Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari, and Kmele talk about their optimism with the peace deal in Gaza, more on Megyn Kelly and recent feedback from our audience.

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

Isaac, Ari, and Kmele talk about their optimism with the peace deal in Gaza. Then Isaac puts Kmele in the hot seat and asks him questions about his interview with Megyn Kelly. The guys then talk about the Tangle audience and some of the backlash they receive daily from all sides of the political spectrum. Lastly they share their weekly grievances.Tangle LIVE tickets are available!We’re excited to announce that our third installment of Tangle Live will be held on October 24, 2025, at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in Irvine, California. If you’re in the area (or want to make the trip), we’d love to have you join Isaac and the team for a night of spirited discussion, live Q&A, and opportunities to meet the team in person. You can read more about the event and purchase tickets here.Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Need an escape from the city that actually feels like an escape? Just an hour from the GTA, Waterloo Region offers something truly unexpected. We're talking eerie corn mazes tucked behind farm gates, hidden garden patios where the cocktails tastes like stories, and indie festivals popping up in places you'd never expect. One minute, you're walking through an advanced tech hub. The next? A harvest ho-down with goats, alpacas, and a mechanical bowl. And yeah, both feel right.

Waterloo Region is where Old World Charm meets new school energy. Canada's largest October Fest celebration, interactive light festivals, craft cider sips, vintage shops, and maybe even a horse-drawn buggy cruising past your latte stop. This fall, don't just go somewhere. Go somewhere unexpected. Stay Curious. Explore Waterloo Region. Plan your trip at staycurious.ca. At MedCan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health,

from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body check-up that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan. Live well for life. Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. There are other means and ways in which we can lead ourselves out of this crisis that we're in in this world today, and it doesn't have to be a raging voice.

Introducing a Radical Act of Hope, the podcast where Inuk Climate Justice Advocate Sila Wat-Cluce invites us into her world. Subscribe to a Radical Act of Hope wherever you get your podcasts and visit Climatesolutions.ca to learn more about how the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions is supporting climate action. Coming up, some optimism around the peace deal in Gaza. We put Camille in the hot seat for his. interview with Megan Kelly, and we talk a lot about our audience, you guys, and some of the

fury we get from the masses. It's a good one. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. evening and welcome to the suspension of the rules podcast, a place where the takes are hot, the heads are cool, the hosts are handsome. Yes, you're making it here out. We love it. Yeah, I'm doing my own thing. Maybe we should just do something new every week. I'm your trusty, reliable host who goes on vacation regularly. Yeah, Isaac Saul. I'm here with Ari Weitzman, Tangle Managing Editor, Camille Foster. or at large, fellas.

It's Columbus Day tomorrow when this comes out. We were just having a nice conversation about the acceptability of Italian-American slurs off there. So we're celebrating in our own. We all celebrate in our own way. Yeah. Camilla, you want to share... I'm just surprised you called it Columbus Day

because some people call it Indigenous People Day. I just call it Culture War Day. So happy Cultural War Day, everybody. Funny enough, we had a brief It was brief. I mean, literally two or three exchanges, which for our team is brief, about whether we should hedge. I'm still a Columbus Day guy. And I feel like the Columbus Day slash, Columbus Day slash Indigenous People's Day is just like, it's too clunky.

It feels weird. It's honestly a solution designed to create more arguments than solve anything. Like, we should, if we want to have an Indigenous People's Day, good idea. We should have it. its own day. So it doesn't have to be like a cultural word of a division thing. I think you've got to pick your lane, you know? Right. And my lane's America, all right? But we should have to pick our lane on this one, you know? Like we, I mean, Columbus Day, it's like the discovery of America is the thing that we traditionally have been celebrating on that day. And

the discovery of America, shortly thereafter, discovery of America by Europeans, rackets. created some incredible, incredible strife and problems. Yeah, listen, I'm a believer in Italian-American slurs, not Italian-American erasure, okay? That's where I draw the line, right? And it's probably too early in the podcast for me to say something as insane as humans are indigenous to Earth, the end. I don't think the concept is fraught.

And yet. You should just tweet that out tomorrow morning, Camille, with no context. I probably already have. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, I am thrilled to be back here. Italy is a beautiful country. I was in Florence, not to brag, but, you know.

Yes. Great place, good food, ancient, everything. You know, I had a realization over there. I'm just going to put this out there to the world. Yeah, yeah. We sort of, like 100, 200 years ago, we lived in this era where when rich people died, when, like, super wealthy people died, they would just leave all their money

to, like, build me the coolest thing ever. When did rich people stop doing that? Everywhere you go in Florence, there's like a church. I went to a synagogue. Biggest synagogue in Southern Europe. Beautiful synagogue in Florence. I went for the high holidays because they're for Yom Kippur. And it's a museum, too.

And I was reading about the synagogue. And there's this super rich Jew who was going to die. And his entire estate, he just said, build me a synagogue worthy of Florence. That's so badass. Rich people never do that anymore. I wish more that we need to bring back like the estate, you know, the Bobilly Gardens, just like do the thing. You have a bunch of money when you die, leave it to building, constructing something beautiful.

I don't know why more wealthy people don't do that anymore. but this is my call to action for them. Yeah, I actually have a real love and affection for Italy. I think it was my first European trip was to Italy shortly after college. It's me and my then young wife and our then early marriage. And it was just this extraordinarily profound experience for me, in particular going to Florence and visiting some of the museums there and seeing this block, this block that are master artists.

had been working on and it is yet unfinished and you can see something beautiful emerging from the block and I don't know what it is about that experience but that moment among all of the moments and we did the thing where we went started in Rome we wanted to go to Amples as well and didn't have an opportunity to but started in Rome trained up to Florence and then went to Venice and Como and and and Milan as well and it just the the depth of of the history there, certainly the architecture, just the whole thing gave me this profound sense of just how deep the human story is

in a way that you just don't really get when you're walking around in a much younger country in the United States, where you see buildings that have all of the kind of aesthetic qualities in Washington, D.C. They're kind of modeled after these buildings, but they were built just the other day, and it's not quite the same.

there's something different about coming from the airport, driving into Rome, and watching the Coliseum rise in the distance. Just like a really profound experience for me. So I'm glad to hear about your account because it reminds me of that moment. I hadn't thought about it in a while. I feel like I really have to balance the upper crest here and say I live in real Italy, man, seven months amongst the working class. Yeah. When I was in the Ostianse, neighbor of Rome working my 500 euro a month internship at a

at NATO. But was there a municipal worker strike during your very day? No, actually. What happened a lot was they would have to close some of the new lines

that they were building and some of the train stations because every time they tried to excavate to make a new infrastructure project, they would just find some other like priceless ruin. It's like this ongoing joke amongst people that I knew there were, yeah, we're never going to have a third metro line in Rome because it's impossible to not dig up more history

in a literal sense when you're actually building. That's something we can maybe not take for granted here is when we, it's hard enough to build things in the U.S. right now. Yeah, yeah. At least we don't have to unearth another priceless artifact and then not be able to build anymore when we do that. It was really funny when I, it was really funny. I was there, one of my, I was there for a wedding and a friend, another friend of mine who was at the

wedding was staying with his friend who lives in Florence and was like a woman at age, like early 30s. And like the week we got there, there was some huge news story about this like new ancient artifact they'd uncovered in Italy. And she was just like, oh my God, like another ancient art, like send it. She's just like a Florentine like normal attack. She's like send it somewhere else. Like, we don't need more of this. We need, like, a new coffee shop, you know? Like, her, she's, like, so jade. I'm there. I'm just, like, completely blown away by everything. She's just, like, so jaded. Like, oh, great, another museum for this one artifact they dug up that's going to pull a bunch of tourists and whatever. I will say, my favorite thing about

Florence, maybe, this isn't real across all of Italy, because, like, Naples I've been to, and it's, like, almost like, a small version of New York. But in Florence, man, they are on island time. It is like everywhere you go, everybody's moving slow, there's like, you're going to go get a cappuccino, it might take 90 minutes, like the whole experience start to finish. And everybody's just fine with that. I played this pickup basketball game. Middle of the bat, I was at this park, middle of the basketball game, this guy just walks up.

The whole game stops. Everybody daps him up and they do the double kiss on the cheek, like, you know, playing 3V3-5 guys, he gets to me, kind of shakes my hand, looks at me weird, and like tries to say something in English. I'm like, yeah, I'm just a guy who's here. They all know each other. Kisses for everybody. And then he's just on the court, just rolling a spliff in the middle of the basketball game. And they're all just talking for like 10 minutes. Are we just standing here watching this conversation? And then he leaves and the game just starts up and it was like, oh, yeah, nobody's got anywhere to be. We're just hanging out. We're in Florence. Life's good. So I respect that way of life.

I got a little impatient here and there, but by day four or five, I really kind of fell into the rhythm, you know? It was relaxing. Yeah, it's similar experiences, I guess. It was an interesting cultural difference of like I'm going to go out to the bar and just have a drink for a little bit.

And if I went out to the bar with my Italian friends and meant going after dinner, which meant going out at 10 p.m., and then I'd get home at 3.30, just because, like, what's the rush you want to sleep? You'll do it later. Whatever, it's fine. We'll do it in the afternoon tomorrow.

What's the big deal? It occurred to me when I was there because we brought Omri. I was like, do babies go to sleep here later? And it turns out they do. They just, like, they are all their bedtimes all at like 9 or 10 o'clock because parents don't eat dinner until like 8 every night. It's just like, so they just go to bed later and wake up later in Italy. At least that's according to the one woman I asked.

But yeah. I cannot live in Italy anymore. or don't have the stamina. Don't have the stamina. Yeah, I understand that. I'll just see a movie at 50 p.m. last night, so. You're always up late, man. Yeah.

There's a lot of news here today. I'm in a good, you know, I'm in a good mood because it's been a little while since we started the show with just some, I think, objectively positive news. And today we get to do that because we're sitting here now as we sit here, Thursday afternoon and there's a ceasefire deal in Gaza,

a peace deal between Hamas and Israel, brokered by the ultimate dealmaker, the king of all dealmakers, Donald J. Trump. Sorry, I can know myself. I mean, there's a lot to say here. I'll start by just, you know, what I said to say in the podcast earlier, this morning, which is I am cautiously optimistic.

I think the most important thing to me is that phase one of this deal includes Hamas releasing all of the hostages, which to me means they are giving up all of their leverage to the degree they have any in the war. And if they're doing that, then that means that there's probably a last deal here that holds if Israel holds up its end of the bargain. So I find that particularly encouraging.

I think the peace plan is fairly novel and clever and there's elements of it that I really like and it seems to acknowledge a really wide range of perspectives that exist in this conflict and tries to capture them all

into a deal. It's a good plan. You know, this stuff falls apart at various elements, but I think it's a really good plan, actually. Not like the half-baked, we're going to give everybody a token and move them out of Gaza and they'll be able to use that token to like buy a fake crypto apartment in some other country. This is like a real plan that has, you know, real benchmarks to hit. So I actually, for the first time in two years, I'm feeling optimistic about this conflict. I don't think this is like a lasting solution to, you know, end the Israel-Palestine conflict.

But I do think there's an opportunity for this to actually end the war here, which I'm excited about. So I don't know. I'm curious to hear you guys thinking, Camille, I know you did a show last night or earlier today, got released about this. And Ari, you and I have obviously been going back and forth talking about this conflict for a long time now. But I'm feeling hopeful and optimistic, and that's where I'm at. And I'd like to just live there for a few hours. So say whatever you want, but don't burst that bubble. Okay?

Let me try to actually even push it a little further and see if I can make the bubble wider. I'll simplify something real quick. It's going to be an oversimplification, but just for the sake of the exercise. In my estimation, the two things that have been the biggest sticking points in this conflict, even before October 7th has been Hamas's ability to just have control in Gaza. They're not a trustworthy governing coalition.

So their control in Gaza is a concern for Israel. And on the other side, Israel's threat of being able to militarily occupy and now the reality of them doing so in Gaza has been the biggest issue on that side. This is a deal that fundamentally seeks to address both of those things. So could you feasibly say that this is a deal that is not just going to end this conflict,

but could potentially lead to a more lasting peace in the area? I mean, the really optimistic take is there's just been so much pressure and destruction that Hamas actually cedes power in the territory. and this whatever technocratic Palestinian group with leaders from the surrounding Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority actually gets formed and they can cooperate with whatever the board of pieces that Trump's trying to build as a top layer to them. I mean, you know, this doesn't feel like an appropriate thing

to talk about in the middle of the war, but I suppose now it does, which is like the opportunity in Gaza is unbelievable. I mean, it is a resource-rich region. It is like on one of the most beautiful coastlines in the entire world. It's not a little Trumpian there, Isaac. Well, you know, Gaza Lago. I'm not, yeah, I'm not advocating for Gaza Lago, but I am saying that like, also Gaza is one of the most educated places in the world. There's a huge number of, you know, college graduate, post-degree people there.

Like, this is a place that has so much potential in terms of put the right people in power and rid yourselves of, like, the mission to destroy Israel that is often coming from the top down, in my view, and change the focus there. Like, I mean, that is a fundamental Zionist critique of Gaza that I'm aligned with. I've always sort of tempered it by saying, like, Israel acts in certain ways, obviously, in my view, obvious, that, like, limits the potential and stops Gaza from turning into what it could be. But a peace deal like this maybe opens the door for, like, a real rebuild in a way that could bring economic prosperity and stability and some genuine peace. I think it's really early to be talking like that, but I'm certainly not going to pretend

the potential's not there. I think it is. Yeah, you mentioned the conversation we had yesterday on the 5thcom. That episode just dropped this morning, I think. One of the other dimensions that makes me somewhat optimistic is just the broader regional change that has occurred as a result of the conflict itself.

I mean, the fact that Iran has been gutted in certain respects. I mean, their ability to wheel power through their various proxies in the region has been utterly crippled as a result of the conflict and how kind of broad the scope is. I think even in recent weeks, some of the more controversial aspects of Israel hitting neighboring countries going after various folks associated with Hamas has similarly created perhaps at least a disincentive amongst other parties to kind of be involved in these kind of subtly malevolent ways.

So, I mean, all of those things suggest to me that the region that has always been desperate for peace, that the conditions might actually be suitable to being able to sustain that for longer because some of those more provocative elements of the region are just simply not in the position to be nearly as disruptive as they have been in the past. One of the things that I was very curious to hear you guys talk about, Isaac, is just the fact that it took a little while for this peace deal to actually solidify all of the party's support. And I was curious about your thoughts on the criticism of the deals, given that you've said, you know, optimistically, this is a pretty good deal. The Guardian, for example, published a piece that was somewhat critical of the deal. I think they refer to it as the deal structure as something.

somewhat colonial because of that Board of Peace dimension to it. They were very concerned that the Gossans weren't consulted when the deal was constructed and had some other kind of parallel concerns. But I think that's like those are the main beats of it. And then another kind of bit of criticism is that a lot of the narratives around the conflict were, you know, there's this big conversation. And we published a piece about it with respect to the kind of genocide dimension. and whether or not it was kind of consistent with the notion of there being a genocide

that one of the parties would not be interested in just accepting a deal that gets you to peace right away. And I don't know if it's a fair point completely, but it certainly seems like something that is interesting and kind of colors things in a slightly different way. Yeah, two great questions. I mean, I'll go first, and I certainly would be curious what Ari thinking. I mean, I'll start with the second one first, which is, I don't, I think it's, you know, stop thinking about this conflict for a moment. Just like in a vacuum, some country could commit a genocide against another country in order to try and force them into submission and that country could refuse to be submitted and still be the victim of genocide.

so like the Hamas's response to bring it back to this conflict Hamas's response to you know a deal that offers peace in the wake of the violence that's been described by some people as genocide like whether they accept that deal or not to me doesn't meaningfully change like how we're going to define the actions that happened leading up to it like I would try and analyze those independently there's a definition of genocide, like, does it apply to what Israel did? That's the question. Even if Hamas is,

you know, like, they could be refusing to take the deal because they don't trust the deal being offered by a country that they think just, quote, unquote, genocided their people or whatever. I'm not, like, adopting any view there saying that I believe one thing or the other. I'm just like, that would be how I, just like, there's a definition. Let's put the definition to it and see the first part is a lot more challenging for me because I'm actually pretty sympathetic to the idea that I guess you could say to the idea that there is a colonial aspect of this it's not the language that I would use necessarily

but like yeah you you the goals should be Palestinian self-determination Are you removing that self-determination by ensuring that there's this board of foreigners who have some kind of like final say over what the construction of the government looks like and who's allowed in and whatever? In isolation, I actually agree with that perspective. I think, like, you need to let the Palestinian people choose ultimately or eventually. The reality of the situation that we're in is that Israel has much more leverage, much more control. the United States has much more leverage, much more control,

because they're winning, quote, unquote, the war. Whether you think it's a genocide or an ethnic cleansing or whatever, and I've talked at length about that, it's just like one side is in a position to make a demand like, we're going to remove this power center and replace it with something different and we can work together on what that power center is going to be. But like, you know, Hamas isn't in a position to say, we'll accept this deal if Benjamin,

Netanyahu's removed from office. They don't have that leverage. They don't have that power. That's just like the reality of where we're at. So I don't know how I think it's totally unrealistic to expect Israel to work towards a peace deal that leaves Hamas in power. So I always presume that any sort of end to the war would include some sort of international coalition working alongside some kind of Palestinian authority, not the Palestinian authority, but a Palestinian authority to create a leadership. group in Gaza and that's what's happening and I think that's inevitable and I don't think like to me that's not it's not like a colonial there's a colonial element to it of course but it's it's like

what's the alternative you can't I in my view at least I don't think you can leave Hamas in power or expect Israel to leave Hamas in power as part of a deal I just never thought that was in the cards. I think, yeah, I like a lot of what you said there. I'm going to take the second half and sort of add to it. And starting from the idea of the colonial critique of what this is, I think when we use the word colonial to describe something, it's more often than not functioning as a signifier to say this is a critique coming from a perspective that's...

decidedly on one end of the political spectrum. The reason why I'm starting by critiquing the wording here is that I think it's a little bit broadened to say something that's more than what the term colonial originally meant. So a colony is something that an imperial power would set up in another location against its will so it could take its resources for its own and it's more plundering than it is paternalistic.

What this is is a denial of agency and it's paternalistic. I wouldn't say it's colonial. And I think if we say like a critique like colonial, it tends to box people out. If we say this is something that's denying the agency of the Gossens, I think that's a more neutral statement that a lot of people could say, yeah, I see that. In that regard, something that's also been denying the agency of the Gossens for self-determination has been Hamas. Straight, straight up. Like, let's start with that.

There haven't been free and fair or like. in their enclave for about a decade now. So a deal that's saying we're going to get these people, this governing coalition is not acceptable to the people that are waging war on it, the ones to Isaac's point that are winning that war, they have the leverage to say this governing coalition's out. That's also something that's being made without the opinions of the Gossans. But it does at least pave the way for them to have a say,

and their self-determination. Is that a little paternalistic? I think it is. But I think it's the lesser of the two choices, or the lesser of the evils of the two choices that's ahead of us, which is either Hamas is going to call the shots here, they're going to have some say in what's going to be shaped for the future, or they're not.

And let's just start from there and say, get this party out of a negotiating position, and then we can have other people at the table who are more neutral, so we can build something that has that path towards self-determination laid for the future. Yeah, I think a really good framework for the self-determination question is to just say Gossens didn't have self-determination when Hamas was in power. And so what's the, like, tell me the meaningful difference, you know? Like you could say they elected them, but it's, yeah, it's been 20 years.

And, you know, I think that's a really good point that I probably wouldn't have come to on my own. So, like, you know, also just, the other thing I would say is, you know, this is like a, it's like, it's like a bipartisan health care bill. Like there is always going to be stuff to criticize, you know. I mean, if you're, I mean, I, you know, I swim in a world where I have a lot of Zionist and Israeli and Jewish friends and, you know, and I follow people as Israeli reporters and pundits and stuff on Twitter and, you know, a lot of them are in sense that there's going to be

another prisoner release and that like these, you know, they're going to, there's like people convicted of really heinous crimes in Israeli prisons, Palestinians, who are going to be released as part of this deal after like thousands have been released in the last, you know, whatever decade through exchanges like this. So they're like, we're doing this again. Like we're going to send these people back who are, you know, maybe the most lie. to want to land in a world where they're committing violence against Israel or whatever. Like, that's, I don't know, that's pretty a reasonable response in my view. So I don't know.

Like, I would expect there to be people who were pissed off from both sides in any deal that was a good one that had multiple dimensions to it. You know, I mean, I don't know, I don't want to do like the cliche thing, but I will say in a situation like this, it's probably good if everybody's a little pissed off. Like that means that you're striking some sort of middle ground, I think. Right. It's a negotiation and it's a compromise. So in compromises, you won't always get everything you want. And depending on your perspective, this is going to fall short for people who are pushing for. as many things as they want from one side or the other?

Yeah, no, I think any good deal is a compromise. The Hulu original series, Murdoch, Death and the Family, dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful Dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast, this series brings the drama to the screen like never before, starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark. Watch the Hulu original series Murdoch, Death in the Family, streaming October 15th on Disney Plus. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment

offers a physician-led, full-body check-up that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan, live well for life.

Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. All right, well, speaking of comprehensive, your values. I want to talk about an interview Camille did this week. Is that good? Was that a good? Did I nail that? Light them up. Wow. I'm just... No, we have a few topics

that we want to get to today. And one of them, in case you haven't heard, is that Camille Foster and the Fitcom crew, Camille's other friends, losers, they got to sit down with Megan Kelly, which was, it was a very good interview. Megan Kelly is somebody who I have a tremendous amount of respect for, sorry to all my left-leaning liberal listeners who are going to be upset by that.

I think like she is one of the most caricatured people in the media. A lot of her reputation sort of goes back to Fox News days and I think stuff early in her career and all the presumptions people make about her because she worked at Fox News and was kind of prominent. there. She's actually like, I mean, first of all, she's a great interviewer. She's a great interviewee. I think she's pretty fair-minded and she's more independent. When I started listening to her podcast about two years ago when she went out on her own and she's more independent-minded than I expected or thought she was.

like as I sort of imagined her from some of the stuff that I'd seen her do on TV and whatever and she's been a, I mean, she is an extremely important figure on the right now. I mean, her show is unbelievably popular. Camille, as you guys talk to her about in your interview with her, I encourage people to go listen to, you know, that she's getting an enormous amount of pressure

from the right right now to condemn people on her side of the aisle like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens there is like this she joked at one point like I'm not the godmother of the Republican Party and I'm not going to like do what people tell me to do to condemn who they and I respect I mean that is my view she said something like I'm I'm only responsible for what I say and nothing else and I think that is an excellent position for anybody to stake out I wish you would condemn Candace Owens and some of the insane stuff she says, but, like, I understand why she's just like, it's not my job. I'm not getting involved. I did text Camille after I listened to the interview a little bit frustrated about

an element of it that I just felt like was untouched and I wanted to talk a little bit about today, which I think we can add enough context in this conversation that it's like, if you didn't listen to it, you don't have to. But I would say, and Camille, maybe to, I'll ask you, I'll run this summary by you and you can tell me whether you think. think it's fair or not. I think to summarize the gist of where Megan Kelly is today, who again, incredibly important figure on the right, top five podcasts in the world on the politics side, you know, she, YouTube channel, whatever, she's just like, she's

president's ear, she was a Trump hater and then a Trump supporter, and you know, she's just like a little bit of a kingmaker. She brings people on her show, they blow up. She she seemed to articulate a view of like I don't have any grace left the title of the show is like Megan Kelly's out of generosity because she says that at one point

in the show she's just done I think she's like at the end of her rope with you know people in the middle people on the left it seems like she had sort of hit a point

where she's just like this is a battle and I am like staking out my position on this side and I think seemed a little radicalized by the Charlie Kirk assassination who was a friend of hers which I want to talk a little bit about that too and you guys sort of tried to like you know prod her into some criticisms of the president or maybe some criticisms of Candace Owens or and she was just like I'm not going to do this like I'm here to like kind of advance the viewpoint

of like the tribe that she finds herself in now, which I personally think sucks. I'm disappointed by that because like I think in the past she's been somebody who will hit her own side and she feels kind of like independent-minded to me. But it seems like she's shifted in a meaningful way and it's like taking on a new posture. I'll pause there and Camille asked you

if you feel like that's a fair characterization or if you took away sort of any kind of similar perspectives there. Well, I'll share at the top here that I think when you have a conversation like this in public, and it is one of many conversations that you've had with someone, there is a lot of context that you bring to the conversation that most viewers will not bring to it. Which is today we've talked about virtually everything we discussed before. in some instances, a matter of days, weeks before.

And in a lot of respects, Megan really didn't say anything new when she talked to us. This was kind of just the, it was in a different setting. On her show, she is setting the agenda, she's selecting the clips that are happening around it, and we kind of move along when she's ready. And there's just a basic decorum that you have when you're visiting someone else's home, so to speak, and they are kind of policing the conversation. there's a way that you're going to interact with the questions that you might not in a different setting. So I think that context is important for kind of discussing all of this.

And I think in general, the characterization with respect to Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, who she's being kind of prodded to condemn from the right and the left, is accurate. She's been very clear and consistent about this. One, Tucker is a friend. So I think there's two very separate relationships that have to be understood. and there's a personal affection there and a history there and she doesn't believe he's an anti-Semite and she doesn't really care about all the controversy around him.

She's riding with her friend and he's an important media figure and it's stupid for everyone to be so up in arms. And with Candace, her perspective is different. It's specifically, you're not going to boss me around and tell me which views I have to adopt or who I have to condemn or set the agenda for my show, full stop. And, you know, I think...

that is an accurate representation of the conversation. I will say, though, that at a couple of points in our exchange, even if there was a subtlety about the presentation as opposed to the kind of vociferousness of the condemnation of her detractors or her agitation for vengeance, I think that she was willing to articulate some of her concerns about the Trump administration.

She was kind of careful about it, sort of clinical, almost analytical with respect to it, but she enumerated some of those things. She talked about the potential for there to be an overreach on the Trump administration's part with respect to this desire to fight fire with fire. She acknowledged that you could just burn everything down, and it might work out badly. I think that's a really important admission. However kind of casually it was offered, and she enumerated a number of things that she thought the Trump administration was doing that they needed to either be careful.

careful about or we're just wrong. I mean, she's no fan of Pam Bondi and thinks she should be fired. She talked about some of the criminal prosecutions that the Trump administration is pursuing and was very clear, like, we should not be making up charges. But if we're looking for them and we happen to find that your mortgage paperwork is out of order, yeah, we might get you because you did it to us before. I think there's a, there's a meaningful difference between that and they made up a bunch of stuff about us. We're going to make up a bunch of stuff about them and try to pin them to the wall. So just again, without getting into all of the different pieces of it or even the broader

critique of the interview, I think that's the characterization that I would go with. Yeah, that tracks to me. I think that's fair. I mean, so I would, she also said she also did something at the end that I was not expecting her to do, which was, I don't even think she was, maybe you guys led her into it, But I, my recollect is almost that she came to it herself. She was just like, yeah, Trump's obviously a self-interested narcissist who only cares about him, himself, and like his reputation. But like our views and incentives are aligned.

So sometimes when you can, yeah, leverage that in service of the American people that can be a really valuable tool. I mean, that's like, whoa. That's amazing candor, like really amazing candor. And I think it's actually representative of like megan. relationship with MAGA broadly. It's not this kind of naked sycophancy. She criticizes the administration. She's willing to say things like that about Trump directly

and doesn't alienate her base, her audience. And I think that's valuable. And I also, the last thing I'll say, and then I'll sort of offer my broad critique of the interview and then give you a chance to respond. the last thing I'll say that you guys did not really talk about on the show I think it came up in passing

that I also think's important context is like I know from listening to Megan's show and following her that nothing has really radicalized her more than the trans issue at least before the Charlie Kirk stuff that's my read on her politically is like she

I think if she had like a core number one issue it's that she believes like the left is endorsing mutilating the bodies of children for like an ideology that she doesn't think is founded in reality and she's been like really, really moved toward the sort of Trump

Maga right on that issue and I think it's like it has put her in that tribe and yeah to the degree that like fleshing that out is important at all that didn't really come up on the show in this interview which like I don't think it should have there was no reason for it too there was a ton of other stuff to talk about but it just feels like context about her and where she's at

that I think is pretty important sort of just like for her person the the critique that I have is I mean there was a good chunk of the interview and I think the most important part of the interview which was sort of about how she viewed Trump's attempts to prosecute his political opponents. And you guys sort of being like,

this Comey stuff is not great. You know, like he's, he's indicting a former FBI director. And her response was basically like, this isn't unprecedented. Why do people keep calling it unprecedented? What's like because of his title, he's like they, being the left, indicted a former president.

This is a former director of FBI. Like if anybody crossed the Rubicon, it was the Biden administration, it was the left. And you guys sort of wrestled a little bit to different varying degrees about like the degree to which these were equal things and what the precedent really was and who broke it. And, you know, you, Camille and Moynihan and Matt, like sort of, you know, we're clear to say, hey, we criticize some of the prosecutions against Trump and we're also criticizing this and you criticize the prosecutions against Trump

but you're not criticizing this, you're like endorsing it kind of. And there was just sort of like you're fighting about this thing that to me felt not important. Like the important thing is that Trump actually did some of the crimes that he was getting prosecuted for. In my, like, again, this is now, like, in my opinion. But, like, Comey didn't do anything.

Donald Trump tried to overturn an election and also definitely mishandled classified documents to a prosecutable degree and then obstructed the investigation in that. I understand he didn't get convicted of those things. And I certainly understand that, like, the Georgia case, the election interference case was, novel, I think because the crime was novel. Sorry, that's just like, I think that's why. But, but, like, I get it. It was like,

you know, they're sort of, and then you have all the stuff with like Fannie Willis and she turned out to be a total. I mean, what a fucking mess that was. But it's like, the real story is Trump got a prosecutor in Georgia who was like incompetent and also wrapped up in a sexual, like a fair thing with someone. She worked with them, was promoting, and made herself vulnerable to having the case thrown out, whatever. And then in the classified documents case, he did, like, the ultimate Teflon Don thing ever. He got a judge who he appointed, who was, like, so clearly, obviously in the tank for him that, you know, she was facing all sorts of potential condemnations and censures and whatever from the Bar Association. And, like, I don't know, you guys were arguing with Megan about, like, precedent and all this stuff.

and I was just wanted to be like, can someone just say that Trump did the fucking crime and Komi didn't? Like, where is that conversation? You know, like, press her on the election thing. And when I articulated my frustration to you about this, you said the thing that you just said a few minutes ago, which I think is a totally good point, which is like you guys have so much context of, like, you and Megan have hashed out. Yeah, we've talked about these cases.

Yeah. You've talked about these cases so many times. And like, that isn't brought into this current interview. And I'm not thinking about that context. And I think that's a totally fair. response. But that was the thing about it that, like, frustrated me as a listener. And, like, you know, I have to insist. I don't have TDS, whatever. I'm just like, I read the indictments, you know, and I looked at the evidence and I know the cases didn't go to trial for various reasons. But I read the commentary about them. And, like, I feel like I have a really good grasp

of the different arguments. And, like, Trump did that shit. Like, he did. I'm sorry. And Comey, as far as I've seen is like on the opposite spectrum of that like it looks the indictment looks really flimsy and I'm just like there is a huge difference here to me and I wish Megan kind of wrestled with that or you guys made that case

forcefully but I understand that maybe that's not your view and that's so injecting my own perspective yeah you got look four people around the table we don't all agree on anything right at least ostensibly we don't necessarily all agree on anything so certainly our

or reads on these different cases might be different. Well, Megan says she's ignorant of the kind of virtue or defect of tariffs. Of tariffs stuff, yeah. But I do think that with respect to the two New York prosecutions, I think it is kind of easy for a fair-minded person to dismiss the fraud and sexual allegations convictions, or at least to note that in New York you had officials who were campaigned. on their desire to go make cases against Donald Trump. They went looking for things to prosecute him for. And they found their way to some things and then engaged in some novel prosecutions. Like that has a political taint to it, whether or not it's all contrived.

The Georgia case, as you pointed out, is different. And there's all sorts of weird scandal associated with it because of the people who were prosecuting the case. But I'd actually say that even the evidence in that case, specifically that call with an election official, which we all got to hear in WAPO, I think you can actually interpret that in a bunch of different ways. At least there's two different ways. One is

nefarious RICO conspiracy. And the other is like Trump being Trump. And saying to someone that you know, just find them, find the votes they're definitely there. Like I don't even care if you find all of them. Just find enough of them to actually reach the right

conclusion here. Something is amiss. I don't If that's the thing in that case that makes it clear that he did something very wrong in Georgia and it justified the Rigo prosecution, I think that's a pretty thin read for the case to hang on. And it's the sort of thing that would make it a little challenging for me to kind of deem that prosecution with the sort of credibility that you seem to be willing to attribute to it. And I don't, when I say that, I mean, again, it's just we have different reads on the evidence. and the case was not fully prosecuted, which is important.

And in the Florida case, I think, is the one that actually is the clearest example of obvious wrongdoing here. And I mean, flagrant, belligerent wrongdoing here that Trump managed to not get convicted on. And I think that's kind of where it ends in that respect. So if, by my read, it's like three out of those four cases have pretty – clear, or at least directionally clear political valence to them. It's not unreasonable for me to hear out Megan kind of making her case that, look, they started it, these politically motivated prosecutions happened under them to the extent that that's what's happening now, where at least sort of selectively going after people who've committed

actual crimes, which is the perspective that she articulated, you can't really be upset with us for that. Like that's, they started it. That's her opinion. And I think in the context of an interview like that, again, where we've had these conversations many times before, it's just in a slightly different setting and it's all packaged together. The opportunity from my standpoint is less about trying to adjudicate all the various ways in which I think Megan might be wrong about one conclusion or another. I think it's a really valuable thing to just allow her to articulate her perspective, to put it out into the ether as a body for people to interpret and pick apart and to publish in various contexts. And I think that was the success of the

interview. We've talked about all this stuff. She's articulated these views before in different contexts. People were paying attention and have the opportunity to analyze it. And my aspiration in a context like that is less getting my shot off and ensuring that. And ensuring that, I've made a kind of every argument about every way in which you might be wrong and more about ensuring that your perspective is kind of adequately rendered against what are, at least from my perspective, and this is somewhat subjective, the most important kind of questions that are out there lingering and not to get stuck trying to pin you down on a particular thing when you've been unambiguous about what your perspective is on something.

And I think that's what we tried to do. And it can be really hard to do something like that when you've got three people conducting the interview and really hard to do when there's just this incredible terrain of topics that you actually want to get to. There's plenty of things that we didn't have an opportunity to talk to. But at the time that I'm asking ghost questions related to the prosecution of Comey, I mean, we're maybe a third of the way into the interview. And we hadn't even gotten into the Candace Owens of it all yet.

And I knew we wanted to get there. So, yeah, we didn't pick through all those cases. But one, we had before. And two, we don't necessarily have the same perspective on just how legit all of those prosecutions were. Yeah. I mean, I'm smiling because I have often defended my own interviews by saying something similar to what you just articulated,

which is like, my job is to put somebody in a position to articulate their views in a cogent way that our audience can understand and judge for themselves. And I'm not, like, I don't tend to do very combative interviews. Like, I've done interviews where they have turned a little combative, whether intentionally or not. But it takes a good, it takes a bit to sort of push me into that mode. Like, I think it's, you know, you just get more out of people

when you can make them feel heard and comfortable. And I think the conversation becomes a lot more revealing. I'll just say, just because I have trouble, like, letting this go or letting it. Don't let it go. The Georgia phone call to me is not, I mean, first of all, I don't think, I don't think, I think both of the interpretations that you offered, like, is he really clever and this is a conspiracy and it's part of this larger thing

or is he just like being Trump quote unquote and telling a Georgia state official to find him enough votes to win him the election after the elections ended. I think both of those propositions are like should be criminal and probably are. Even if you believe the election was stolen?

You aren't earnestly believe the election was stolen and the votes aren't there and that they are doing something nefarious by not investigating this and finding the missing votes? Yeah, because the, like, you know, the, like having some underlying false pretense about why somebody should commit a crime for you

to solve a problem that you want solved, it's, that doesn't change the actual crime. It's like, you know. But he didn't say manufacture the boats. He said, find the boats, which is very different than, like, commit a crime. Sure.

And I think it's not, I'm not, like, kind of hair splitting by drawing that. No, I know. I know you're not. I think, like, you know, the analogy that I use when we wrote about this was, like, if I think somebody stole my computer and brought it back to their house and was, like, hiding their computer in their apartment, and then I went to their apartment and brought. broke in to steal my computer back, and I got there, and the computer wasn't there because they

didn't actually steal it. I still committed a crime by breaking into their apartment. Like, that's not, like, yeah, it's just, but even like, okay, I, so just to say, like, I don't, like, it doesn't really make me feel better either of those framings in the call. I think they're both really bad. But, like, the Georgia indictment was criminal charges for conspiracy to commit forgery, influencing witnesses, computer theft, impersonating a public officer, and filing false documents. I mean, they tried to, I mean,

they stole election data, allegedly, uh, from like an actual election office. They submitted fake alternate electors, whatever you want to call it. They certified falsely that Trump had won Georgia when he hadn't. I mean, it wasn't just like Trump picked up the phone and called and then he didn't get what he didn't get what he,

wanted and that was the end of it. It was like, there was a concerted effort from multiple angles to try and change the outcome in Georgia in a way that would have swung the election to Trump, or they thought would have swung the election to Trump. And like, they had text messages, emails, phone calls. You know, it wasn't just Georgia. It happened in Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Mexico. Like, they were trying to bring that evidence in to contextualize the consulize the

is something that, you know, spanned outside of Georgia, which they were right to do. So I just think, like, you know, that compared to James Comey being accused of lying before Congress. I mean, I guess, you know, to Megan talked about us on the show, the initial Comey indictment maybe is not about testimony that a lot of us presumed it was about. and I actually made the wrong presumption there too I think basically everybody who reported on it did but like I haven't read a single person who's read that indictment

and thinks that Comey's actually going to be prosecuted for something I mean it seems like which is good but it's like yeah yeah convict but it's like he's yeah he's still they're still doing so I don't know it's just like I have a hard time getting over, like, the, just the discrepancy there. And I definitely can see that we have a different

views of the Georgia case. But, like, it's like your, like, the way I felt was, like, you guys were having a conversation with both your hands tied behind your back because nobody's saying the thing that is the most important thing, which is like Trump got prosecuted for something that he actually, there was a lot of evidence he did. I'm not going to say he did it because it didn't go to trial. I think he did, obviously. But like, at the very least, There was a lot of evidence that he did. And it was, in my view, worthy of prosecuting him. I am aligned with you on the New York stuff.

And like, you know, Letitia James. And just like, there was clearly stuff. There were clearly prosecutors who went after Trump and just tried to ruin him. I mean, in Colorado, they tried to get him off the ballot. Like, there was stuff that happened that I was like, this is bad. This is really bad because I knew one day we could be where we are now. Right. So the Georgia and Florida cases specifically, I think.

think those were actually legit. And I wish I saw them go to trial. Yeah, look, I don't think you're making an unfair point. And as I said, even if there's some disagreement about Georgia, we agree about the Florida situation. And he, quite frankly, I think he just got lucky in Florida. He drew a judge who gave him a favorable outcome. That happens in our system from time to time. But I think that Megan could still make her argument, even if Trump had done a bad thing in a particular context, there was an effort, as you just described, by some people to use the legal system to try to disempower someone who, again, who sort of ends justify the means perspective on the parts of these people.

I think they earnestly believe he was a threat to, was and is a threat to the polity. And as a result, they needed to get rid of him in any method, by any method they could. and drumming up or at least finding, if you don't want to say manufacturing a case against him in those contexts was something they were willing to do. And from her standpoint, that justifies prosecuting Comey for something

he may have in fact done and various other people who might be Trump critics. Again, I take issue with that. I was very clear about that. I gave her two different trajectories for why this might, in fact, be bad. for her side. Not so much why I think this is just bad to do in general on principle, but why it might be bad for her side. One of those she rejected, the other she acknowledged

that they could go too far. And one of the specific examples she gave was, well, look, they didn't try to perp walk homey. And I think a day after she said that to us on the podcast, we discovered they tried. They really wanted to. And again, I think this is instructive. it's valuable to have prominent people on the record who support the president of the United States who say, hey, if you are sending federal troops into National Guard troops into states without the permission of the governors, this is actually a problem. Don't do that. It's important to have them say, hey, with respect to these prosecutions, if you're making up charges, that's a bridge too far. Do not do that. And hey, the whole perp walking Comey stuff probably should be

do that either. Like we can perhaps claim that as a small victory, but I think it is of some material importance. So I don't know. And Ari, I know you haven't had an opportunity to watch that yet and probably perhaps won't. But

if you have thoughts on this, I am curious if you want to take a swing at me too, I can take it. I don't give a shit about it. It's been 20 minutes. I said that like two weeks ago. I really think I get frustrated by the fact that

we have so much meta-commentary about a thing that's not going to go anywhere and shouldn't have happened in the first place and I think the more we talk about it, the worse it is. That's part of why I've been sitting here just like not saying anything. No, it's right. Actually, that's a good opening for me to say that I listened to the podcast. When I was in Italy, I listened to a pod guy,

and I hated R.E's take about that too. I was totally on the world side. Yeah, I'm mad at you both. That's good. That's awesome. Yeah. All right, well, I'll let Camille out of a little bit of a hot seat here. Not that I was very hot, but like I said, at the top, I really do encourage everybody to go listen to the interview.

And I'll say again, just to be clear, I mean, I really strongly disagree with Megan about a lot of stuff. But yeah, she's a super influential voice, and I listen to her show, and I often learn a lot. And I think she's, I mean, her interview with Jake Tapp. is still one of the better interview about original sin is still one of the better interviews I've ever heard anybody doing like a kind of media criticism context after the book came out and everybody was thinking she was clearly thinking the same thing I was which was like Jake Chapper wrote this book like he was the problem uh yeah not alone not alone yeah not alone so um yeah it's a worthwhile interview to to check out and I thought it was really great um even

Can I say one more brief thing about this? Just very brief. If Meg and Kelly were an elected official, I would actually have a different posture in that conversation. I do think that with elected officials, there is an obligation on the part of journalists to actually hold their feet to the fire in a different sort of way for those conversations to be a bit more adversarial.

And just frankly, like the fifth column is a podcast about media criticism. It is all about that naval gazing that Ari has contempt for. And I get it. But that's literally the conceit of that particular podcast. So if we have Ezra Klein on, in fact, since when and it just keeps saying when, when we have him on, the aspiration is not going to be to try to adjudicate all the different ideological disagreements that are there and to like get him for being too woke or something crazy like that. The aspiration is to have an interesting conversation. about his approach, about various things that are going on in media broadly, certainly about places where there might be some disagreements,

but to really illuminate the business of journalism in a way, the practice of media. And again, I think it's different when we're dealing with fellow commentaries, fellow journalists, and when we're dealing with the policymakers who might actually be in power and directly responsible for discharging certain duties. We'll be right back after this quick break. Too many students are packed into overcrowded classrooms in Ontario schools, and it's hurting their ability to learn.

But instead of helping our kids, the Ford government is playing politics, taking over school boards and silencing local voices. It shouldn't be there. way. Tell the Ford government to get serious about tackling overcrowded classrooms because smaller classes would make a big difference for our kids. Go to building better schools.ca. A message from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. Hey, it's Greg from the Side Note podcast and I'm here to tell you about the new Google Pixel 10, which for those of you who know me, no pixels are my favorite phones. I was delighted when I was gifted one. Now the Google Pixel 10 comes with Gemini

built-in. It's essentially like an AI assistant that's there to help you at any time. It can go through my inbox and summarize it for me, which has been super helpful. I also struggle with meal prepping and it can make custom recipes based on the food that's in my fridge. Recently, I use it to help me plan a trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Day one, start your day in old San Juan. Grab a coffee and light breakfast at a local cafe. Again, the Google Pixel 10 has Gemini built in, so it helps me get things done faster, learn new things and find inspirations seamlessly. Learn more about the Google Pixel 10 at store.gookle.com.

It's a great transition to our final segment today, which is a bit of navel gazing, so we can lean in. And it's related to Trump, too. I mean, Ari and I spend a little. lot of time on Slack discussing the various responses to our pieces as they come out because we're always interested and surprised in the different ways that people push back or, you know, whatever sentences that we didn't think were particularly meaningful elicit, a really strong response or whatever else. There's been something interesting happening here at Tangle, I think,

for the last few months that is just like perfectly indicative of the challenges. of covering the Trump administration, which is that we're seeing a lot of people unsubscribe over an accusation that were, quote, unquote, two left. We survey people. You, you dear listeners, wouldn't know this because you would never leave us, but if you were to ever make that decision,

you get prompted to let us know why you're going. And today, the number one reason that people unsubscribe actually is news fatigue. That's like the biggest thing we see, which is new. That's only been true in the last like six months, is people starting to say now, like, I'm just exhausted, I need a break, I'm consuming too much news, whatever. Also probably indicative of the Trump administration, Trump era. But in the past, it's typically the top ones are always your bias. And towards end of the Biden administration, we were seeing a lot of people unsubscribe because they thought

that we were too conservative, which I think was probably in part due to a lot of the stuff we were publishing about Biden's fitness and age and whatever else. And then, you know, in the last few months, we've seen just a huge ramp up of people saying that we were too left. And at the same time, if you ever peruse the comment section on one of our articles, I think you'll find pretty quickly that they're kind of dominated by, people who are self-described left of center, leftist, liberal, who are pissed off that we're, you know,

giving Trump a free pass or sane washing the right or softballing rising authoritarianism and fascism. And it's sort of just this like crazy dichotomy to be in the middle of and it's very like it's disorienting, it's frustrating. And I thought it would be fun maybe to talk here publicly just about what to do with that.

A, is there something to do? Like, should we be thinking about that kind of feedback as content producers, journalists, media people, whatever? Is it worth responding to or even having the discussion about? Like, is there anything to learn from it, a takeaway? I mean, one of them for me has always been that just like biases in the eye of the beholder, which is a convenient view for me to have

because then anybody accuses us of being biased, I can just say, ah, it's your own bias that's informing your perspectives on us. So that's like a defense mechanism if I want it to be. I think it's true. I happen to think it's true,

but, you know, it's convenient. So I don't know. I'm curious to hear from you guys and Ari, maybe we can start with you since you just had to sit there and listen to me and Camille chat for 30 minutes. But, yeah, just like what's, I don't know what to make of this sort of dueling

fury that we engage in? The dueling fury doesn't bother me. I think it's the way, like that's something that we've had for a while and I've gotten pretty used to it is accusations if you're too biased in this direction or that direction and engaging with whether or not we were. It's sort of part of the job and I don't mind that too much. But something that Camille, you said three hours ago when we were talking about Megan Kelly was that she was responding to

the pushback about the lack of pushback by saying something about like, look, I'm just representing this team now. And that mindset is something that I think has grown. That mindset is also something that, like Isaac, I do think we should attribute

a good portion of blame to the person who's setting the tone at the top, which has been Trump for the last eight months. The way that he responded to the Kirk shooting by saying, look, a lot of people now are saying I want to embrace just like I don't want to wish the worst for my enemies

but I do I hate my enemies and I wish the worst for them that um that's sort of like you know what they're killing us they're killing us I'm with my team and I think the best approach is to just do what we can

to just bury them that is something that I think is leading to this somewhat different tenor of comment that we've been getting which is just I think not only that tangles missing the mark or has been biased, but I no longer think that this mission's worthwhile.

Or I think tangles failing in its ability to fulfill its promise. That's something that's been a little harder to square. I think when we get accusations of bias and people tell us we're missing something, it always causes good conversation and introspection. But it's really tough. I don't know. I get maybe I should also try to,

be more introspective. And I do try to. But when the conversation starts with, you guys are failing at your mission because you're not able to call out ascending fascism, it makes me immediately defensive. And also, I think it's wrong. Like, I've thought about that. I think we think about that problem. And I just don't think that's what's happening with the Trump administration. And there's this assumption. And this is me critiquing the left here a bit, because this is to Isaac's point where a lot of the volume has been coming from saying that we're off the mark more than most in the last couple weeks, couple months. It's just that that view that we're seeing a rise in authoritarianism in the government is a view. It isn't, this is exactly what's happening. And if you can't see

it, then you're wrong. I happen to disagree with that. And we've been people who have been calling out and criticizing a lot of what the government's doing. But my like net a take about the whole thing, is that I think we've seen the high watermark of it. I honestly do. I think we're seeing a lot of executive orders get challenged in court. National Guard deployments right now, even with those, those orders that are concerning, really troubling, and show a big desire to use the power of the executive to extend authority

in whatever ways that the executive can are still constrained to the point that the National Guard troops are not engaging in policing. And they haven't. And that's something that's important to say and talk about. If they were, that would be one of those big markers that we'd be calling out criticizing. But they aren't. And again, if they will, we will criticize it.

But it's something where I respect that people think that this is something that's a growing problem that will become authoritarian. And I respect the people who are saying, I think this is just Trump doing what he told us he would when we elected him. And I don't share either viewpoint. and the fact that I'm not calling balls and strikes

the way that you see them doesn't mean we're failing. It means that we're exposing you to arguments that you think are wrong, which is the whole point of what we're doing. And to say that because we're doing that, we're failing in our mission is something that does frustrating. Yeah, I can resonate.

I resonate with so much of that. And particularly that last point, there is a point at which, and this actually reminds me a lot of where we started the conversation today, and specifically the kind of conversation about Israel Gaza and do you call it genocide, you must call it genocide. There's a point at which you reached the conclusion

that this was, in fact, genocide. And before that, you had a different perspective or were uncertain. The notion that that moment where you understand it or someone else perhaps doesn't see it in exactly the same way, they are beyond the pale, but you are not, there's a kind of hubris attached to that.

that I find just a little bit offensive. And also frustrating just because, seriously, come on. Like, one, give me a minute to catch up to you, perhaps. Or two, allow for the possibility that you could be wrong about this. And perhaps that designation is it nearly as important in every single context. And when the mission of a media organization is to try and help people soberly understand what is happening on the left and the right in our podcast, politics and all the various camps to take a serious look at what's happening, the machinations,

and to disentangle, look what I just did there, to disentangle all the various strains, all the various strains of argument, the points of fact, and to just try to bring a little bit of clarity to the universe so that people can make what they believe are informed decisions, that we're always going to be striving for nuance and that it's going to be difficult and there are going to be times where it's even hard for us to do that kind of work while having these perspectives,

which Isaac might be the person who's offering the take at the bottom, but there are lots of people contributing and they may not even all agree. That disagreement is there and it's expected. It is expected. And I get that people are going, to always have concerns about whether or not I'm sort of sufficiently on their side or sufficiently

not on their side. What does become really hard to tolerate is the kind of mode of assassination that takes place. That there's always this kind of indictment of you as being insufficiently concerned about the right and the good or even the truth more broadly or somehow being in the tank for one side or the other. And I find that very frustrating. And I think we would all just do better to try and for the moment suspend any judgment about what we imagine certain people's motives are and just try to do a dispassionate appraisal of the facts. And I think Tangle tries, as many media organizations do, but I think in a very uniquely capable and laudable way to try and deliver that sort of coverage.

And whatever you think about the current state of America and how much concern you should have for rising fascism or kind of the state of democracy, whether you approach this to someone who believes that the left has been kind of doing bad things for a very long time and the right needs to respond, or the right is doing entirely too much, you have to appreciate the value of someone trying to be something of an umpire in these very difficult, divisive times

because you still need that. If you hope to see people persuaded to your side, you have to believe that marshalling the evidence in general, just in general, is still a valuable project. Otherwise, what are we even doing? I appreciate a lot of that. I think I'm grimacing a little bit about the idea of us being the umpire. I don't want to be the umpire either. I want to be like the people that are trying to explore the arguments for for and against or across the spectrum and trying

to present them fairly and then trying to say like, here's our bias. This is what we see. This is where we're coming from. Yeah, I don't know baseball all that well. So I probably used to That's fine. I prefer Supreme Court of the media. That's how I like to think of those. It's a good one. Okay. I do want to steal me on the point, though,

because I don't want to get to a point where we're like beating up a straw man of what these arguments are. The way that I usually see it framed isn't that we are in the tank or that we're like pretending to be one thing when we're really something else. We see that, but I think the strongest point is tangles, proving itself unable to call out an ugly truth that's existing. And it's not like you, so to take the genocide example, the way that that framework differs isn't,

there was a point when I saw this thing as one thing and then my mind changed based off of a chain of logic. The argument would be, I saw this thing as one thing and then the facts changed. And so I then described it accurately and you guys aren't. That is what I think the argument that is being leveled at us is more like. To which my response is generally, again, like our role kind of isn't to enforce what you think is happening. We might have a different read.

But even if, even if we have the same read, our job still isn't to call people out. Like it's to say, here's what we think is happening. Maybe it's not. We always want to, not always. Definitely not always, but it is more often than not the case that we want to say we could be wrong and here's the way that we could be wrong. And a lot of people see that as like being lily livid or giving it out or sneaking away. And it's frustrating because of the last point that I want to make is I think a lot of people understand our mission correctly, which is that our job is to try to show different arguments and different perspectives you want to get so you can understand when you're by,

is leading you astray. But I think a lot of the time people think that that job is meant for fixing the people who are on the other side. I think a lot of the time when I hear our criticisms that comes across, it's like, you guys aren't doing a good job ushering over the people who are wrong here. And it like it could be you. Like it could be you. You could be the one who's wrong here.

And it could be us. It's interesting because I don't really know what to make of this, but it's something I'm observing more. more. It really depends, like, the arena that I'm in in terms of what sorts of accusations we face. Like, the comment section of Tangle on our website is overwhelmingly liberal. I post stuff on Twitter about Trump and I'm being accused of, like, TDS. I go on Instagram and it's like a bunch of liberals and lefties accusing me of being a... a closet Trump supporter and like a

Zio-fascist or whatever like that's all Instagram is my inbox is like a total collection of you know various perspectives though the unsubscribes are predominantly people accusing us of being too left

so it's like you sort of you sort of face different criticisms literally based on the arena where the content is being shared. And they're all sort of of a different flavor. And that part of this too seems really fascinating to me. And I think it speaks maybe to like how my algorithm works on X versus

Instagram, but also like where our audience is kind of comfortable. Like the conservatives who read Tangle are much more comfortable communicating with me privately via email. And the liberals who read Tangle seem a lot more comfortable like in the comments section being visible and having their views like you know seen by our audience more largely

but yeah I mean I this is like the thing that I try and tell people or like remind folks it's just there's so many media organizations doing the same thing and we're trying to do something

genuinely different which is just like to Ari's point it's just viewpoint diversity and a lot of people interpret my take is like you know or whoever writes to my take section as like an effort at finding a middle ground or something

and I'm like that's not what I'm doing the thing that I'm trying to do is be honest about my views be fair in how I'm sort of adjudicating whatever the debate is and then just like share them in a way that the people who I want to hear them can hear them.

So, like, if I'm being really critical of the left, I want to try and deliver that criticism in a way that the left will hear it in my imagination. If I'm being really critical of Trump, I want to deliver that criticism in a way that Trump supporters will be able to hear it, you know, in my imagination. And it's funny because that often is the thing that seems to piss people off the most.

It's like, it's not that I didn't say the thing that they wanted me to say it. It's that I didn't say it in the way that they wanted me to say it. You know, like they, I get that from conservative readers all the time. Like, you're, you know, you like, you're softballing this, like, this issue that, you know, because you're scared of being canceled by the left and, like, you won't use harsher language and just call, you know, them whatever. And I'm like, I don't use slurs, guys, relax.

No. They're just like a, you know, it's like, there's a general push to just, like, be a little bit more owned the list. and I'm like, that's not, I'm not here to do, like, I don't, there's no upside in that for me. And then people in the left, like, they're just, you know, I can say Trump is doing three of the five things I was really worried about that I said six months ago would be a sign of like an authoritarian government. And the top comments just like, when are you going to call out Trump as a fascist, authoritarian leader? And I'm just like, I literally just said, but it's like, I didn't do it in like the like

punch the eject button kind of way that they want me to so it's like I'm sane washing now. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know what to do. I honestly don't know what to do with that. Like my instinct is to ignore it but that feels again convenient and so I

like you know I want to wrestle with it a little bit and give it like an honest hearing but it's just like it feels the same as I feel when like some conservative writes in and says that I'm like using soft language because I'm scared of getting canceled by the left or something. It's just like, okay, did I say, was there something you wanted to be included that I didn't include?

And it's like, no, I appreciate it what you said. I'm like, okay, then what are we talking about here, you know? I don't know. That's the kind of stuff that's frustrating, I think. Also, we love all of you. It's all great. It's also, like, this is now us doing a little bit of the same thing of, like, now we're mad at the language you use to hear this guy. Not mad.

That's bad. I'm not mad. I'm not, it's frustrating and I'm not, I don't mean to be mad as much as just like, I genuinely don't know what to do with it. Yeah. Yeah, like I don't know what to take. You know, Emily Oster had that great line when I interviewed her

where I asked her how she deals with all the criticism. And she said, I think of criticism like the male. You get to choose what you bring in your house and what you leave outside. Yes. that's up to you and I think it's a great framework and I'm just like sometimes I'm unsure about which things

I should be bringing home with me and which things I should leave out in the mailbox you know I actually I really like that point I almost want to let that just stand there is this thing that's been in my craw a little bit and I'll maybe offer it here as succinctly as I can

one dimension of this that I find very frustrating like the desire people have for the kind of maximalist condemnation in a bunch of context is they'll oftentimes bypass what could be a way more persuasive argument to the people they'd most like to see persuaded. Like, okay, the troop deployments.

Maybe this is an element of some kind of takeover and it is like this is actually the specter of fascism. It could also just be, you know, 200 National Guardsmen surrounding a federal building and not particularly consequential. except it's also accompanied by this rhetoric from the administration who are constantly amping up the temperature around these troop deployments. And for an administration who says explicitly,

we are concerned about the safety of these federal employees, that's why we want to do these troop deployments, to talk about it in apocalyptic terms and to suggest we're coming. We're coming. We don't care. It doesn't matter. We're coming. there's a weird contrast there that ought to be better understood that in the act of deploying

these federal troops, ostensibly to protect other federal employees and property and them carrying out the enforcement aspect of the administration, they are perhaps heightening the danger. there have been these weird clashes between civilians and law enforcement officials. And it seems that it is at least in some respects attributable to just the temperature of these deployments. Maybe there's a conversation to be had there about the administration's just general approach that doesn't necessarily tinge on whether or not we're calling it fascist or not. not, and just hinges on the tenor of the discourse surrounding these deployments, however you feel about them.

And it's a somewhat, yeah. It's this the same kind of response of the anti-Semitism push. It's like if we're really concerned about it, as a stakeholder there, it doesn't make me feel safer. And we're like, now we're re-engaging with a whole other suite of issues. But, yeah, I know what you mean. All right, well, it's time to keep the complaining going with our grievances section. So we just spent 30 minutes airing grievances, and now we'll spend another five wrapping it up. All right, John, you can play the music, man.

The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. Anybody want to go first? Anybody feel? Yeah, I can go first. No, you've got to come out. No, you, no, absolutely. I was just going to complain about...

That was cute, guys. I was just going to complain about my iPhone some more. So that's all great. You didn't get the iPhone error, did you? No, no, I got the big orange. Oh, I was there when your iPhone got delivered. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I am, as you can see, caseless. And, you know, I like the feel of the phone in my hand. Someone said to me, I mean, come on. on, you're an adult. Why do you need a protective case for your phone? And I don't know why I'd let that affect me so much. But I have. But I did. And I keep, yes. And I keep dropping my phone. And I don't understand. Turns out you're not an adult. Well, you know what? It just has all these stupid

ugly nicks on it. It's barely two weeks old. And it's like, come on, Apple. Like, you could do better than this. And I don't know what. I keep dropping my phone. But I'm like, come on Apple. Just look at all these, like, scrapes and bumps. I shouldn't have to buy another thing to protect this thing that is always in my hand. Always. Dude, I will inevitably drop. This is preposterous. We are 17 generations in, and I'm still just, oh, no, what if I drop my phone?

I should be able to drop this phone. I should be able to drop it from several stories and nothing should happen. Do better. This thing costs almost like two grand at this point. Do better. I totally agree. I bought a brand new Samsung TV last week, and I watched the Commanders game on it.

Bad play, threw my beer at the TV, and it's cracked the TV screen. What kind of bullshit company is this? You throw something at the TV and it breaks. Yeah, that's a totally reasonable position to have, Camille. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'm just going to... I didn't buy a new TV and I didn't throw anything at it. but you're, you know, stop dropping your phone or get a case, you fucking moron. Anyway, this is that safe space where you're like to complain. Yeah, so safe.

Yeah. That's Camille. I think that's you getting baptized truly into the podcast here of like, here's your grievance. It sucks. Good one. We'll move on.

Life is good, though, in general, apart from the travest. All right, stop that, stop that. Yeah. I'm going to complain. I don't like that. the fact that I have a mortal body that ages. To my knowledge, I think I'm the first person to have this issue and complaint.

It is unique and specific to me, and I don't enjoy the fact that now I'm apparently the only person in the world who has ever fallen asleep strangely late into his 30s and then woken up with a tension headache. that's a very mean thing to happen specifically to me and I don't like that it's that I'm experiencing it and I really wish I would have the same experience everyone else had where they reached 25

and then they had that body that they had when they're 25 for the rest of their lives it's annoying that I'm not having that experience I did already sent a slack this morning that was like I have a terrible headache guys I need just like an hour

not looking at the screen and like Lindsay and Will and Audrey are like, oh my God, I'm so sorry, that's the worst, feel better, and I had to refrain from making some joke about, like, get over yourself, dude, it's a headache. You know, who cares? Let it go.

All I said was I'm going to be offline because I can't look at the screen. I was the one if you want to criticize anybody, criticize the people who responded with too much concern. Yeah. I mean, I say, guys, but he's fine. He has a headache. He didn't lose a limb. Everybody relax. I didn't know that it was a tension headache, though.

does suck. Yeah. No headache is good. But yeah, I appreciate your silence, I guess. Yeah. I wanted to be acknowledged that I restraint. I exercise restraint. I didn't have anything nice to say, so I didn't say anything. What did I just say? I said, I appreciated your silence. All right. What do you have to complain about? We can't on that. My complaint is, I think, it's a good grievance. I have been trying to, Okay, I've broken or lost two pairs of glasses recently. One from Warby Parker and one from Glasses, USA. And in both instances, I have gone back to these respective companies.

I think, yeah, Warby Parker might be a sponsor of the show occasionally. Whatever. I'm independent. In both instances, I've gone back to these brands to get my pair of glasses again, trying to order the same ones I had before and in both cases the glasses that came the exact same glasses that came did not fit the same on my face

on like the bridge of my nose now I'll admit I'll concede I have a large nose you know kind of wide-bodied full beautiful nose yeah and

but it makes it a little hard for me to find glass that sit the way I want them to in my face. And so I'm like, I have to go back to this board. It's like a measurement. Like 18 and a half is like the bridge or something. And they just don't, they're the exact same pair of glasses and they just don't fit the same. And I like, one of them I broke by sitting on them.

And so like just the lens popped out and like one of the arms sort of broke. But I was like in the mirror last night, just like putting the old pair on, taking it off, then putting a new pair on. And they're just different friends. frames. And I'm like, this is, this should be illegal. Like, they, I just spent a hundred fifty bucks. I bought the same exact pair. Yeah. I bought the same exact pair of glasses and you sent me a different pair. Like, this is like a, I'm going to file like a better business bureau complaint. This is, this is unethical. They're not. You're also eating if that's what you're doing.

Yeah, exactly. They could. Yeah. I was going to preface all this by saying this is like the most like Jewy complaint of all time. But, um, they, like, they, they. What happened? The truth. advertise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they just, they literally, I'm just like, you clearly change the where you're manufacturing your glasses. Maybe this is like a tariffs thing. They updated their model, which is unthinkable that they would ever do that. Right, so I'm going through all of this last night.

This is, I'm just like getting angry and angered on. And then I'm going back, these are the glasses USA ones that I'm wearing now that I like them, but they don't fit exactly how the old ones fit. So I'm upset about that I'm trying the Warby Parker's on. And I'm like, God, these still don't fit. And then I'm just looking in the mirror, I'm like, shit, did my face change? Like, maybe this is just a me thing. Like, I'm like a little longer in the tooth and my face is getting a little droopier, like my nose.

And that was too depressing of a thought. So I just said, no, this is definitely the glass. They should, they must have changed factories. Just the children who are wrong. Yes. Yeah, yeah. The manufacturing here is bogus. And then I went to bed, upset, and I thought, oh, I know what I'm going to do.

I'll complain about this on the podcast tomorrow. and then I feel a lot better. It's an interesting tactic that you did at the end to sort of like give yourself a backdoor so you wouldn't attack your complaint a little bit. Yeah, thanks. That's the most Woody Allen-esque grievance on the podcast. Wow.

You're Woody Allening me? Just a little bit. Yeah, your nose grew and it's the fault of the capitalist enterprise that's graciously sending you a free pair of the glasses. They're not free. I paid for these.

I paid for these glasses. I didn't, I, I, I, I, I paid. I bought, I just went back and bought, that's my problem. I presume that if I purchased the exact same glasses I bought two years ago, they would send me the exact same glasses, which they didn't do, which is the crime they committed that I think should be able. The crime. Agreed is crap.

Yes. All right. We got to get out of here. Gentlemen, it was nice seeing you guys again. missed you last week. I did. I'm glad to be back. And we'll see you soon. Next week. Prego. Yeah. Alora. All right. Bye. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul and our executive producer is John Lull.

Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editors Hunter Asperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Canuth, and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign them for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com. Dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast, this series brings the drama

to the screen like never before, starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark. Watch the Hulu original series, Murdoch, Death in the Family, streaming October 15th on Disney Plus. Not a billionaire, not a problem. You can still do something legendary. By leaving a gift to charity in your will. Even 1% in your will can change the game for a cause you care about without taking away what you or your family need. It's a powerful way to make your mark. Anyone can leave a legacy. Willpower shows you how. Learn more at willpower.ca. With Instacart, you get groceries that over-deliver so that you can over-share your preferences. Want russet potatoes with no brown spots? You got it. Want turnips that look light but feel heavy? Easy.

Want honey-crisp apples that are firm, green, and definitely not Macintosh like last year when you lost the fall bake-off to perfect Penelope Johnson? Okay, a bit TMI, but we're here for it. So download the app today and get $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.