The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Abby Phillip Talks Jesse Jackson, CNN NewsNight, Cam'ron, Trump, Kamala, Cancel Culture + More

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Abby Phillip Talks Jesse Jackson, CNN NewsNight, Cam'ron, Trump, Kamala, Cancel Culture. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omny...studio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. Hello, America's sweetheart Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, from Smartless Media, campside media, and big money players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high-functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he's still,
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Starting point is 00:01:41 I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals. and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting
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Starting point is 00:02:52 You're all finished or y'all done? Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show, The Breakfast Club. Shalamey Nagarious, DJ Envy. Envy is out today, but Lauren LaRosa is in, and we have a very special guest, man, the host of my favorite cable news network show. Abby Phillips is here. Good morning, Abby, good morning. I say Phillips, but it's Philip. It's Philip. It's Philip. Yeah, that's okay, though. Everybody puts an S on it. It's cool. It does not bother me. My friend says it's a sign of respect in our community like Salinas.
Starting point is 00:03:23 I don't know what they do that with people named. Why do we do that? I don't know. It sounds right. It feels right. How are you? I'm good. I'm good.
Starting point is 00:03:33 I'm hanging in there. New book out. A Dream Deferred. Jesse Jackson and the fight for black political power. I'm from South Carolina. So I completely understand Jesse Jackson and, you know, why he deserves all the praise. But why did you decide to write this book? I think that there are a lot of people who have no.
Starting point is 00:03:53 idea that he ran for president honestly and they don't and if they know that he ran for president they probably don't have any idea that he came second uh in the democratic nomination in 1988 so he was the runner up and before obama there was jesse jackson and i think this chapter really is more important now than ever back in the 80s i think people didn't have any way to know that what Jesse Jackson did really mattered in the long term. But it clearly mattered because had he not run, Obama wouldn't have been the nominee. Had he not run, I don't know that you would have like a Bernie Sanders or an AOC or even a Zoron Mamdani. I mean, these are people who are running on basically the same platform that Jesse Jackson ran on.
Starting point is 00:04:45 And he really transformed democratic politics, not to mention registering millions of voters. And putting in place a lot of the people that you know, people like Donna Brazil, Mignon Moore, and so many others who are leaders in the Democratic Party, they are all there because of Jesse Jackson. I was going to say, in the back of your book, The Praises, you say, like the first one talks about how he doesn't, how Jesse Jackson doesn't get credit for how influential in American politics as he was. What credit do you want people to give him after they read your book? Yeah, I mean, I think that he transformed the structure of the Democratic Party that made it easier for outsiders to come in and disrupt the system. I think that's really what his original goal was when he was running for president. He was basically saying to the Democratic Party, you have to take us seriously as black voters and not just black voters, but all kinds of other voters. He brought Arab Americans into the voting process.
Starting point is 00:05:47 He insisted on women being on the ticket. That's why Democrats had a woman on the ticket in 1984. He insisted on Asian Americans being part of the political process. So what he was arguing for was a political system that actually takes everybody seriously. And I do think we're closer to that now than we were in the 80s. And he deserves a lot of credit for that. But I also think, you know, especially younger folks, who, and look, I count myself among them.
Starting point is 00:06:20 I was born three weeks after the 88 campaign was over. Oh, no, I was 10. Right. So, but I'm just saying, like, this is not about any kind of judgment about what you know or don't know about this particular chapter of history. But it's important to know that Jesse Jackson, like so many other of these leaders in our history, they had a lot of chapters. And this was a really significant chapter.
Starting point is 00:06:47 I mean, he ran for president two times. He almost won the nomination. He, during one of these campaigns, he went to Syria and Cuba and brought prisoners of war back to the United States. I mean, he was doing a lot of things that if candidates were doing that today, we would be like, what? Is that real? But he doesn't get a lot of credit for. And I think a lot of it is because it was the first time that so many Americans had ever seen a black man, try to do what he did. And I think it's important to remember how much
Starting point is 00:07:20 of a, you know, just a barrier breaker he was at that time. What was the single biggest myth or misconception you discovered in your reporting about either of those campaigns that you wanted to correct? That he was only running as a black candidate for black voters. I think that's the biggest misconception. He was obviously very interested, motivated by the desire to make sure that black people utilize their power, not just cast a ballot, but had leverage to get changes on the platform policy, things that mattered to their day-to-day lives. But he was also in Missouri with white farmers. He was also in San Francisco with Asian American activists. He had, that's why he called it the Rainbow Coalition. I think people
Starting point is 00:08:12 remember him as being the candidate for black people, but he actually brought, as he said he would, a rainbow of people into the political process. And he does not get very much credit for how much appeal he had among white voters, especially when he ran the second time around. There's this great picture I have in the book of him at a rally with a bunch of white farmers in like their overalls and they all have paper bags on their heads with their eyes cut off because they're they're trying to hide their faces from the feds who were trying to basically foreclose on their farms and there's jesse jackson in the background with all of these white people um rallying alongside them and that's for me an iconic photo that kind of shows that he had the
Starting point is 00:09:02 same energy for our community as he did for all of those other people and he was arguing to them, look, we have, the people who are trying to divide us along racial lines are trying to make you think that you don't have as much in common as a working class black person, and that's a lie. And a lot of people diminish that part of his campaign because it's easier to sort of just put him in a box of, oh, he was just a black candidate for black people. I wonder where he fell short, because, you know, you talk about a lot in the book about the unlikely coalition he put together. Yeah. It seems unlikely back then, but now it's like the norm, right? Exactly.
Starting point is 00:09:37 what the President Obama did or what the VP tried to do. I mean, all candidates tried to do it. Where did he fall short back then, you think? There were a lot of things that happened. I think some of them were his own mistakes, and I write about those in the book. I mean, he had a very big controversy. Going to Jewish slur?
Starting point is 00:09:53 Yeah, he used a slur against Jews in private, and then it became public. And he had a hard time figuring out how to deal with it and was slow in addressing it. And that really dogged him for the, especially for the 1984 campaign, but it had an impact on 88, too. I think the other part of it was that he was a true outsider candidate. He had almost no establishment support. You know, he was like what Bernie Sanders was in 2016, where nobody wanted to touch him among establishment Democrats.
Starting point is 00:10:33 And so it was harder for him to build a real campaign. that had the infrastructure that he needed to take advantage of the momentum when he did encounter momentum. But I would say the other thing is that he was completely discounted as a candidate. I mean, I went back and I read virtually everything that was written about Jesse Jackson and those two campaigns. And the way they talked about him as if he was a gadfly candidate, they really did not take him seriously in the media.
Starting point is 00:11:05 And back in that time, there was no way to bypass the mainstream media. And I do think a lot of times if he were running today, I mean, he was such a master of the press, of narrative, of really breaking through, but there was no Internet. And if he had had that, I think it would have been a different story because so much of his message just never got to people. That's a lot of the critique he gets, too, though. A lot of people say that he was just an ambulance chase. who used to seek publicity. Like, you know, there's an infamous story about how he wiped Martin's blood on his shirt.
Starting point is 00:11:41 I don't know if that is even true. That's in the book. Look, so read, I mean, you should, that part of his story is, and I'm glad you brought it up, it's important because that is the double-edged sword of Jesse Jackson, was that he was a chaser of attention, of cameras.
Starting point is 00:12:01 He loved having a microphone in his face. and it was both a gift and a curse. He used it extremely well for decades and decades. And it made him one of the most famous people in this country for a time. But at the same time, it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, including black people. Especially black people, in some cases, especially black people. There were a lot of stories in the book about why all of these people that he came up with in the civil rights movement, all these elected political leaders who were, you know, they ran in the same circle.
Starting point is 00:12:37 Some of them were his friends, did not endorse his campaigns. And it was for a myriad of different reasons. But I do think that a lot of people were rubbed the wrong way by his constant attention seeking, what seemed to be attention seeking. And I think that even while you can recognize how important he was as a figure, it's like all of these people, they're all flawed in some really profound ways, but especially in this particular way. I mean, any person who runs for president has a massive ego,
Starting point is 00:13:16 has a massive desire for attention. And he fits into that category like a lot of these other guys. I don't mind it, though, because, you know, we say now one of the Democrats' biggest problems is not knowing how to message, not knowing how to communicate. not knowing how to connect with people. Jesse did not have that problem. He did not. He was a master connector.
Starting point is 00:13:37 I mean, he really was. And I do think he probably got more dogged for it than he deserved because that skill was so rare at the time. And it's rare now. I mean, he was a black man in the 80s filling up stadiums of 15, 20,000 people. There are many candidates right now to this day that absolutely cannot do that. And he was able to do it because he had charisma. He could deliver a speech. He could connect with people who were otherwise not that interested in him as a candidate.
Starting point is 00:14:14 And look, it's a skill. It's a particular gift. And I think that gift was completely, you know, it was just kind of ignored at the time. And I think we understand now how rare that is. People like Obama have it. people like Donald Trump have it people like Bernie Sanders have it but not that many people have it
Starting point is 00:14:37 and he had it and at that time it was just kind of like well he's not a serious candidate in the opening of your book you have a quote from Theodore Roosevelt right about criticism and you know critics The man in the arena
Starting point is 00:14:53 yeah how do you think social media well young people growing up in the social media area these days How can they learn from a quote as strong as this one? Yeah, I mean, the quote speaks to the fact that the reason I chose it is because I think people often throw stones at people who are in the arena doing the work and getting bloodied up and muddied up by doing the work because it's really easy to be on the outside and criticize. but by being in the arena you are actually doing the thing and it's messy and it doesn't require you to be perfect and I thought that was a good quote that kind of describes Jesse Jackson I wrote this book and it paints the full picture of this man as in all his flaws and all his
Starting point is 00:15:54 gifts. But the one thing you have to say about him is that he was in the arena. That's right. He was there at all these different junctures. He was involved in 1972 at the historic black political convention in Gary, Indiana, where black people gathered together and asked themselves, how do we exercise our power? He was there in the 80s. He was there in the 90s. So he was there in all these moments. And I think it can be very easy to criticize those people who seem to be everywhere a little too much, but being in the arena matters, actually getting up off your couch and going and doing something about what's happening in the world is something that very few people do, and when they do it, we should learn from them.
Starting point is 00:16:43 Do you feel that way being, you know, one of the few black women on cable news with their own show, especially you because, you know, you have your own remote collision? that you bring together every night. That's one way of putting it. With all of these different voices, do you feel like you get a lot of that? A lot of criticism. Look, I don't want people to misunderstand this.
Starting point is 00:17:06 I am not at all saying that I am at the caliber of people like Jesse or anybody else who's really putting their body on the line to make the world a better place. But what you do is important. But I play a role. Like, we all have a role. And this is mine.
Starting point is 00:17:22 and in a way, yeah, people are very easy to be like, well, she shouldn't give this person a platform, she shouldn't do this, she shouldn't do that. And I do think it's super easy to say that when you're just at home, like watching the clips on your phone. And this, I've been covering politics a long time. This is a time in our, like, political life where we have to really know what's going on.
Starting point is 00:17:52 And we have to know what everybody is saying on all sides of the issue. Because I don't think that ignorance has served anybody well. And particularly, I get a lot of criticism from the left, from people who are like, why does she have MAGA people on the show? And it's like, well, you should know what they're saying. Yeah, I agree. Because just so you know, half the country voted for Trump. and for Trumpism.
Starting point is 00:18:24 And it's not helpful to be completely unaware of what is happening in those media ecosystems. So I personally think it's super important. And I want the debate. Like we need to have that debate. I want it to be right there out in the open. And I also think that it's important for people on both sides to practice.
Starting point is 00:18:52 being challenged because what we found on the show is that a lot of people are not used to being challenged and when they when they have somebody literally staring them in the face saying I disagree with you for some people they they're like really taken aback like they don't really know how to deal with that how to counter it how to be quick how to respond and I think that is a really important skill in our politics that we can go back and forth on the issues and we can really hash it out and I I you know I'll take the criticism from all sides but I am very proud of what we do because I think that very few people are willing to do it very few people are willing to take the chance of um of of of even being criticized and I don't mind it like
Starting point is 00:19:42 that's part of the job what about um because I know with your show there's some moments that are like very yeah hard hitting right yeah what about when that becomes like two much for you because I've seen people step away from those debate style shows because it personally becomes too much and it's triggering for them especially for black women how do you kind of because you get back up and do it again the next day like what is your that's my responsibility I unfortunately can't step away but I understand when people do and I actually think that is totally good and healthy I think it's important to know your your limits and you know what the good news about me not being able to step away is that it's my show and i can draw
Starting point is 00:20:26 the lines when i need to draw the lines and and if you watch as i know i know you do every night like you've seen the times when i've had to draw some lines at the table and i don't do it that often because i want it to be not not that common because when i do it's like when your mom you know really tells you it's time to stop. That's kind of how I want it to be where it's not like that happens all the time, but you know that when I've reached my limit, it's the end. That's the limit. And I think that I can, because I'm the host,
Starting point is 00:21:04 I can draw those lines around the kind of conduct that I will accept at the table. And I have control over who shows up and who doesn't. And so for me, I take that on the weight of having to show up every single day but I don't discount any person saying I need to take a break
Starting point is 00:21:28 I need a moment because I think that's actually healthy for all of us that we should take care of ourselves and our own well-being even while we try to stay engaged and I fully support that and I also will say Lauren that I think
Starting point is 00:21:47 there are definitely people who cross the line and that's part of the dynamic that is not within our control and I... It was an example. And that's okay. I mean... I think I know one. Well look I mean the more
Starting point is 00:22:04 maybe the most famous one was the time... Jillian Michaels? Well yeah there was Jillian Michaels but I you know I'll say honestly Jillian Michaels crossed the line in the sense that she said something something that was kind of embarrassing. And we addressed it, but we never said to her,
Starting point is 00:22:23 you're not welcome back. Yeah, and I don't think she crossed the line either. I just think she just wasn't informed. Yeah, that was, that's her, she made a decision not to want to come back, but yeah, she, the thing about that was that she actually was talking about something that was important for people to be aware of was actually happening. Because right after she said, what she said about
Starting point is 00:22:46 slavery and how it's over-emphasized at museums and in the Smithsonian, guess who said the same thing? The president. So if you had watched our show a couple of days before, you would have known what was coming. And it's not just that she said it, but the president said it. And then it... I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Well, wait a minute. Sophia, you know she's a cult leader. Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, My neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals,
Starting point is 00:23:22 and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult. Hold up, Sophia. A real-life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue. But according to this person,
Starting point is 00:23:36 contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with her ceiling, and her neighbors are not happy. Well, she needs to report, them ASAP. She did. And now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time. So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up everybody? This is Snacks from the TrapMurts podcast, and we're bringing you the horror every week all October long. Kicking off this month, I'll be bringing you all my greatest fear-inducing horror games from Resident
Starting point is 00:24:14 to Silent Hill, me and Tony bringing back by our team on Left for Dead too, and we're just going to be going over some of the greats. Also in October, we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movie and figure out why black people always got to die first. The Umbro Reliquary invites any and all fooling, brave enough, to peruse its many curiosities. But take heed, all sales are final. Weekly Horror Side Quest written and narrated by yours truly. with a full episode read and a commentary special.
Starting point is 00:24:46 And we will cap it off with horror movie Battle Royale. Jason versus Freddie. Michael Myers versus the 80th thing with the little tongue muster. October, we're doing it Halloween style. Listen to the Travener's podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead.
Starting point is 00:25:14 The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other.
Starting point is 00:25:30 They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular, circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control.
Starting point is 00:25:54 Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Crying Wolf Podcast is the story of two men bound by injustice, of a city haunted by its secrets, and the quest for redemption. no matter the price. White victim, female, pretty, wealthy, black defendant. Chicago, a white woman's murder, a black man behind bars, for a crime he didn't commit. I got 90 years for killing somebody I have never seen it. He says the police are his friends and then that's it. They turn on it.
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Starting point is 00:26:59 Listen to the Crying Wolf podcast, starting on October 22nd, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. it actually became the policy that they're trying to implement at the White House. So I thought it was actually super important that that was put out there because I think people were not aware of the extent to which slavery was the core thing that they were mad about in terms of how it was being represented in our museums. So she, again, I think you're right. Like I don't think that we, I just would describe that as crossing the line, but we addressed it as an important conversation that needed to be factually addressed.
Starting point is 00:27:43 But there was another incident with a person who was on the show who said to another guest that a Muslim guest that their pager would go off. To many. It was a reference to the Israeli they'd like put bomb materials and pagers of the Houthi terrorists and they went off. And that was an actual line that was crossed because you wishing death on a guest on the show is completely unacceptable. And he was told, and I said publicly on the show, he was not invited back. And so there are lines that are crossed
Starting point is 00:28:22 and I think people understand that I'll draw them when they need to be drawn. But I also think that we want to have real conversations. Sometimes they get a little bit messy and that's okay but I also think you know disrespecting people in a way that is
Starting point is 00:28:41 inhumane or you know just there's some lines that we don't want to cross and we'll draw those lines publicly and I'll let everybody know what's going on but for the most part we're trying to encourage speech not trying to squelch it. The thing that bugs me out
Starting point is 00:29:00 about your show is people will say you know they'll talk about Scott Jennings or the Kevin O'Leary's or, you know, the guy who said, made the comments to Medi Hassan. But you have Anna Casparian on there. And Nina Turner and Teslin Figuerole and Baccari Sellas and Tiffany Cross and Medi Hassan and Michael Eric Dyson and Charlesville, all of these powerful people with powerful voices
Starting point is 00:29:21 who push back on all of that nonsense. I don't understand why nobody ever highlights that. You have voices on TV that don't get on TV. Teslin Figuerole's only put her on Fox News. Anna's only on the Young Turks Network. They don't put these people on television. And we look for people to bring on who bring a different, unique perspective. That's the whole idea, is that people like Anna and Teslin and others, when we bring them on the table,
Starting point is 00:29:51 it's because we don't want just like the typical talking head that you hear on television. That's right. Because I also think that what they do is they represent more people. They represent regular people and how they think. And one of the things that I love about the show, because I hear it from people when I go out into the country, is that they watch and when they hear something, regardless of what part of the political perspective they're on, they'll say, yeah, that's what I was thinking. And I want people to think that, that their POV is rep, their point of view is represented at the table in some way. And so, yeah, we try to find unique, new, interesting, dynamic, energetic voices, people who are smart, people who can get in there in the conversation and are not passive. They're actively listening.
Starting point is 00:30:47 They're actively responding. They're thinking on their feet. They're not just regurgitating talking points. We don't get there every single day, but that's the goal that we try to get at. And so, yeah, we, on both sides of the aisle, by the way, because we also look for fresh voices on the right because I just think that there's, people are tired of the same old, same old, the kind of talking past each other where, you know, one person is saying one thing and then the other person is saying another and they're not ever responding to each other and the ideas that are put on the table. and we try to move past that because I think it's not that interesting to be doing that in this day and age.
Starting point is 00:31:34 And what I'm also really proud of is that we get into the actual issues. We're not just talking about the politics and how it's going to play with the right and how it's going to play with the left. I'm going to ask you, who are tariffs really helping and who are they really hurting?
Starting point is 00:31:51 And like we're going to talk about the actual issue, not just, quote-unquote, how it plays. Because I think that's kind of like a lazy way to approach real issues that have an impact on people's real lives. Nobody cares how it plays. They want to know how it's affecting their actual pocketbook.
Starting point is 00:32:10 Go ahead. You had dedicated this book to your daughter and your two parents. I wanted to ask your question. You said to my daughter Naomi, who showed me how. How did your daughter show you how? What did you mean?
Starting point is 00:32:22 I never knew how much I could do until I had my daughter. And I think I know a lot of moms, parents can relate to that, that I was probably limiting myself before I had her. Because being a parent, you're like doing so much every single day. And there's nothing more motivating than your child. There is nothing that wakes me up faster in the morning. than my daughter
Starting point is 00:32:55 and knowing that I have to get up and Adam not only to put food on the table and a roof over her head, but to show her what it means to work really hard. And I started working on this book like two months before
Starting point is 00:33:11 I found out that I was pregnant with her. This was kind of a surprise. And I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do? And then the morning sickness hit and then I was launching a show and I was like I don't know if I can do this but I did but I did it and then when she was born and I was you know trying to raise a newborn as a first time mom and then trying to work on this book the thing that kept me going was that I cannot quit on this for her and so yeah
Starting point is 00:33:47 she she showed me how to do the things that I set out to do. And everything that I start, I finish because of her. Because that's what we have to do for our kids is to, like, we are showing them the way. And she watches me. And, you know,
Starting point is 00:34:08 she knows, like, mommy's going to a speech. Mommy's going to an event. Yeah. You know, she really, she clocks it. She recognizes everything that I'm doing. And it's in that brain somewhere. And I know that when 10 years from now,
Starting point is 00:34:23 She's four now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, that's going to be her normal, and that's what I want. And child care is expensive, so, you know, those speeches. And New York City is expensive. Yes, it's ridiculous out here to raise and educate a child. So, yes. That is so powerful. I do love how you shed light on that for me. That's really dope.
Starting point is 00:34:48 Yeah. And I wanted to ask you, too, right? When you did get the backlash from the Jillian Michaels thing. there's a lot of people making comments and the social media is one thing but when the comments come from people you actually know like whether it's other
Starting point is 00:35:01 whether it's prominent writers or journalists that I'm not going to say no names but how did that make you feel? I think it was disappointing because I really hope that we understand
Starting point is 00:35:15 how important it is for people to be free to say things that other people disagree with because when the tables turn, we want that ability. And I also think it does not do us any favors to pretend like a lot of people don't agree with Jillian Michaels and that it's an opportunity for us to correct the record. Educate, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:42 To educate, to inform, to put facts on the table. And I know, can I be real, I know black people who agree with Jillian Michaels. I've heard, and not just recently, this is her talking point about how slavery existed all in the world, and we overemphasize it here in the United States. I have had black people say that to me, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. So it's not like this is a new talking point. She didn't invent this out of nowhere. So it's an opportunity for us to correct it.
Starting point is 00:36:13 And I feel like people who, if you call yourself a journalist, you should never, I don't think we should be in the business of saying it would be better for us to just not hear the thing that we disagree with. It is an opportunity for us to do what we're supposed to do, which is to actually give
Starting point is 00:36:36 people something real to counter it with. Gives people facts to arm themselves with. That is what our job is as journalists. Yeah, I heard Andrew Gillum say he said this when we did it was the night of the election. Maybe it was a couple weeks late, I remember, but he was talking about
Starting point is 00:36:52 In reference to your election, he said, I never want to be blindsided about what the other side is thinking ever again. Absolutely. And then I think about that. And I also think about, man, think about somebody, think about a eight-year-old child or a 15-year-old child that might be just up watching CNN one night or see that clip go viral. If there's nobody there to correct that woman, Jillian, in that moment, they might believe that too. They might take that information and run with it. So you need people there to educate. I don't know why they're upset because you platform.
Starting point is 00:37:22 on both. Yeah, I mean, and look, there's a whole, as you know, the media is so fragmented right now. Everybody is consuming media in their own silos. And a lot of people on the left, liberals or whatever, they have no idea what's being said in those conservative ecosystems. And one of the things that we do is sort of try to merge those information lanes a little bit more so that we're actually hearing each other and so that you're not blindsided because there's a whole other world that's happening over here that you don't even know about and you don't find out about until people vote and by that point it's too late so there should be more of this happening where we hear each other we're able to put fight in from fight information with
Starting point is 00:38:15 information but facts facts against facts and how people pick based on their own judgment what makes the most sense and I trust people enough to do that I have enough respect for other human beings that they can make decisions on their own but I do think that it requires that we really understand
Starting point is 00:38:37 what we're even talking about and so I don't you know I mean look it is it disappointing yes but I also think that many of the people who criticize what we do spend a lot of time just talking to other people who agree with them. And that's a choice, but it's not a choice that I'm making.
Starting point is 00:38:56 And I think actually a lot of people want to know. They actually do want to know. How do you feel when people say that CNN is a network that just does what you just said you don't want to do? Like your show is different because you bring on these different voices. But I've even seen people say that they feel like sometimes the other voices that are brought on are kind of brought on just because they have to be there, not because like anybody truly wants them there because CNN is known.
Starting point is 00:39:21 to be, or people think CNN always leans one way. How do you feel about that? It does. I mean, yeah, and it's your network so you don't really... Well, look, I would say it's fair to say that CNN, we're not Fox News, but we're also not
Starting point is 00:39:36 MSNBC. We're... That's true. We're probably center left, and I think that has a lot to do with our audience. But we watch... When you actually watch CNN, we have Republicans on every hour of the day, every single one.
Starting point is 00:39:56 I'm pretty sure, maybe with very few exceptions, but virtually every hour of the day. So they're not always on in the context that we put them on, but we as a network have a diversity of viewpoints on the air more so than our competitors. And so, I mean, liberal media is a criticism that I think we hear a lot, but there's also way more liberal media
Starting point is 00:40:27 and way more conservative media. And so I don't, I don't know, I don't put that much stock in it. I think it's, I think it's a little bit of a reflection of the cable news audience, but I also think that there are extremes on both sides and we're not in the extreme.
Starting point is 00:40:43 And I think we're a quick, I think another thing is that y'all show conservatives who aren't necessarily MAGA like the SE Cups in the world that Adam Kinsinger Michael Steele was on your show last week I believe wasn't he?
Starting point is 00:40:56 No, no, not Michael yeah, he's on MSNBC but there is a range to your point and it's not just you know there are MAGA conservatives there are people like SE and Alyssa Farah
Starting point is 00:41:08 who are sort of somewhat anti-Trump Republicans we have libertarian people we have progressives we have just establishment Democrats, there is a range of political views and we try to have them represented in one way, shape, or form. We have people who, I cannot put them in a box. I don't, like, I don't know how to describe their political views. We bring those people on, but we also bring on
Starting point is 00:41:38 people who are just not, you know, we have Roy Wood Jr. on all the time. We have Wendell Pierce comes on like we bring on people who yes just people who are just insightful and smart van lathan you know they're just interesting and they bring depth to the conversation and they put things on the table that regular that like the classic new york and dc types don't put on the table and so i think that we are so much more multidimensional than left and right than democrat and Republican. And that should be better reflected in who talks on television. You brought up a, this was like a, I think it was like a few weeks ago, you were talking about cancel culture. And I saw people reacting to this too. You said that liberals need to take more
Starting point is 00:42:27 honest for where cancel culture went wrong. And this was after Kimmel was pulled from air. Yeah. There's been a lot of like conversation about if cancel culture is even a real thing at this point. But where do you think the liberals went wrong with cancel culture? I think that, there were some specific moments, you know, not just around race, by the way, but even around, you know, around COVID, around other things where gender identity, whatever, yeah, whatever you want to call it. I'm not endorsing any viewpoints that are right or wrong, but I think it's asking the question, should people be forced out of their jobs
Starting point is 00:43:15 or, you know, should the weight of sort of public opinion force people out of their livelihoods because of things that they say? Maybe because of mistakes that they make. I think it is just a fair conversation to have because, as we saw when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, you had people making comments on Facebook about how they didn't like what he said and then losing their jobs over it.
Starting point is 00:43:45 The government pulled people's visas and revoked their citizenship over comments like that. And I just think globally, look, I think one of the criticisms of me making that point was that even long before this, there was cancel culture in the 80s and the 90s. And I think that's 100% true. But shouldn't we evolve to a point where we don't do this kind of thing anymore? Where we think really hard about what is the bar for us to say you should be, you know, run out of society for something that you said, for an opinion that you have? And I think that's a fair question to ask. Look, I don't think we should be operating based on what was done.
Starting point is 00:44:37 done to us in the past because I think if we do that we're just it's like a ball rolling down a hill we're only going to dig ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole that we cannot get out of and I think every single one of you would want to be able to say I disagree with X, Y and Z person and not lose your job over it. Absolutely. So that's the only point I was making that that the principle here is not that we want to be able to do what they did to us. The principle is that people ought to be allowed to say things that other people disagree with without risking losing their livelihood and their jobs over an opinion or even a mistake that sometimes people make mistakes. They say things that they regret.
Starting point is 00:45:25 And people should be allowed to make mistakes and atone for them without their lives being completely ruined forever. I think we would want that for us. and I think we would want that for people we disagree with. My last question is, going back to your book, is there a politician that you see today, right, that you would say is a reflection of Jesse Jackson's legacy? Hmm.
Starting point is 00:45:50 You know, I, what I would say is that there are several politicians that are influenced by Jesse Jackson, but none of them have so far proven that they can actually do, what he sought out to do and be successful at it. So I would say that, you know, Bernie Sanders is a Jacksonian politician in the way that he talks about economic issues. AOC is like the next level of that.
Starting point is 00:46:23 She brings in the sort of social justice piece that I think is lower on the list of priorities for someone like Bernie Sanders. And I think so I think that there are, there's sort of like this new. generation of populist politician who are talking about issues in the way that he did, basically arguing to voters that the system isn't set up for you, that it's not, you know, it's sort of like this idea that you're as working people, the system is set up for the rich and the powerful and the corporations. That's the type of message that Jesse Jackson had. And you hear that in a lot of other politicians.
Starting point is 00:47:05 But to me, the thing that's been missing from so many of them is being able to bring together the diverse coalition. Because if you're a Democrat and you're trying to run for a national office and you can't rally black people and Hispanic people and Asian Americans and like the whole coalition, you're going to fail. You're going to fail. And that's where Bernie Sanders went wrong is that he never really was able to get people of color on board.
Starting point is 00:47:31 He had the economic piece, but he didn't. have the other piece. And so I think the book kind of has a question mark at the end of it because it's a real question. Are there any politicians who can do both of those things at the same time? Because that's what's required
Starting point is 00:47:47 in order to build a true coalition in the Democrat, in today's Democratic Party. You can't have one without the other. You can't have the economic peace without the other. And so I think it's an open question who's going to be able to do that. Are you doing an audio
Starting point is 00:48:02 an audio version of it? Yes, I did it. I did it. And it'll be available for people like me who don't have time to carry around a book. Yeah, or people would just love to hear you speak because to be honest, your voice has a calmness to it. That would be great for me to learn all of this stuff. You know what I'm saying? Like a lot of stuff that I don't know. Like, yeah, your voice is really calming. Thank you. Thank you. How did you get here, Abby? What school did you go to and everything? And did you always want to be, you know, doing what you're doing now? I went to Harvard or whatever. I went, but look, I, I grew up in Bowie, Maryland. Okay, Maryland girl.
Starting point is 00:48:37 I'm a PG girl. And I went to Bowie High School. I just, I was a real nerd. I worked really hard and I got into Harvard and that really changed my life. And, but the reason I ended up as a journalist is because, first of all, I always loved politics, but I didn't know, I didn't want to be in politics. I don't like, to be honest, I don't like politicians. but I love current events I love history I love government
Starting point is 00:49:06 and when I was in college I went on a civil rights and service tour to we started in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel we went to Mississippi and we traveled around to all these different sites and I blogged about it and it was like a bug like I was so convinced by the power of
Starting point is 00:49:27 the people who were journalists at that time and took the things that were happening in these tiny towns and brought it to the entire country and really helped change the trajectory of civil rights in the country. And I really identified with that. And I identified with the power of being there to tell history. And that changed everything for me. And at that point, I decided that I wanted to be in journalism and I decided to pursue it. And I got kind of lucky that my first job was at kind of a startup Politico, which now is not a startup anymore
Starting point is 00:50:06 but at the time it was and I was their very first class of interns and they just kind of let me do whatever and gave me an extraordinary amount of opportunity they hired me after college. I was covering the Obama White House. I have a late birthday so I was 21 when I was
Starting point is 00:50:24 out there literally at the White House in the briefing room And so they gave me an incredible opportunity to dive right into national politics. And I've been doing it ever since. And the medium has changed. I've gone from print to television. But, you know, I've covered two presidents. I've covered several presidential campaigns.
Starting point is 00:50:48 I've done a lot in politics. And I think it's all culminated to this moment where I have an opportunity to help people, not just tell people what is happening, but help. them understand it. Because I think the people are over they're oversaturated with just all the stuff. I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered
Starting point is 00:51:09 her. Well, wait a minute. Sophia Adia knows she's a cult leader. Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling
Starting point is 00:51:25 is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult? Hold up, Sophia. A real-life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue. But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with her ceiling and her neighbors are not happy. Well, she needs to report them ASAP. She did. And now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time. So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not?
Starting point is 00:51:56 To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everybody? This is Snacks from the Trabner's podcast, and we're bringing you the horror every week all October long. Kicking off this month, I'll be bringing you all my greatest fear-inducing horror games from Resident Evil to Silent Hill. Me and Tony Bringing Back Fire Team on Left for Dead 2. And we're just going to be going over some of the greats. Also in October, we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies. And figure out why black people always got to die first. The umbral reliquary invites any and all fooling, brave enough, to peruse its many curiosities.
Starting point is 00:52:38 But take heed, all sales are final. Weekly horror side quest written and narrated by yours truly. With a full episode read and a commentary special. And we will cap it off with horror movie battle royale. Jason versus Freddie. Michael Myers versus the 80 thing with the little tongue muster. October, we're doing it Halloween style. Listen to the Travener's podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network
Starting point is 00:53:01 on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned.
Starting point is 00:53:23 But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular, circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:54:04 Here we go. Hey, I'm Kelpen, and on my new podcast, Here We Go Again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast. podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili Singh, and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing
Starting point is 00:54:53 outer space, things can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stuff that's happening. And they need a lot of help, just understanding what really matters, what should break through to them. And that's what I get to do in my job right now. I've heard people say things like, you know,
Starting point is 00:55:25 you're the future of CNN. But, you know, how do you handle being labeled that when legacy media itself is kind of like fighting to stay relevant? Yes, we are fighting for our lives out there. I mean, look, I think in the media, everybody is fighting for attention. It doesn't matter what medium you're in. And so we're in that fight alongside everybody else.
Starting point is 00:55:50 but television isn't really going anywhere. It's just that we have to evolve with people. We have to meet them where they are in both the method that we talk to people, but also the content. And I'm really grateful that we, about a year ago, a little over a year ago, was when we started to do my show this way.
Starting point is 00:56:13 And I'm really kind of grateful that we did because it really speaks to what people are looking for, which I know you talk about a lot, Charlemagne, which is they're looking for more authenticity in media. And I think legacy linear media has been very slow to that because they don't want to sacrifice being authoritative for being relatable. But I think that there's a way to do both
Starting point is 00:56:38 and there's a way to kind of give people information while also speaking to them in a way that they understand and leveling with them. and identifying with them or putting people on TV who they identify with. And so the innovation is happening. And CNN is going to be streaming soon so people who don't even have cable
Starting point is 00:57:02 are going to be able to literally just open up their app and, you know, pay a small monthly fee and you can watch it. And that's the future. And we're on Instagram and, you know, these are clips go crazy viral. because that's how people are consuming information. I mean, I wish they watch the whole show,
Starting point is 00:57:23 but I also appreciate that people who don't even watch TV are seeing what happens on the show because cable TV still remains incredibly relevant. That, to me, tells me what the relevance is. People may not be turning on their TV every night at the same time, but the clips are getting millions of views because they still think it's important and when they see something with a CNN logo on it,
Starting point is 00:57:49 that there's some authoritativeness there. So we still have that responsibility, but we have to evolve just like everybody else does. When media changing, and it's now, because media's changing, politicians and politics is changing as well to the way that people speak to people. Kamala Harris said to BBC that she possibly may run again.
Starting point is 00:58:11 How, because I know you were also very honest about what she did and do right and what you thought she did do right when she ran. If she was to run again, like, where does she meet in the middle with that? Because I think that's one of the things that fell off with her last campaign is that that was happening with media. But she didn't meet us where some people were at and speak straight to certain people. So what does she do this time around? And should she even run again?
Starting point is 00:58:30 You know, I've been talking to a lot of people about that because, as you know, this book was very controversial. And it was even more controversial than you think. I love it. In private, in private, I think there's a lot of controversy around it because I think that there are a lot of bridges that are burned here, whether she wanted to or not. And I think it will be very difficult for her to mend those fences that she'll need in order to run if she just decide to run again. I think this book read kind of like somebody who was kind of done with it. So I will be interested to see if she decides to do it.
Starting point is 00:59:13 But one thing I'll say, I mean, I think that she still has to figure out how to tap into authenticity in how she presents herself to the public. Because this world is not getting more kind to politicians who cannot level with voters and cannot show up any and everywhere. And, you know, my Fred Astead, Herndon, who just left The New York Times, but he's going to be at Vox. He just wrote a piece about Zoran Mamdani. And he had this line that I think a lot of people quoted that was about how politicians have to be able to talk in 30-second bites, in three-minute clips, and in three-hour interviews. And that's the future. You have to be able to do it all. You have to be able to show up in any medium.
Starting point is 01:00:07 and people get in a second who you are and what you're about. And I think that she still has work to do in that respect. And maybe this book is the first kind of foray into that. Because I read her last book, and the tone was completely different. This is a different kind of book. And it was an opening foray into her showing people more of herself. But she's going to have to catch up to the speed. and the kind of realness of media and politics that will be the bar in 2028.
Starting point is 01:00:48 Like in 2028, the bar is going to be, are you a politician that can show up any and everywhere and authentically reach people? And I think she is still straddling the old world and the new world, and she's going to have to figure out which one she wants to be in. I agree with that. I think it's actually more important just to show up any and everywhere as your true authentic self. I don't think you should worry about whether or not this is going to be a 30-second sound bite or a three-minute clip or three. I just go have the conversation because the media is going to do that for you.
Starting point is 01:01:19 The media is going to chop it up for you. Yes, but yes. But I also think, look, I mean, I'm a journalist, so I deal with her campaign and all of that. And I'm telling you, the answer is not yes. to everything in terms of where she's willing to show up. And some of that is maybe staff and how they try to kind of protect their principle. But in the future, you have to be willing to talk to any and everyone. You have to be willing to take risks.
Starting point is 01:01:51 You have to be willing to sit in front of people who might very well be hostile to you and win them over. And I think that there's... And you might fuck up. And you might, yeah. So what? Exactly. And I'm just telling you it's, that was not how they ran that last campaign.
Starting point is 01:02:05 No, he did. Period. It wasn't. And they're going to have to, she's going to have to be willing to do that, which is going to, it's going to require taking a lot of risk. But that is the future of politicians. The ones who will thrive in tomorrow's media environment, they, they, you've got to be willing to go everywhere. On a dime. Prepared or not briefed or not. That is how it works. And that's not how they rank. in 2024 and if she's going to run again it's going to have to be a complete overhaul of that media strategy like don't wait don't and I this for all of them don't wait until this actual 2028 27 not do it now like start going to these places now and I think that a lot of them should be launching their own platform they should have their own podcast like Gavin Newsom is doing yeah I mean and look I mean you say what you want about Gavin Newsom this is what I'm talking about
Starting point is 01:03:06 about. He had this podcast and he was bringing on all these conservatives on. And he got a lot of criticism for it. But I think what he was trying to show was a willingness to talk to anybody and to debate anybody. And again, I think there's a lot of that that's going to be required in the future. You've got to prove to people that you can win the argument. And if you can't do that, it doesn't matter how polished you are, how experienced or knowledgeable you are, I think that's the baseline bar that you're going to have to cross
Starting point is 01:03:45 for a lot of voters in this future media ecosystem. No, I agree. You know, the interesting thing that the VP is doing, I think the book tour, I think this book is going to help her a lot because it's the first step to being completely honest and then going on the book tour, but also going into these cities
Starting point is 01:03:59 and talking to, you know, locals when you're in these cities, I think that's going to go a long way. Yeah. Yeah, it's always important to do that. But none of these candidates are going to really stand a chance in hell if none of them are really willing to challenge capitalism. Well.
Starting point is 01:04:12 Do you know what I'm saying? Well, you know, I mean, there's some truth. Okay, the part of that that I would say is true is that when you look at what Trump is doing as president, in a way, he's challenging capitalism. He's putting tariffs on countries indiscriminately, just because he wants to, making the case that he's doing it for Americans. He is taking government stakes in private companies. That's a Bernie Sanders idea, by the way. He is creating a government website where people can shop around for prescription drugs.
Starting point is 01:04:55 another Bernie Sanders idea so his willingness to just take some of these ideas the Democrats have been talking about and just do them no matter how controversial they are has been one of the things that whether you like him or not
Starting point is 01:05:14 what people will say about Trump is that he does what he says and I think that Democrats one of the big problems that they have is that voters don't think they're going to do what they say They say all the right things, but they don't think they're going to do what they say. And so whether it's challenging, you can call it challenging capitalism or challenging whatever, voters want to know that you're willing to buck the system for them. And I think Trump does that right now in a way that really, like, shakes people up and makes people really mad. but that is also why a lot of voters, whether they like him or not,
Starting point is 01:05:55 they will describe him as effective. I wonder how, though, because he's like he's bucking the system, but it's only benefiting the rich right now. It's not even benefiting his voters. I wonder why they still feel it. And even, you know, look, the tariff thing, he's making the case to Americans that this is a benefit to them, but the economics don't work.
Starting point is 01:06:16 No. They don't make sense. Farmers would beg to differ right at this moment. They are struggling mightily under these tariffs. Small businesses are struggling mightily under these tariffs. So there is obviously a really big difference between what Trump is doing and what he's saying and what is actually happening. But I do think that it's breaking through. And my only point about that was just there's a, Democrats have become way more establishment in the last 15 years.
Starting point is 01:06:49 That's right. Because Trump is so anti-establishment, they've defined themselves in opposition to Trump. And so they've become sort of an avatar of the system. And I don't think they realize the degree to which voters do not like the system at all. And the next Democratic nominee is going to have to be able to tap into that one way or another to say to people, I get it. You don't actually like the way things are working. Stop defending the status quo and figure out what an alternative is that isn't just opposition to Trump. And do I see anybody actually doing that right now?
Starting point is 01:07:31 No. Not really. But look, time will tell. Like, we've got a long way ahead. And if history tells us anything, sometimes the person who ends up rising to the top is not the person that any of us are thinking about or talking about. It's somebody who's going to come seemingly out of nowhere, but not going to come from the center of the political universe right now. So we'll see. If to your point of everything you just said, right, if Jesse Jackson, right, was able to actually become president, get in office, just do things for people that he cared about, how would Barack Obama's presidency have been different?
Starting point is 01:08:10 Kamala Harris just on this run feeling like she has to dodge certain things and can't speak straight to black people. how would all of that be different if he had been able to get in office and do what he was doing before he was voted president or not voted president? That's really interesting. It's such an interesting question. I mean, I think one of the reasons that Vice President Harris and Barack Obama have had to present a certain way to the American public is the perception that that a broad swath of the electorate, especially white voters, won't take a black candidate seriously unless they are very buttoned up, have the resume all lined up, the whole thing. And that's accurate, right?
Starting point is 01:08:55 That, like, we all understand that. You kind of have to clear a higher bar in order to even be let in the door. And I do wonder if the country had successfully elected a black president who was running on a progressive platform 30 years ago, whether they would have that same burden. and I don't know maybe they would not have you know one of the things about jesse jackson is that his fluency in a wide range of issues as somebody who never was elected to political office who came out of the segregated south who came out of a civil rights tradition he was right up there with all the other candidates on the debate stage talking about foreign policy, talking about economic policy, giving speeches.
Starting point is 01:09:50 I mean, I would talk to people who would say that they would give him, you know, like a 30-minute briefing, and he would go in there and he would weave a whole speech around an issue. He could take information in and very quickly turn it around into something that was compelling to an audience. And so he had a kind of intellect that was not very respected at the time. And I do think that, you know, if the country had elected a black president, I think candidates today who are running, who are like Kamala Harris or Barack Obama, would not have to do so much to show white Americans in particular that they're qualified. and that they have the basic, you know, qualifications to fit the job. I think that added burden is one of the reasons that it's hard then to turn around
Starting point is 01:10:49 and say to those same candidates, well, you've got to be authentic because that same authenticity is what they get knocked for early on in their career. So it is, I'm not suggesting that it's easy. I think it is difficult. You have to be able to do both things. And actually, I would say Obama actually did both things pretty well. He was incredibly credentialed, but he was incredibly authentic in the communities where he needed to be authentic in. And I do think that it is possible to do it, but it is absolutely a higher bar.
Starting point is 01:11:19 And it's a higher bar still to this day because we've only done it once, elected a black person to the highest office in the land. And so there's still a lot that has to be dealt with in terms of people's preconceived notions of what people have called. can do at high levels of political office. My last question. When Cameron took a sip of pink horsepower on your show, like you just took a sip of that. Is there something known in the industry about how did he treated his artists?
Starting point is 01:11:55 So I'm going to get some cheeks after this horsepower drink. And he were going to bring this up. And then when Cam said he was going to get some cheeks after your interview, did you understand, what was happening in that moment. I knew that we needed to end the interview. Obviously, I knew we needed to end the interview. We were up against the end of the show,
Starting point is 01:12:17 and we had to get to a certain time. So, you know, I had to land that plane, and I did. And look, I mean, it was ridiculous, but as we know, that was the point. The person who had to transcribe the show afterwards ask you what that meant. What did you mean you had to get some? Well, we all were just like, what just happened?
Starting point is 01:12:42 Yeah. You know, I mean, whatever. It's, I'm not going to give this much more oxygen because I know that's part of the point. I know he was here a little while ago talking about it. Let me ask you, what was your favorite viral news network moment? Was it the 60 Minutes joint? Was it the Bill O'Reilly or the CNN drinking pink horsepower? CNN.
Starting point is 01:13:03 CNN. She didn't learn by far. He said he sold out after he did. I'm sure he did. And he said before it wasn't personally anything with you. He just felt like the network only hits him up for things that aren't about what he does outside of all of that. All I will say is that we were told by his team that he wanted to talk about this, not the other way around. So that's we obviously, we don't book people about things they don't want to talk about.
Starting point is 01:13:29 So we would never bring someone on the show and force them to talk about something. that they didn't agree to talk about. So, I don't know. I mean, everybody, we have free will. We can do what we want. But like I said, I knew immediately. Actually, we knew pretty early on in the interview that we needed to get out as quickly as possible.
Starting point is 01:13:50 Why? Why? I mean, it was from the get-go. You can read the room. You can read the room. Yeah, I'm not new to this. Like, I know from the beginning when somebody is not interested.
Starting point is 01:14:03 and being interviewed. And so we knew we needed to get out, but it was just a timing thing, you know, when you're at the end of the show. And he was actually supposed to be on the show earlier, but was late. And so we were just figuring out how quickly we could hand off to Laura Coates at 11 o'clock.
Starting point is 01:14:25 That puts you in a good class, though. Cam's got some really good interviews with news anchors from Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Royle. Now Abby Philips, he got some great moments with people. No dip set on the playlist somewhere, huh? Absolutely not. We are not. That is not a class of thing I want to be in. He said Abby's was his favorite. I asked him which one. What the Doug? Anders and Cooper's 60 Minutes snitching interview.
Starting point is 01:14:49 The Bill O'Reilly, when he was like, you mad, you mad. Oh, Abby Phillam. He said, yos, because he sold out a pink horsepower. I'm happy for him. I guess. I'm happy for him. but you know do you take stuff like that personally when it happens no absolutely not not not personally but just like why you why my show i'm a black woman i'm here on CNN like why me no i you know what let me just i'll just say this because i i don't i've never talked i've actually never talked about this before but when that happened a our booker who booked
Starting point is 01:15:27 that interview was a young woman and she was very upset about it it. And I said to her afterwards, and I said to my entire team, I was like, this is not going to be a reason that we play it safe. We are not going to take this as a moment to say, oh, this happened to us. We can't have people like that on our air again. I don't believe in that. I think that we are out here trying to hear from people who are interesting. and different and maybe sometimes it goes left but I'm not going to this is we're not going to come down on you for booking this interview because we want to bring interesting people onto the show and it was important to me to convey to them that we're not going to go into a little ball and
Starting point is 01:16:23 be like oh my god this went viral and this was embarrassing no this too shall pass like he had his moment, it was fine, I don't really care I do I wish he didn't do that on the air, yeah. It was great. But I'm not using it as an excuse to say that we're going to play it safe
Starting point is 01:16:43 on television because that's not what we're doing here. So, you know. You book a fantastic job. Fantastic booking. What's her name? Fantastic booking. I'm not going to tell you her name. Did she book your show every night? No, she was unfortunately, she moved
Starting point is 01:17:00 to a different city so she's no longer with us but she was over it yeah but we listen we I I I it wasn't just her I told her boss too yeah and I was like we are not we are not going to treat this like some kind of major mistake because it was not it is television yeah and sometimes in television you have guests and you don't know what they're going to say and the whole point of TV is not to be predictable and boring that's right so let's not do that I thoroughly enjoy your bookings I thoroughly enjoy enjoy your show. Make sure y'all watch Abby Phillip on CNN News Night every night at 10. And then there's Table for Five comes on at 10 o'clock too on Saturdays. And don't forget
Starting point is 01:17:40 to buy the book. Yes. A Dream DeFord is out right now. Jesse Jackson in the fight for for black political power. Abby Phillip, keep doing a great service though. Thank you guys. You do a great job. Come on the show sometime, all of you. Really? Yeah. I should. I'll be a bit. I know you have some political viewpoint. But I have some little stuff. You know what I'm saying? I got some little stuff. Even table for five. I know it's late at night. So table for five, you can come on.
Starting point is 01:18:04 It's a different time. That's more of a Charlemagne. Earlier for your schedule, yes. Thank you. He's going to argue for us. Yes. We'll be supporting. I enjoy watching.
Starting point is 01:18:12 It's Abby Phillip. It's the Breakfast Club. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club. Do you don't finish or y'all done? Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimless, Hillbilly Heist.
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Starting point is 01:18:52 I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This person writes,
Starting point is 01:19:05 My neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals. And now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult. Hold up. A real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue, Dakota.
Starting point is 01:19:20 Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends, like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 01:20:04 What's up, everybody? It's snacks from the trap nerds. All October long, we're bringing you the horror. We're kicking off this month with some of my best horror games to keep you terrified. Then we'll be talking about our favorite horror in Halloween movies and figuring out why black people always die further. And it's the return of Tony's horror show, SideQuest written and narrated by yours truly. We'll also be doing a full episode reading with. commentary. And we'll cap it off with a horror movie battle royale. Open your free iHeart radio app and search trap nurse podcast and listen now. This is an iHeart podcast.

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