The Daily Beast Podcast - Why CEOs Are Now Willing to Call ‘Bulls***’ to Trump’s Face

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie weigh in on President Donald Trump’s big meeting with the CEOs of three of America’s biggest retailers this week, and why executives seem to be done with his tariff policies. Then, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah stops by to discuss why she won’t back down after Columbia University canceled her course on race and media. Plus, Courtney Hagle, the research director at Media Matters, joins the podcast to talk about the state of pro-Trump media in a post-tariff climate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What a great show we have for you today.

Karen Atsia is a columnist of The Washington Post, and she's here today to talk about Columbia canceling her course on race and media, but why that's not going to stop her from teaching it anyways. Then, Courtney Hagle, research director at Media Matters, is here to break down how right-wing podcasts reacted to Trump's tariff and what their responses tell us about the state of pro-Trump media. But first, let's have some fun. So, Danielle, we've been talking a lot on this show about what's been going on with immigration and these, what the media calls deportations, what I've preferred to call kidnappings of undocumented immigrants and some documented and sending them to other countries. El Salvador, we've talked about a lot. And the courts have so far been pretty good about knocking this stuff down and saying, no, you can't do this and sort of putting the Trump administration on blast. The administration, of course, has not been the best about complying with the court orders.

And if you're wondering why, which you're probably not, but in case you were, here's a couple quotes from Donald Trump, who is now complaining that the judges are committing insurrect. against his deportation plans, aka kidnapping. Speaking in the Oval Office, he said, we're getting them out and a judge can't say, no, you have to have a trial. The trial is going to take two years. We're going to have a very dangerous country

if we're not allowed to do what we're entitled to do. And then on his dumbass truth social earlier this week, he wrote, we cannot give everyone a trial because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years. Where does he get the numbers? I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea.

But the fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter if it would take 200 years. The way the system is supposed to work is you do give everyone a trial. That's kind of the cornerstone of our legal system. And it's been clear for a while, but it's becoming increasingly so that the whole notion of due process to the Trump administration is not a bedrock foundation of. America, despite their professed love for the founding fathers who are the ones who enshrined this in our Constitution. But they legitimately believe that due process is somehow woke or something like that, that saying that, hey, if you're accusing someone of something, you have to give them a trial and prove your case. To them, Danielle, that is not the case. And we are just supposed to take their word for it

and let them do whatever the hell they want to people. There is a saying, like, do you think that I'm boo-boo the fool? Like, how stupid does Donald Trump think that we are, that we are going to take as a country the word of a serial liar? That, like, oh, yeah, if he says that the 200-plus men that he kidnapped from the streets of America and sent to, essentially sold, right, to an El Salvadorian torture chamber, for the bargain basement price of $6 million to Bruelly, that we are just going to take his word for it.

Like, oh, these people have tattoos, so that means X. And then we're just like, oh, okay. No, actually, because everything that Donald Trump says is a lie. And the other things that he says are projection also lies. So like due process is the way that a democracy is supposed to work. and the judges so far are fighting back against this autocracy. But I'm like, you know, Hillary Clinton every like at least a couple of times a week, posts on social media and she goes, Congress could stop this anytime that they want.

Anytime they want, Congress could stop this. And it's just like, where is the line? If we're a country that no longer believes in the rule of law and due processes out the door, because it starts with undocumented people and we know where it heads. What did he say? The home groans. So if no one is entitled to due process, then this is not a democracy, which we already know.

So to me, I keep wondering where the line is for Republicans. But then I remember what Murkowski just said recently, which is that, you know, she's afraid of the base, so she rarely speaks up. Well, if you really want to know where Congress is, you can look at Senator Mike Lee from Utah. He introduced a bill a month ago called the Restraining Judicial Insurrectionists Act of 2025. And what he said at the time was, he said, America's government cannot function if the legitimate orders of our commander-in-chief can be overridden at the whim of a single district court judge. And he goes on from there. The point being that at least this one senator could not agree more

with Trump. He sees the judges as insurrectionists. We're in such Orwellian times when the actual people who tried to carry out an insurrection on January 6th, 2021, are set free by Donald Trump and now are viewed as beloved heroes by Republicans. And then judges who are actually saying, well, no, here's what the Constitution says about that. It's you can't do that, that is in these people's minds somehow an insurrection. The only insurrectionist in power right now is Donald Trump, well, and his administration. Because when you're talking about trying to make an end run and trying to ignore the law of the land and the Constitution of the United States, and you're trying to assume more power for yourself

above and beyond what the Constitution says you have, you are the insurrectionist. You are the insurrectionist. You are committing insurrection against the United States of America. But it just, yes, I agree with Hillary Clinton. Congress could stop this at any time. Congress ain't never stopping this. I, there's just, the Republican Party is, you know, I think I've used this word before, but they are in such thrall. They are in complete and utter thrall to Donald Trump. With a very few exceptions. And, you know, I know, I know Rand Paul is now, he's not happy about the tariffs and he's introducing legislation about it. But with very few exceptions on the occasional issue, they are as close to 100% in the pocket of Trump as they could

possibly be. My God. I don't know. I don't know if we will have history books. I don't know if they won't, you know, by then have chisle Donald Trump's face into Mount Rushmore. because the way in which they just, this is why language is important. We use the term insurrection to showcase exactly what it is that that mob did on January 6th. That was an insurrection. They suck the meaning out of language when they turn it around and just throw it on anyone who dissents against what they're doing. And then you see how things like cease to have meaning and you don't know really what's

truth and what's not. And it's all a part of the larger fascist game that they are playing. Oh, absolutely. I mean, fascists love to torture, well, people and the language. And you're exactly right when you say that they use these words. I think partially because, you know, I think someone like Mike Lee is deranged enough to actually believe what he's saying. But there is, on top of that, there is the layer of, oh, well, what you hope is there are people out there who are going, Well, the Democrats say what happened on January 6 was an insurrection, and the Republicans say what the judges are doing is an insurrection. And like you said, you know, people who are not consumed with politics on a daily basis are just sitting there going, how do I know what to believe? How do I know which one of these is an insurrection?

Maybe they're both insurrections. Maybe neither of them are an insurrection. You're exactly right to say that the torturous use of language that you see is both commonplace among fascist regimes. that is exactly one of the big reasons that they do it. Yeah, because it is, like you said at the top, it's Orwellian. It is to make people disbelieve their eyes, disbelieve their ears. Question reality. What is reality?

Just briefly, before we move on, Al Gore has a video that went viral this week, where he was talking about the fact that Donald Trump is creating, has designed his own reality. and is trying to suck the country and the world into what he sees and what he believes. And like the fight that we're in right now is to hold on to like the truth. And it's extraordinarily hard when you have like lies and deceit and greed, everything opened up like a fire hydrant. It's extraordinary. Yeah. I want to talk about another word that they have tortured beyond all recognition.

And that word is doxing. What doxing means is, you know, for people who aren't internet savvy, doxing is a word that's come along in the last bunch of years that basically involves giving out the personal information of someone against their wishes, like a home address or a telephone number or something like that, that can then be used to harass them. And we saw earlier this year, Elon Musk was very upset when Wired Magazine and others discovered the identities of his little Doge drones that he had hired, who should not have been

anywhere near doing the things that they've been doing to various government agencies. And the people that identified them simply did that. They identified them. They said, hey, we figured out who this guy is. Here's his name. And here's some things he said on social media. That is not doxing. No.

But Elon Musk went nuts and said, you're doxing them. And he deleted all that stuff. You know, he banned that stuff from Twitter. and he just went nuts. And that was not doxing. What is doxing is what is happening to the wife of Kilmar Abrago Garcia, who I know we've talked about him enough. I'm sure our listeners are very familiar with who he is. He's the guy that is now in the Salvadoran Torture Gulag, as my guest, Garrett Graf described it. He was admittedly sent there by mistake by the Trump administration, yet they will not bring him back, and they are doing everything to pretend that he is a member of the Venezuelan gang MS-13, even though there's no evidence of that.

And they made public a thing that was a bunch of years ago, I guess, his wife, who is named Jennifer Vasquez Surah. So back in 2021, there was a court document filed after a fight that Abrigo Garcia and his wife had, which she later dropped. But because she filed the claim, it is public. And the Trump administration has released that document in an effort to portray Abrigo Garcia, as they say, a wife-beater, which does not appear to be the case. And in fact, his wife, as I mentioned, Vasquezura, is one of the people trying the hardest to get him back. But when they released this document, it had their home address on it. What pisses me off about this, again, going back to the fact that language is incredibly important and things matter,

is one of the stories that I read with regard to this administration doxing Kilmar Obrigo Garcia's wife and three children. I want to think about it for a moment. The headline that I read said that Trump administration has, quote, slip up, slip up in the releasing of her address. A slip up is, I left my house without my fucking phone, right? That's a slip up. Right. What this administration is doing and what they have done is called terrorism. It is when you are terrorizing people.

So it is not enough that they kidnapped her husband knowing that he had protected coverage and should not have been sent to El Salvador. It isn't enough that they said, oh, moving a human being from one country to the next was a quote unquote clerical error. It isn't enough that now that they know that they don't release him. But on top of which, on top of which now, they can't even hurt. His family, his wife and children can't even move through their trauma in familiar setting, in their home with his things, with their things, that now their entire lives are upended. That is what I want people to think about.

That is what this administration is doing. They are breaking apart families and traumatizing children, kidnapping fathers. and uncles and friends and colleagues, and we're just all going about our lives and our business. What is happening to them will absolutely happen to us because Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office and said so. Yeah, and we should point out that she and the kids have had to leave that house, as you alluded to, and they have been moved to a quote-unquote safe house by people who support them. And again, like you said, this is government terrorism. They could have easily redacted her, address and you can call it a slip up all you want or whatever. This is not how you're supposed to govern.

And this is a slip up with a quote unquote slip up with consequences. You know, like you said, Daniel, this is not leaving your cell phone at home. This is not locking your keys in the car or something like that. This is releasing an address into the wild of a woman who has done absolutely nothing wrong. Even if you think her husband is a criminal, which he's not, she is not accused of anything, even by this government. And her address and the address of her kids is now public, and they know this. And that's why I think you're right to call it terrorism, because the idea is to spark terror. The idea is to, as you said, is to make people think, well, if they can do it to her, they can do it to me. I better keep my mouth shut and keep my head down. And

and go about my business as if the world around me isn't, for lack of a better word, churning. And speaking of churning, Trump has been out there saying that he is currently in negotiations with China over tariffs. He's been saying this almost daily. He says that, you know, he's been talking to China every day and that they are negotiating these tariffs that were at 145 percent, although Trump now says they're going to come down. China on Thursday said, No, we are in fact not in any negotiations with the United States over tariffs. And they use the expression that the idea of saying that there was any progress in the matter was as groundless as, quote, trying to catch the wind, Daniel.

Poetry. Like, what's so crazy about this, right? So you had three of the top retailers have a meeting this week with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the CEOs of Walmart, Target, and Home Depot. And they go in there to tell him, unequivocally, your tariff war is going to have us with empty shelves and it is going to raise prices on consumers. So then Donald Trump is just like, oh, well, you know, I'll bring down the tariff price. you know, it won't be zero, but I'll bring it down. And he's doing this all in front of the cameras, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there are countries that want to make deals. The deals that countries are making are without the United States because you have made us unreliable and unstable. You have destabilized the fucking dollar. And so now these CEOs of these major corporations are just like, stop with the bullshit. Because we're going to have to have to file. bankruptcy. First off, did you know that 50% of what is in Target on their shelves is from China? 50%. Yeah, sounds about right. Yeah. Like Walmart, I think it was 30%. Home Depot, their tariffs are different

because you're talking about lumber and steel. So you're talking about the war that we started with our allies, with Canada. Right. But I mean, it is as if Donald Trump did not get advice from actual economy. Oh, that's right. didn't get advice from economists. He got advice from Ron Vera. Peter Navarro's alter ego that he used as an expert in his book that Jared Kushner found, didn't read, but found the title on fucking Amazon, and that's how we're here. We're here because people in his administration don't even read the cliff notes of the shit that they get. You didn't give Peter Navarro's title when you mentioned his name. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, please. His title is convicted felon.

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will be a super-exit to Shopify. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to the new abnormal. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to the new abnormal. Karen Atia, who is a columnist at the Washington Post. She is also the editor of the Golden Hour on Substack. And most recently, I've been following Karen forever and a day. And I'm on blue sky and I see a post that says, Columbia canceled my course on race and media. And I was just like, oh, Columbia stays failing right now. And I needed to talk to you. So Karen, first off, I want to ask you, before we even dive into the Columbia piece, what it has been like. It's been less than 100 days of the Trump administration. You are a journalist at one of the legacy outlets. How has it been doing your work covering,

you know, race, gender in this moment over the last, you know, close to 100 days. Yeah, first of all, Daniel, thanks for having me on. And I'm super excited to talk to you. What has it been like? It's been weird. It's been a mix of both feeling like the work is under threat, under scrutiny, but also more important than ever, right? And I think for me, you know, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous sometimes, just about, not so much about myself.

There are people who are literally, you know, being taken off the streets and things like that. But just in a period of true uncertainty, how do we write? How do we think? How do we create? Who can we depend on which institutions are going to hold up to, their promises of standing up for truth, freedom, and who's not. We're really seeing, you know, which institutions like, you know, standing up for press freedom, academic freedom, were those your values,

or was that branding or marketing? So, yeah, the rubber is hitting the road, and you're finding out who the real ones are and who they aren't. And I guess for me, I've just decided to try to keep doing what I've always been doing. And for me, that's just been how do I, as a journalist, as an educator, nothing for me should change. I still want to talk to people. I still want to reach people and still want to offer new perspectives, new ways of thinking about things. And that's, for me, at least, not going to change.

How that looks might be different. But the fundamental spirit of what I do, how I do it, I think it's even more important to be rooted. in who you are and your why. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I think that right now folks who are educators, which is what I like to consider folks who offer their thoughts and share their perspectives and try and enlighten people in whatever format you're doing that,

whether it is a classroom, whether it's on a page or a pod or what have you. But the idea that right now, intellect, critical thinking, are things that are being, threatened right because there's no easier way to control a populist than by taking away their ability to think and making the idea of of of asking questions fearful and so you know I think that right now particularly when I saw your post about Columbia canceling your class on race and media I can think to myself first of all just the title I'm like there is no better time to be teaching on

on race and media then in this moment. I continue to wonder, you know, what it's like to be a student, whether you're an undergrad or graduate school or high school at this moment in time. Walk us through what happened because now you've said, I'm moving forward regardless. I'm teaching this class to whomever want to sign up for this class. I'm going to teach it. So talk to us about what happened.

Yeah, I just honestly, I'm still a little stunned at what has happened over the last, what, 36 hours or so. Sorry, no, 72 hours. See, I can't even math for a question in that wild. Since I put out that post on blue sky, I just, you know, honestly, Danielle, again, I'm in D.C. The first 100 days of the Trump administration has seen so many of my friends. you know, being placed on me, being fired from the jobs. And, you know, as I said in the Washington Post, diversity, equity, being targeted. And as what I would say, I think this is a neo-segregationist regime kicking black people, minorities, women, LGBT, literally erasing our contributions from the record. Yeah. So I think in this time, and I'm just setting this up to show my mindset,

Like, one of my friends who was put on leave decided, you know what, this is a time for me to pursue my passion. And his name is Jackson, Ruviani. And he loves food. So he decided he was going to start a food and community initiative, right, with this time. And so I just was meeting people who pivoted or who just really decided to get into sharing their gifts with other people right now. And fundamentally, I think after I ate that really good food and started thinking, I just put that on blue sky. I was like, guys, this is what I have to share. I have this course.

I have this work that I've done, it's just not fair that just because Columbia decided to throw it away. It's not fair that this should go to waste. So I just was like, this is what I have to share. Do y'all want it? And people said they did. And not just people said they did, I would have been happy with like, 50 people at max. I would have been like, yo, this is amazing.

As of right now, since opening up, you know, just like a little Google dog. And as I'm speaking to you right now, there are over 2,100 people. When I looked at your page yesterday, it was a thousand.

Oh my God. It's at, hold on, click refresh, click refresh. That's amazing. Officially right now, 2,188 responses of interest. And the stunning thing about it is these are all people who not just want to take this course, but who are willing to pay for it, but then also not just willing to pay for it, but willing to pay extra if it meant somebody else could take the course.

So I also am envisioning, you know, not just teaching, but is this a model? And because anyone who's been following me for a while knows that I've been really preaching about community and speaking about like only we can save ourselves. These institutions will not save us. And I'm speaking as someone who's spent in their entire life at places like the post, that places like Columbia, knowing that from the inside, these places are just not set up for what we're needing in this moment. As free thought and critical thinking are being attacked, I was like, we are going to save us. And already, you know, even before I've even offered my syllabus, before I've even told people, you know, what, you know, the course was people are saying, I want to be not only a part of this, but I want to help other people. And that's just beautiful. Like, it's hard for me to, like, not be crying all the time. One, it's just, it's a testament to the fact that I think that people feel malnourished in this time. They feel like they are just trying to grasp on to something that can be a guide, something that can educate them about what's happening, something that they can receive some tools for this moment.

And I can think of nothing better than to be able to activate people through this course, which, you know, and I, go back to what you just said, like, could this be a model? I think that it absolutely is. I think that one of the things that has happened, and I want your thoughts on this, over the last several years, probably the last decade, we've seen as legacy media outlets have put a lot of their content behind paywalls. They have disrupted the flow of information and access to information to people because they haven't been able to get their footing with new media and technology. And because of that, I don't know who coined it. but said that democracy dies behind a paywall.

And what I find is that when you have the ability to offer things for free, people still want to pay you. They really do, you know, as an independent content creator. Like I will tell you, I never put anything of mine behind a paywall because that is solely mine for this reason that I want people to have access. So what do you think it means, you know, for you as your, I mean, it's only been 72 hours and you're kind of thinking through this moment, but what does it mean to look at this moment as an opportunity for liberation, as an opportunity to

liberate ourselves from giving so much authority and attention to these institutions that at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, they are folding and recognizing that they're not going to hold us, recognizing, as you said at the top, that was it your values or was it marketing when you said that you were invested in diversity and inclusion and truth and justice, right? Are those just things that you put up on your buildings? So do you think that in this moment of great strife that maybe deconstructing this decentralizing from institution may be a way forward? That is a great question. I love that you framed it as liberation. I mean, I think, you know, in my subset sort of host or audio column, I said I was liberating my teaching work, right?

And I guess just the simple act of maybe even just one person saying, you know what, I'm going to step outside these structures, allows other people to do that as well. And I think it just, it opens up the imagination to what is possible. And yeah, to your point, I mean, I see a lot of parallels. And this is obviously tricky for me to say because I'm still employed by the Washington Post, which has paywalls, but it's been something that I've been thinking about even as a journalist for a long time, that we do know that information from a place, you know, like the post, we're basically saying our information is quality,

it's fact checks, we've got controls, so pay to access is when at the same time low quality information, misinformation is free, right? It's easier to access. So we already are operating in, an asymmetrical information environment. And I think about this all the time, right? That when people, you see this in disasters, right? When, oh, okay, that's the time when newspapers release their paywalls and allow people to have access to things. Well, I'm like, well, aren't we in a sort of crisis and disaster of like critical thinking?

And then it's all on diverse. It might not be, you know, an actual, natural disaster of people's lives are at stake. but there's we're in dangerous times for thought right now. And I guess for me, you know, even as a journalist, I understand and recognize that there are so many barriers being put between me and people, right? There are so many layers. And I'm not saying all those layers are bad. Like it's like I'm glad to have a legal team. I'm glad to have editors to catch my mistakes. I'm glad, you know, glad for that. But at the same time, there are, so many rules and gatekeepers. For me, I'm very much like an essentialist person. I'm like, what's the meat of the thing? And the meat of the thing is I just want to talk to people who want to talk to me. It's like that simple.

It's really that simple. Maybe that's why I pop off on social media all this. It's like this is where the fertile ground is. And like why, and so same for even these institutions. why should I have to not only go through so many layers just to be able to have people who have access to me or my thoughts and we have access to them, but similar in, and I just think there's a lot more to be said, as I'm thinking to this, a lot more to be said in general about the society and how we think about knowledge and how it's commodified and how it's packaged

and we see it as something that you have to acquire and hoard and use for sort of high hierarchical purposes to get an edge in the competitive market and stuff like that. Whereas like for me, it's thinking about knowledge is something that is collective, that is embodied, that is like, I just want to be with people who really want to learn stuff because I want to share stuff. I'm just, how can we be in community together? So, yeah, it's this whole thing in the last, you know, just with this course, I'm just thinking about like, damn, I've been putting myself behind these barriers all this

time. Yeah, I mean, but when you're kind of set up in a way where you're told to kind of follow the natural order of things, climb the ladder, whether that's the ladder of academia, whether that's the ladder to the C-suite. You know, you follow these ways and you get quote unquote credibility through various institutions and that's the way that things go. And I think that sometimes I like to be able to look at these moments of great shift and disruption as opportunities. Opportunities to think differently, move differently, express ourselves in ways that we have been confined before, that we've contorted to try and fit in before. And I think that when, you know, when you're experiencing the trauma of this Trump regime that is all about the lack of order, the lack of rules, complete and

total chaos. Sometimes I think that if you, like you had said earlier, if you're grounded in your purpose, then that chaos can be liberating, right? Like it can be to not to say like, what would it be like to provide, you know, classes to provide information in this open type of setting where it's like whoever wants to come in, you didn't have to get into Colombia. You didn't have to, you know, reach the echelons of the Ivy. If you want to learn, you can. I think that there is opportunity there. And my last question to you is your advice to people who, you know, maybe are not formal journalists,

but they're definitely people who use their voices and their platforms, whether it's writing or speaking or their art, et cetera. What is your advice for people in this moment as things are shifting so quickly? and there is danger in expressing yourself and using your voice to its maximum potential. That is such a great question. As a journalist, and honestly, in some ways, this is perhaps a full circle moment because I didn't even think I didn't grow up wanting to be a journalist. I ultimately, at the end of the day, who I am is like little child Karen is I wanted to be a philosopher.

I wanted to express and exchange ideas and ask questions about. the world. And so for me, I see journalists as we are part of an information ecosystem of workers who observe the world, ask questions about it, process it, and then put it back out to others. And I see us very similar to people in education, very similar to people who are writers, who are authors, who are archivists, who are historians, who are sociologists, who are sociologists, we take in the world, process it, reflect it back out to others. This time skills might be different. You know, me writing a column is not the same as writing a book, which is not the same as producing music,

which is not the same as, you know, doing a multi-generational study, you know, of a population. But what we do is try to make sense of the world. And I think right now it's even more important that we, do what we do because there is an assault on people who want to make sense. And there's an assault, I think, not just from the Trump regime. And I think this is an opportunity to reflect on our way of life in the systems, even the so-called liberal systems of education and understand that we've put up a lot of artificial barriers between one another. And for me, this is like a deeply sort of humanitarian thing, a human thing to do. We all want to connect with one another.

what our systems have done have commodified that desire for connection and for learning and the actual pleasure of learning and connecting. They've sort of taken that from us and then packaged it their way and then sold that back to us at crazy levels. And I think for me, this is really just getting back to the basics of, I want you guys to be able to connect with me and through me, connect with other people and to connect with history. And I think for anybody who's, he's thinking about that, just really break it down into your why and as sort of simple, I think, as possible. That's what's grounding me right now.

And to just look at what you've got and share what you've got. That's it. And we need joy and we need pleasure. And I think for me, it's been a really rough time. I've been struggling myself just like everybody else. I've been scared of myself. But as I'm thinking about, as I'm seeing all the responses of people who are also cheering me out that gives me courage if people keep saying I'm brave and I'm like I don't think I'm brave I just

want to talk to y'all like that's the moment that we're in is that your your courage in this moment is contagious for other people to realize that they too can do something with the platforms and the spaces that they have and that you creating this open forum I think is really going to have ripple effects unfortunately I could talk to you all day but we have to close but thank you so much Karen for making the time for the new abnormal. Really appreciate your work, your intellect, your offerings. And do tell people if they would like to sign up where they can sign up for your race and media class.

Sure. As of now, yes, it's still open. It is on, there's a link on my substack on the Golden Hour under the, I have a resistance summer school tab that I just literally just put up this morning. So they can find the link there. If you go to my social media is on my pinned posts, you can find that. I am building the plane as I'm flying it. So hopefully by the time your listeners get this, they'll be able to find that.

And as I said, this is very accessible. I have ranges from people who say they can't, you know, afford it to just literally $100 get to you in the door. And you get access to Columbia approved course. So yes, again, thank you so much for having me. This is, I really appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate you.

The good folks at Media Matters took a look at how the right-wing podcasting world has been reacting to Trump's tariffs. Here to tell us what they found is Media Matters Research Director Courtney Hagel. Courtney, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. So before we get into the actual results of the study, tell us briefly what we're talking about here in terms of what podcast you all looked at. What were the criteria? Yeah, so the idea was to assess how pro-Trump online shows have discussed Trump's tariffs.

So we reviewed discussion in video and audio content posted the week after Trump's Liberation Day from more than 40 right-leaning online shows with more than 3.5 million followers and subscribers across platforms. So what we mean when we say right-leaning are shows that have a right-leaning ideological bent, but they're not explicitly news and politics shows. So those podcasts and shows are included, but they also include shows that self-identify as comedy, sports, and supposedly non-political podcasts that still end up boosting right-leaning messaging. Okay, so there's sort of two groups of podcast or digital content here. There is the one group that does self-categorize, I guess is the term you use, as news and politics.

And then there's the other ones that you talked about. Just to start, let's split up these groups. Let's talk about the ones that do self-categorize as news and politics. Was there a clear picture of whether or not these podcasts supported the tariffs? Yes. So 63% of right-leaning online shows that do self-categorize as news and politics had mostly positive coverage of tariffs. And, you know, so that's compared to 44% of the larger group. But of the news and politics group, it was 63% that positively supported the tariffs. So that's actually, I think, maybe even a little lower than I would have expected.

Yeah, well, then there's the other group, which is, so, you know, 21% of the overall group had a mixed discussion of tariffs, mostly or mixed positive and negative. So what we mean when we say mixed is that they did introduce some criticism. They introduced, you know, some concerns. They were a little uncomfortable. Maybe they didn't like the strategy of the rollout. maybe they didn't like specific tariffs. But a lot of that discussion still came away with a positive outlook on the administration

and a positive view of Trump. You know, they would say things like, we have to trust Trump. You know, he's the art of the deal. I'm sure he has a grand plan. And so 63% were the people that were really gunning for the tariffs saying, this is great. We need to reassert our dominance. But then there's that other pool that are still kind of, you know,

introducing some criticisms and caveats to their audience, but still coming away with a broadly positive view of Trump. Gotcha. So I thought it was interesting that two of the biggest podcasts on the right, maybe the two biggest, Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro had negative coverage of the tariffs. Ben Shapiro, I assume, would go into the self-categorized as news and politics group. Which group is Joe Rogan in? So he self-identifies as comedy. So he is a supposedly non-political podcast. Gotcha. It was interesting to me that, again, maybe the two biggest podcasts on the right, regardless of how they self-categorized, had negative coverage of the tariffs. And I would have to think their viewership and listenership is a pretty good chunk of the overall, isn't it?

Yeah. So they definitely were two outliers. They were actually the only two shows we looked at that did come out that strongly. Interesting. But you have to look at the broader context. You know, again, Joe Rogan doesn't like to portray himself as a political guy. He kind of just likes to see himself as like a free thinker, that kind of thing. So when he has talks about it, you know, he's just kind of saying, I'm a little uncomfortable. He was upset with the Canadian tariffs and that sort of thing. But he's still pushing a lot of pro-Trump narratives, you know, in other issues, in other areas and that sort of thing. He's just kind of saying, you know, this one topic makes me a little uncomfortable. goal. Ben Shapiro, on the other hand, you know, he's much more overtly political, pretty informed,

and much of his criticisms seem to kind of come from a place of he broadly supports Trump's agenda and he can recognize that these tariffs might not be good for the Trump administration or the Republican Party. You know, he's looking ahead to the midterms. And so his opposition to the tariffs are kind of coming from a place of it is not a good thing for the agenda that I do want to pursue. If we are underwater on the economy, if this is all we're talking about, you know, it's not going to look good for midterms and the Trump administration. So he's kind of coming from it from a perspective of almost like, I want to help the Trump administration by letting them know that this is not a good path to go down because I do support other aspects of the Trump administration. Exactly. I mean,

to be clear, Ben Shapiro and none of these people are out there saying they regret their support of Donald Trump, or their vote for Donald Trump. Absolutely. And I think that's an important takeaway because a lot of times these outliers kind of make the headlines and people who don't follow these spaces kind of think, oh, this is really the turning point.

You know, Joe Rogan's breaking with him. Ben Shapiro's breaking with him. But none of them are actually meaningfully saying, you know, I regret voting for Trump. I wouldn't support Trump again. That's not what's happening. They're just a little uncomfortable with the direction this is going.

And I think that discomfort actually kind of serves way of continuing to shore up support and trust in the Trump administration, because I kind of see it as two sides of the same coin. So on the one side, you have the, you know, all-in supporters of the administration and the tariffs. Charlie Kirk, for example, he's saying, we need to be dominant. What Trump's doing is great. We need to, you know, there might be a little short-term pain, but it's worth it for the long-term gain. That's kind of what you're hearing from that side. On the flip side, these other more critical caveated podcasters, they're kind of letting their audience know,

you know, look, I understand you might be a little uncomfortable. It's okay. You're not crazy. I'm also a little uncomfortable. This might not be the best idea right now, but I still have faith in Trump. I still, you know, I think Trump has a plan. He's the art of the deal. And so they're kind of still offering a message of hope and optimism for Trump in the face of something. thing that they don't like or disagree with. So I think it actually ends up in a way shoring up support for Trump even more because they're essentially saying, even though I don't like what's happening, I still support and trust Trump. Right, for sure. One of the things that struck me as interesting was a fairly decent size percentage of the shows that just simply

ignored the tariffs because that to me is, and I'm not saying everyone in this group is this, what I'm about to say. But I do feel like there must be a sizable amount of that group where it's like, ah, we don't like the tariffs, but we don't want to say anything bad about Trump. So we're just going to ignore it, which is, you know, often the Fox News strategy when bad news comes down the pike, they just don't cover it. Right. No, it's very similar to the Fox News strategy. But many of these shows that completely ignore tariffs are in the non-political bucket. So they identify themselves as business, comedy, entertainment. And so a lot of their listeners are not seeking out political content.

They're seeking out sports, comedy. You know, you hear people say these podcasters feel like a friend while you're driving to work or whatever. So a lot of their audiences, this is kind of the main way they get exposed to politics. But because these are non-political, you know, they don't see themselves in that way. They don't really feel a responsibility to cover stuff they don't want to. So their audiences really are only exposed to whatever they want to talk about in the political sphere. And so, you know, there were 30% of the non-political shows that didn't talk about

tariffs at all. And so if you're someone who doesn't seek out politics on your own very much, or political news, you might not get that same messaging as when there's something in the Trump administration they do like and then they do talk about it positively and advocate for it. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. But I was looking at the chart of the shows and how they discussed it that you all put out. And I was looking at. at the ignored part. And yeah, like Dr. Phil, probably not a huge surprise. He didn't talk about tariffs.

But like Candice Owens completely ignored them. Yeah. So Candice Owens is a very interesting figure these days. You know, on the one side, we've been talking about how we have these non-political podcasts where they are able to get their right-wing message out to more apolitical listeners. On the flip side, you have these figures like Candice Owens. Megan Kelly is kind of another example to some extent who have a history of being overtly political, you know, similar to Ben Shapiro. But they're kind of expanding their audiences by stepping out of their comfort zone and talking more about non-political stuff.

So Candice Owens has been really stepping into the kind of pop culture and celebrity gossip space. Right. She's been talking about this Justin Baldoni and Blake lively lawsuit that has completely exploded her following numbers. And so she's able to pull in listeners who, again, are following her now because they really liked her Blake lively coverage. But then she starts slipping in those right-wing narratives into her show. And so, you know, again, she can kind of really pick and choose what she wants to talk about. And a lot of what she's been talking about lately, you know, it's still pretty political, but a lot of it is more in the kind of gossip realm of things. Gotcha.

And Courtney, I'm telling you right now, I do not want to know what she had to say. say about the Blake lively Justin Baldone. Yeah. I won't get into it. Okay. I can imagine it was terrible and I don't need to know any more than that. Yeah. No.

It was like a whole series, though. She had episode after episode after episode. And people said it was like watching a true crime documentary or something. And her numbers exploded. So. All right. Never underestimate the power of the grift. Megan Kelly is an interesting one because, as you said,

She is out there trying to expand her brand. But a lot of it is explicitly political and a lot of it is, you know, going after trans people and stuff like that. She did discuss the tariffs and mostly positively. Yeah, so she was definitely in the positive bucket. Her show is generally pretty pro-Trump. Again, I think these shows all kind of serve their own purpose. So for her, she's a Trump cheerleader, you know, so she's saying we need to assert our dominance, you know, we have been taking advantage of and that sort of thing. So she's definitely in that bucket.

Yeah. So I'm always fascinated by the group that doesn't self-describe as news and politics. I understand why Joe Rogan does that. And then, you know, there's the Theo Vons and Kill Tonys of the world. What would you say overall was the tenor of whatever tariff discussion they did? Yeah. You know, one thing that we've really struggled with with, you know, trying to monitor these spaces is they talk for hours every day. And so, you know, it's really hard to pin down. And so that's why we do have that mixed category because the tenor was very, we're concerned. I'm reading these headlines. You know, I really don't like this idea of trade wars and people are, you know, starting to get concerned and worry. But again, they do always just kind of end up looping around to

Trump's got a plan. You know, I even heard something. people say, you know, I voted for him, so I have to trust him. I think it was Theo Vaughn. I would have to double check my work on that. But, you know, Theo Vaughn said something like, I voted for him, so I trust him to have a plan. You know, a lot of these people have been vocal supporters of Donald Trump in the past. So they kind of don't have a ton of options other than to say, you know what, even if I don't really see the vision right now, I'm giving him a chance and I'm trusting he has a plan. And again, Trump has really built up his brand as like the art of the deal. I'm a businessman.

So these people say, you know, I don't. And a lot of these people will admit that, you know, I don't know what I'm talking about. You hear that a lot on these podcasts when they talk about the tariffs. They'll say straight up, you know, I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know what tariffs are. I'm just learning about this right now. So they acknowledge their own ignorance on the topic. And so that kind of helps them feed this narrative that like, you know, I may not know what I'm talking

about, but, you know, Trump probably does. So we'll hope for that. Yeah. And what about, what is it, the Nelk Boys and Full Send? Yeah. Who are people that I was completely unaware of, which is on me, not them, they're super popular. You know, would they put themselves in the news and politics category or no? Yeah. So I believe they're comedy. So similar to Rogan. Yeah, the news and politics people are very overt. The Ben Shapiro, the Charlie Kirk. Gotcha. Yeah. The Nelke boys, Joe. Rogan, Theo Vaughn is comedy. They are much more view themselves as a comedy category. Gotcha. But they, again, they had a mostly positive discussion of the tariffs. Yeah. So when they spoke about it, you know, they're saying the same thing that we've been talking

about here. And again, when we were coding the podcast project, we would take these representative samples. And if there was any sort of, you know, criticism, caveat, that sort of thing, we coded it as mixed. So when we coded something as mostly positive, it means that, you know, they were really pushing Trump administration talking points and that sort of thing. Gotcha. Was there anything that came out of this study that particularly surprised you or, you know, sort of caused an eyebrow raise? Anything like that? Or was it about what you expected? I think it was about what I was expected. I think, again, we really struggled with capturing kind of some of the nuances in these conversations. I think what surprised me,

is how there are reasonable criticisms and discussions that are brought up. You know, sometimes it's just one guest out of five who's really bringing in. And so that's the thing. It's kind of hard, you know, the host may be saying this, but then there's another person here. And when they have hours of conversation, so many different opinions and thoughts come up. But you still walk away from the overall tenor of the show thinking, you know, Trump's kind of got it under control.

Trump's really thinking of like, I, I, I. trust him to have a plan here. And I would say none of them were as overt as Ben Shapiro, who, again, he called it a tax hike. I mean, he kind of really seems like he's trying to like, you know, five alarm fire here. We need to really pull back. And I would say, I don't think any of the ones that I reviewed came really close to Ben Shapiro in terms of just like, this is a bad idea and we need to pull back. Yeah. The whole thing is just fascinating to me. And the idea that it's basically Shapiro and Rogan, as far as I can tell, as you called them earlier, they really are the outliers here. Because, you know, originally I saw the stat and it was like, oh, only 43. I think 6%, I think 43.6%, had mostly positive coverage of the tariffs.

And I thought, oh, well, that's pretty balanced. But then I looked and it was like when you add up the ones that ignored it and the ones that had no episodes during the time frame you looked, and then the ones that had the mix of positive and negative coverage, it really was only 5% where it was mostly negative. And was that simply Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro? Were there others? Yeah. Out of the over 40 shows we coded, Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro were the only ones we had. Wow. Like 100%.

And again, Ben Shapiro has talked about it much more than Rogan. Rogan, it was just based. And we only looked at the one week after the tariffs, but Joe Rogan, you know, he kind of made a few comments and then moved on. So he wasn't exactly hammering it to the degree. that Ben Shapiro has been. Gotcha. Courtney, thank you so much for coming on and breaking down this study.

I always find this, like I said, I always find this stuff fascinating. And I think it's an important thing to be doing to be taking a look at what this entire ecosphere is up to. So thanks for all your work, Courtney. Thank you so much for having me. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Danielle, it is the end of the week.

Mm-hmm. And so lead us into the weekend with an uplifting, fuck that guy. Wrong show. Oh, okay. Wrong show. All right. So if you were not incensed enough by where things are, we're almost at 100 days of Donald Trump's second term, 100 days into what I believe feels like the 100-year war.

Yeah. And this story, to me, I can't even say takes the cake. I can't even, you know, it's just, I don't. don't want us to lose the ability to be outraged, and I don't want us to lose the ability to feel deep empathy. So right now, because of an order from the Trump administration, the Trump administration on March 21st terminated part of a $200 million contract that funds attorneys and other legal services for unaccompanied children. So these are children who are undocumented, who are in the country without adult supervision,

without the care of an adult. So the Trump administration last month decided to terminate contracts that fund the ability of attorneys and legal services to represent these children. So what does that mean? That means that a headline of the Gothamist reads this, four-year-old migrant girl,

other kids go to court. in New York City with no lawyer. The cruelty is apparent. The judge, who they quote in this piece, Ubaid Olhawk, this is what he said to a dozen children. The reason we're in here is because the government of the United States wants you to leave the United States. It's my job to figure out if you have to leave. It's also my job to figure out if you should stay. He said this to a seven-year-old, a four-year-old, an eight-year-old. Tell me if you even know at that age what the word government means. The fact that babies, these are babies, are climbing up in chairs, putting on headsets,

because by the way, they also don't speak English. English is not their first language. So they have headsets on their heads as if you were sitting in front of the UN. to be told things in English, this is what the Trump administration has set up. If you don't think that is cruel, if you don't think that is fucking sick, then I don't know what is wrong with you. But for that reason, and I'm certain at least a hundred million more, the Trump administration, these depraved barbarians, are my fuck that guy.

Yeah, it's unreal. I suspect a lot of people, including me, did not know. that you do not have the right to an attorney in an immigration court, the way you do in a normal court, where if you can't afford an attorney, as anyone who watches various cop and legal shows on TV knows, the government appoints one for you. That is not the case in immigration court. Immigration court, you can have a lawyer, but it is not a requirement. In other words, the state does not have to provide you with an attorney. And, you know, that seems bad enough. And that Gothamist article quotes data from a place called the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse that says 96% of people that appear in

New York State immigration courts without legal counsel are eventually ordered deported. So basically, you show up without an attorney and you're going to be kicked out of the country. And like you said, to do this to unaccompanied minors. And again, we're not just talking like 16 and 17 year olds. My God, Danielle, like he said, four year old, eight years old, seven years old. People who might not even speak their native language all that well yet because they're so young and are certainly, I would think, not for the most part, capable of understanding a lot of the stuff the judge is saying, even if it is translated into Spanish or whatever their language is. And it's so gross. And of course, as you pointed out, this is exactly what the Trump administration wants. This is exactly why they canceled that $200 million contract that is meant to fund attorneys for people like this, for specifically unaccompanied children. And the Trump administration looked at that and said, no, we don't want to spend money on giving lawyers to unaccompanied children. If you don't think that that,

that's evil than like you said, Danielle, I got nothing to say to you. Fuck those guys. So, Andy, I mean, is yours better than mine? It has to be more uplifting than that. Who is your fuck that guy? It's not uplifting and it's ultimately not funny because of what it means to a lot of people. But for one particular person, it is sort of the definition of fuck around and find out. So in that sense, it's a little funny, just for her. And I'm talking about Arkansas governor Sarah Sanders. When she was elected back in 2022, I guess it was, something she said a few months into her term was, as long as I am your governor, the meddling hand of big government creeping down from Washington, D.C. will be stopped cold at the Mississippi River. Mm-hmm. So, flash forward to 2025. And Governor Sanders,

now says that Arkansas is in, quote, dire need of federal assistance because of a bunch of tornadoes, 14, to be precise, that hit that state last month. And this is all reporting from the Arkansas Times, by the way, which did a really good job on this. Sanders asked the Trump administration to declare a major disaster, which is the first step you have to take in order to get federal funds and help from FEMA and all that stuff. The Trump administration said no, we're not going to declare it a major disaster. And that means no federal assistance for Arkansas. So again, this is not funny in the least because these are people who are hurting. Three people were killed by these tornadoes. Dozens were injured, property damage, all that, you know, all the stuff that

accompanies a natural disaster like that. So it's absolutely not funny. But it is, I guess, darkly funny. I guess the irony of Sarah Sanders going from, we don't want your meddling Washington, to now begging for money from Donald Trump and Donald Trump saying no. And I'll just briefly end by saying that this was not a problem when Joe Biden was president. Nope. Aid was sent to Arkansas in 2023 and 2024 after Civil.

storms, as the Arkansas Times again points out, the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, the state version of FEMA, they went out of their way to talk about how quickly the Biden administration responded. And they said, quote, within 48 hours of the storms, President Biden signed a major disaster declaration, activating federal resources to support the state's response and recovery. So, again, I don't want the people whose homes were destroyed by tornadoes to have to fuck around and find out. I am, though, not upset that Sarah Sanders found out. So fuck that guy. Here's the thing. You're a better person than me. And that's good, right? Because I did a whole fucking video on this the other day laughing at Sarah Huckabee Sanders and this fucking state that

voted for her. Yes, I understand that people were killed and incredible damage was done. This comes from a governor that doesn't believe in climate change. This comes from a woman who stood in front of the American people for a couple of years as Donald Trump's press secretary and lied straight to our faces on a regular fucking basis. This is a person who said to Joe Biden, big government is going to stay out of Arkansas, right? Out of her broke-ass fucking state that can't pay for its own shit, that receives welfare from blue states. And you know what? The people of Arkansas looked at her and they voted for her. So you get what the fuck you vote for. That's it. Plain and simple. You want to vote against your best interest because you know, you know who didn't send the storm? The woke people.

Yeah, no, because if you had followed people who actually have consciousness, then you would have elected a governor that actually cares about your well-being and is future, it is future thinking about how to remedy these storms that are coming at a pace that you can't keep up with. 14 storms touchdown, 14 tornadoes. They think that that's an act of God? Give me a fucking break. So, again, you get what you vote for. Fuck that guy.

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