The Daily Beast Podcast - What Will Happen to Fox News When Rupert Murdoch Dies?

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Everybody has got to die sometime, even the Great and Powerful Fox News giant Rupert Murdoch. But what will happen to the empire when papa ‘Doch finally does kick the bucket? CNN’s Brian Stelter shared his theory with Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal and it’s hard not to see it as a possibility. But spoiler alert: It’s super complicated. (“There will be a battle over the future of the company because there's this trust right now. There's eight votes in the trust,” he says. “Rupert has four votes and the kids have four votes. So he wins. If, and when he dies, there will be four votes from four children,” and dun dun, dun” one of them leans more liberal.) Stelter did the work none of us wants to and wrote a whole book about Fox. He brought up a personal Molly Jong-Fast nightmare (Tucker Carlson 2024?) and the trio discussed the very obvious occurrence of the network literally controlling what the president says or does. (“Tucker will tweet or say something on the air. And two days later, it's Donald Trump's policy.”) Then! Dr. Al Gross, who is running for Senate in Alaska as an Independent, spoke with Molly and producer Jesse Cannon about why the state isn’t as red as everyone thinks and how he’s able to balance his time as a commercial fisherman, an orthopedic surgeon, and Master of Public Health. Oh, and that stimulus check the state’s citizens get called UBI. Plus! Find out which hill Bill Barr is dying on to protect Trump this time. Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. Hi, Rick Wilson. Hello, Molly John Fast. How is your experience today in the wild hellscape that is New York,

a city I am told reliably by our president that is currently in flames. Roaming the streets are black-clad Antifa thugs on the one hand, cannibal radioactive mutants on the other, and a small vestige of proud Trump supporters riding through the streets in their pickup trucks. That's right. You know, my Antifa, the Antifa that walks down my streets tends to take net jets because they're a very discerning group and they don't fly commercial. So that's sort of an artisanal Antifa, if you will. Yes, artisanal Antifa. I don't know. I have yet to see any burning or any rioting, but I was told on the internet by a few conservative Twitter accounts that clearly I am at fault and I am too privileged. And if only I would go somewhere else, I would.

would see burning. But, you know, a lot of my friends have sent me pictures, too, which show sort of beautiful spring days and people eating outside. So who are you going to believe? Conservative media or your eyes? Well, I mean, Molly, obviously those photos are all Photoshopped. Yes, obviously. And they're all sent here by the Soros Deep State Lizard People conspiracy to trick you. It's the only answer that makes sense. But at least our president is standing up for law, order justice and stability by saying he's going to cut off federal funding to, what was it, lawless areas? I think it was, didn't anarchy come into that?

It may have come into that. Anarchist jurisdictions. What I love about a Trump executive order is that they are so shoddly written that they almost never get, they almost always get overturned almost immediately, that's sort of the hallmark of Trump's. I believe using the phrase, suck it libtards as the opening salutation in most of them. really is a difficult thing for most jurors when they're appraising the legal validity of the president's orders. Also, when they say the purpose of this executive order is to produce liberal tears,

it again also tends to minimize the import and scope and power of said things. Although, you know, I must say, if we're going to talk about lawless areas, I this morning was driving my car using my cell phone without hands free. You didn't get arrested. I didn't, but I'm expecting the feds to swoop in any moment to declare my town to be a lawless area, a region of anarchy. But what's interesting to me about this is cities are the new caravan, right? So in the midterms. Right. Nicely put. I like it. Right. Well, the Trump World Fox News would say, you know, there's a caravan coming. It's filled with, you know, people who want to come and take your jobs and, you know, whatever. And now that never worked. It didn't work in 2016. It didn't work in 2018.

So now they've decided that it's cities are filled with rioting liberals wearing black who are looting. And it's the same weird scare tactic. Not just cities, but airplanes. Why are they on airplanes? I will say this. I mean, look, the airline industry is struggling. Yes, it's true. And so given the president's overall adherence to the broken windows make for a great economy theory,

wouldn't you think that having Antifa traveling across the country on the behest of whatever dark and mysterious forces pay for the Antifa. Wouldn't you think it'd be better? I mean, you're helping the airline industry. You're helping the local construction industries. I mean, this could be a win for the president. Maybe this is October's surprise. The Antifas are really led by Don Jr. and Kimberly. And they're going to pull off their ski mask at the last minute. It'll be like a whole like Scooby-Doo ending. Biden shaking his fist, like, I would have won, but for those meddling kids and their presidential father. The thing I thought was interesting about this Antifa Airlines thing is, you know, lines are notoriously stripped about taking weapons on them.

So as I'm well aware. Yes. Oh, good. Rick can provide a little first person experience with this. But they're actually really strict. So would the Antifa fly without the weapons and then be given weapons when they got there? I mean, there's so many holes in this theory. And then I recently read yesterday that this was actually cooked up by the broken brain of. That's what I read, that this idea had first been germinated and discussed by... Was it Devin Nunes? It was Devin Nunes. Okay, you did get something wrong there, though.

Nothing can germinate in the brain of Devin Nunez. It is barren soil. It is infertile. It is as if the sun had baked every nutrient out of a barren, bitter desert. Who gives Devin Nunes the ideas? Is it that staph? It's that guy, Derek fucking Harvey. Who is Derek Harvey?

Derek Harvey is a former Flynn guy, a former DIA guy, a whack-a-doodle-do, nut job, completely bat-shit Muslim conspiracist. Molly, I think one of the things, remember we had that great conversation with Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at DHS. And he said that all the adults are gone. Every grown-up is out of the room. Trump is being let run buck wild through the White House. He says something now, and then instead of saying, Mr. President, we can't do that, as maybe

John Kelly would have in the beginning. Or Mr. President, that's not a great idea, as maybe Mick Mulvaney would say. Now, when the president says, I want to decapitate every third Antifa protester and ride around with their head, mount on a spike on the front of my limo, Mark Meadows is like, Mark Meadows is like, I'll call the spike installers. There is no control over his behavior. I just wrote a piece for The Beast about this this morning, basically saying, you know, if you think it's bad today, wait until we get a little close.

because it's going to go sideways. It's going to get really bad and really vicious and really ugly. And anybody who thinks that it's going to get better or that the president is going to say, maybe I should calm down in order to win, no, none of that's going to work. It's going to get much, much darker. It's hard to imagine, but very likely. I mean, we heard that guy from, was it HSS who got pushed out, which was really, pretty fucking tragic, say that this is going to be the darkest winter, American modern life between the coronavirus and the flow. And then we have President Lune Tunes.

Yeah, well, I mean, and we have a lot of people on the right around Trump who are starting to feel the pressure and are starting to feel the ugliness of a Trump collapse. We're seeing it in a lot of the swing states that the numbers are bad. And so every time Trump feels something going wrong, he tries to blow things up to change the subject. He is going to try to blow shit up in the next few days to try to get this thing reset because he failed in Kenosha.

It was an embarrassment for him. And most things he does now are an embarrassment. And this base-only strategy, you know, today he's going to a town in Pennsylvania where he won by something like 36% of the vote. So he's going to beat Hillary by 36%. So he's going deeper and deeper into his little binky bunker where he's with the friendly people who like him. and they're going to give him the adoration he wants,

but the rest of the world around him is still falling apart, and he's going to keep getting this dissonance. It's going to get louder and uglier as the weeks go on, which I love. Well, one of us has to love it. Oh, I can't take it. Oh, yeah, Rick, let's talk about your ratings ad for a minute because it did get a presidential tweet. It got a presidential tweet.

Every time you do an ad that gets a presidential tweet, it's mandatory that we talk about it. An angel gets its wings. It's angel. That's right. Angel gets a pack of birth control pills. Right? Something like that. I don't have the tape in front of me, but we could play it.

It works pretty well just on tape. So, Jesse, you want to just drop it in? Uh-oh, Donald. Bad news. The ratings are in for your convention. It's not pretty. Biden had better ratings than the president last night. Joe Biden beat you.

Buy a lot. The TV president, the reality TV president, who sold himself as a showman. Below Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And these two... It is yet too calm. I'm harassing.

Democrats beat you in ratings every night, except one. When your wife was giving a speech, ouch! That's got to be awkward at the dinner table. Even Fox said you were low energy. It didn't seem to have the bite. He was, I think, a little flat.

We know it's different now. You're tired. It's hard. to keep your ratings up. You used to get applause. Now, get ready to hear. You're fired. The Lanking project is responsible

for the content of this advertising. But yeah, look, we have become the anthropologists of shit, and we understand who Donald Trump is, and we understand that he is obsessing right now about both ratings and polls. He was furious. We have people that talk to us

from inside the White House, inside the campaign. And by the way, it started out with like a single source each. Now it's like people are like beating the door down. Hey, can I tell you something? I got to brief you guys inside. It's crazy. That's pretty great. But with all these things, you know, we kept hearing he's really pissed about it.

He's really pissed about it. So, of course, we generate a spot. And it gets right into his head. And the girl who does the voiceover, who we're not going to identify. But she has a tone with him that is just maddening apparently for him. So it's another week where we've got this guy. where his brain is broken for us, and he's obsessing, and he's tweeting about the Lincoln Project instead of going after Joe Biden. So God bless America. My work here is done.

How many times are you going to vote in this election, Rick Wilson? Well, I have been reliably told the lawmaker. You mean President Law and Order? By President Law and Order, and of course, by Judge Dred, his interior minister, the bar. That's right. I know him well. that voting twice, just to, quote, check the system. It's okay. In every state, it's illegal. In some states, it's a felony. And in all the states that Donald Trump wants to have voters come out, it's illegal. And in some of those, it's a felony. And of course, now there will be Maga dipshits who go out and go, I'm going to cast my absentee bail. Then I'm going to show those libt hard cucks. I'm going to go vote in the voting booth. Well, and some of them may get away with it. But this is once again, the ironic thing about a guy who's supposedly running on the law and order platform.

being a lawless, orderless hack. And of course... Say what you really feel. I know. I know. I keep so much in. I know. I really need to share. That's right. You need to be unfettered. Rick after dark. Well, hello, Molly. Hello, audio. All right. I go back to talking about you were talking about. Wow. All right. I've started something terrible.

Please put the Gini back in the bottle. How often does that happen? I've started something terrible. And then Bill Barr, of course, came out and said, whoa, what the president meant. to say was fuck you because Bill Barr, you know, is an absolute servant of Donald Trump. He is his, lackey, and he will defend anything he says no matter how lawless. And so here we are again. Lawless president, lawless interior minister. And it shouldn't surprise anybody, though. I will say what this also represents, and we're hearing this inside the Republican campaign world and the consultant world, inside and out of Trump. They're freaking the fuck out.

Because the secret sauce of Republican elections all over this fucking country for years was we were really good at getting early ballots in. We were really good at absentee voting and early voting and mail voting operations. We're really good at it. And now the base of the Republican Party are telling these guys, Mr. Trump says voting by mail is dangerous. It will lead to Antifa and Scrofula. And also, I will not be able to maintain an erection with my lady friend. So I cannot, I cannot vote by mail. And so these fucking people are not going to vote by mail because Trump kept telling them, don't vote by mail. It's dangerous. And so Republican...

But he also told them to vote twice. I know, but look, consistency is not his strong suit. But these folks are out there, and like I said, the Republican consulting class is in a panic because early voting used to be their secret sauce. And now, not so much because the president took a shit in the punch bowl. So do you think that this ends up backfiring on Trump, on Republicans? Just checking. So should we vote more than once?

I miss the... punchline here. Well, the old phrase of vote early and often. Right, exactly. It's something I would never recommend because I'm a law-abiding citizen. That's right. Brian Stelcher is the host of CNN's reliable sources and the author of hoax, Donald Trump, Fox News, and the dangerous distortion of news. Well, Brian, welcome to the new abnormal. We are so delighted to have you on with us today. And I wanted to start with something that came up on your show this weekend about the Facebook bubble. And while we talk a lot about news and media, I think it's incumbent upon all of us to like dig into what's happening to a lot of Americans where they've stopped going through any kind of media except for the stuff their friends and Facebook shovels into their feed every day that doesn't come from actual reporting, but they interpreted as news. Where do you see that as influencing the future where we go in this country in terms of media?

Right. These outrage machines do cause a form of radicalization. And we have to talk about this in the language. that it warrants, which is radicalization. When your feed tells you every hour that the cities are burning when they are not, when you're seeing month-old video of something that happened on one street corner, I do think you end up going down a rabbit hole that leads to radicalization. It leads to isolation. It leads to this sense of, I need someone to protect me from all these threats, which of course is a narrative that President Trump promotes.

And I do think Facebook and Twitter have responsibility for this, just like Fox News and just like The Daily Caller. You know, it's both pro-Trump media as well as these platforms that feed off, amplifying these scary messaging. Yeah. Do you think that this problem comes back to the death of local news? I think it's a related problem, but I think this is also deeper about people's reactions to imagery and what happens when people press the fear button over and over again. There's a book that I loved many years ago by Barry Glastner all about the culture of fear. And, you know, he wrote it, I think, in the 90s.

And it's feeling even more true now. It's called the culture of fear. And it's about why people are afraid of the wrong things. Meaning, and I think that's even, it's just becoming more and more true in the internet age and the social media age, where we have these, these messages blasting us in our eyeballs every day. You wrote this book about Fox. Start with like when it was revealed you were writing this book. Did they come after you? Well, I think Sean Hannity and others used me as a punching bag even before I announced the book.

And that continued during the reporting process. And I tried to use that to my advantage. I sometimes gained sources by pointing out the BS that these guys were spreading about me. I swear that it really actually came in handy several times in the course of the reporting. In terms of feeling targeted, I did not feel any more targeted than I felt before I started working on the book. You know, I tried to do all the right things. I tried to let Fox know ahead of time before the announcement. I tried to let sources know ahead of time.

You know, I tried to play as fair as possible. And certainly in the fact checking process as well. But let me say this. When Sean Hannity calls you Humpty Dumpty or Tucker Carlson calls you a eunuch in front of four million people, your inbox fills up pretty quickly. Bend to that rodeo. Yeah, I know your pain. And there are most times I blow it off, but I do try to look at it once in a while with innocent eyes. Just to remember what it's like for folks who are not used to this, what that avalanche of hate is like.

You mean Arena Burganti isn't like an honest broker when it comes to trying to slag people writing about Fox? If they're going to try to get me to say something negative. You know, I'll tell you what I've always said about Fox News PR, and I truly mean it. They defend their brand very, very well. And I got to respect that as someone who's a media reporter who covers all these companies. There have been times in the last 16 years where I've thought, geez, other networks, other media companies, I should play a little more hard by the way Fox does. The danger there, though, is, of course, these horror stories for many years ago in a prior Fox regime,

where Fox PR was engaging in unethical behavior. And I describe a very amateur version of that in my book, where this Fox News PR intern is assigned to go and pretend to date me to try to get information about me. Now, that happened under a different PR leader. But that kind of stuff, that's unacceptable. I think Fox is very effective at working the refs and playing the refs very effectively. So I write a newsletter at night for CNN. And almost every night, Fox News PR sends out an email with a bunch of stories,

suggested stories to the newsletter. Now, I think they do this for other newsletters, other reporters as well. That's a very smart thing to do. I've always said I wished other outlets would do the same thing. usually find the links anyway, sure. Do I skip most of them? Sure. But it's helpful. They are very good at what they do. And I think it's important in hoax to acknowledge what Fox does that is very effective, business-wise, very effective, production-wise, very effective. Just look at their screen. I swear, I think it's brighter than the other channels. It is. Almost like candy. It catches your eye. Well, that was always part of their sort of graphic vernacular that Roger was very into, which was big, bold, color, splash, movement. As the CGI got better from 90s, six on when they open the doors. You know, you've always got a gigantic, like, busy, busy, busy screen happening all the time with lots of lots of animation and logos and everything else.

Yeah, there's a lot that I appreciate from a television standpoint about Fox. Where the network is falling down right now is on the journalistic front. And the reason I had to write the book is because so many journalists at Fox were coming to me saying that. So what I try to relay in the book is this is not my view of Fox. I'm just a viewer. Well, this is about is producers, anchors, correspondence, and executives saying to me, me, we've gone off the rails. Our news muscles have atrophied. Our propaganda muscles have taken over. The management seems to want pro-Trump propaganda and discourage real reporting. And that's ultimately the

problem. Who do you think is the worst offender? Oh, boy. Well, what's worst offender mean? You mean the most propagandistic? Like the example to you of the... Does it rhyme with Shucker-Farlson? I think the way to measure this is by the guests that are booked. And there are certain shows on Fox that book Democrats and Republicans, and there are certain shows on Fox that engage in in limited amounts of fact-checking. But then you have Sean Hannity's show, Maria Bartaromo's show, Janine Piro's show. These are programs that swear the sky is green when it's blue. I've noticed Fox Business seems to have a different standard. A lower or higher standard?

Guess. Well, Fox Business is best known for Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs is by far the highest rated host on the channel, even though his ratings are quite low. he's by far the biggest star there. And as a result, you have others like Trish Regan, who was forced out in March, who try to be like Lou. Try to be like Lou Dobbs. I don't think any journalism professor would go out and tell you, go be like Lou Dobbs. Brian, do you think that other networks have the same kind of culture inside that Fox does? My view is that they don't, because even on, people think of MSN as sort of a counterweight to Fox.

But I don't see the same sort of unified cultural, the sort of bunker thing that Fox has is so unique to other networks. Well, the positive thing I would say about the culture is that people feel like it's a family. They feel like it's us against the world. Staffers told me how much they appreciated that feeling of being about something bigger and important. So there's that. However, there's also a lot of low morale there right now because of a lack of strong

leadership, a lack of a clear vision. What's happened is the vision is just lean into Trump, you know, as one staffer said, the place is on cruise control and has been ever since Roger Ailes was forced out. I think it is very different from MSNBC or CNN or ABC or the others because, you know, it's a series of fiefdoms. It's a series of individual shows. There's not a lot of narrative that follows through as a network, although obviously things like law and order, those permeate everything. But there's not a, I think right now one of the tensions internally is what are we here? What are we working on?

So I interviewed someone who, this is not ready for prime time, but she said that in some ways it was less scary. And this runs counter to everything I have ever. thought in my life, was less scary under Roger Ailes because you knew where you stood. Yeah, I hate to say it, but a lot of people there miss Roger Ailes. It's crazy to hear as an outsider, but when I heard it so many times from sources, I started to believe it really is a common feeling because at least he was a strong leader. At least you knew the boss was and you knew where you stood. Unfortunately, he used that power to abuse women, abuse his power.

Thankfully, the Murdox took action in 2016. But ever since, there's been a leadership vacuum there. I think they've got executives that are doing a great job running the business because the business is more profitable than ever. But editorially, there's something missing. And in this way, it's not so different from the Trump White House. You have a lot of people not that happy at a place that's chaotic who choose to stay because they hope they can make it better, hope they can make it saner.

And some eventually leave because they can't take it anymore. Speaking of the Murdox, what do you think about, I mean, look, the actuarial tables will get all of us eventually unless Rupert can upload himself into the cloud. What do you think the transition looks like? My theory has always been, people who hold out hope that like, oh, James and Lachlan aren't like their dad, they're going to do, my theory has always been, these guys are never walking away from equity. They're never walking away from. I know. But this idea that there's some sort of cultural change that will happen after Rupert passes, I just wanted to get your feeling on it.

I'm a skeptic. Well, it's a cliffhanger in hoax because I am also partly skeptical. But here's what I do believe will happen. I do believe that in the event Rupert Murdoch dies, there will be a battle over the few. future of the company. Because there's this trust. Right now there's eight votes in the trust. Rupert has four votes. And the kids have four votes. So he wins. If and when he dies, there will be four votes from four children. And James Murdoch, the more liberal son, who has purposely left News Corporation in Foxx. He's purposefully, every step he takes, every move he makes, seems to be

in preparation for something bigger. Maybe a takeover of Fox Corporation. So the theory goes like this. He has the support of his sisters, three votes versus one. He takes over Fox Corporation. Lockland Murdoch, the more conservative brother is out. And in that scenario, I think there could be a big change of Fox News. But I don't know. Are we talking about five years, 10 years? I don't know what we're talking about. You know, we're not talking about 2020. I know that. Right. Look, Fox News has only gone in one direction for the last 24 years, right, further right, further right. That's the history of Fox News. For it to move in any other direction would be stunning. Is there any read in the book, and I'm looking forward to reading it? Is there anything in the book about the role of Tucker Carlson himself? Because

he seems like I knew Tucker for years and years as sort of a nihilist asshole bro-servative. Hi, look in the mirror. There we go. But he has taken on this white nationalist overtone in a way that it's become a touchstone for a lot of these people out there in the world who are on the alt-right and the far right and the guys, the boogaloo boy types, etc. I have on page 215. Other hosts at Fox saying to me, I wish management would ring Carlson in. I wish they'd make him drop the white. supremacist as shit because it tarnishes the entire network. But I think what people don't understand is

he seems to have an alliance of sorts with Lachlan Murdoch. I'm not saying Lothland agrees with every word Tucker says, but these are two men that seem to have a lot in common, that are close in age. They, you know, pre-pandemic, they would meet up and have meals together when they were in the same city. He has this really important relationship with Lachlan. And I think that explains every controversy that happens, every time that there's some eruption, a Fox stands by Tucker. Now, what do you think? 2024? Because I do mention in the book, Oh, no. Oh, no.

Paid 317 guys. That's my nightmare. That's my nightmare. Think they could see Carlson on the primary ballot. After Kimberly Gilfoyle murders Don Jr. in his sleep. Oh, Jesus. The frontrunner for the 24 Republican nomination is Tucker Carlson. God help me.

He speaks fluent Trumpese. He's actually the author of a lot of it. And I think he's the leader. So that actually leads me to another question about Tucker. The degree to which Tucker will tweet or say something on the air and two days later, it's Donald Trump's policy. I can't think of another television commentator who's had that kind of influence on a president in a very long time. No, this is unprecedented. This is why I could have written another 300 pages, because the examples are almost countless. Sometimes it's silly stuff.

You know, sometimes the president tweets about Goodyear because of Fox. But other times he tweets about North Korea because of Fox. And there was that famous day when, you know, we were cocked and loaded, you know, as the president said, ready to fire on Iran. And Tucker Carlson was in Trump's ear. Now, Tucker wasn't the only one, but Tucker's voice was in Trump's ear, and some staffers give him a lot of credit for talking the president down. I had a Fox commentator joke to me, well, if I had to choose, you know, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, I guess I feel safe for having Tucker in charge of the country than Sean. Yeah, well, that is a pretty low bar. We're so doomed. Would you consider Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson to be the de facto leaders of Fox?

I would put that on to the folks I interviewed at all levels who said, it seems like Tucker and Sean are more managerial than the managers. And certainly some of them brag about their power. But I want to be clear, obviously, there are actually executives. There are people in positions of power. There's a management team. It's just that I think there's not a clear, strong leadership emanating from the top where there's accountability, all the sorts of things that you would expect from a major newsnet. But of course, that's if you look at it as a news network. If you look at it as a political operation that's intended to support the president, then you might say it's working really well, though I would argue they do the president a disservice.

And I argued throughout the book, the Times are Hannity's trying to help Trump. He's hurting Trump. He is feeding the president bad information, sending him down rabbit holes, actually hurting the guy he's trying to help. So, you know, look, maybe we'll have a better sense of this in November. Did Fox really help the Trump presidency?

Or did Fox ruin the Trump presidency? Oh, I think Donald Trump had the ability to ruin his presidency a whole long, but there certainly have been times they've given him a nice shove. So let me ask you this. And I know we've been on sort of a fox tear today. I want to loop back on that first question again. What does the future look like for cable news when this migration to Facebook, especially of viewers, unfortunately, in the demo, you know, as these people continue to slide over to Facebook and say,

well, I'll just look at Eagle Patriot Maga Forum 9,000 instead of watching CNN or MSN or ABC or CBS. What does that look like for journalism and for the media going forward? I still feel like there's a disconnect. They don't have a pathway to address it or compete with it yet. To compete with hyper-partisan sites out there? Yeah, with hyper-partisan, but with Facebook as the hyper-partisan aggregator of all these crazy sites. Right. The reason I'm more bullish about cable news is I think there will always be times.

There always are and there always will be times where something really bad or something really good happens in the world. And you want to experience it on television. You want to see it on the biggest screen possible. You want to gather around with others and watch post-pandemic, of course. Right. I look at our ratings and I see it, for example. Viewers can tell when something is really actually breaking news, not when I, you know, called it breaking news.

There are a lot of examples of this, but I always think about one from last year where there was an actually serious earthquake in California. This was the Ridge Crest quake, late at night on the East Coast in the evening out west, and the ratings were CNN doubled within an hour. And, you know, that just speaks to the idea that when there's something actually big happening,

people know where to go. And Fox benefits from this to some degree. MSNBC benefits. less, but all the cable news channels benefit from that sense of real actual breaking news, you know, a trusted guide. And you're not going to get that from the Gateway Pundit, at least not any time in the foreseeable. No way. Now that said, of course, these sites are really good at pressing people's buttons. They're too good at it. And I think they're only going to keep getting better at it. And I don't know if there's a solution to that in the cable world, but I think

cable always is going to have this unique role to play with actually breaking news. And then the rest of the time, hopefully we can provide something that's high quality, not low quality. You know, there's a real wide spectrum of content on cable news from Mark Levin to Fareed Zakaria, right? And I hope folks are more interested in watching Farid, not just because he's my lead-in, than they are in watching, you know, the Jesse Waters' gag show. It's interesting how Fox has turned to comedy in the Trump years. Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Waters, like, when in doubt, just make fun of the news. But don't those guys seem like increasingly less funny and more, the owning the lib stuff is not, to my mind, as common. as they think it is.

But I certainly see them as they've become much more partisan. There's a lot more partisan bitterness weeping through them. Bitterness. Well, they're also, both men are experts in the anti-media sched. You know, their base messages, you cannot trust anything else. It's one of the most cynical things about Fox and what I try to hit a bunch of times in the book. It says they're constantly saying to the viewers every day, do not trust anything but Fox

and Trump. Do not, you're going to be, you're going to be tricked if you turn the channel. The word hoax, even, you know, when someone tells you, there's a hoax every day, that someone's out to hurt you. That's extreme rhetoric. I know that in the, you know, we're all used to this in the Trump age, but people didn't use to talk this way. You know, even only a few years ago, we weren't divided into pro-Obama and anti-Obama or pro-Bush. Like, give me, even the way we talk about this stuff has changed because of Trump. The new abnormal is going to release a limited run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks.

Starting in August, we'll release a new one each Sunday. But listen carefully. Only Beast Inside members will have access to these. So head over to new abnormal. Dot the DailyBeast.com to join now. Your Beast Inside membership helps support the great reporting at The Beast and podcasts like The New Abnormal. Thanks. Today on the podcast, we have Dr. Al Gross,

who is running as an independent in the state of Alaska against the evil Republican senator, Dan Sullivan. Rick Wilson cannot join us for this interview because of his involvement in the Lincoln Project. So I'm extremely excited about your Senate race. Can you just tell me how did you get involved with politics? How did you decide to run for the Senate? Give us a little backstory about you. Sure. Well, as you probably know, I was born and raised in Juneau, and I grew up in a very political family. My father was the Attorney General that helped create the

universal basic income check, the permanent fund dividend, and the oil sovereign wealth fund alongside our Republican legendary governor Jay Hammond. Jay Hammond was a Republican. My dad was a Democrat, and they were close friends and worked really well together for the future of Alaska, and it was never about partisanship. And that's ultimately why I ended up registering as a nonpartisan independent when I turned 18. And my mom was also very engaged in the state. She founded the Alaska League of Women Voters, was the founding director of the United Fisherman of Alaska. She was the founding director of the Alaska European office in Copenhagen, even. And so I grew up in a politically charged family in politics who was always at the dining room table.

And I've been friends with the leaders of the state ever since I was a young kid from Alaska's first governor with whom I was on a first name basis with when I was just four years old. And Alaska's first senator, Ernest Greening, who by the way was Alaska's first governor, doctor, senator, I will be the second. I grew up literally right across the street from the state capital. And so while I never expected that I would get into politics, at a young age, I felt very comfortable around it and have always been very interested in it. And certainly I've been very, very interested and personally invested in the future of Alaska. And when I saw Alaska failing economically and our country splitting apart more and more. And after having gone to school, gone back to school and gotten a master's in public health and had made a name for myself statewide

talking about the need for health care reform. I saw an opportunity to step up and take a leadership position for the state because Dan Sullivan, as Alaska Senator, in my opinion, was doing a terrible job representing Alaska and was not addressing the issues that Alaska needs to address in order to be successful into the future and because I saw a pathway to win. What were you first? A commercial fisherman, an orthopedic surgeon, or a Masters of Public Health?

And how did those all fit together? I started commercial fishing when I was 14. I had a lot of friends in a small town nearby called Petersburg, who, with Petersburg is a commercial fishing town with a Norwegian history to it. And a lot of my friends started fishing and it looked like a lot of fun.

it looked like a great way to spend the summer and a good way to make money for college. So I tried to get a job on a larger boat as a deckhand, but because of my age and my lack of family connections, I was unable to get a position on a bigger boat. And so I talked to my parents into co-signing a loan for me to buy my own boat. And because I had pretty much lost the season because of the mechanical breakdown, I was unable to pay off the bank loan. And so my mom and dad made me sell the boat in order to do that because a deal was a deal. A deal was a deal. I was heartbroken, but, and I learned some really humbling lessons out of that, but I didn't let it get in the way, and I got back on another boat the following summer, and basically for 10 summers in a row,

I worked my way all across the state of Alaska, including Bristol Bay, and worked on a number of larger fishing boats and ended up putting myself through college and medical school. And when I was in medical, I ran out of time in the summers. And so I wasn't able to fish then. And then I came back to Juneau as an orthopedic surgeon and, again, was very, very busy for about 20 years. But when I went back to school and got my master's degree at UCLA, I got a master's in public health. I had my summers free. And so I got back into commercial fishing. You're an independent? I am.

I registered as an independent when I was 18 because I've never been one for labels. And I can identify with certain aspects of the Republican Party. and I can identify with certain aspects of the Democratic Party. And as a senator, I will caucus with the Democrats. The Republicans failed miserably when it came to any attempts to reform or health care system. And I believe the Democrats are motivated to improve the Affordable Care Act and come up with ways to provide coverage at a more affordable rate for people. I want to get you on UBI because I feel like it's really,

it feels like the future right now. and Alaska was the first place to have it and has really had a lot of success with it. Can you talk a little bit about how you see UBI working on a larger scale and what it was like living through? I mean, because that was pretty wild stuff. Well, I was actually on the best duck hunting trip of my life with my dad and Governor Jay Hammond, just the three of us on my dad's boat when dad and Jay came up with the plans to create the permanent fund dividend. And there was some controversy in Alaska as to who would qualify for the UBI and how the UBI would be distributed. And it actually went and was challenged in court.

And so Dad and Jay had to come up with a constitutionally correct method to distribute the money. It's been very, very successful here in the state. And people love the program. It really brings funds into the economy and help stimulate the economy. and help stimulate the economy in the fall, which is a good time of year to be that after tourism has left the state. It comes before Christmas, so people have money to buy Christmas presents for their family members, and in parts of the state where there's not a lot of economic activity, it brings badly needed funds to people who really need it. So it's a widely like program, and on a more national scale, as people are forced out of work,

we need to find a way to get to put money in their pockets so that they can afford to live. So I certainly think it has relevance on a national level given our worldwide pandemic. So the dividend is one of the most interesting and unique concepts in America. But outside Alaska, it's relatively limited. Can you explain to our listeners why it has such a huge effect on Alaskans? Well, there are a lot of Alaskans who don't make very much money. People who live in rural Alaska are often below poverty levels. And so getting a check from the government that is somewhere between $1,500 a year and $2,500 a year for every man, woman, and child in the state.

The registers for it is a big injection of funds. And if you've got a big family, that can amount to a lot of money, which can really translate into the ability to buy gas for your snow machines or buy gas for your skiffs so you can go hunting or fishing. and there are a lot of real practical applications up there. For many people, it's become a really important part of their economy. Alaska is so different. I mean, like, the great story is Lisa Markowski. She doesn't win the nomination and she wins as a write-in. So it seems to me like running in Alaska is completely different than running anywhere else in America.

I'm curious to know, is that true? Am I wrong? And how are you running for Senate there? Well, it is very different. And I think most people down south consider Alaska to be a deep red state. But people that live here don't believe that at all. It's a very, very independent state. I believe close to 60 percent of registered voters are registered as nonpartisan independent.

And people have a fierce sense of independence up here, and they often will split tickets. You know, Trump only won the state with 51 percent of the vote. It's not nearly as deep a Trump state as a lot of people give it credit to be. And a lot of independents are successful politically in Alaska. Democrats are sometimes successful politically in the state as well. If you have the right message, you can win. And people don't like to be influenced by outside forces. They like the federal government to leave them alone

or at least have the feeling that they're being left alone by the U.S. government. And the state government, too, for that matter. And it's certainly not nearly as read. those people are a credit to be. How do you campaign there? Like, it's very spread out. What do you do? What's your campaign looking like?

I mean, are you on a bus? Are you on a plane? Are you on a boat? Just want to know the brass tax. I'm like fascinated by that. Well, it's a huge state. I believe we only have about 720,000 people spread out all across the state. And, you know, our campaign has changed dramatically since COVID-19 arrived.

When I launched my campaign, I had first gone on a listening tour all across the state, and I took my commercial fishing boat. I really went all over the state listening to people before I even launched the campaign. And once we launched the campaign, we based primarily out of Anchorage, where I have been living for the last three years. Our focus initially was on fundraising. But with Zoom, I'm sorry, with COVID-19. That was the most telling Floridian slip I've ever heard. You know, ever since COVID-19, we've had to dramatically change our approach.

And reaching out to voters has been very different. And initially, we did a lot of teletown halls. The very first one we did, had almost 20,000 participants all across the state. And that was primarily focused on public health. It was right after COVID had come out. And there was a great deal of interest in our campaign because, of course, I'm a doctor. And we have done a lot of Zoom events. I've been on the radio all across the state.

B, what do you think you could do in Congress that would, I mean, it must be just infuriating to see what's happening right now in America. What is sort of your focus? Well, I stepped up to do this because Alaska was failing economically, and I saw a pathway and a mechanism to bring jobs and a future to the state. And, of course, the issues that I'm speaking to here in Alaska are, big national issues as well, the high costs of health care, the high costs of pharmaceuticals, and really addressing a lot of the injustices in this world. And since I stepped up to do this, President Trump continues to divide the country more and more in issues regarding racial and social injustice are more relevant than ever on a national scale. And so as the senator, I would like

to work to address those as best I can. And I have a lot to learn on these issues, but I'm willing to listen and I'm excited to do that. To that end, so like what are the complaints most Americans have is who they vote for doesn't really change their lives? How would having your voice there as opposed to your opponent be beneficial to your constituents' lives? Well, my opponent has done virtually nothing other than the status quo here in Alaska to come up with new ideas to bring Alaska into a successful future. He has voted repeatedly against the Affordable Care Act

and has never put forward any ideas to make it stronger and better and more affordable. He has come up with no other ideas as to how to lure businesses to the state. And as you know, the high cost of health care are eroding into our middle class

and are responsible for weight, stagnation across the board in labor and education and public safety and all these dollars are getting funneled into health care rather than increased wages. So these are issues that are very relevant on a national level. And as a doctor, I'm very excited to take a leadership role and do help get a public option across the finish line.

I want to be the doctor that gets that done. Jesse and I are both like want to move to Alaska and vote for you. That's awesome. Yeah. When I was on the campaign trail prior to COVID-19, the biggest issue that I heard from Alaskan voters was that they were fed up with partisanship and that they lost state the election system because of campaign finance. The people don't feel that their vote matters or counts anymore,

which is ironic really because so many elections in Alaska come down to one or two votes. Very close elections are common up here. So it's unfortunate that people really do believe that. But I think as a U.S. Senator, I would really want to work towards restored confidence in our election system and to reform our campaign finance system so that people's vote really does matter and elections can't be bought. How is Alaska ready for this election?

Because I know there's a lot of fuckery going on with the mail, and you have a lot of rural communities, and you also have this crazy time difference. So can you talk about that? Well, the crazy time difference, you're all going to have to stay up late to see Alaska turns out. But unfortunately, we may not know the results of the election until possibly a week after the election

because of the high number of absentee ballots. You know, Alaska has a long history of fair elections, and I know the director of elections here in Alaska. She and I went to kindergarten together all the way through high school, and I've taken care of her family as a doctor for a number of years in Juneau. And I trust that Gail will, to the best of her abilities, supervise a very fair election, but people are, of course, concerned about whether their absentee ballots will show up in time.

So far, I don't believe that that's going to be. to be a problem, but if Trump continues to try and meddle with the U.S. Postal Service, it potentially could be. Yeah, it's really so scary. Can you tell us where people could find you on the internet? Yeah, my website is Dr. Algrosak.com. Rick Wilson, let's get to our one segment. What is our one segment, Molly? What is our one segment? Are we ever going to tire of this joke? Our producer is tired of this joke. I'm sure the producer is, but the American people love it. That's right. So who is your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy today is Congressman Clay Higgins.

Congressman Higgins of Louisiana. Of course. He's been posting a series of things that have now been removed from the Facebook. By him or by Facebook? Oh, no, by Facebook. Wow. You know how bad it has to be for Facebook, the nexus of misinformation? For fascist book to actually post up and say, oh, too much. Right. It's got to be pretty bad.

Yeah. Clay Higgins put out a photograph of, the nexus of information. of black demonstrators carrying guns. Legally carrying guns, by the way, which is okay for the boogaloo's. Right. And I'm a Second Amendment believer. So I believe that African Americans who are protesting, and if they choose to exercise their Second Amendment right in a legal and safe way, well, God bless America. But Clay Higgins, for some reason, has no problem with the boogaloos and no problem with these guys with AR-15s in the state capitals. But he loses his fucking shit when African-Americans are carrying firearms in illegal.

and safe way. He posts this thing on Facebook, and I'm just going to read you a little bit of it. Look, fair warning. If this shows up, we'll consider the arm presence a real threat. We, the people of Louisiana, one-way ticket, fellas, have your affairs in order. Me, I wouldn't even spill my beer. I'd drop any 10 of you where you stand, because some of we, like me, we are swat, nothing personal. We just eliminate the threat. Okay, bro. Oh, Jesus, fucking Christ. Being a shit-talker in politics is a universal standard. Everybody in politics, talk some shit. But Clay, you post pictures of African Americans, then you write this long spank bank entry in your erotic diary, your fucking erotic fan fiction of wanting to shoot black

people. Go fuck yourself. Fuck that guy. Yeah, that was a good one. I mean, he's, yeah, he's, Jesus Christ. He bought the ticket. He gets to take the ride. My fuck that guy is Ernst and Barr, not to be confused with Ernst and Young, which includes Joni Ernst. The absolute, she's gone from being like, I guess there was some fantasy that she was a moderate. She has now become sort of the queen of Trumpville. I would say she's like Martha McSally. She's gotten very Trumpy. She recently just started questioning the coronavirus death numbers.

And she's facing a really steep re-election. She's also, she's just completely on the Trump train. and she's proven herself to be a vehicle of everything Trump touches dies. I mean, look, Iowa should not be a bad race for her this year. She came into it without, and it didn't look like a complete disaster, but it has gotten tighter. And so the last survey in Iowa had Trump only plus two. The DMR poll back in June had Trump plus one, which is a damn good survey. Iowa is a very, very tight race right now.

And so Joni Ernst is not prospering because, in part, Trump is not in the state that is where it was four years ago. Greenfield has run a really good campaign and she's brought herself up from basically nothing. Ernst has outspent her, but she's slightly ahead in most of the surveys. It's a tie ball game. And maybe if you're in a tie ball game in an old state full of old people that's very old and also elderly, and also as people who are staring into the great void, which consumes us all at the end of our days, and also who are in nursing homes.

You should take the virus that kills old people. Right, maybe call me crazy. But no, I'm with you on your fuck that guy. Yeah, and then my other fuck that guy is Bill Barr, who will literally die on all the hills to protect President Trump. And yesterday he gave that weird, weird Wolf Blitzer interview where he said that, I mean, just weird stuff, and he refused to say that you couldn't vote more than once,

which was a very strange moment in television. I have to say that is not a moment you want to have on your whole attorney general copybook. Yes. Because it makes you seem like you're less of an attorney general and more authoritarian thug enabler. I think that's a fair. I think that's a fair. A fair assessment. A fair assessment.

On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly Jongfest and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast.

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