Soul Boom - How Can We Trust the News Again? (w/ Stephanie Ruhle)

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Stephanie Ruhle (MSNBC anchor, host of The 11th Hour) joins Rainn Wilson for a raw, timely conversation on media distrust, social responsibility, and the power of human connection. From her journey on Wall Street to her pivot into journalism, Stephanie brings unique insight into how power, money, and narrative collide. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! Quince (FREE shipping & 365-day returns!) 👉 https://quince.com/soulboom Airbnb 👉 https://airbnb.com/host SOUL BOOM LIVE IN LOS ANGELES 5/27! Tickets 🎟️: https://soulboom.com/live ⏯️ SUBSCRIBE! 👕 MERCH OUT NOW! 📩 SUBSTACK! FOLLOW US! 👉 Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom 👉 TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to soul. 40% of Americans don't trust mainstream media. Why is that? How did we get here? Listen, we are seeing a huge loss in trust of all of our institutions. It's the media. It's medicine. It's banking. There's been outcry about this for years that it's not getting any better. It's by design. A nuanced, complicated truth doesn't fit in a push notification. You know it fits in a push notification? Something to piss you the off.

Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. Soul Boom live at Largo, May 27th. I am so excited to announce that we're doing our very first in real life, IRL Soul Boom podcast recording live in Los Angeles. May 27th at the legendary Largo Theater.

That's the Largo Theater in L.A. with our very special guest and a dear friend of mine. So get ready for a night of laughter, deep thoughts, spiritual silliness, as I dive into all things, comedy, consciousness, God, and whatever else flies out of our weird little brains. That's the Largo Theater at the Coronet, May 27th in Los Angeles. Go to Soulboom.com slash live. Tickets are limited. Soulboom.com slash live.

You know what I want people to do? I just really want people to be informed and engaged. I'm not asking people to go out and rally or protest, but like even this idea of like, I'm disconnecting. I don't want to be part of the news. I'm mad at the news, right? That's one of my things because there's, and I'm saying don't disconnect.

That's what they want you to do. There's a big movement towards that. Turn off the news. Yeah, a big move towards being uninformed. Every night on my way home from work, I respond to my trolls on top. Twitter who hate on me, and I send back really nice tweets. I'm just like, I'm so sorry you thought my hair looked like shit.

I'm sorry, you didn't like that. You know what? You're right. I wish I didn't interrupt that person. Sometimes I get too excited. And it's amazing, like, how different the responses are. That's amazing. You respond to your tweets with loving intervention.

On my way home from work every night, from sort of 12 to 1220. I go on to Twitter and I respond to the haters. Yeah. And, you know, just thanks for the feedback. Oh, my makeup look like shit. You know what? I didn't get to work until really late. I was doing the dishes.

I was helping my daughter with homework. And it's amazing because, like, one of three things happen. Either one, which is my favorite category, people just get reflective for a second. They're like, oh, my God. You know what? I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. Because when people get to be nameless and faceless on Twitter, oh, my gosh.

They're horrible. They can unload. The worst of us comes out. Because there's no consequences, right? It's a little bit like if you have a dinner party at your house and you have less than 10 people, every person brings a bottle of wine, brings flowers, offers to do the dishes, you have more than 10 people. People are cranking cigarettes, you know, in your living room, they're dropping red wine, they're not telling you. It's the power of anonymity that brings out the worst in people.

That's the greatest analogy I've ever heard. Like large dinner party versus Twitter. Yeah. And Twitter is the largest dinner party. And it's like a house party of uninvited guests that are like, I'm going to clock here. wearing masks. Correct. I'm going to clob your toilet and say, fuck off. Like what are some examples of the replies that you do on Twitter to people? Truly. And what about ones about opinions and like, you know, you liberal douchebag, blah, blah, blah.

So some people that just hate on me are just trolls, right? There are bots. They're trolls. They're just there to say, like, you liberal asshole. And I always respond with, you know, or if it's a style thing and they're saying, you constantly interrupt your guess. I'm like, you know what? You're right. And I do. And that's something I work on because on my, every night on my notebook it says like lower your voice interrupt less and so I say you know you know by the way that's a comment that I get here and that I've talked to other podcasters every podcaster gets stop interrupting the guests let them talk it's like people don't understand like this isn't like a softball and then I let you speak for 11 minutes this is like a softball you speak I have an idea we interacting and actually what makes a podcast interesting is

the dynamic and the back and forth. And sometimes, guess what, folks, people interrupt each other. And it's what makes TV uninteresting, right? It's why people have tuned out of TV because it's too polished, because it's too corny and presented and coming up next. And there's too many teleprompters and script. So to me, the organic nature of interrupting isn't to tell you to shut the fuck up. The organic nature is you just said something that I either want to hear again or I want you to explain more. or hold on, I don't agree with that. And I think that's the beauty of podcasts and why people are drawn to them

because of the authenticity. Well, I have to say I'm a little bit nervous having you here on the podcast. You are? A, you're a lot smarter than me. I'm not. B, you've spent thousands of more hours in an interview setting than I have.

C, I've never interviewed a journalist before. You haven't? No. Well, I'm a friend, too. We're a friend and a journalist. You're so goddamn smart. and but I'm also super excited and thrilled to be talking to you about some of these themes that we want to dig into. But let's have the folks just get to know you a little bit.

I don't want to do a full biography. This isn't that kind of podcast. I grew up in New Jersey. I originally went to school thinking I was going to study engineering. I didn't. And I was studying abroad for two years. And while I was living in Europe, I wanted to stay in Europe and I had no money left. And so I decided, oh,

I'll go work at a bank. They have banks all around the world. And I went to go work for Merrill Lynch. And they actually sent me back to New York. I spent a summer there. I met two guys upon delivering something to a trading floor who traded interest rate derivatives. And I didn't know what anybody did there. But I was like, I don't know what anyone does here, but this is what I'm going to do.

A trading floor looks just like a newsroom. I ended up working in an investment bank. Is it like one of those cliches of people like, yeah, it is three-tenths. A hundred percent. Buy, buy, sell, sell. It is like that. People getting paper cuts like. It's like, not so much the paper anymore, but it is this unbelievable, super competitive environment.

So, you know, while you're asleep, news that's happening on the other side of the world is going to impact your day. And it's a phenomenal industry. For me, it was. But within my first few years, I almost left to go to journalism school. And a guy who actually went on to run the bank that I was at said, do not go to journalism school, Stephanie. He said, your sensibility, no offense, isn't going to work outside New York. He said, you in Tuscaloosa, nobody's buying it. And he said, this is a...

Because so many people go to journalism school and then they're in Omaha doing the morning drive by... Yes. And he said, you're actually really good at this. There's very few women who do it. Don't go anywhere. And you want to go do financial news? You know, you'll do it in 10 years, blah, blah, blah. Put your own horn a little bit.

Because you were really, really good at it and you made a lot of money for a lot of rich people, I guess. So it worked out really well. I ended up working in credit derivatives for about $1,000. 15 years. I don't even know what that is. I don't even know, like, how a credit card works, exactly. You know what? You should. You know, I need financial leaders. You know what? Everyone should. That's actually a huge, I'm going to, I don't go off topic. I don't do it. I think financial, I think financial literacy is so hugely important, right? And we're giving it a when we talk about the fact, you know, all these people who are unhappy with capitalism,

I want you to understand it, right? I desperately want financial literacy to be part of the core curriculum in high schools. Since COVID, I have been doing a lot of work to try to get finance, personal finance in public schools. And just recently, I spoke to a bunch of public school teachers who teach personal finance, and I was so disappointed because they haven't been able to get it back in core curriculums, but they have it as an elective. And so many teachers said to me, we can't get kids to sign up for our class. I'm like, what? Only wealthier kids get to learn how a mortgage works, how credit card works, because their parents. have those things. Only wealthier kids traditionally know how the stock market works because chances

are they have a parent, a dad who might teach them. So that leaves a huge amount of the U.S. population out of information that they deserve to have in order to financially thrive. And they said, we're having a hard time getting kids to sign up. And I said, why? And they said, honestly, because in 2025, tons of high school boys are saying, I don't need to know about a mortgage. I'm going to buy an apartment. I'm going to buy a house for cash because I'm going to trade crypto. And you have other kids who are saying,

I'm going to be an Instagram influencer. I've got $5,000 worth of free makeup sitting in my room. I just have to make videos. And what do I need to listen to you, Boomer? And to me, when we think about the foundational things that our kids, our teens, need to learn,

personal finance should be really high on that list. So I worked in banking for 15 years. It was a great industry. Before you get it back to the bank, I want to say this is actually part of a chapter in Soul Boom, and it's kind of like rethinking education. And one of the things I'm proposing is, why is there no virtues education,

especially for younger kids? Why do we not, you can learn how to be a crossing guard, but you're never taught about compassion. And because people view it as like, well, that's for Sunday school or that's for the parents to do. It's like, well, why can't it be, you know, increasing growth of ethics of a community

of like what we value about, you know, kindness. And but also in that, I'm like, there's so much stuff that you learn in school that is outmoded and outdated. You're studying cursive and trigonometry, but you should be studying how to balance a checkbook and how to fix a car and how to grow a garden. There could be so many really valuable life skills that could be taught at school that aren't right now.

How to live a life in service of others. Yeah. Right? So my children, two of my children, go to Catholic school. and it's less about Jesus and Catholicism, but it's much more about teaching your kids the importance of humility and the importance of living a life and service of others.

And I think if you have that as a core principle in how you live and how you learn, that's going to help society thrive. Like I actually don't think the majority of Americans are divided. I think most people care about their neighbors. It was sort of like a, I don't want to say, say a beautiful byproduct of COVID, but when COVID hit and when people who do what I do for a living were not, we're no longer in newsrooms because in newsrooms, they tend to be circular, like we

obsess over, over stories and ideas, but we're all talking to one another. And then COVID hit, and we were out there living in our houses, working from home, and we learned so much about our community. We learned so many, I worked on so many stories during COVID that I wouldn't have if I wouldn't, right? So I remember when everything got shut down. small businesses unilaterally got shut down. Okay? But big box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot and Target were left open, right? Because the idea was, well, they're selling essential goods.

But they weren't just selling essential goods. You could walk into a Target and you could buy a boogie board and a beach chair and a puzzle and makeup. And all these small businesses were going out of business by the day because they couldn't survive. And so I think that when you leave just this narrow environment, so school, right now is just teaching you academics, right? Like when you're in a newsroom and you're just following the latest headline, you're not realizing all the things around. And those are the stories that need to be told and the people you need to talk about. And I think that's important in education. It's important in our professions to get out of just these lanes that we're in

and be aware of our environment. And if we're aware of our environment, if we actively practice goodwill, I think we'll all start to succeed more. And that is something that can be nurtured in a school setting. Yes. Because the schools can reflect the values of a community. And if a community has those values, it's not about church and state. It's, you know, it's about values. The problem right now is, I guess different people would argue what their different values are.

But there are universals. They're common sense universals that everyone can agree on. If you do not have decency and respect for your fellow man and woman, you have nothing. Right? This whole idea like, it's about survival of the fittest and the strongest economy. You have no economy if you have no trust. But even for me, in banking, I didn't have a background in finance. I was the only person in my training program that didn't go to an Ivy League school. But what I did understand was relationships.

And if you can get people to trust you, if you can help them get from point A to point B, you're going to get a lot of business done. And some of like the most ridiculous, absurd ways that even in my really early days in banking, And when I was 21, I knew nothing about corporate bonds or derivatives, but I figured out I worked with a bunch of 45-year-old guys that needed to take clients out three to four nights a week. And so as a 21-year-old, I made friends with every Mater D, every hostess, every doorman. As much as I read the Financial Times, I really read Timeout Magazine and figured out every hot place, and I made reservations every night.

And I said to them, you can't go to this restaurant without a girl at the table. They're never going to give it. This nightclub is never going to give a table to six. guys. I'm going to have to come to. And so when I was... So you literally got a seat at the table. Literally a seat at the table and not just like in a conference room during the day. No, with all these hedge fund managers for, you know, from 7 p.m. until midnight or 1 a.m. and got to know them and build relationships in my 20s. I eventually left Credit Suisse. I went to Deutsche Bank for eight years. Now 14, 15 years in. I came to NBC to be the weekend anchor of the Today Show and to be an anchor on

MSNBC. I knew nothing about politics. I had no background. But I joined in 2015, 16. So as Donald Trump became the candidate, it was strangely advantageous for me because I was one of the only people covering politics that knew him. I knew Donald Trump. I knew Jared. I knew Ivanka. I knew senior advisor. He's he had Dina Powell and Gary Cohn. I knew them for years. So it was sort of a weird advantage that I had. But it also kind of spoke to, I remember when I first started covering politics, I went to Brooklyn to go to Hillary Clinton's headquarters, and I waited in the lobby for about an hour. And then when I went to go inside,

the person who I was going to meet wasn't there. And then I met the person below them and the person below them. And it was like this onion that I couldn't, you know, I was such an outsider in a... You were being passed off. Being passed off in this total DC insider's world. And I was never going to... It was going to take me forever to infiltrate it.

And then you compare that. And this is not a compliment of him. but this just speaks to Donald Trump's style, you can pick up the phone and call the guy. And during the 2016 election, he was calling... I'd like you to pick up the phone and call the guy right now. Let's go. Right now?

I'm totally kidding. Okay. There's actually quite a funny story that I called him right after his rally at Madison Square Garden five days before the election, and I couldn't believe it. He answered the phone. And I called and I said... Oh, Stephanie.

He was... And I'm like... And I just said... Deptard. Pretty much. And I said... It's five days before the election. You just offended a whole lot of people in this country.

Do you want to do an interview? He didn't. But sort of that raw connection is, I think, what's drawn so many people to him. Not a compliment, but just an observation. I don't actually take issue with President Trump or this, in theory, doge effort to say, let's make the government more efficient. Everybody would agree, man, the government seems too fat. There must be waste.

Sure. But government is not supposed to be set up like a business, right? There's this idea right now that like capitalism works. And if we set up government, if we put business people in to run the government, wouldn't it be great? The answer is no. Okay? If you think about when the Dow was founded, none of those companies exist today, right? Businesses are-

You mean the Tao like the ancient Chinese philosophy or the Dow Jones? The Dow Jones Industrial average. Because you're on a soul boom podcast. Yes, I am. Sorry. Government, it shouldn't be run like business, right? The government is a framework that should be there to ensure that people are physically safe, socially free, and financially secure. And when I say financially secure, I do not mean that the government should be giving handouts.

I mean, the government should have in place regulations to make sure that when you put your money in a bank will be safe. And you're going to take it out, correct? Or to ensure that the social security system that you've paid into for decades. So what you're saying is the purpose of government is a different purpose than a business. The purpose of a business is to make money for its shareholders, provide a service to consumers, and report to a board. But the purpose of government is quite different. It's to provide a safety net for 300 million Americans so that their consumer protections are enforced.

They have some social security. They know that their tax dollars are being spent in a certain way. And I agree with you 100%. I think that this whole Doge thing is like, of course we want to cut down, waste in government. And of course there's waste in government. Look at the Pentagon. I mean, you just, you know, in the, you know, $10,000 toilets and whatnot. And the rumors are Legion, USAID, for example, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that could be cut back. Billions of dollars, but it's like something has a pimple and you're cutting the head off. And so worse than that.

Like, I'm sure we're going to find, they are going to find some federal grant somewhere. I'm sure they're going to find a federal grant that went to a community theater that did a version of guys and dolls where the guys were drag queens and the dolls were nine binary llamas. And that grant is going to make every headline everywhere. I saw the production and it was amazing. It's so disturbing for me and where I think journalism matters so much right now is not to judge Donald Trump or not to judge Elon Musk, but just to hold a mirror of. up and demand transparency. I was at the NBA All-Star Weekend, so I saw all sorts of people from Silicon Valley,

all sorts of very successful people, who were like, oh, Stephanie, don't be hysterical. And I'm not hysterical. And they said, don't you think we're lucky to have the greatest businessman of our time willing to go to Washington and do this? And to that, I say, Elon Musk and his seven businesses

have $20 billion in government contracts. He has not been confirmed, by the Senate. He has not walked away from his businesses. He has huge conflicts of interest. Years ago when Hank Paulson became the Treasury Secretary, he left Goldman Sachs, where he was the chairman and CEO. Can you imagine if the chairman of a bank was our Treasury Secretary at the same time? But not only the point that you also missed in there is that the success of a lot of his businesses that come from government contracts, and he's dismantling the government that has made him so successful. If he wants to dismantle NASA, NASA gives him the contracts for SpaceX. Oh, my friend,

all of these things that are getting dismantled, I believe, is with a purpose. Because once the government is broken down to its studs, that's the opportunity to come in and privatize. No doubt there are conversations being had about, oh, there's problems at the FAA. Maybe that can be done on a private basis, and I'm not reporting that. And I know that, you know, we're going to talk about, you know, unhappiness with the news media these days. I can tell you, for me, everything that I make, I have the goal. I want to help people get better and smarter. Whatever it is, that's the goal. I think that things appeared a lot more liberal and maybe got more liberal during the era of Trump because things were so unprecedented, because we were dealing day in and day out with fact-checking

a person who was pushing out exaggerations or things that were completely untrue. every day. I think that COVID hit, and it was unprecedented covering it. What has happened in the last year and a half with President Biden, with President Biden choosing to run, with the way Kamala Harris became a candidate, the American people weren't happy with it. Forty percent of Americans don't trust mainstream media. Why is that? How did we get here? Listen, we are seeing a huge loss in trust of all of our institutions. It's the media, it's medicine, it's banking. It's a huge problem because when you think about democracy and all of these pillars, they need to stand tall. They need to stand strong. And sort of losing that trust is not by accident. It's by design.

If you remember when President Trump was running the first time, Steve Bannon once said, the goal is to blow the whole thing up. And so I think that you've got mistakes made or things starting to slip while at the same time there's a concerted effort to destroy the media. because the media, the news media, is, in my opinion, the last light of defense of holding power accountable, right? And you had a bit of a perfect storm, right? President Trump won, and tons of people were shocked or angry or frustrated and they're tuning out. And at the same time, you have the Elon Musk media machine because they want you to leave traditional media and they want you to go to X, which is a bastion of misinformation, or there is no fact-checking. So it's a perfect,

storm of people saying, I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I'm tuning out, I'm disconnecting, and then you have a force pushing it. But even in the last two weeks, what we need to do is just cover what's happening in America, right? We have to cover Democrats trying to figure out what their lane is and how they're going to get back on their feet, and we have to simply cover what this White House is doing. And I think if we do that, right, there's that saying, you know, trust is gained in raindrops and it's lost in buckets. And it's not a, yes, you're not incorrect that the media has lost trust. This is where I would push back. When I see this kind of insight and passion being directed at the current administration and the lack of this kind of insight and passion being directed

at the previous administration, where, again, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about left-leaning news media organizations. We're kind of like, la, la, la, la, la, everything's fine. Look, the environment's, I mean, look, the economy's great. La, la, la, immigration's not that much of a problem. And really being Cleopatra, queen of denial. Thank you. Boom.

I would push back on immigration. I can specifically remember when Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis, Santas of Florida sent those buses of migrants to different cities, different parts of the country, which ended up being politically genius for both of them. The media regularly talked about the fact that Biden was not doing enough in his first two and a half years on immigration. Even though in the last year and a half, you're seeing the numbers go down, he just wasn't doing enough.

And you saw it in how people voted. You had places like the Bronx, you had places like New Jersey, people who said, I'm not happy with immigration in this country. And that's why Democrats are scrambling to recalibrate now. But I do think that was covered. And I, you know, I interviewed president, excuse me, Vice President Harris in September. And I remember asking her, I said, nobody's eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. However, there are lots of people who live there who aren't happy with the amount of immigrants who have moved there legally or not, because now their hospitals are stretched and their schools are stretched. And that's the same thing in tons of communities in the

country. You know, what do you say to that? And I remember her answer was, well, we had this immigration bill and Donald Trump blocked it. And she's right. So there's nothing to put, she's right, Donald Trump did block the bill. But that doesn't address how people in the country feel. And just getting mired in, well, we tried to pass this thing and it didn't, it didn't happen. What Republicans have been successful at, and they have not sought. any of these issues for the American people, but they're willing to say some of the ugly, not ugly, they're willing to talk about some of the unpleasant things that people feel that when people say those things out loud, they're immediately called, you know, xenophobic

or racist. And we have to make space for how people feel. Do you know what I'm saying? 100%. Right? My mom and dad live in New Jersey. Most people, a large majority of people who have a problem with the current immigration crisis and have for the last five or ten years are not racist,

but often kind of tarred as racist by the liberal left. I will tell you, if you go on the internet, there's loads of clips that will come after me. I've heard about this internet thing. What is it? After the election, I had a, not a debate, but a conversation with a friend of mine who was on the show. And I was making the point that I do not think Donald Trump's win means

that half the country is racist. I don't believe that. this person really, really came at me that that's easy for me to say as a white woman of privilege that the country's not racist. But I think that's a very quick way to alienate people.

Like I grew up in New Jersey and I can tell you that when lots of people in New Jersey now drive over the bridge and it costs, I can't remember because I have easy pass, I think $16. And when they hear stories

that immigrants who live here get a cell phone or they get to stay in a hotel, that infuriates people because we are living in this moment where, not a moment, in general, everybody wants to feel like life is fair. And right now, lots of different groups of people feel like it's good for this group, it's good for that group, but it's unfair to me. And I think with the immigration crisis, we didn't give, we as a country or political leaders didn't give enough space to people who say, they're not necessarily anti-immigrant, but they're saying, I'm American.

I was born here. I went to school here. I work here. I pay taxes. I cannot make ends meet because you're seeing the middle class get squeezed and squeezed. And they're pointing to other groups that are getting support from the government and the people they're pointing to are migrants. And we need to give space to sort of hear those people, hear what their needs are. And instead, a lot of those people have felt like when they voice their opinions, they're treated like they're xenophobic and they're racist and they're anti-immigrant. And I don't think they are. A lot of people have come on this show. and talked about the toxic relationship to social media, the dangers of screens, the mental health connection to screens and to news and to doom scrolling because we all know that what gets clicks, what gets people turning back in after the commercial, next up after the commercial, you know,

are your carpets killing you? I know that's more of a local news thing, right? And I get it. But so many people have come on this show, I can't even tell you, half our guests and said, I don't watch the news anymore. And my life is so much better. I turn it off. I took Apple News off my phone.

I don't even subscribe. I don't go on social media. And I don't read nudist articles. And I'm raising bees and growing poppies and, you know, washing my dishes and meditating. And my life is so much better and richer for it. So I know you've got a strong answer to that. Well, I think you said the most important thing. Uh-huh.

Ritcher. That's a very rich thing to say. because people of privilege can afford to tune out. Do you know what I'm saying? And I think that, you know, just this weekend, I was at NBA All-Star, I said, and I participated in a conversation where someone said, listen, the two-party system doesn't work.

That's fair. I buy that. Let's have Elon Musk go in there. Let's shake it up and let's see how things work out. In theory, I totally hear that. But who's going to be hurt? That's exactly the thing. Who's going to suffer? That's exactly.

When the social safety net is dismantled, who's going to suffer? Or how about this? Tech bros and Wall Street traders, no. No. Actors in their fancy burned-down houses. If you were to say to me, 70, having a department of education sit in the federal government doesn't work because education has different needs in different parts of the country. I would actually buy that argument.

If they said, let's make it local, I would buy that. But they're not saying that. They're not saying, here's what the department. of education does on a federal level. We're going to take it out of Washington, and we're going to take this money. To the states. And we're going to take it to the states.

If they said that to me, I'd say, I hear you. Great, let's see how that. But instead, it's a bastion of fraud, waste and, and, I can't think of the third. Corruption. Let's just get rid of it. What if I was a parent of a special needs student? What if I was a parent? What if, what if, what if?

Right. We already know that our teachers were among the most valuable members of society, right? My children's teachers spend more time with my kids than I do. And year after year, we hear about more teachers that have to go to a GoFundMe so they can get school supplies for their classroom. And so the issue is, if you want to make cuts, if you want to make changes, let's do it. But let's be open with the American people. And my point is, for everyone who's like, I just want to tune out of news, be careful what you wish for because people just voted to blow up the system. And I know the system's imperfect and you're

not happy with it. But do you want it totally blown up? Because that, and I'm not saying it's where we're headed, but it could be. And I'm not asking people to activate and I'm not asking them to be a Stephanie Ruhl fan, but I'm just saying, I'm begging you right now. I don't care what, where you're getting it from. Know the source of your news. Be informed and be engaged. Because right now, we are living in such a moment of misinformation? Just the other day, this guy I didn't talk to in a long time, he sent me a text. He knew that my wife and I do work in Haiti in education. And they're like, can you believe this?

I'm just so glad for the work you guys are doing. And it was like a little clip meme, and it had Chelsea Clinton, and it said the Clinton's got $85 million from USAID for their work in Haiti. They spent it all in themselves, and three million of it was used for Chelsea Clinton's wedding. And I immediately like Googled it and looked at like 10 news articles saying there's 100% wrong, zero proof of this. Here's how this little like graphic meme, which looked very official. You know, they're really good at making a little graphic where it looks like, oh, there's a chart and there's a money and there's a spreadsheet and there's a shocked face.

And I wrote the guy back. I'm like, dude, it would have taken you like 10 seconds to just fact check this. And this is absolutely not true. Now, Did the Clintons probably waste some money in Haiti and waste money through USAID? Probably, who knows what's really going on there? I've heard some rumors, but it's not this massive scale of corruption that funded Chelsea Clinton's wedding. But this is happening not daily, hourly. But this is why this idea of like, I'm so much happier being disconnected and disengaged. I'm begging people, don't choose me.

I'm not saying, tune it to me at 11 o'clock at night. Care more. Care about your news sources. Like, when you were mad that the Washington Post didn't endorse a candidate, dropping your subscription doesn't help, right? You're mad at Jeff Bezos. You can take it out in different ways. But the journalists at the Washington Post are the best in class. And they're doing such important work.

Well, they drop their Washington Post subscriptions, but they keep ordering Amazon one click over and over. That's exactly my point. Like, you're still ordering your Amazon. And so I just think this is such an important moment of journalism. Right? in the first week, the defense secretary kicked out of, you know, sort of having a permanent booth at the Pentagon, kicked out NBC and MSNBC, I think the Washington Post, the New York Times, seeing a number of organizations.

But it doesn't mean that we're not covering them. It means we're not going to have a booth there. I just think, you know, accurate news reporting is so important and know that people who are pushing misinformation want you to believe that it's not important. And the last point I would make would be when you talk to, about like, oh, and they make it look really official. This goes back to where you get your news from, right? What we have to go through in terms of legal and standards is a huge mountain as opposed to

social media, right? I could create a website today called Patriotic Moms Who Love America, and I could create a Facebook group, and I could write an article today that says, if your child gets milk out of the school lunch program, they're going to become a transgeny. gender, I don't know what, by the time they're 15, okay? I could post that on patriotic moms for America, and it could go on Facebook. By Friday, when I see my mother on the weekend and she'll say, are you letting, are you letting the kids have milk in school because I've heard terrible things about milk in school?

And so the misinformation is real. How do we fix this? Because it's, there's been outcry about this for years and it's not getting any better. Well, it's not getting any better because, and I blame. all factions of the government, we still have not regulated social media companies, right? The social media companies are bigger platforms than any news. We're sitting here dumping on. You're like, I'm really unhappy with MSNBC, Stephanie.

And I hear that. Is that how I come across? Yes, I hear that. But MSNBC is this big, and you have got the megaphone of these social media platforms and what they can do, and they are completely unregulated. Under the guys, under the name of free speech. Under the name of free speech. Yeah. So they can say anything on there.

They could say pro-Nazi propaganda. Yeah. Under the guise of free speech. Now, Democrats didn't do anything about it. I mean, they've put together working groups, but never forget the most power. How big the lobbying efforts are of these companies. And my last point to you, and this goes back to capitalism, is we are 15 years and one month from the Citizens United decision being made in the Supreme Court that basically said,

dark money, unlimited corporate money can be flooded into the political system and that's where we are. And so when you think about, oh my goodness. I was actually saying corporations are people and they're allowed to donate to political campaigns. Yes. Think about the business leaders that were flanking President Trump

at the inauguration. It wasn't, they weren't just your average, but we weren't talking Exxon or Walmart. We're talking about the business leaders who run the biggest companies that control information in the world. Right? We're talking Google and Facebook and Amazon, right?

And these business leaders know that President Trump is completely transactional because he's proven that. And they're saying, great, I've got business to do. And I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong. I'm saying this is happening. It's my job to hold the mirror up and shine a light and inform the American people and then they can decide. America decided that they wanted something different. They have something different and we're going to cover it. One of the reasons that we connected when you interviewed me about Soul Boom, there was kind of a brother-sisterhood of an understanding that there is a need to kind of radically spiritualize money, the media, politics, all the topics that you cover.

What does that look like for you? How putting aside like, you don't want to tell the truth here. I want to cover this story well. I want to get the facts right here. You know, I want to shine the truth to power. I want to be a journalist of great integrity. Putting all that aside, like taking the 20,000 foot view, what needs to shift in the human heart to have just and fair capitalism?

What needs to shift in the collective human heart to have politics be respectful and proactive? and help everyone. When you think about it in terms of the big picture, because I know your heart is very invested in kind of wholesale change, a complete perspective shift. Like, where do you go? We need to love more and we need to care more. And I think the word and the idea of love

has this very sort of weak, silly, feminine, sentimental brand, and it shouldn't. Because there is nothing... We need to rebrand the word love. There's nothing more powerful in the world than love. It's what drives everything, right? It's what creates wars. And I just think if we cared about all Americans, right? And if we weren't dismissive of them, and I think if we approached everything through that lens, and for me, my audience, Am I going to screw up? Totally. But when I come in the next day and I apologize, hopefully I've gained enough credibility that people will forgive me for it. You know, I remember it was about six or seven years ago. Mark Zuckerberg, of all people,

did this walking tour, I think, of all 50 states. And his takeaway was people don't trust information. They trust relationships. And so I think if we are lucky enough to have relationships with customers, whether you're a bank, whether you're a store, whether you're in the news media, you need to respect those customers, care about them. And if we just, I'm not saying gave the farm away, but you don't need to do an interview, you don't need to do a gotcha interview and rip somebody's face off.

You don't need to do business with someone and make every last dollar, right? If you actually added an element of humanity and thought everybody is coming from a good place to start, and if you gave people the benefit of the doubt, it's not giving anybody a free pass, but oh, what a better world we'd live in, right? If you put community ahead of self-service. And again, I'm not-

There's some ways to get there because that sounds great, and I'm sure everyone would agree with you. We need more humanity in our interactions. Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of the people kind of currently dismantling the government would say the same thing. And that's what we're trying to do. There's a great government example. Yeah, go ahead. 20 years ago when lawmakers moved their families to Washington,

there was much more respect, congeniality, and bipartisanship. Because you would be on the hill all day battling it out. But when you would leave, you would see one another at the grocery store, at school pickup. And have a casserole together or something. Bring over a covered dish. And as silly as that seems, I don't think it is. I think that's where community lies. And when we talk about sort of those tiny blessings in COVID, it's when people got to know their neighbors.

You know, before COVID hit, I didn't know any of the neighbors on my street. My mom, who comes to the city every weekend, knows all my neighbors. When COVID hit and you need toilet paper, when COVID hit and the person who works at the gas station, who puts themselves at risk every day to make minimum wage, but they're filling your car because nobody else is. My hope was, and I know it impacted me in my life, just this sense of gratitude and community, would lift us. Of course, there's tons of elements now that haven't and we're divided and we're angry when we think about post-COVID. But I don't think that's everywhere. And I think that just our appreciation for one another, we need people at every single job at every post.

And you have to have respect for one another because we all need to exist in that ecosystem for us all to thrive. Are there some other practical steps to get there? What? It's, I mean, I guess that's kind of a lame question. Let me rephrase it. It's like, it's like, it's like it's what, there's no one that would disagree with you, right? And that's where it gets a little weird. There's not a single person on the political right or left that would disagree with you that we need more civility and kindness and community and we need to come together. But what do we do? How do we start the spiritual revolution? Put your phone down and sit with people. truly sit with people. You know, recently I did an event with a very conservative writer, and we were going back and forth. And actually the conversation was about civility. But in it, he said, you know, people just need to relax about Elon Musk.

We should be so grateful. Look at all the things he's uncovered. And I said, can you please tell me what they are? And he got really flustered and worked up. And I said, I'm not arguing with you. tell me one significant program where there was fraud, waste, and abuse that Elon Musk has uncovered. And this guy immediately came swinging back to me and said, here I am.

This is like an MSNBC interview. And like people just keep going right into their corners. And I'm saying, I'm not in a corner. I'm actually standing here with my heart open and my arms open to you. Like, we are all so lucky. We were talking about Haiti. you and I both spent a lot of time in Haiti. And you know what's so sad about the Haitian dream?

The Haitian dream is to leave Haiti because they don't have hope in their country. And as flawed and broken as the United States is, you and I both live the American dream. We do. And lots of people here still do. Some don't. Many don't, but lots people do.

If we are lucky enough to be born in the United States and have all the liberties that we do, we owe it to ourselves and our country to care about people more and to put the phone down because here's the thing. A nuanced, complicated truth doesn't fit in a push notification.

You know, it fits in a push notification, something to piss you the fuck off. And the algorithm has figured out that the only thing that sells better than sex is rage. And they know all of your trigger points. They know everything that's going to set you off. And so they are just feeding you content that's going to get you more and more fired up.

So my request is, if you are lucky enough to be an American, right, we are humans, right? We have a band of nerves in the middle of our brains. It's called the corpus colossum. It connects the right side of the brain and the left side of the brain. Tons of other animals in nature don't have it. We have the ability not to be triggered, not to act on instinct. So my plea to you is, let's not act on instinct. Let's take a moment.

Let's use that meditative breathing that we have. Let's take a moment and say, here's this piece of information. Let me think about it. Let me Google it. And let me give a person the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to hold power to account. But what if you just woke up and came from a kinder place?

And you know what? I have definitely been burned by being an open person. Speaking too freely or speaking too casually or letting people into my life. And that has definitely burned me. me as a public person, but I still wouldn't change because I think that getting to live your life with an open mind and an open heart is such a better way to live than with a closed door and sharp elbows. That's so beautifully said. Tell us about this amazing doctor that you introduced me to in California who does the morning cold plunges and meditations. Who is he? And, and, and

And I know that he's kind of started a love movement. What's your relationship there? His name is Dr. Habib Sadeghi. And maybe we should get him on the show. You definitely should. He changed my life in that I think when you grow up professionally in very competitive industries, you are trained to believe that you should have the sharpest elbows. And lots of us who are goal-oriented or successful have within us a little bit of narcissism,

a little bit of imposter syndrome, and that puts really big walls up. And I can definitely say during my years working in banking, I had the sharpest elbows, and I got in every fight there was to get in. And what a lonely way that is to live, right? That lifestyle of like, I'm going to be the winner. But if you win alone, that also means that you lose a loan.

And winning on a team is also great, but losing on a team is such a better place to be. than losing a loan. And I met this doctor because I was doing a conference in California once. And, you know, it was a bunch of kind of like really out there, integrative medicine, kind of spiritual people. And I wasn't really buying it because there is a lot of snake oil in there. And especially in California, you have a lot of people with an unlimited amount of money, pouring that money into this fountain of youth that's selling you nothing. Eat salamander oil and put it on my nipples.

Correct. But really, it was from Dr. Sadeghie that I really learned about the power of love. He started this love button movement. He was taken to Parkland, Florida, right after the shooting, to meet with families. And not just to be with them in their grieving, but to find a place of forgiveness. And it's funny because this strange... You know what's so sad? As you said, Parkland, Florida shooting.

And in my head, I'm like, wait, which shooting is that again? Exactly. Is that the nightclub or the school or the synagogue? that's where we're at right now. But when I met this Dr. Sadeghie, he went to Parkland. He went to Parkland and he started this movement of what can you do to take your grieving and reconnected to love? How do we love each other more to start to sew together?

And the answer isn't, yes, we have to hold people accountable. But just saying we have monsters in society and it's a one-off, we just have to eradicate monsters, isn't the answer. The answer is, how do we create a society from the time we are born to the time we die to love and care more about one another? Because I can't help but think what were all the days, the weeks, the months leading up to these horrible, heinous attacks? What was that shooter's life like? So if we entered life and said, what if we just cared about people more?

What if our door was open? would we end up with these horrible, heinous situations? And so I've learned from this doctor, what if you realize that, right, look at RFK. People are so furious, and I don't know him. I've never met him. I've never interviewed him. You can hold two things at the same time, and people are unwilling to do that, right? You can say, America does need to get healthy again.

Look at our bodies. Look at processed food. Look what it's doing to us. Look at my children's fingers after they eat hot Cheetos. That shouldn't be in their bodies, okay? You can hold space for that. And at the same time, say, hey, buddy, we don't want to bring polio back. But what I learned from this doctor is, let's embrace being nuanced and complicated.

Let's stop saying, rain, you need to be lefty, Lucy, you live in California. You have to fit this category. And Stephanie, you're on MSNBC, so you have to fit in this category. But you came from all, like, we're all complicated beings. Let's give space to that. When you implement meditation in your life and not in a huge overarching way that controls your life, but when you actually take the time to do that in the morning for 10 minutes or at night for 10 minutes or both, what you do is you create a little cushion in your reaction time to people.

So you don't, right? I, unfortunately, probably because I came from banking, shoot straight. and I come at you fast. You know, my husband, office, it's like two barrels to the chest. Like when I left banking and I went into TV, I had this really unattractive habit

when I'm done saying something on the phone. I wouldn't say goodbye. Just hang the phone up. And it's because that's how people in banking communicate with each other. And my husband and I both, it's how we communicate. So I go into TV and people are like,

what kind of monster are you? But it's, if you just take the time to just have that extra cushion and say, here's what I want to say, here's what my intention is, how is it going to translate to the person I'm speaking to? And just adding that element. And I say that coming from, I'm a monster, right? I'm a yell and scream, New Jersey, hang the phone up.

But if you just add the element of, here's what my goal is, how am I going to get this person to hear my goal and get on the same page? And the answer isn't to eradicate them, talk down to them, and call them a pathetic loser. Lift them, lift all of them. I want to ask you a question. Ready? Think about how you felt. When you were at the height of the office, right?

You should have been like your most centered, your most joyful. Yeah. And I'm going to guess. Were you? Not at all. Were you obsessed with how many opportunities you got, where your office was, and how nice the executive producer was to you, or whomever? 100%.

When I was at the height of the height of, office success, you know, winning Emmys, hosting Saturday at Live, getting movie deals, it wasn't enough. And my ego was activated and I was pretty unpleasant to be around for a while. And when I look back on it, man, do I kick myself? Like, God damn it, Rain, seriously, with all the work you've done, you couldn't have just said, this is great. I spent 10 years as a broke-ass actor here in New York City. doing a lot of bad theater, some good theater. And now, like, this is it. This is the dream.

Like, it doesn't get better than Dwight Shrut and the office. And all of these doors opening, like, enjoy every minute of it. And instead, you know, I spent years in this kind of, like, petulant, not enough grasping. Same. And I'll tell you, you know, working in TV, it's a really complicated business. Yeah. because, you know, only two tushies fit in front of that screen, fit in front of that camera.

I'm saying only a limited amount of people, like in what I... Tushy on the camera, I don't understand. No, but I'm saying in what I do, only so many people, there's only so many hours a day, only so many people can anchor a show, right? There's not enough hours. But if you start to create an environment where you say, I'm going to celebrate other people,

I'm going to try to create something where everyone can succeed. This goes back to capitalism can exist, but you can exist and start to say, but you know what, my cup is full. This is enough. And let's make room for others. And I think if we actually make this conscious effort we can get there, and the comparison I would give,

you're at the top of your game, top of your game at the office. The world is obsessed with Dwight Shrewd. And think about how frustrated, annoyed, and angry you were at the time. I think back to when I was a student, I remember I studied in Kenya for a semester. When you go to the farthest remote communities in the Masai Mara, communities where they don't have currency, where they don't have competition. Every person in the community has a different role.

Think about how simple and happy those people's lives are. And so I'm saying there has to be a way where we can take an element of just saying, look at the success we have, take a minute, appreciate it, and move on. But in this social media environment, even if you're getting to go on vacation this summer, when you go on social media, somebody else is. somewhere nicer and it's pissing you off. Sure. So what we can do as people who are lucky enough to have the privilege that we do,

just take a minute to say, you know what, this is enough. Let's make room for somebody else. Yeah. That's my hope for us. Because I like you, trust me, every day I wrestle with, this stinks. People are mad at the media. Trust is gone. Like, what am I going to do? You know, you're calling me a lib-tard, blah, blah, blah. But you know what?

I was doing... Not you. The universal you. The universal you. But every night, for an hour, I get to have a television show where I connect with the American people. And every night I end my show, I try to with a really good story of inspiration about a person you've never heard of. And so I just think, yes, we can dwell on the angry and we can dwell on the hate. But I just want us to acknowledge the algorithm knows rage sells. Stop fucking buying it. Where do you find rage-free news?

What's the best source for news? Where do people turn? 11th hour on MSNBC with Stephanie Rule. There's not rage-free news because this is a complicated time, right? This is a complicated time. And some people would say there's a lot to be enraged about on behalf of people that are suffering. And so... Absolutely.

Yeah. Rage, yeah. Yes. Yes. And people, listen, yesterday was the National Day of protest and people took to the streets. All I'm saying is, I want your rights. rage to be rooted in fact. That's all I want.

And right now there is so much misinformation and there's so much you know, there's so many people with their arms folded, unwilling to have open minds and open hearts, right? I'm not complimenting the president, but he's the president.

And everybody in Congress, you have a goal, find a way. I'm not saying to bend the knee, but to work with one another because what doesn't work is the government not working. Yeah.

So this idea that like trust is lost and it's over, that's not the case. We are in this moment of transition. Okay. We have heard that people want, people like a long form podcast style, right? They want to hear from people that they like, people that they trust. They don't just want news presented to them as information. They want insight. And I think that we're finding our way there. And I think that it's a process. And I think we're getting there, and I think that we have to be aware that there are bad actors that want to blow up the system, but that's not the majority of the American people. So I say,

get yourself back into the news. You know the news that you like. And by the way, news organizations are on notice, right? They have to get it right. They have to get it right because the audience is going to leave them, or they have to get it right, and they're going to get sued. And so I think that people are, this is a moment where all of us need to be our best. selves because we need to hold power to account. Americans want the country to be the best it can be. And Americans are also demanding that they want to get their media in different ways. And I think 40% of young Americans get it from TikTok. Well, guess what? Like, like status quo is never good. But the people who are panicked about the status quo being shaken up are the dead wood who are on top,

who want to keep their position or people inside who are hiding. If you're somebody who's just a staunch defender of the status quo no matter what, well, then that's a problem, right? You should always want the house to be cleaned. You should always be open for a review. You should always be open for an audit. But when we're getting reviewed right now, it's hard. It's really hard. And what I have to do in my position is say, what did I say, what did I do that was wrong? And if I got it wrong, I should apologize for it. But I should also take responsibility for it. Right? You know, people make mistakes. These are unprecedented times. And all we can do, is say, I'm going to try to get smarter and better tomorrow.

One of the central teachings of the 12-step recovery program is when we are wrong, promptly admit it. I always think about, God, could you imagine if everyone in America operated with that system in mind? Not just admitted it, promptly admitted it. You know, can you apologize better and faster when you make a mistake? It eliminates, it takes ego out of the equation. it builds bonds of forgiveness and connectivity, and it has a real integrity to it. Think about the importance of forgiveness, right?

While we're on this quest to cancel one another, people are forgetting all of us could get canceled at any moment. Right, right? Someone could wake up tomorrow and say, you know, with the guise of being anonymous, and say, you know, in 1999, Stephanie Ruhl was in my training program at Credit Suisse, and she was so sharp, elbowed and competitive.

I left and it gave me PTSD and I never came back. Or she got me fired. She got me fired. Right? And that person doesn't have to identify their name or their face. But they'll get a headline and someone's going to say, well, she does seem kind of hardcore. When she was sitting next to Joy Reid on the set one day, I felt like she gave her the stink

eye. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what I'm saying to you is never discount the importance of goodwill. I think that if you do your best to care about people every day, and not gratuitously just shit on one another, and actually care about people, not when the spotlights are on, then I think when you're in the hot seat,

Goodwill takes care of you. I do. And just be aware of how many people out there in the media landscape are provocateurs just for the sake of it. And just remember, if you don't allow yourself to be provoked, do you know what the provocateur is?

Nothing. dare to be boring, right? I don't go viral. I'm not that hot. I don't get in giant fights. So that's going to, I guess, keep me from being the hottest thing out there. And maybe that's okay.

Don't you feel that way about yourself? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I watched you this year, rather than get in Twitter wars, say, you know what? I'm going to put my pencil down and I'm going to leave.

You could have not done that. You could have gotten in... So I quit Twitter because of the massive amounts of misinformation that was really hateful and racist, especially around the Haitians in Ohio. And I just realized that the platform itself was just too toxic to interact with. But I haven't given up on trying to make social media a better place to build an audience and to, you know, to sponsor and inspire conversation.

Then let me compliment you. You had a choice. Right then, you could have gone on a Twitter war. you would have gotten way more headlines. You could have gone on cable TV. You could, right? You would have had your name everywhere, everywhere, but you didn't. You said, I'm unhappy with this.

I'm tapping out. But you didn't give up on social media because you believe in it. You're caring about it in constructive ways. So you right there are the perfect example of how we're rebuilding. Right? Things are breaking and we're not leaving things broken. We're saying, okay, here's the parts. How do we rebuild it?

Who are the people? who are the institutions that we actually believe in the bones. We're not happy with some things that happened. We believe in the bones. Let's give the feedback and let's get to a higher place. And if you want to interact with Stephanie Ruhl on Twitter at around midnight, Eastern Time, send her some nasty tweets and she will respond to you in person. And then I wonder the next day why we or me find myself responding to the hate faster than I

respond to the compliments. That's a character flaw. Right, right. Yeah, that makes sense. Stephanie, you're brilliant. Thank you so much. This was a great conversation. I really thank you.

I know you're one of the busiest women in Manhattan, and thanks for swinging by our pathetic little Soul Boom studios. I thought I was in Barbara Walter's lighting set. I just wanted to do it. Thanks for coming. The Soul Boom podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.

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