The Dispatch Podcast - The Bad Faith Problem | Interview: Jamie Weinstein

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

We’re flipping the script this week, with executive producer Adaam James Levin-Areddy talking to Jamie Weinstein about Jamie’s interviewing philosophy and the future of the show. The Agenda:—Interviewing bad-faith actors—The Mehdi Hasan interview—Douglas Murray/Dave Smith debate—Future guests and format—Jamie’s most regretted interview Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. www.ca.com. Did you lock the front door?

Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web.

Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com. Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. This is Adam James Live in Erddy.

Today we're doing something a little bit different. Jamie is still away. So as a guest, I have the one and only, Jamie Weinstein. We hopped on a call from his mysterious whereabouts. And we did our version, I guess, of high stakes, bringing you all on our editorial call as we think through the future of our show. We figured it's a good time to actually share our. thinking of why we're doing what we're doing and what we're hoping to achieve. So stay tuned.

did you get to us? How did you arrive at the dispatch? Well, I had a podcast very creatively named the Jamie Weinstein show for about five years, maybe a little more, where I did long-form conversations with people all over the ideological spectrum. It started right before Donald Trump was elected, and I felt that the moment called for coningsing the down, not amping them up. And my goal was to reach out to people I disagreed with. You know, people I agreed with I had on as well, but particularly people I disagreed with to try to have conversations

that would help trying to understand where they're coming from. And in some cases, those conversations would show where they're thought process of failing through a genuine conversation, but these are the good, safe conversations. So I did that for five, six years, and ultimately I put it on pause while I worked on several other projects.

And then when the dispatch came around, I saw a publication that both met my ideological worldview and my intellectual temperament and thought, you know, if we could come to some sort of idea of how I could bring a version of the Jamie Weinstein show to the dispatch, I think that would be exciting for me

and I think would kind of sit right in with what the dispatch was offered. or at least temperamentally. You emphasize the idea of a good faith conversation. We hear this phrase a lot in this industry of ours. What does it mean to you? What's the difference between conducting a conversation from good faith and bad faith?

Well, I'm actually a question for trying to get a genuine answer. Now, I might not like that answer or that answer may be not really good faith either. And when that happens, I think when the interviewer is conducting in good faith, It shows. You don't always have to jump in and say, aha, you're not doing good faith. You can tell when someone's trying to genuinely have a conversation,

the other person is doubting talking points. So, you know, I try to really engage with the guest and try to get real answers and to questions. And, you know, I give a classic example of a gentleman who I think really has gone off the rails recently. but even at the time I interviewed him, he was kind of certainly in the assertive world, not particularly loved, which is Tanahasi Coas. But he was one of my favorite podcast guests I ever had on my old podcast,

and in part because he really did engage in genuine conversation. And I think he appreciated someone really asking questions of him and delving into his work that someone who disagreed with him, You know, we didn't come to consensus on Hunt very much, but I do think you got clarity about his worldview and where it was coming from in a way that I'm not sure that has been out there before. And that's because I think both of us engaged in good faith

and not trying to gotcha one or the other. You know, you pointed out that you often engage in conversation that you mentioned several times that you like a, approaching conversations with people that you disagree with, that you like engaging with ideas that you don't share or perspectives that are contradictory to yours. Why is that? Because I do think when you have clarity about the difference in world view,

you have better understanding to, you know, first or formulate arguments against why, or even better understand why you oppose it. You know, I give me an example. when we had Medi Hassan on I wasn't going for a debate with him but what I think we were able to do

is draw out what I think is in some ways, you know, even in more damning if you oppose Medellifan in his worldview. Things like that he thinks that it's plausible that the U.S. and the Allied committed genocide in World War II. It just puts him so

far out on the ideological spectrum that it almost makes you know, almost anything he said is a little bit comical if he really views the world through that lens. But if you were going in there just to debate each point, each, you know, factory

tries to throw out, I don't think you would have gotten that. We now understand Medi's worldview more by kind of swallink him out on questions he might not have thought to prepare for in the interview, because these aren't more common questions, but

they help provide a better window into the soul of a person you're talking to. And honestly, I think he engaged in good faith unanswering those questions. I don't think it did him any favors. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain, on top of Everything else is why life insurance indeed matters.

Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family's future in minutes, not months. Ethos keeps it simple. It's 100% online, no medical exam, just a few health questions. You can get a quote in as little as 10 minutes, same-day coverage, and policies starting at about two bucks a day, build monthly, with options up to $3 million in coverage. With a 4.8 out of five-star rating on trust pilot and thousands of families already applying through ETH, Ethos. It builds trust. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Maybe it's Mabelene is such an iconic piece of music. Hit the check.

Everyone in the studio that I worked on this jingle with all had like childhood stories or memories. Yeah, we're. around either watching these commercials on TV or sitting with our moms while they were doing their makeup and it became really personal for us. Maybe it's Maple Lane. Maybe it's Maple Lane.

You know, reading the comments on this interview, both on YouTube and the dispatch website, oh, and we do recommend that as a listener, you go on the dispatch website to leave comments because we read every single one of them. I read everyone. I read every comment. Right. And to summarize the experience that emerges from some of the comments after the Mithi Hassan interview and the Bill Ayers interview, it looks like many of our listeners were pulling their hairs because they wanted you to be a more aggressive champion of the dispatch perspective,

pushing against the perspectives of Hassan Ayers and showing their flaws. and calling out whenever they were either going around in circles or making a factually or morally flawed statement. What do you think of that? I don't think anybody wants you to become Pierce Morgan jumping in every second, but why not push back harder? Well, again, that's the start of some of the comments for that. I do think a lot of the audience understood what Kai was doing,

but there are always, and again, sometimes really helpful critique, My answer to that is, I think in the METI case, if you look in carefully, she's kind of hanging himself in some of these questions. There's no need to jump in and counter every point. And in fact, if you counter on every point that he was saying, it would make it a terrible interview, to be honest. You have to picture moments to engage and ask questions that elucidate his worldview. And when you do that, then let him talk and answer and say that maybe World War II, was a genocide on the allies side. I think it's much more interesting than countering UN Resolution 242.

Didn't exactly say that, Medi. Sometimes you have to do that and you should do that. But Medi's a guy who throws a billion facts out at once. But if you really, really kind of make him answer his worldview in full, I think you get a clarifying interview. And I think if you are someone who doesn't agree with his world view, a much more damning interview for him. But that's the problem, isn't it?

you're making the assumption that listening to METI, the internal contradictions or the faulty factual basis will be self-evidently damning that a listener will be able to recognize the errors and the logical jumps. But I think that's something that many listeners expect you to do. They want you to be their avatar calling out factual error when it's stated. both for conversational hygiene, but also sometimes you need to point out things that maybe some of the listeners don't understand or have missed as a logical or factual leap.

I guess my answer would be truthful. One is that certainly if any audience is capable of picking this out, reading the comments regularly, the dispatcher, it's a dispatches audience. The comments are usually very smart, and I think the dispatch is listenership as high level you can get. Number two is I do agree. In many cases, you should try to do some of what you're saying. The question is picking your spots so that you just don't get a dead interview.

You have to let them have some of their say, but you need to direct the interview in the direction. You want to go, I try when I put together my roadmap, which is usually a pretty detailed roadmap for my interviews. I'm always heartened when it slows pretty well. I know when they say something in one question, which I was hoping they would lead to the next question. So you kind of want it to flow in a certain way. And if you're constantly interrupting, constantly trying to correct things, you're just not going to get an it shifting interview at all. But it's a balancing act, I would say.

I mean, there's certainly times for that. Some people will have a different view of what that balancing act should look like. We're talking about good faith, but what about the bad faith actors? Should we allow, should we invite bad faith voices if they are important enough, if they shape the public conversation, even knowing that they do so with disingenuous arguments and will not be giving us straight answers. Is there a point in inviting them on our show?

If we believe we can get something out of them that is helpful in the public debate, if there's something there that we can, even if they're trying to run around an issue by them running around that issue, It shows something important on an issue, then I do think it's worth it. But, I mean, I see a lot of this with politicians. In many ways, they're often the least favorite guests to interview because they're deliberately opaque.

The Senator Murkowski, when we're talking about war and peace, you know, it seems like she was trying her best, say as many words as she can about what's going on with Iran without giving an answer on the subject. I said you put a very fine point on both sides of the issue here, but where do you stand? It's a good question. I would say that certainly it has to be guessed by guest. If you think you can get something out of it, that's newsworthy or clarifying. But it's much better have someone is engaging in good faith than not. Do you ever find a difficult to balance between this vision of giving the interviewer space

and your own opinions, perspectives? Was there ever a time where you felt like you couldn't hold back because you found the ideas expressed by the interviewee to be so repugnant or so frustrating, so anathema to your own worldview that you needed to jump in? No, to be honest, I don't. I mean, when I have somebody on who I really do find repugnant, and this is a really strong belief I have in the interview process,

which I think a lot of people who I like in the, at least to some degree in the interview world, if I don't believe do, is when you have someone you find repugnant or who is so far outside the bounds of decency, I don't mind platforming people who are like that, especially if they're significant. But I think you have an obligation to prepare in order to be able to draw them out

and show them for who they are. And I've had a lot of those type of guests on. and I think in every instance, I think I did the preparation and in the end, I was better for having them on than not, and I think the audience was able to see them for either, you know,

a sake intellectual or whatever. I mean, the one that comes to mind is after the 2016 election, everyone was touting a guy named Richard Spencer was kind of a racist nationalist. But if you actually look at his, writing. He wished the Soviet Union won the Cold War. He had pretty much no view that a normal conservative would like. So to treat him as this conservatives thought was not true. And I think in that interview, anyone who listened to it realized that this guy has no bearings on conservatism or anything

like him and kind of exposed him as I mean, everyone knew he was a radical, but not even a conservative radically, just a European faction type radical. I believe in those type of interviews, you just have to be very well prepared and you can't let the guest surprise you in any way and look like they have some mystical ability to know things that you don't. You've got to be better prepared than they are for what they've said and what they've written. I'll use Joe Rogan as an example. I mean, he's not my favorite interviewer,

but I do like when he does MMA people and things like that, I think he can be interesting. But when he has someone like Alex Jones on, and it just seems comically unprepared for what, you know, the nonsense of Alex Jones says, you know, if he was prepared to actually give a serious interview with someone like that, then, you know, I'm all for it when an interviewer is truly prepared.

This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick, intuitive, and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and email campaigns

to stay connected with subscribers or clients. And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial,

and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 XC90 plug-in hybrid

from $599 biweekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Condition supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to Explorevolvo.com. Fly Air Transat Seven time winners Champions out of game Fly the seven time world's best leisure airline champions

Air Transat Since you mentioned Joe Rogan What did you think about the now infamous pseudo debate that Rogan moderated between public intellectual journalist and author Douglas Murray

versus self-proclaimed comedian and libertarian and Israel critic Dave Smith. Yeah, I'll mention that I knew Douglas Murray a little bit when I was a grad student in London. He was the head of a kind of her social cohesion and I met up with him and at the time working for him was Kritsiper Hitchin's son and a couple other kind of researchers

and he debated a guy named Ajum Chowdhury in London, and that was broken up in the site before the debate ever took off and a bunch of us went to a pub in Leicester Square. So I knew him way back when, I'll give you my chanter take on that, is that I think Douglas is so busy and doing so many things. He didn't come into that show as prepared as he should be, knowing the work of Darryl Coomarty Need or whatever he called himself on Twitter,

or the pseudo-historian. The pseudo-historian and podcaster martyr-made, Daryl Cooper, who was central to the debate between Smith and Murray. Daryl Cooper was getting attention all throughout alternative media. Tucker Carlson gave him a huge platform where he promulgated his David Irving-inspired revisionist history about World War II specifically, which put the onus and moral blame

for the war, not on Hitler or the Nazi party, but on Winston Churchill and his wink-wink financial bankrollers. So a big part of the debate at Joe Rogan between Marie and Dave Smith was precisely about the problem of platforming alternative revisionist pseudo-exper like Daryl Cooper. So Douglas, who was criticizing hobbyist extorians like Daryl Cooper and the people who were giving them uncritical platforms was criticized by the Joe Rogan audience for what they viewed as deferring blindly to the old guard of gatekeepers, the credentialed elite of experts. Obviously, the Joe Rogan audience are generally the people who are looking for alternative media, who are skeptical of expertise. Those are the people who think that the

traditional sense-making institutions have failed us. My issue was that I think that, again, I think Douglas was so good that he didn't have specific examples from Daryl Cooper to easily have at hand to point out, you know, when both Dave Smith and Joe Rogan are praising their friend at not being really radical or anti-Semitic. If you follow him like, unfortunately, I do, there's so much about you either could have pointed out, it would have really kind of undermined this argument that Daryl Cooper is a serious person. He did a little bit, but, you know, he's left to talk about Daryl Cooper without doing a deep dive into him. Why would he? He's promoting a book. He's doing so many other things he's over in Israel

covering the war. And I think, have he had the time to actually see even more of the nonsense of Joe Cooper that he could give examples of, I think it would have been helpful. And personally, I think there were limits to the arguments he made about expertise. Some people pointed out he's never been to a rent. I don't think you have to be at a place either to talk about. I do think it gives you extra bonus. This specifically is in response to one of the tangents that they infamously got stuck on where Dave Smith had claimed that Gaza has been under a devastating blockade for two decades, to which Douglas said, wait, have you actually seen it? Have you been there? And Dave said, no, I've never been to the region. Why do I have to actually be in a

place in order to learn about it? Do you have to have been in the Third Reich in order to comment on World War II? Yeah, again, I think, you know, he's dealing with a guy like Dave Smith, who thinks he's become, you know, the smartest guy in the world because he's debated Laurel Lumer or something like that in one.

So, I mean, I don't think it was the greatest form for him. I think that it was weird that Joe Rogan brought someone on. He doesn't ever do that when he brings someone on. In this case, Dave Smith, to counter a guess that he brings on. I thought that was pretty bizarre. But ultimately, I didn't think it was a very enlightening, conversation. And again, I think it's partly because they're getting the minutia of things like

Gerald Cooper that I doubt that Douglas Murray has spent all too much time gilding into other than very quickly seeing either repast of a lot of the Nazi apologists that he's themed before. And even, you know, people like the famous Pact you can in Andrew Roberts' debate on Churchill from 20-so years ago. Let's put aside the question of whether it was wise to have Douglas Murray, Dave Smith debate in the first place. Let's assume that Joe Rogan put it together, but said, you know, I don't really understand this topic. I'm not really a moderator.

I'm going to step back and I'm going to call my friend Jamie Weinstein to take my seat and moderate it for me. How would you have run the interview differently? Here's my answer for that. I think there was no roadmap and there was no clear set of issues. So this conversation meandered all of. over the place. I think when you have a set of three, four, five, maybe six issues, and you focus in detail on those, that's going to, you know, be more enlightening or getting clarity on

five, six issues, maybe even fewer, as opposed to like just meandering all over the place. If you can focus it, we're talking about, you know, is Iran a threat with nuclear weapons? now let's focus on that topic for 20 minutes and go back and forth. And, you know, I think that would be much more useful. And frankly, I think in that type of real kind of conversation, we're actually getting substantive on a specific topic and not, you know, changing the ball every three seconds. I think Douglas Murray wins that every time over Dave Smith.

So I don't think could engage very long on a single topic, 20 minutes on, is around the threat. You know, Israel, God, I don't think the knowledge of the history of Israel. I mean, I think at one point, he seemed very confused whether a prime minister or president in Israel is the leader of the country. So

I was focus in. It was the Joe Rogan show with two debaters. There was no change in style. It was basically meandering all over the place, but yet they're supposed to kind of be debating. You're just going everywhere and every time they speak like 10 different subjects on different things. And then the other person's

trying to respond to those 10 different subjects. But if you focused it, I think you'd get a much more substantive conversation. So, Jamie, what kind of substantive conversations are you looking forward to be having on this pod? Well, I mean, I think these questions of war in Pete's here with Iran and when should America go to war, when shouldn't it, is one that's on top of mind for me, questions about what happens next with Israel? Are we going to see a new Middle East? What are the obtuse for Israel now that it seems to be, you know, winding down potentially to warn Goda,

having decimated Hezbollah and set back a Rams program? There are really good questions about the supposed petins within the Naga movement. Is there a real counter to Trump within the MAGA movement? Or if he, MAGA and all these other influencers who claim to be MAG Influencers only powerful when they stand with Trump, I think on economics, we have a real interesting question about our national debt. You know, is the debt no longer matter because we're all hoping that AI projects growth that outshines any debt problems that we have? I think questions of AI are interesting.

I think we need more of those on the show and I hope to get those because I think that is a topic that maybe will shape our future more than almost anything else we're talking about. Hey, and if listeners have suggestions, as we mentioned, we read all the comments. If there was anything you'd like us to spotlight on the show, let us know. Jamie, and Adam, I would say also, you know, we love the accesses. We're always talking, talking about how we tinker with the show and say, as thought on, should the conversations be shorter?

Should they be longer? I'm interested to hear a type of conversation, topics, and format that they would like to see. Would they like to see them debates where we bring two people on at once? Any ideas that they have, you know, we, as you know, Adam, get on called and talk about, you know, the direction of the show and how we can tinker with it. And they're certainly open to the thought process of the audience. Last question before we leave our audience to enjoy the rest of their Monday. What is a conversation that you actually regret having, whether on the Dispatch podcast or the Jamie Weinstein show? I always use this one as a conversation.

that was both the most, maybe hardest get I ever got, but also at least when I left. I don't know if we talked on anything that anyone could find useful. There was a gentleman named Andy Marshall. Maybe some of the listeners know who he is. He was for 50 years until his 90s, the head of a small office within the Pentagon called Office of Acceptment. And that was kind of like a think tank within the Pentagon.

and he was kind of a legend in the dissents world everyone who worked under him were kind of considered students of Andy Marshall and I was able to get what must have been one of the few interviews that he did after leaving the patent in his 90s

but he must be just so technical that was that with my questions weren't really up his lane and he would just say, you know, that they're not in my area. I was trying to ask more broad questions on North Korea and, you know, all these things, more kind of in my generalist approach. And he is so much in the detail that it just didn't,

it would probably have been better for a very technical expert on certain weapons systems to interview him for that audience. So while it was a very great get, I thought, I don't know, say it'll have very much for the listeners. Jamie, I'll see you soon. Yes, I'll see you too. Thank you.