000, though, not five million. So, oh, well, it's much more affordable. Trump magic. But we're not going to have these people pay taxes. No, of course not. Just to highlight Jason's amazing

golden brain. Two days ago, he also tweeted about how we need to get rid of the United States Of course not. Just to highlight Jason's amazing golden brain, two days ago he also tweeted about how we need to get rid of the United States Postal Service and he started with a question, please explain which Americans need the USPS in the era of email, Amazon delivery, UPS, FedEx, DHL, et cetera.

The answer is Amazon and all those people that use the United States Post Office to deliver their packages. Jason, go outside. My God. Matt, do you use the Post Office? I do. Yeah.

When I need to ship a package, I go to the Post Office. It works very well. Also brings important documents and postcards from my kids' grandparents. I don't know. They can't use, they're not scanning their postcards and emailing them to your children who don't even have a email address yet. I'm assuming, I don't know.

I don't know their ages. Also, am I supposed to pay $20 to UPS to ship my rent check? I'm going to have to drive an hour and hand deliver it? You're going to be able to send rent via X. Is this this example of these, again, these venture capitalists, like multi, multi, multi millionaires who don't live in the real world

and don't go outside and don't use these services? So in their minds, they're like, well, who even uses this? Well, you're a millionaire. Yeah, you don't use them, but they wanna destroy everything because in their minds, like, well, in my world, it's useless. You know who really uses the USPS?

Trump voters who live in rural counties. Exactly. All the like they're so and it's also like very easily obtained information, which is even more frustrating. Was like, OK, I understand. You're a millionaire. You don't live in the real world. You have this skewed view of everything. Look it up instead of tweeting like, well, who even uses this? Look up who uses it. Look up how many of Amazon's packages are delivered by the post office.

It's like 40% a few years ago. Most of mine are. Exactly. Because again, rural areas use them a lot. Yeah. And again, it's like the same things like post office, Medicaid, all these things that they don't affect your life. You're a multimillionaire.

You only hang out with billionaires on your billionaire podcast. Of course you don't know what these are for. Anything you need to send can be sent via courier. What could a banana cost? $5? What could a banana cost? It's like, God, Jason.

After the tariffs, they will cost $5. OK, well, I think that that does it for us today. Although we did cover a fair amount of territory. We did. We don't always get to everything we want to talk about, because everything happens all the time, every single day. Matt, thank you for joining us today.

Can you tell our listeners where they can find you? Check out your work. You can find my work at MediaMatters.org and I am at Matt Gertz on all major social media platforms. That's easy. Not Matt Gates. No, still not. Well, I am not responsible for those tweets.

That is not me. He does tweet a lot. All right. Well, that's it. We're going to end the show, but not before I say. Do it. We love you very much. Much is true.

Hey, girlies, I'm Cody Rigsby. And I'm Andrew Chappelle. We're here to announce our brand new podcast, Tactful Pettiness, now on Podcast One. We have a lot of opinions. Flip flops in New York City? You don't love yourself. If I'm not seated, I'm not tipping. Do

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