The Chris Cuomo Project - Donny Deutsch

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

In this week’s episode of The Chris Cuomo Project, Donny Deutsch (Chairman Emeritus, Deutsch Inc. advertising agency, and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”) speaks with Chris about the concept of branding in politics, why the right is thirsty for a transformational political candidate, the future of the television business, the importance of embracing failure, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

who we are. At the end of the day, does the majority of this country say January 6th is okay, election denying is okay, rolling back Roe v. Wade, you know, 50 years is okay? And the majority, nothing will go on the majority. And the majority said, no, it's not. Hey, everybody. I'm Chris Cuomo, and welcome to another episode of The Chris Cuomo Project. Please don't forget to subscribe and follow. The growth has been great. It's organic. I want more. We need more. Please help me and thank you in advance for doing so. Free agent merch. And remember, the money's going to go to a good cause, and we're going to figure it out together. That's why I dig it.

That's why I'm pushing it. It's not to put my kids to college. It's for us to find a way to help others together. Isn't that nice? Now, I want that to be part of my personal brand. Why do I use that term? Donnie Deutsch is our guest today. You know him from TV.

You've seen him a lot of different places for a lot of years. He's all over Morning Joe. He's smart. He was a big deal in advertising. He understands marketing and what we now call branding. We all want to be a brand or a personal brand. It's not a bad thing, but it's bad if you don't get it right. He knows how to do it right and do it wrong and how that manifests itself for better and worse in our politics. So take a listen to Donnie Deutsch. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk.

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and you enter the code, enter the code CHRIS, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com, and the code is CHRIS. Donnie Deutsch, a pleasure. Thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Congratulations on your new gig. I know it's going great. Godspeed. It's going, brother. It's better than being in the fetal position in my house. Let me tap into your understanding of why things sell and why things are effective. What do you think is working in our politics right now? What's working in our politics right now is the same thing that's always, if you kind of peel back the onion, is follow the passion.

You know, if you kind of like, everybody came down to it, back in the message, we were thinking about a red wave is, OK, I'm going to go. Is inflation the answer? Is it a referendum on inflation or is a referendum on democracy? A woman's right to choose insurrection. And then when you Monday morning quarterback, you go, of course, those issues of passion, even if they weren't shown in the polls, really became the guiding force. In hindsight, you go, duh. Now, the question, why was it not showing up in the polls, of course, before they were all over the place? I don't know. Well, you, like many of us, thought that the Democrats were going to take much more of a beating. And I think what we missed was independence, that independence, what I call free agents, right? That's my big thing, open hearts, open minds, not about party or team. I think that that is the new motivation in our politics. They mattered in every big race that we're following. It's not the cum. It's not that overall, what did they do? I think there were plus two for Democrats,

but usually they go for the party that's out of power. And they didn't do that as much here. And I think that has to be because it's got to be a sign of fatigue, right? Of the retired, of the hate, you know, the hate parade. It's got to be, right? Yeah. I think I said it was a referendum on Tracy. And it just, when you add that all up and it really, what was so empowering for me afterwards, because if you really think back, you're going to either to either say okay this is a test on who we are forget who the politicians are who we are at the end of the day does the majority of this country say january 6th was okay election denying is okay rolling back roe v wade you know 50 years is okay and the majority nothing will be major and majority said no it's not we

still we still want senate we still want democracy we still want we don't want violence we don't want crazy so at the end of the day and i actually think the thing that happened the unfortunate thing that happened to pelosi's husband was just a little nugget towards the end when you saw the republicans coming out some of them making fun of it or not even condemning it that level of crazy that level of lack of decorum basic civil decorum i think got old and i think that finally we woke up and said no no we don't want to lose what we have you think the days of the two-party system are numbered well i think we're going to kind of frankly see it dramatically go up and fall in 2024 i think what happens with trump is he's not going to get the nomination but

he's not going to go away i think he's running as a third party we're going to start to see what a meaningful not that he's going to at as a third party. We're going to start to see what a meaningful, not that he's going to, at the end of the day, win a race, but certainly if he still only holds on to 10% of the party on that shit, or even 5% of the party. So I think Trump's going to be going with the closest thing back to Perot. We forgot Perot got 14, 15% of the vote. So a huge part of the vote back then, which obviously gave the election to Clinton. You think he'd run even if he knows he's going to lose? Yeah, I think his biggest fear more than losing is relevancy. I think he's such a mano-mano guy. I think he's so threatened by DeSantis, who's an alpha guy, who's so much younger and so much more, you know, everything that Trump wants to be. I think,

you know, and this is just me getting inside Trump psychology, would rather see Biden be president than see DeSantis be president. I think that's the guy's psyche is crazy as that is. The idea of branding in politics, does it remain important? And if so, where do you see brand identity? Branding is everything. I mean, it's basically a brand is a set of values. What is a brand?

It's what you stand for. It's just, it's an emotional set of values. So that's what we have. You know, at the end of the day, if you look at Biden's brand, unfortunately his age is a big part of it. He's seen as, I think, competent, but not exciting and not with his hand as firmly on the wheel.

I would like to put a little more testosterone into his brand. And I don't mean that in the masculine sense of the word. I just think he needs a little of that in there, a little power, if you will, because if you look at Biden, he's done a lot of things right. You can't give him a better score on what he did as far as unifying the world for the Ukrainians against the Russians and putting that delegation together. I think, yes, I would have spent a bit less on some of the stimulus packages but got it going in the right direction hasn't done dramatically

hasn't done a terrible job inflation is you could say is a culmination of eight or ten or fifteen years for spending you can't put that all on by now obviously you get sound whether you but yeah i give them a strong B to B plus. Problem is they don't tell their story as well as you just did. That is the Democrat problem. Now they'll say, oh, well, we don't fight as dirty as they, hey, putting money behind extreme Trumpers in primaries is as shady as it gets short of cheating. So, you know, if you want to be better, be better. But when they did that, that was very telling.

And look, James Carville will be like, well, grow up. That's how you win an election. Oh, I get it. Just don't tell me you're better. That's all. And I think that that's what's hurting them is that it's all seen as zero sum. And when you think about it, where do you see the opportunity in terms of a new product that the core of this country would go for? When you talk about the core, this country lives around the center, just center. You can give me an argument that whichever party is more extreme loses. I mean, that's just not where in the world. And we're all a wardrobe of issues.

You know, I myself, yes, I'm a Democrat. I'll go for the white Republican. I'm a fiscal conservative. I'm a hawk. I'm a fiscal conservative. I'm a hawk. I'm a social moderate. I mean, like, so you and I, if we probably listed our things of platforming, as you probably agree on so much,

as we would with so many people that don't necessarily look and feel like us. When I say look and feel, I don't mean race or anything like that. But I tell this interesting story that I said something on the air once. This is before there was all the fascist analogies. And I said something about about Nazi Germany and I compared to some of the things the Republicans were doing to that of course you know the world exploded and I got this social media

text from a guy who I saw was a veteran he was a father and he called he said you pussy how can you not kick your ass I mean everything you could cut you piece of shit don't you dare call me Nazi and I wrote him back and I said i'm looking at your profile you seem like a really good thank you for your service and i'm a dad you're a dad what i said was really this i said it's such a shame that guys like you can't sit down and talk and three texts later you call each other broke you know in terms of what not that just on the surface we were so and what the soundbite system soundbite universe we live in it put us so in polarized things that i think that 80 percent of the country agrees on a

lot of things and we're seeing that with choice and we're seeing that with universal background checks that we're not now of course the media doesn't make money by staying around the center and we're all a bit complicit in that you know and i'm not blaming the media for the state of the world but the center is not a very exciting place to be. But it's where the world does live. Yeah, I think the country's center left on social issues, center right on fiscal issues. 100 percent. And what we've gotten away from is that we allow our politics, which has always been dirty, which has always been nasty, which has always had negativity as a proxy for insight, to be dominated by zero sum and a

dynamic that we don't allow anywhere else in our life. You would not let anyone that, doesn't matter who you're doing the commercial for, if they behaved the way politicians do, you would never do business with them again. And you wouldn't do their ad. You wouldn't let that person as your friend. You wouldn't let them anywhere near your daughter. We've changed the standard. And the question is, who convinces us to change it back? I think a transformational candidate. I think if you look historically, the Republican Party was dead until Ronald Reagan showed up. Democratic Party was dead until Bill Clinton showed up.

I think people are thirsty for, and i think somebody like to say this has a opportunity take the bullying out you know take you don't need the bullshit you don't need the culture stuff you don't need to shit on disney you don't need to take the the tampa bay because tampa the tampa bay rays texted out something after the i'll be saying you know we stand with you and things have to change they don't give give you penalized. Take that 10% out and govern for the people, common sense, decency. There is an opportunity for a candidate to do that. And I think that particularly everything in this pendulum, clearly the world is done with Trump, is done with Trump. I don't say Trumpism, but doesn't want that anymore. By the way, wasn't it pathetic watching the other night? It was something, seeing him defame, he's pathetic.

When you take away his carnival act, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. It was interesting that the duration is a function of lack of energy. Remember the expression, I think it was Shakespeare, no, it was Mark Twain said, sorry about how long this letter is, if I had more time it'd be shorter. When you're on your game, you deliver the performance in short order. You don't need

the time. So duration was a bad indicator for him. I don't know if that party is going to find the resourcefulness to move away from him in the primary, because when you come in with 30 percent, 35 percent, it's hard to beat you in a primary. for what he is if he doesn't change, that's a good thing because independent voters, free agents, people who look at people and policy and decency as priorities, they're not going to go for that. That is just about shepherding fear, what he's about. And the fear is justified. The desperation is justified. White fright is a real thing for these guys. And I get it. I get why they feel

that way. But that's not going to be what changes the dynamic. My concern about DeSantis is I don't think it's 10%. When he ran against Gillum, he sucked out with people. I watched it a number of times. He doesn't do it anymore. He's very good at power and being controlled by his wife or whoever's running the operation. But to be president, he's going to have to go out on the hustings and he's going to have to deal with the likes of you and, you know, people who want to scrutinize him and test him and put him on a show and have people come at you. And I don't know how he's going to stand up to that. That's my question about him. I could have picked out Josh Shapiro from the other side.

I'm just saying any of these guys that basically have the lie on them on either part. I think civility and decency and common sense, I just think the world is ready for that. And you need to prove, you saw what happened in the midterms there. The Democrats did that with a guy with a 39% approval rating,

with 70% of the country saying we're on the wrong track, 8% inflation. Even with that, with every single headwind against you, people said no bucks. It couldn't have been a more stunning rebuke. Every election denier, other than Vance in Ohio, every one of his candidates lost. And you see now, every day, donors running away. And it really, and you see now every day, the donor's running away.

We are a country of winners. And you lose as many times as Trump has lost. You could argue he's lost certainly the last three times. That starts to sour a lot of things. So I'm very optimistic. For the first time in the last week or so, I have escaped in my step. Because I was really terrified.

You know, had this election not gone this way, democracy over. I don't think people make me. They actually did understand. That's what they voted. How close we were. You take Arizona. Arizona goes three different directions with the governor, with the secretary of state and with the senator. You also have a state that's not going to play anymore.

And we could do that math anyway. You could do that. You could do that in Pennsylvania. You could do that anywhere. Whereas election denialism was a real thing until it's not, because it didn't work. But had that been successful and had that ticket been successful, it's stunningly frightening to think what could have happened. I think we kind of lived it in 94 with the contract with America where Newt Gingrich's harshness eventually was exposed and rejected. Everything gets amped up more now, right? I don't believe that anything's different. I just believe it's about the level of volume because of how much more media there is.

I don't think the dynamics are different. I just think they're turbocharged. And I think you see that on TV also, as many of you should know, Donnie's regular on Morning Joe and certainly part of the show's success. The question is, why do you think Morning Joe was successful? And do you believe Morning Joe would have to be something else to continue being the place to be in the morning? I think Morning Joe is successful for a few reasons. First of all, it's thoughts of talent. And Joe and Mika, I mean, Joe is a really special town. And that's why you've been so successful.

You know, there's no surprises. I think it starts with Karen, number one. But it also, it really does go over this, a lot of things that I've been talking about, that it doesn't stay in one lane. Joe, and we've seen Joe's transition. You know,e was a is a saucy conservative joe is a die-hard republican joe was really i think voted 95

whatever that stack where they where they call them super conservatives you know and then trump came along and was like whoa this this is just wrong and i think people react joe would be a great candidate by the way you know it's a he's always kind of kiddied around talked about it but i've ever got to a general election he is a great general election candidate for a lot of the reasons we've been talking about. He would be a great general election candidate. Me? No, I'd be terrible. I don't want to play the game. I don't want to kiss anybody's ass. I don't want to ask you for money. I don't want to tell you- I'm talking about what you stand for. I'm not talking about-

We better do a lot better than me. I don't know, Joe. We better do better than me. That's all I'm not talking about... We better do a lot better than me. I don't know, Joe. We better do better than me. That's all I'm saying, is we should be able to do better than me. That's how I feel. He seemed like they were an insider game taking care of a guy who was another insider. And Americans are very, very shy on that. And I think it is growing.

I think it's, by the way, inherently anti-American. I always thought the big part of the American dream, it certainly was for me and in my family, even though Pop had like an allergy to wealth. He says begrudgingly. I know, it's telling me, right? But I love when people are like, oh, Cuomo is you, you guys owe a lot of money. No, I have a lot of money. You know, my father never, never made money. He didn't want to make money. But I always thought that was a dream that we'd see people moving up and out of where we were from in Queens. Donnie and I are both from Queens. You know, they'd moved to Long Island, they'd moved to Westchester. And that was like, wow, that's the dream. You know, they get in that house, they're going to this place. And now

it's like seeing that if you're wealthy, that's somehow bad. I think that's anti-American. But I do believe it's really important to get back to regular people and that there is such a thing as somebody who wants to live and let live but doesn't really understand transgender the way they might understand being gay that doesn't believe that bad ideas and ugly ideas should mean that you lose your livelihood forever and be canceled uh and that you have to tell people about common sense you're talking about somebody who can be a progressive person maybe a swimmer who is true is trans should not be competing now who was a man and now is competing with women that doesn't make sense to me i'm for everybody's freedom but i don't want

gender identification issues talked about in first grade. And on any level, you know? So yeah, that's where I keep coming back to the wardrobe of issues where I think a lot of us are a lot more similar. And that's common sense. I think it's about the issues, but I also think it's about the disposition towards them. You have to be able to be wrong and not be bad. That is a really big and important shift.

I don't believe it's right to keep Kanye or Kyrie. Kyrie, I believe, is very different. I really believe that he got swept up with Kanye and he is not the kind of purveyor of ideas that Kanye is. But I want to give him a platform. I'm not giving neo-Nazis a platform because there is no benefit to that discussion. And I know it's subjective, but I think that this move that is really orientated towards the left and motivated by the left of not giving a platform, I think is really bad. When I was at CNN, I would have Trump supporters on and I would get a lot of shit for it, which I didn't care about. But it was interesting to me that, and I had seen Joe make this decision and a lot of others, like, I'm not even talking to those people anymore.

They all lie. That was a mistake. It was a mistake because it says to the people who voted for him that you don't respect their opinion or their feelings. Now, I know a lot of people on the left, especially as you get towards the fringe of the left, they're fine with that. They think these ignorant white people got to go. I think that's a big mistake

because I don't think you get to a better place unless everybody's pushing. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by

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Drinkag1.com slash CCP. Check it out. We need conversation, but I'll go back to the kai everything now i'm coming out as a jewish yes you and i did bill maher on the same night he was interviewing i was on the panel and he said something cute something why are you being sensitive as an italian well you're not italian don't tell me what i'm supposed to feel about right you kind of stop them in his tracks and it's hard to do. The thing about piracy is, yes, we need a conversation. On the other hand, when you promote, when you're sending people, but the word is promoting to a field that's denying the Holocaust,

that's hatred of Jews. And then you get a chance to apologize, and you're basically doubling and tripling down. I don't think people should be canceled. He should have said, you know, all he had to say was, you you know what i hear that it's a sense of i didn't really know everything was in there and right and you got the sense with kairi no he really believes stuff so you do have to kind of what do you do you go oh you're not we get do we just have a discussion on like like this so this weird thing go yes we can't shut it down we have to have a conversation but then if we

have a conversation are we illuminating and propagating this hate? And it's a weird dance. and toxic tropes and things that are easy to discover. So my point was, I'm not going to have a neo-Nazi on because they're not somebody I'm trying to redeem. It's when somebody who is supposed to have some value to society believes something that's ugly. I believe instead of freezing it out, you drown it out because you empower it now by tamping it down. These people who went after... I would have, by the way, privately do my podcast

and I have one on a heartbeat. So this is not a matter of silence, this is a matter of, I don't believe if you're Nike... You wouldn't be in business with him. I agree with that. That morning I came on, nobody was talking about Nike. They said, Nike has a shoe. Yeah. You can't be a company that has a social conscience in one area and not a social conscience. I totally agree. But I don't believe that Kyrie should be shut up. I would have him on in a heartbeat and have these very discussions with him. And especially with that, because, you know, like I had the other night, I was like, are Jews all over the entertainment industry? Yup.

Now let's talk about why. You know, I don't have to tell you this, but as Mishpoka, as extended family of Jews, Jewish people who mean everything to me as my family and my friends and people I love and a faith I respect and a culture I adore. They were in that business. You know, this couldn't get into other businesses. Yeah. Weren't allowed in other businesses. I was talking to this friend of mine who like somehow didn't know this. And I was like, they weren't, they weren't allowed in anything else. They're not in Hollywood. They made Hollywood. So it's like you have to look at it that way. Like if Ford was, everyone's like, hey, how come Ford's still such a big deal?

They created the car. That's why. So it's such an easy argument to blow out of the water that I want to have that fight. You know, I believe in only having fights you can win when you're dealing with these kinds of ideas. And you have to be careful about which you pick. But I do believe that the left extends this idea way too much. Anti-Semitism is easy. It's when somebody is saying there's a deep state or, you know,

elections or this or Trump was that and you're mean to Trump and you shouldn't be. You got to listen to where it's coming from because it's dictating your future. It's dictating what's going to resonate and what matters. I have to deal with that challenge much more acutely than you guys do at MSNBC because that's a team with a game and a strategy. At News Nation, it's like I'm forced to do different. Different's hard. I don't have to talk to you. You're a brand expert and a PR expert, but different is hard. I'm trying to get people to watch my show who don't watch cable news. And that's tricky, but I dig that challenge because it was, there wasn't any challenge in me for going to MSNBC or going to CBS or going to one of those places.

I've played that game and I played it, you know, well enough. I just didn't see the upside. But I do wonder, what do you think is going to change in our business over the next few years, if anything? What do you, what changes you think we see? Well, all you have to do when, you know, we both have kids is look at kids. What are they doing? What are they watching? And nobody's watching linear television out of their certain nature.

I mean, any form, certainly not news. News is about, you know, the average news watcher, the average MSNBC viewer or CNN viewer or Fox viewer is between 67 and 72. You know, I mean, the audience is dying. Now, people, there's still need news. The problem is that the generations coming up, I don't know if they have the same thirst for anything but bespoke news. You know, I mean, they have this.

I'm holding up this thing. If you're just listening, I'm holding up my phone. And they're used to getting everything exactly the way they want it, when they want it, how they want it. So I think any type of destination, I don't think the answer is, oh, it's going streaming. No, I don't think it the answer is if oh it's going streaming no i don't think it translates to streaming i think news is going to get more and more fractured and be delivered in more of a nugget not i don't think there's going to be these central nervous systems of news that we have now i agree with you which is why i was you know i had some time on my hands and i was looking around the landscape about what opportunities to develop and I couldn't figure out podcasts. And so when I started talking to

people about doing a podcast, I was like, well, first of all, I'm not a podcast person. Why would anyone want to listen to anything for a long time in a soundbite society? And then what do you mean they want to listen, not watch? You know, video killed the radio star for a reason. And it's just a matter of time. And yet we see now 10, well, let's say five years of data. 10, but it was soft from five to 10.

From zero to five, you see a burgeoning audience in the podcast space that is growing faster than anybody else so how is it that we're getting more particular and tighter and faster and then podcasts are the opposite of all that and they're growing if you think about podcasts yes we spend more attention to them but they're so narrow in their choice it goes back to what i said so So you can focus in. I don't have to get the news and listen to a half hour, an hour. These guys talking. I'm just going to go so narrow and I'll go deep. So it's like I'll give you my half hour. I'll give you my hour. But it's not this broad, universal. Just like there are only so many cable networks, tens of thousands of podcasts, you know, and because somebody like my podcast on brand somebody could say oh this is really that would not be a network show but this is really interesting if i'm interested in this i'll spend a half hour i'll spend an hour i'm dying but it doesn't have the breath so it's just people going more now deeper but i don't think that's why linear tvd in time

was just going to go away. It doesn't, other than sports right now, it would be gone. It's the only thing that people watch anymore on linear television. Why doesn't news fit into it in terms of the breaking event? Because it's this. I got my phone. I don't need to go anywhere. So I just think everything that's going to happen is going to continue to happen on a phone. So I think people's news, it's the same way if you really look about it that like local news has become somewhat i don't say extinct but it's

because the things you use to tune in for the sports report the weather report you know that i can get momentarily so it's the destination that if you think about the premise of linear tv it's it's a destination people don't want to go to a destination for anything they are the destination so then that says goes back to what we talked about before that it's much more targeted much more fragmented much more individualized so it's mass media becomes micro media and i think that's kind of the mega thing that's happening there everybody right now now, if we if we if you and I talk to 10 different people, particularly of a younger age, their wardrobe is so narrow what they listen to.

It's like everybody's got their own little bespoke network that they've created. So I don't have to go to a network that is feeding me in the way that they think a mass audience wants to. I create my own little network. And yet they're more groupthink than we were for all the different opportunities that they have of what to do. Not only is it fashion, which is always catchy, but TikTok reveals that these kids will all do the same dance to the same song for the same week or two weeks and then they move on they change vernacular almost instantaneously i watch it you know i got young kids well actually i got all

the young kids every boy shows up yeah this is my son like this is my son It's like a tick. Yeah. My son brings to school. How old is he? 16, and he's gorgeous. Donnie and I have been friends for a long time. He's good friends with my wife, Christina. Christina's beautiful. He looks like Christina. He is really gorgeous.

They wanted him to model and all this. He got the looks. So he shows up to school in the morning, and out of his knapsack, he takes out a little spray bottle that is a salt water spray that has a little bit of a scent. And he sprays it like this, does the flip, and then he goes to school. And I look at him and there is no shame in his game. If I did something like that in front of my father,

he would have smacked me right in the side of the head for my own good. He would have been like, you needed that. So that's who he is. I got a 19-year-old, a 16-year-old, we have a 19, 16, and 12. So we're watching all of it and they definitely have unique challenges, but I think the principles stay the same. And I believe that for our business also, I think brain food is always at a premium. That's what Morning Joe does. I think all personal grievances and litigation aside, I think that's CNN's bet that you put three smart people in there who at least two of the three have big ideas and opinions about things. And you bank on smart, you bank on smart people, and you bank on people who are curious.

And I think that that is what we're seeing. I think that's what I've seen in my return here, is the more I'm telling them things that they're curious about, the better I do. Like what's working? Give me an example of something you're doing. So here's what works. This is an interesting thing.

This segment popped or this and that. I'm curious. So, I mean, obviously. You're doing a great test. You have an exciting thing that you're flying without a net. Yeah. You don't have this institutional behemoth behind you. And you can really have a laboratory of what you want to do that's kind

of that's kind of fun and it's good i'm doing in both places they're very different uh what works in the podcast is easy a big name works 10 out of 10 times um and after that it's a crap shoot about provocateurs they've got to be provocative and they have to be provocative it doesn't have to be women shouldn't work. It has to be, this is smart, but contrary to conventional wisdom. Like I'm really big on nuclear power. We made a big mistake running away from it as fast as we did. That's why we see the rest of the world doing it differently. Things have changed about it. You know, it's been boxed out because it doesn't give the same kind of money to politicians that wind

and solar do. It's not a pet project that way. And that's really interesting because it's something you're not really supposed to believe. Certainly I didn't, but it happens to be true. On News Nation, politics adjacent works. Yes, big names, big names, but more importantly, introducing them to things that reflect their own life. That was not the way it was at CNN. It was the big breaking news event anywhere in the world, and it was policing the game. You had to police the game between left and right.

You had to. Otherwise, you weren't going to perform. That's the hand I've been dealt, is that I'm in a new place that has no following. I still have to correct people who are in our business that I'm not at Newsmax. Newsmax, yeah. I knew that was coming. And I mean, that really bothers me, by the way. Yeah. And I get it, but it bothers me, and I can't change that.

By the way, what I love about your brand and what you're so smart about, you in about three or four instances throughout the show have been self-effacing, made fun of himself, you know, very aware. I was the fetal position. And that's very smart to do for any brand. We're all brands and whatnot. Whereas just recognizing, okay, I went through this crazy, stupid thing and I'm back, but acknowledging and embracing it

and almost having fun with it. And I think you're really smart. Well, I appreciate that, Donnie. And I have to do it because not even because I'm dealing with optics of people who just have a fundamental misunderstanding of what I am versus how I present to them. But it's really important for me to keep focused on the right things because being raised by wolves the way I was in a very alpha environment is fine. It's fine. I have no complaints.

But who I want to be and how I want to be has much more to do with vulnerability than it does with strength. And strength is easy for me. Grind is easy for me. Confrontation, defending myself, defending what matters. I'm very well built in all those ways. But I talk about the downs because that's where I dwell. And the difference in me now, what I really went through that was so hard for me was not having an easy lesson to learn of, I will do that again. I've made a ton of big mistakes in life where I'm like, all right,

I got to not do that again. I'm going to help my family 10 times out of 10. And I'm very confident in that. What I'm not confident in is that they took things from me that are not easy to get back. And people say, oh, it's Chris Cuomo. He did some shady shit, right? I forget what it was. I have to work on that. And the way to work on it with people is to be completely transparent about it. And no agent would tell you to do that.

My bosses don't like it. Like when I say that, uh, what has been working for me and not working for me in therapy, how, when my therapist was like, Hey, you need to try a mood medication because you're going to hurt somebody. You know, you're, you're too strong. All you do is self-defense. You know, I teach self-defense. I do self-defense for like 15, 20 years. Someone's going to say something to you and you're, you're not on balance with that. And that scared me. And, you know, I was embarrassed. That was very shameful to me. The idea that people who care about me and then, you know, once he said it, all of a sudden I realized everybody had been going to him and they were like, you know, my friends of 20, 30 years have been saying, you know, I'm afraid when I'm out with him.

That, and God forbid, if I'm out with him and he's drinking and somebody comes up to him and says something about Andrew, you know, he could do something that he'll never be able to undo. That was very embarrassing to me. That was very shameful to me. And I had to own it. And I had to think about why that was and why I wasn't going to take this medication. If you told me, take this and it'll make you the way you used to be when you used to wake up in the morning, I'll take it without reading the bottle. You know, if you tell me this will help you keep muscle mass on,

I will double the dosage without thinking, but I'm not going to take this medication. That's pathetic. So I want to talk about those things because i don't like the power it had over me not talking about it you know when somebody used to say to me listen i know you're a cuomo so you know you're a lefty i would always let it go because there was no percentage for me in saying anything i never let it go now but like listen if we're talking about gun control i own a gun okay and i own it for home protection and i use it, and I know how to use it, and I'm trained to use it. And they say, don't say that. I'm done with that game.

By the way, that gives you credibility to then say, and this is what's stupid about our fucking gun laws. Right. By the way, I'm a proud gun owner. So there you have the, you know, I think that's smart. So I don't know who to tell you any different. But I get why they say it. I mean, you and I know the game. We know who TV people are.

We know how TV is and what has worked and how very artificial it is. But, you know, most things that are front facing are artificial. Most brands want you to see them in a way that isn't completely true. And I think there's appetite. I'm not Oprah and I'm not going to have a good cry every time I'm on TV. I'm much more caveman than I am sophisticated man. But I just do it because it's good for me. You sound like you get to the end of the street. And you know, I'm going to go back to what I said.

The mountain is tougher to climb, but in many ways you have an enviable spot that you can really create something bespoke. And so if it matters, it's going to take time. It's not going to happen overnight. Well, time is a luxury. And you don't know that people are going to stick with you. What's the best advice you've ever been given? What's the best advice you give? Best advice I've ever been given is don't play somebody else's game. Be true to yourself.

That authenticity is everything. Great advice my dad gave me was treat the guy who's running the elevator the same way you treat the president. You know, everybody the same. And that's just the right way to do it it will serve you well best advice i never give a minute i think when i speak about failure and you you we've touched on this is that it's you you touched on this earlier we don't learn from the successes we don't learn from the downhill racing that we go smoothly that anybody who's been uber successful in this world can embrace

failure and understand what comes with it understand that's where greatness comes from the things that happen to you that the bumps the things that gave you bruises that's where you get growth from and the other final advice i gave you was one of the chapters one of my books is you have to have a naive sense of entitlement. Not entitlement in the bad sense of the word, but like, it's why not me? The more uber successful people I've met, you know, other than Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, I haven't met anybody where I walked away and went, they have something that is so special.

Or, you know, you meet Fortune 50 CEOs, you meet mega celebrities. I don't know, you know, not that you're putting them down, but there's no genius out there. You have to kind of just say, fuck, why the fuck not me? And then those great things can't happen. It doesn't mean they're going to happen.

But if you at least don't say it, the greatness can't happen. I agree with you 100%. Sometimes what makes you happy works. What works will not always make you happy. And you've got to make that decision. And that's what I'm doing now by deconstructing the game for people. And it's not that the media is bad. You know, people keep wanting that to be the truth. It's not the truth. It's a signature blessing of our democracy. There

is a game. Our politics is a game. You know it very well. You architect it really well when you're on the TV show. And I just show it to people like even little things that you'd be like, duh. I said, hey, you know, those single quotes that you see in headlines, Donnie Deutsch torched in quotes, blah, blah, blah. I said, you know, that's a characterization. It's not a quote, by the way. That is their way of making something up, but making it seem like they have reporting on it. Nobody knew that. So there are things we can do.

And it's one of the things i've always appreciated about you in the mix and i always thought it was so intriguing watching uh your cnbc show the night show you had at msnbc and what you do now is you understand the business of selling and so you spot selling so fast whenever somebody's doing it and that's great because people don't have that. They don't have that muscle. You know, they don't have that muscle, uh, Twitch reflex that you have. And that's a great value. Yeah. I've always found when I'm on, I come at you, I'm not thinking about it, but I'm coming at it from that perspective. Not only that, what's going to happen, you know, a lot of times in the news, people just regurgitate. And then where I kind of go as a

former businessman because what you're always doing is you're planning ahead you're not if you're in business that you're talking about today or you're talking about yesterday you're out of business so i'm naturally gotta go okay what does this mean now what happens now so the same way i immediately when midterms happened i went to from to run as a third party candidate you know like in other words that that is a business person where I'd be placing a cap on the bet if I had to.

To your point also, what are they selling and how are they selling it, why are they selling it? I'm on the air and coaching also. I've noticed sometimes I was critical of Biden in a lot of ways because I bought that team to win. I think they're the good guys. I'll be saying, I really think Biden should be saying this as if i'm sitting in a room with and i'm trying to do

that i'm trying to we're going to i'm trying to help you know it was interesting when i had you mentioned the cyanide show which i think the best thing i ever did and the ratings was thrown on the roof there was a lot of political reasons it got taken off i was i think hitting too many nerves too soon i mean going back to i was doing the nazi comparisons long before it was bold to be doing them and things like that and i i don't want to get into details but you get your good breaks and your bad breaks on tv i think i got a bad break there things happen it is what it is you know but i've loved doing it was short-lived but it was it was it it really was a great show but But you learn this is a game.

And sometimes you're like, if I pulled it back 10%, I think I'd still be on it. I think it would have been just as effective. But you learn. You take your shots. You get hit and smashed in the face a few times. Yeah, to your point, I'm looking at what are they selling? I'm looking at where are we going?

And I'm trying to give advice while I'm on the air. I'm not a pundit, you know, I'm not a political pundit. I'm not about, I'm a guy that has the ability to kind of see things sometimes from 10,000 feet out, but because I'm not these person,

I'm not this person in there in the weeds and it's fun. I enjoyed it. I love, love doing more. Enjoy. It's really a fun, you know, I don't know how those guys do it four hours a day.

I mean, I don't know how they fucking do it because I a day. I mean, I don't know how they fucking do it because I show up once or twice a week for an hour and I fuck around, but it's, it's fun. I love the role, but I get to play it or they let me play it. What do you think you do that not everybody does that makes you successful? One of the things is not giving a shit. You know, I, this has never been my real job. You know, I, as your audience probably knows, most of my life I spent in advertising. I built a successful business.

I had a great capital event. So I'm not working for a salary. I feel like I'm really working for the audience. When I'm on, everything I say out of my mouth, I want to somehow make a difference, either teach or be a provocateur, but not in the sense of being a provocateur. You know, we're so, and I just come from a very genuine, real, I'm a dad. I care about what's happening in this world. I'm not trying to be a TV person.

I'm just, the very thing I get from people is very complimentary all the time. Well, you're really yourself on TV. That's who you are. We know you. We know you're off TV. And it's nice. I get a lot of positive feedback. I enjoy the you are. We know you. We know you're off TV. And it's nice. It's flattering. I get a lot of positive feedback. I enjoy the way I do. Last question. Fitness-wise, you've always been in good shape the entire time I've known you,

which is decades. What do you think has worked for you that people should do? It's interesting. I have a chapter on my book called The Charles Atlas School of Management. I always wanted to know that in business meeting, if the shit hit the fan, I could beat the shit out of the other person, if it's a man, of course. And it gives you a strength. I think when you are in shape and you are fit, not only does it make you feel better, I think it helps you gain.

I think it says discipline. I think it says strength. I think it says focus. And I always, it's one of the few things we can control. There's so much in our life that we can't control. And I just, it's always mattered to me. It's just, I've always wanted, it sounds corny, want to be the best I can be, you know, and it's just, and I like being in shape and I like being attractive. I think being attractive in this world, if you can make yourself as physically

attractive as possible, it helps you in this world. that's the world we're in and so it's always helped me in business and it's always helped me i think on the air uh i becomes a kind of a joke point with me on one and joe they bust my chops because i show up in tight shirts and things like that but why not donnie deutsch i appreciate you thank you for taking this opportunity thank you for helping the audience love seeing you and i'm glad things are going great for you. Keep it up. And just my only advice from the cheap seats is, you said it before, you got to do it differently. And that's the good, that's the exciting thing. It forces you, not that you're not an innovative person by nature, but you now have the gift of that you have to innovate, and that's exciting.

Yes. It's nice to have the power of musts. You know, I have to do it, so I will. Donnie, be well. I appreciate you. I owe you one. Thank you for doing this. Right back. You're coming on my show. Yes, sir.

Done. Smart guy who sees what's going on in the game around us. And it is a game, my friends. It is a game. And we need to expose the game on in the game around us. And it is a game, my friends. It is a game. And we need to expose the game and change the game. That is the point of being a free agent. You are the future. You're the fastest growing part of this electorate.

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