The Press Box - Brian Stelter on Fox News. Plus, the Week the Campaign Went Nuts and Listener Mail

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

From antifa planes to golf metaphors and bags of soup, Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker break down the chaotic Trump campaign (2:05). Then, during Listener Mail, they answer the question, “Why does every nonfiction book have such a long subtitle?” (23:18). Then CNN commentator Brian Stelter stops by to discuss his new book, ‘Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.’ (36:10). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David, in an interview, Donald Trump suggested he knew of a recent airplane flight, loaded with people wearing black uniforms who wanted to do big damage to the Republican convention. Now, what I want to know is, if there were a real thing called Antifa Airlines, what would it be like? I was going to say NBC's Pan Am reboot is really going off the rails already. If there was Antifa Airlines, um, uh, you wouldn't have to pay for a Coke, right? We can say that right up front. Yeah, I was going to, uh, there'd be free soup, I think, right?

Lots of, lots of soup. Uh, hey, at least you know, everybody's wearing a mask, right? There's no, you don't have to worry about that rule. Uh, man, I have no idea. I feel like it would be a, I feel like, you know, maybe not the ideal way to fly, but, um, everybody's a little bit on edge in airplanes these days, I think. right? Yeah, if you're on kayak and you're hovering over two fares and

one is Antifa Airlines and the other is Spirit. Which way are you going? I think I'm going Antifa Airlines. Well, just, you know, just so I could, just for journalistic reasons, right? You could report back to all your friends and readers. You know when that person moves from the

regular seat to the extra legroom seat and the flight attendant has to show up and shoot them away, that ain't happening on Antifa Airlines. You could sit wherever the hell you want. It's Time for the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here with a lot of stuff for you today. We'll answer your listener mail, including the question, why does every nonfiction book have such a long subtitle?

CNN's Brian Stelter stops by to talk about his new book about Donald Trump and Fox News. Plus, David guesses a strain pun headline in the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But first up, folks, turn your eyes to the skies because you just might catch a glimpse of Antifa plane. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend. And in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They're on a plane.

I'll tell you sometime, but it's under investigation right now. What's most stunning about this to me, and I know that I'm leaving a lot of stunning things out, but the more I live with this, what's most stunning to me is that Trump has seemingly very deliberately pivoted to conspiracy theories just to be the lifeblood of his campaign,

but he's not even interested enough in the conspiracy theory is to get him right. Like, I don't think that he read through to the end of the Facebook post that he's like pretending is a real thing. He changed enough. of people that were involved, the whole a certain city. I mean, you know, Trump is a, you know, bullshit here of beyond compare, but there's no reason to be bullshitting here. This is supposed to be,

this isn't bullshitting. This is supposed to be a lie. And you got to get, you got to know a difference between lying and bullshit. You got to get your lies right, you know, I don't, it's so strange. That was what struck me is how generic the description was. A person got, yeah, a person got on a plane in a certain city. Okay, so they didn't board the plane on a jungle air strip. Thank you for the specificity. And that, and he doesn't know where it's going. And then Laura Ingraham, who's doing the interview for Fox News, presses for details. Like, well, it's under investigation. I wish I could tell you more. I'll tell you later. It was the best thing. Yeah, no, no, we'll get the, like you and me, we have dinner. I'll tell you sometime. Yes, the viral Facebook post, this was apparently based on,

which came out on June 1st, that at least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise, from Seattle. So we had a little more, a little more meat on the bone of the fake story. Which is fake. I mean, just for the record,

that Facebook post is a lie. There are episodes of this podcast, David, where we do a serious segment about the media and the campaign. And then there are shows where we just play a lot of funny audio because it's clear that this week,

the 2020 campaign lost its mind. Absolutely lost its mind. So from that Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump Fox interview, Trump was trying to underline his pro-police anti-crime bit. Listen to the metaphor he comes up with to defend cops who kill civilians. They can do 10,000 Great Acts, which is what they do. And one bad apple or a choker, you know, a choker.

They choke. Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, couldn't you have done something different? Couldn't you have wrestled? You know, I mean, in the meantime, he might have been going for a weapon. and, you know, there's a whole big thing there. But they choke. Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot...

You're not comparing it to golf because, of course, that's what the media... I'm saying people choke. People panic. You're not comparing it to golf. Yes, I'm actually comparing it to golf. Let me... I acknowledge the help that you're giving me. Let me double down on this.

Yes, I'm comparing police murder to golf, a golf tournament. It's, again, it's... offensive uh on so many levels it's sick but but but perhaps but perhaps what's most offensive offensive about it after you know staring or listening this over and over again is that he's thought about it on so little like with so little depth this is literally like what you're i mean on about any other subject this just feels like you the first read from your absent minded uncle you know i mean it's just like oh it's like that it's some people just choke you know it's there there he just it's not even a lack of interest.

He just is not, he doesn't care. He doesn't care at all. There's so many Trump moments where he does seem like your absent-minded reactionary uncle and nobody wants to, at the dinner table wants to come out

and say, you know, that's really offensive. Which is really, which is really the vibe here. I mean, let's just say, comparing missing a putt to a policeman shooting somebody to death is just beyond,

it's so beyond sick. We should also talk about the Laura Ingraham intervention here. You don't mean that, do you, Mr. President interview strategy? Mm-hmm. And I saw somebody on Twitter comparing her to a press secretary

because that's what they do. When the candidate steps in it, they're the ones stepping in to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, I think, I think what the president means is, but typically with an interview, it's not the interviewer stepping in and say, you know, you don't mean

that. Don't you want to go ahead and clean that up? Yeah. And I'd also add that if you are going to do that as Laura Ingram, you shouldn't do it on camera and then play that part of the interview. Well, okay, that's a great point. I mean, there's, imagine, imagine if all of the great, like, all of the great gets in journalism history, where it's, we're like, the interviewee just gets about two seconds into just making history. And the interviewer is just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, you don't actually mean. I know what you're about to say. Don't actually say.

But I think for Laura Ingram, this is helping the president is the badge of courage, right? I mean, helping the president is the badge of honor for all like-minded people, right? I mean, this is how do you get it? At Fox. Well, yeah, I mean, the listeners, but yeah, in particular, her employer. I mean, how do you, I know you talk to Brian Seltter about this later in the show. The relationship between Trump and Fox is a little bit more nuanced than I think some people give it credit for. But yeah, I mean, if you're Laura Ingram,

you're you're trying to show that you're every bit as chummy with Trump as as Hannity is right and and and holding his hand through this interview trying to make him look good is probably you know seen as a positive in some circles it reminded me of when we were really little kids and you would go to the bowling birthday party and they would put the bumpers up in the gutter so you couldn't get the gutter ball you may get like one pin or two pins but you couldn't get a gutter ball have you ever tried to request the bumpers as not a child. Absolutely.

I remember that being like a big, like at some point in college or something, we tried to get the bumpers just to like have, you know, just to make it more about the hangout and less about the competition and we were rejected. Now, you know, you go and get the bumpers and they look at you strange and then like, you know, your child pops out from behind you and they're like, oh, okay, now I understand. We'll give you the bumpers. Totally. Anyway.

And that is what this interview was because Trump did not get a gutter ball, but he got a one. You know, like it was not. a bad score, it just was not a complete zero, I guess. I guess. He made it through to the end of this sentence without someone screaming at him. I mean, I guess that's the one pen. We've been talking a lot about Trump's crime strategy, a U-gov poll out this week that is important. Do you think the violence happening at protests will get better, get worse, or will it stay the same if Donald Trump is reelected president 2020?

Get worse? 56%. Get better? 18%. That's a lot. That's a. a really bad result if you're banking your reelection chances on quote unquote crime. So we had Antifa Plain and Golf metaphor. The second way the 2020 campaign lost its mind this week was Trump's medical stuff. Now, back in November 2019, Donald Trump went to Walter Reed Hospital. He said it was for a physical. But New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt has a new book coming out called Donald Trump v. United States. And Schmidt writes, in the hours leading up to Trump's trip to the hospital, word went out in the West Wing for

the vice president to be on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized. Okay. Uh-huh. So this does not seem like a normal physical necessarily, but it's just a data point out there. Sure. Listen to Vice President Mike Pence and how he answered the question when asked by Fox's Brett Bear. President Donald Trump is in excellent health.

And Brett, I'm always informed of the president's movements. And whether it was on that day or any other day, I'm informed. But there was nothing out of the ordinary about that moment or that day. And I just refer any other questions to the White House physician. But as far as being on standby? I don't recall being told to be on standby. I was informed that the president had a doctor's appointment. And I don't want to stop too much time on it, but I just want to.

Yeah, I got to tell you, and part of this job is you're always on standby, is your vice president of the United States. The second to last standby, I've never heard a tell, an audible tell. I don't recall being on standby. Like, that was so bad. Listen, I talked about the difference between bullshitting and lying before, and I think that sort of applies here a little bit in the reverse. it's pince for whatever reason and maybe this is a based in his Christian aversion to lying

he should have just lied here but instead he dissembled instead he bullshitted his way through this thing and it made him sound a million times worse there's no way if he had just said whatever the lie is that would have gotten him through that sentence right or gotten him through that question no that never happened that never happened Trump would have the doctor but no one ever told me that he was going on you know that to be on stance you know that it to be on by, he went for a regular appointment, the end of the story. If the truth comes out and the truth is, you know, Trump had his legs removed that day or whatever, no one is going to fault Mike Pence more for outright lying than they are for what he just did, right? So he, like, they can't even

lie right. It's so wild. And it's, I mean, he made the story so much bigger than it had been before, right? I mean, it's, I don't, whatever he's trying to cover up, he's trying to cover up, he's trying to cover up something. Now, by doing the Wikipedia entry of things politicians say when they're not trying to answer the question, including referring the questions elsewhere, it's like, I don't recall. When a politician says, I don't recall, it's never good, right? Nothing ever good has happened with that, those specific words. And then, of course, the classic, I'm always on standby as a vice president. Well, that is certainly true, but there are different levels of standby. Do you think he didn't want a lie? Do we think Mike Pence at some?

part of his being says, I do not want to go out here and tell a lie? Yes, I do. I mean, that's not, that's my personal opinion. Not that he's ever, I'm not saying he's never lied, but in this case, he does not want to go out until a fib. I don't know. It's just a complete, a complete, yeah, but I mean, it also kind of felt like he was, he had, it was the answer of someone who had been given really specific talking points, like on the way between, between the car and the interview, right? They're like, You just say these three things. Do not say anything else, no matter what happens.

And like one second in, those three things don't hold up. And he's left, he's, you know, left up to his own devices. But I think that, I mean, it would not shock me if just this was a, you know, a moral decision to not lie, which is, you know, totally, if you think that what you did is better, you are totally misguided in your morality and your faith. I'm sorry. Now what Michael Schmidt, the reporter added was just one element to this, right? We don't know what happened.

we may never know what happened. Joe Lockhart, who was a spokesman for Bill Clinton back in the day, then tweeted out, did real Donald Trump have a stroke which he is hiding from the American public? Like went from a mystery to just throwing something out there. Donald Trump then takes debate on this. It never ends. Now they are saying that your favorite president, comma me, comma, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini strokes.

Never happened to this candidate, fake news. Perhaps they are referring to another candidate from another party. which brings us, David, to the third item on our list, which is Matt Drudge's face turn. Okay. Matt Drudge, internet guy from way back, the original news aggregator was very pro-Trump in 2016. He was also very obsessed with Hillary Clinton's health.

Remember the Hillary's health hashtag thing, which was a big subject in right-wing media? Well, as soon as this story started, he starts posting these unflattering photos of Donald Trump. One is he's sort teetering on the ramp in New Hampshire last Friday when he's going to give a speech. Another one he has his foot at a funny

at a funny angle almost looks like verbal Kent in the usual suspects. And he says Trump denies many strokes sent him to hospital video dragging right leg. So Matt Drudge is now fanning the flames of this story such as it is and making

Trump look back. Wait, I'm sorry. I know I should know this. but help me get my timeline in check. Was that, did Trump tweet about the series of many strokes before, before this drudge headline that says Trump denies many strokes in the hospital? I assume yes. Yes, I believe that was the order.

So we didn't even mention the fact that Joe Lockhart did say stroke. Trump apparently pulled series of mini strokes out of the ether, right? I mean, that was not, maybe that was in someone's tweet somewhere, but that seems a little bit like a tell. And again, I don't want to get too conspiratorial here. But if I was like, like, hey, Brian, I heard you were late to work today

and you were like, I absolutely did not stay out late drinking all night at the club. You know, we would be like, yeah, you didn't, you're denying, you know, you protest too much or whatever. But yeah, it was notable that Matt Drudge, who goes, you know, often gets sort of conspiratorial this time of the cycle, that he's leaning in on Trump right now.

And the video that he linked to was Trump just sort of having a weird hitch in a step for one second or something. One of those like Twitter videos is just often enrages you from the other side, you know, because it's, it probably is, it's just as likely like a weird edit as anything else. But it is intriguing. It is intriguing. I mean, I would almost, I would almost suspect that he was kind of setting us up to go harder and on Biden, but nobody cares if he's even handed. So it's very strange. Item number four on our list, Trump suggesting, that people vote twice in Wilmington, North Carolina. You saw this, I'm sure. He told voters to mail in their absentee ballot and then show up at the polling station where they, and it was pretty garbled here, but the essence of it was they should try to vote, right?

And I guess he's making a point is that if your absentee ballot counted, you should not be allowed to vote. But sending in an absentee ballot and then going to vote in person, that's not allowed. That is that is that is the bad thing This was basically And again, it's impossible to parse this Was this him was this Trump Actively trying to

Disrupt the voting system to again undermine it And and to be able to claim whatever he wants to claim If he loses on election day or Was this his like drinking bleach moment about voting? You know is it just like here's a thing that just occurred to me one time Maybe I'll just say it out loud You know like it's it's it's so you never know You never know. And you know how they usually say there's a Trump tweet for that, which inevitably contradicts whatever he just said.

Yes. In this case, there's a Trump soundbite from May. The level of dishonesty with Democrat voting is unbelievable. If you told a Republican to vote twice, they'd get sick at even the thought of it. Yeah. Also, Bill Barr, by the way, had a great interview with Wolf Blitzer where Wolf asked him about the voting twice. in Bill Barr said, well, I'm not sure about the law on that in those particular states. Yeah. Unbelievable. This is against the law. Yes.

Yeah. And seem perplexed by the pushback, too, right? He was just like, well, no, I don't know about the laws in those states. First of all, of course. No, I mean, if you're the attorney general, don't ever say the words, I don't know about the law. I mean, no matter what the context is. But it is, again, amazing how Bill Barr has been, I mean, is just indisputably Trump's slapdog at this point.

He was there standing next to him on the context. at the Kenosha visit. He's just going out and giving interviews on the regular now just to try to play clean up for whatever crazy thing Trump has said. It's crazy that we're in a world where that doesn't even, like, that's just sort of a given at this point, right? I mean, that like we have just like a craven, just totally worthless attorney general who's just sole purpose is to prop up the president who hired him. Finally, David, if we're talking about the week, the campaign lost its mind. I want to leave you with Trump and soup.

This was actually a quote from July, but it got another round on Twitter this week. Trump is talking about anarchist, his favorite subject. And apparently when they aren't flying Antifa Airlines, they are weaponizing soup. Yes, soup. And then they have cans of soup.

Soup. And they throw the cans of soup. That's better than a brick because you can't throw a brick. It's too heavy. But a can of soup, you can really put some power into that, right? And then when they get caught, they say, no, this is soup for my family. They're so innocent.

This is soup for my family. It's incredible. And you have people coming over with bags of soup, big bags of soup, and they lay it in the ground, and the anarchist take it, and they start throwing it at our cops, at our police. And if it hits you, that's worse than a brick, because it's got force. I'm just sort of entranced by the, I can just imagine a bag of soup, like, craze taking over New York City. city, right? People are standing in line for hours to get their soup in a bag. Yeah, this is, again, we have this dude sitting in the White House. Pardon me for the lack of decorum. Who can't be bothered to, like, sit through a daily briefing who like can't, who like, you know,

canceled all of these daily briefings doesn't want like the, the DHS people to come in and tell what's going on in the world. Obviously, he's also canceling, uh, the briefings for Congress now, too, but that's a separate issue, but he can't be bothered to pay attention to anything. And yet he has some amount of space in his brain for reading conspiracy theories on Facebook or Gab or wherever the hell he's getting this stuff. And just passing that, like, and passing that, like, this is what, this is, this is, this is white privilege or rich people privilege in action. To have gone through your whole life saying bullshit like this and never realizing that, like, nobody believes you is pretty gall, is pretty amazing. And now he's just the president doing it to, you know, members of the media and not even hesitating for a second to think, no one believes the words coming out of my mouth. I guess some people do.

People are going to vote for him. David, you know the phrase from soup to nuts? This week, Trump went from nuts to soup. Yep, he did. It's time for the overword Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. David, some sad news from the world of Hollywood and professional wrestling this week, The Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson, and his family recently tested positive for COVID-19.

Do you know where we're going here? Oh, I do. I think I do. It was an over Twitter joke to write. The Rock knew there was a problem when he was unable to smell what he was cooking. Thanks to Ethan Tussie. Some TV history made this week in Great Britain, David. the independent newspaper reports,

Channel 4 to show erect penis in UK broadcasting first. First time. It was an overword Twitter joke to write. Actually, Pierce Morgan has been on TV in London for some time. Thanks to David Reed. And finally, David, a report from NBC's Andrew Blankstein. Listen closely to this. The FBI's LA field division, quote,

is aware of reports by airline pilots of a possible citing of some flying with a jetpack Sunday evening on approach to LAX. Someone with a jet pack. So much good stuff. Can Elon Musk verify his whereabouts? Antiva has developed

jetpack technology. Sounds like the Mandalorian has started shooting season two again. And this is my favorite. If this is not the rocketeer here to fight the rise of secret Nazis in our country, I don't want it. Yes. Yes. If you gave David and I a chance

reminisce about a very flawed movie from our childhood. Congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. In the notebook dump, we're going to do some listener mail. Remember Gabe Hernandez, listener of this show last week, David, noted that he'd had an entry in all three user-generated categories, the overwork Twitter joke, listener mail, and the strain pun headline. And he sort of asked, what is that?

What do we call this? So we got some nominees here. Paul Teal calls it the press box egot. That's one. Eric Corrine, the triple groan, because David likes to groan before he has to do something. Chris Dealey says, ticking all the press boxes.

That's pretty good. Our friend Scott Tobias says, I think you should call it the Gabe. That's what a sandwich shop would do. Which is true. Girl school alum says, when you go on all four Washington Sunday political talk shows, it's the full Ginsburg, right?

So this is the full Hernandez. and Jonathan Aldrich, hmm, the Oxford comma. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. I don't know that we can get like the full like copyright,

you know, attach for that phrase, but I really like that. So the, yeah, I think the full Hernandez or the Oxford comma. We might, we might put one of those polls up on the,

on the press box, uh, Twitter account there so you can vote. Mark Klein sends in something. Remember how much we were, how much fun we were having with, Mike Pence's Garfield fandom the other day. Oh, yeah.

Garfield. By the way, had somebody sent in a, or actually somebody posted on Twitter. It was our friend, Derek Robertson, an old cover of Indianapolis Monthly that had Jim Davis and the US Aker's characters.

Thanks for adding that to our lives. Well, it turns out that when Mike Pence was in law school, he was himself a comic illustrator. This made me so sad. The title of his comic, was law school days D-A-Z-E

Did you look at these And how Garfield Adjacent these comics were? I got to be honest with you I was having a conversation With my dad the day before So full disclosure This isn't really need

I don't really need a full disclosure I drew political cartoons For the paper in college And my dad just the day before Was telling me about He just read the Dr. Seuss biography and it was like, it was so interesting that he was doing all these political cartoons at the same age that you were and, you know, just sort of as a nice compliment, you know, people like-minded individuals. And the next day, it came front of with Mike Pence having followed the same trajectory in life. It's kind of disheartening.

They were really, really bad cartoons. I mean, in high, and in law school days, he's easy. I mean, whatever. You're still a kid, I guess, at that age. But it was a real, like, unfunny. It would have been unfunny expected material for like at 17-year-old. But he's in law school trying to cut up. I don't know. It just seemed real sad. I remember the comics in the college newspaper. And every comic in there basically looked like another famous comic.

Oh, yeah. Which is what you do, right? So when you start out writing or you start out drawing, right, you sort of look like a look like you're doing acolyte work. And then you kind of. Swipe, swipe, swipe, yeah. And then you go off on your own. But that was very funny. Anyway, thanks for you.

Can we just backtrack to Jim Davis really quick? the cover of this magazine that I'm looking at right now. I remember U.S. Acres. I remember the beginning of U.S. Acres. I'm old enough to remember U.S. Acres. Do you think that, I mean, was Jim Davis launching a second property? Do you think? Was that like the 1988 or whatever that was equivalent of like, like, a major show?

Like this, like Shonda Rhyme's new show? Yes. Like is it like a major creative force? just like dropping it, dropping something like further enriching our lives by by just giving us a second comic stripper cartoon every day? That's how young

Brian perceived it for sure. Oh my God, that was amazing. And then it started showing up on Saturday mornings and animated for him and it was incredible. On Monday's show, David, we had author Jeff Benedict on and we were marveling in his ability to publish a nonfiction book in 2020 that did not have a

labored subtitle. Oh, yeah. The book was just called the Dynasty. Well, a well, a well-known journalist who wishes to remain anonymous emails us to say, is it time for us as a society to end subtitles on books like the true story of a cop, a talking lion, a bag of pistachios, and a badminton match that changed a nation? Because every nonfiction book pretty much has one of these. Now, David, you worked in book publishing. Will you tell us why this is done and how these things get written? Well, you were, I mean, there's a real basic, And it's been a while since I worked in book publishing,

but there's a real basic problem, which is that especially since, you know, borders books, if anyone can remember that far back, went down, you're kind of selling to, well, for a while, it was just one person. It was whoever, I mean, the most important person in the company

was whoever was buying that genre of book at Barnes & Noble. Now there's Amazon matters too, but you really have a targeted audience of one or two people. And they're, some of them have incredible taste, but they're largely functionaries.

And so if a book really works, then the best way that you can get them to pre-order lots of copies of your new book that they don't know anything about is to make it look exactly like the old book. I mean, the book that's already worked. And it's not just deception. They'll work along with you because they want the books to succeed too, right? They want the things that they pre-ordered to do really well.

So they say, you know, this book did really well six months ago. If you give me a book just like this, then I can make it work here on Amazon.com or a Barnes & Noble on the front table or whatever. So you end up just like, you know, following around, blindly following whatever has just worked. And inevitably, what really makes a book succeed, at least in like a bookstore, is the fact that the bookstore really got behind it or the publisher really got behind it and put it on the front table. The fact that they made it look exactly like a book from six months ago might be

beside the point. But if there's a stack a mile high on the front table of the book, because, for whatever reason that it got there, it's going to do better than a book that's hidden on the shelf. And so it becomes this vicious cycle of sameness, right? It's just like these, they succeed because they're picked to succeed, but they're only picked to succeed if they are prematurely made to look like these other books. Anyway, all that is to say, these title and sub-dital meetings are the most mind-numbing terrible things in the world because everybody is just staring down this inevitability that you're just going to fall into the same trap. And the author will have one idea. That gets shot down, well, not in fiction, but in non-fiction, the author's name, the author's

idea will get shut down about 75% of the time. Well, they'll go back and forth to the list of options. And inevitably, the thing that, like, the publisher and the marketing director will like the most is the most inaccurate or the most, the most, like, the Vegas title. You know, you'll have some, like, really specific book about, like, how, like, radium was discovered, you know? And then, and the marketing director will be like, ooh, double trouble. That's one of the options.

Let's go with that. You know, whatever. It's like, it doesn't make any sense as it pertains to the book. And then, yeah, you end up with these florid titles that just don't have any, that don't pertain to the book at all. And so, yes, inevitably the subtitle becomes, here is a list of things that the book is about, right?

And then that sounds boring. So let's just make it change the world at the end. Yeah, it sounds a little like journalism back when I was an editor, because somebody would turn in a piece and you would write the headline for the piece you wish they wrote rather than the piece they actually wrote.

Yes. And then your subheadline would be basically this just endless keyword rich kind of thing that just designed to attract anybody who somehow missed whatever the business of the headline was. That is kind of how books are titled too. You know, I'm going to throw all this in and then I'm going to put like some, some little mystery box at the end of it, right, that changed the world, the bad and match that changed the world.

The world has truly changed as many times as the nonfiction section of Barnes & Noble tells us it has changed. I mean, we would never, history would be completely different, right? I know, and it's this like, it's this like really unnecessary apology, right? That like, like, is it a lack of faith in media? Like, what current cultural trend explains this? If a book is being published by a major publisher and being sold in a bookstore and it's between two like hard covers and someone took the time to write and edit and print this thing,

I would assume the subject is worth reading about. Right. Right. You're, you're selling me this book. let's just take it for granted that something significant happens within the cover is here. But no, you have to put that in the subtitle that like this, you know, fish or flower or whatever it was changed the world. From Matthew Moore, what media do you both consume to turn your brain off from politics? I thought about this question.

It's a little tricky, right? Because you and I work at a sports website. So normally when people turn on a game, they're turning off their brains. you and I are kind of half working or at least like, you know, thinking about future content opportunities when we're watching sports. Yeah. We're doing the same thing when we read news. So what do you, what do you consume to actually relax?

Oh, man, I don't even know. Maybe that's why I know, maybe I need to find something more relaxing. Not wrestling because that's work too. I mean, I guess basketball sometimes. Kind of. Kind of work too, though. yeah i find novels that i've already read especially genre novels to be oh yeah one of my last refuges i got reading the lady in the lake this week and just to read raymond chandler like right

before i fall asleep that's a mind shut off and then i mean that is an absolute compliment i'm just oh yeah that's true i read comic books and stuff for that too i'll pick one up every once in a while and and yeah i mean there's reading reading reading definitely does it reading physical things definitely helps. Not Chester Lemon, long time listener. I asked, beyond the Ringer podcast network, I need your current podcast pleasures. Any you'd like to recommend, David? What are my podcast? Man, I have not, since coronavirus, I have been, my podcast consumption has gone way down. I don't even know what to say. I mean, I listen to, I feel like, again, I listen to like the five for work, that five I need to be able to discuss offhandedly if a

co-worker calls me. I don't know, do you have someone? that you've been listening to? You know, the one that's been big for me, Lely, is you ever listen to the BBC's In Our Time, which is actually a radio show on one of the BBC networks? But it's like, this guy, this host named Melvin Bragg, and he has three historians. And he's like, and they're usually British historians,

very, very smart. And he's like, okay, today we're talking about the gold rush. And they just do an hour. And it's like, we're going to explain everything about the gold rush. And what it was and the sort of small things within the larger historical story. and it's fantastic. It's absolutely fantastic.

You have to look at the subject list sometime because it's just like Euripides, the Gold Rush, James Madison, you know, it could be anything. Anything. Bats.

You know, I mean, just literally anything. And it is always fascinating. It also helps me turn off my brain. Finally, David from Jody Canada, whose name I almost always mispronounce.

What snacks do you guys crave when stress eating? Speaking of the coronavirus. Oh, man. Should we do a list of what we don't eat? Yeah, and whatever I can find around the house at that point in time. I mean, I go sweet almost all the time. Just like I can eat like a bag of individual, like fun-sized candy bars or, you know, whatever else is presented to me.

Ice cream, you know, Ben and Jerry's, buy whatever size that comes in. Damn. Remember when we used to live together and we would go like get lunch or dinner at the bodega? and it would always have to come with the dessert. Oh, yeah. And if we had money or would just like feeling, you know, feeling great, we would just do the Ben and Jerry's pint each. Oh, yeah.

And then if not, like the next step down was the four pack of Oreos or nutter butters. It wasn't the box. It wasn't like one or two, but it was like the four or the six. For a buck, you get like the candy bar size nutter butter package. Yeah. That's my go-to stressy. All right, David, people hear a cite Brian Stelter of. CNN all the time on this podcast because he's sort of the media reporter of record.

It's got a new book out about Fox News and Donald Trump, Brian Stelter, after hours. You read a lot of critical writing about cable news, but in Brian Stelter's case, the criticism is coming from inside the green room. Stelter is the host of CNN's reliable sources and creator of a really, really invaluable newsletter of the same name. Now Brian's got a new book, Hoax, Donald Trump, Fox News, and the dangerous distortion of truth. It describes a phenomenon, Stelter calls the Trumpification of Fox and the Foxification of America. Thanks so much for being here, Brian.

The Foxification of America. Oh, my goodness. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. So on CNN and in your writing, you have opinions. But I find you stay within a certain range, tonally speaking. But in hoax, you let loose a little bit. It's no more Mr. Nice media critic.

What made you decide to write in that particular voice? I guess I'm fed up. I guess I don't want to take it anymore. I don't know. Well, I think I say early on in the book that I'm writing this not as a CNN anchor, but as a citizen, as a dad, as somebody who's worried about what's happening to the shared notion of fact and truth. I know those are old-fashioned concepts in this reality, your alternate reality age. But it's true. that said, I did try to pour what I've learned at CNN into the book. And I did try to meet the same standards that I try to meet on television or online. For sure. I mean, there's an argument that you could, it's hard to write about Fox News and Trump and what has happened over the last nearly four years now in a detached voice. Like the issue is so important that, you know, going into the kind of newspaper style,

that's been an argument, right? that news that somehow detached journalism voice, which you and I have both done throughout our careers, is inadequate to this moment? It is inadequate to this moment because we're in a moment of asymmetric lying. I wish I had a catchier term for this, but I don't. It is asymmetric line. Trump lies so much more than any other side, including Joe Biden or the Democrats or the Democratic Party. And if we are to sit and pretend as if everything is equal and normal, then we are part of the lie. We just extend the lie. So I think it's a really good thing that in the Trump years, we've seen anchors at CNN and writers of the New York Times and columnists all over the place

and television reporters stand up for facts and stand up for decency and set up for democracy. Because that's what this is about. The stakes are pretty high right now, aren't they? I would say so. Let's time travel to a key moment in the Fox News, Donald Trump relationship. Trump gets elected president in 2016, shocking a lot of people. But you point out in the book that this coincides almost exactly with both a leadership change at Fox News and a change in primetime anchors. How does that set the course of the Trump Fox News relationship? Right. You know, I think this relationship goes back many years because Roger Ailes and Donald Trump were friends a long time ago.

But then, you know, you really can look at this starting in 2011 when Ailes puts Donald Trump on Fox and Friends every week for these morning phone calls. And that really introduced him to the Fox audience in a new way. I think it was his Fox education. I think it was his political education. So that by 2015, when he's coming down the escalator, gosh, I wish I had gone there that day. Wouldn't it have been great to be in the lobby for that? With those paid people that were there to cheer him on, I guess they recruited off Craigslist. But I digress.

By the time he comes down the escalator, the Fox audience knows Trump really well. And yes, there are some skeptics of him on the air and there's some critics of him on the air, but he's already locked in with the audience in a special way. Rupert Murdoch, of course, was trashing Trump back then. People forget how critical Rupert was. They figured out a mutually beneficial relationship later. But I think the seeds were planted back in 2011 and 2012. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. So then the Murdox get rid of Roger Ailes. Bill O'Reilly winds up leaving the network. Megan Kelly winds up leaving the network. Greta Van Sustrin winds up leaving all big stars at Fox. And there's almost no scenario where Fox was not going to be pro-Trump to some extent. But what you're arguing in here, I think, is that with Ailes gone, this mini generation of Fox anchors, Pete Hegson, Maria Bart Romo, Judge Denny Piro, their fealty is not to Ails or a corporate boss so much as it is to Trump. Am I getting that right?

I think that is fair. It's sad, but it is fair. There's been a leadership vacuum at the network. It's existed ever since Ailes was forced out. And by the way, it's Ales' fault. He didn't groom a successor. He didn't want somebody powerful as his number two. So Trump has filled that leadership vacuum.

And so many stars on Fox and wannabe stars, they try to appeal to Trump. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen, you know, all of a sudden one day. As one of my sources said to me, the untold story of Fox is how one by one these hosts all got aboard the Trump train because they knew that was the way to to gain attention and popularity and profits. You quote a sentiment in here from a source who's pining for the old Fox News, the pre-Trump Fox News, which is interesting to me because it kind of mirrors a conversation writers have about the Republican Party.

Is Donald Trump really new kind of Republican or is he just, oh, the old GOP with the volume turned up? How do you fall on that with Fox News? Is new Fox new or is it old Fox in slightly, you know, more, what's the term here? You know, in slightly more obvious, slightly more blunt terms. You know, Fox is, is, you about to imagine 86, the Roger Ailes model at the launch of Fox is still relevant today. So I think it's Fox in more of an orange hue, right, with more of an orange spray tan. where the network gets Trumpier and Trumpier and Trumpier and Trumpier every year. And it's in reaction to what the audience wants.

That's really at the heart of this. Yes, Trump is the most important viewer. And the channel in some ways is produced for an audience of one. But this is also about what's happened to the GOP. That's why what you said resonates with me. This is about what happened, well, what has happened to a swath of voters who feel so alienated and isolated that they don't trust any other source of news or any way. other form of media. And Trump is exploiting that, right? He's taking advantage of that.

For sure. You call Sean Hannity the most powerful person at Fox News in the Trump age. And throughout this book, you give us a little bit of a profile of what Hannity is like off the air. What is Sean Hannity's life like when he is not on Fox News? Well, it's complicated, right? I remember, you know, the start of the Trump years. Hannity was telling people, telling friends, I don't give a shit anymore. I can relax now. I can just enjoy my job.

You know, I've got it all. I've made it. I don't have to work so hard or worry so much. You know, think about it. Hannity was always second banana to Bill O'Reilly and then Megan Kelly and Greta van Custer and even to some extent. But he was on top.

He was the number one star once O'Reilly was forced out in April of 2017. But instead of being able to cruise and just enjoy being number one, It's been really stressful. You know, he's on the phone with Trump all the time. It's a pretty stressful position to have a shadow chief of staff role. He has told friends and colleagues that he thinks Trump's crazy. Now, look, you know, Hannity can deny that, I guess, although he hasn't.

I'd love for him to talk more honestly about his relationship with Trump. He sometimes says, nobody understands my relationship. No, no one knows the truth about my relationship with Trump. Okay, tell us. It's one of the most important relationships in Trump's life. Tell us more about it. The portrait in here is that this is the best thing that ever happened to it, but is also just wearing him to the bone, right?

Waring him to the bone. Look, you know, he was vaping a lot. There's been pictures and videos of him vaping. And I quote him saying to a friend, you know, if you were hearing what I was hearing from Trump, you'd be vaping too, right? It's that level of stress. You know, he's also gone through a lengthy divorce.

He was separated from his wife for years. The divorce has now been finalized. He has been in a relationship with Ainslie Earhart, the Fox and Friends co-host. That was secret for a, while when I called for comment to Fox, because I was finishing the book, and I said, I'm going to write about the separation, and I'm going to write about the rumors about Sean and Ainsley. And I even said to the PR person, I said, look, I understand that this is probably going to leak. I understand

that Sean might want to announce this on his own terms. It's a fair, it's a fair thing. And sure enough, it was in page six in the Daily Mail the next day. But he's, you know, his life's changed a lot. You know, his life has changed a lot. At the same time, finally, let's not get this twisted. When his son's tennis team won a championship, he arranged a White House celebration. And Trump was there celebrating, giving his speech, and pointing out, you know, Hannity's son in the crowd and saying, hey, maybe you want to use the White House tennis court. So the perks, the perks of this relationship are nothing to downplay. You have Hannity's salary in here at $30 million.

I couldn't help but think of this because all those people we just mentioned that used to be in the Fox prime time lineup, they all left. They were replaced by Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram and Hannity in a new time slot. And Fox is still number one. So isn't the lesson if you're Fox that your brand is what people are watching and your hosts to some extent are interchangeable? Absolutely. And it's a realization that Donald Trump eventually had, you know, after, is forced out and after Megan Kelly leaves and after Bill O'Reilly is forced out, he looks around and says he doesn't need these individuals, but he needs the network.

He needs the platform. And some of Fox's shows are built around this concept. I suppose in some ways it's similar to sports talk, where you've got these panels, these roundtables where some people are pretty replaceable. It's especially true on the five. It's true on outnumbered. These other shows where they are built around a panel conversation. But the ratings show that even Megan Kelly was replaceable, even Bill O'Reilly was replaceable, which I don't think many people would have believed in 2016.

When we talk about the codependency between President and Cable Network, you have so many examples in here. This is one of my favorites because we just saw her on television last week, Kimberly Clasick, a congressional candidate in your home state of Maryland. How does she surface in the Fox universe and then how does she leap from there into Republican politics? my goodness this story gets my blood boiling so i hope i hope i can curse on this podcast that is just fine because this story broke on the weekend i remember this so well because this was a weekend story i'm always interested in what fox is doing on the weekend because my show on cnn's on sunday morning so one saturday morning on fox and friends they have clasick on uh this was a segment that basically was just like handed to fox on a silver platter clasic is a republican

activist in Maryland. She is described as a Fox guest as a GOP strategist. There's no evidence that she's worked on a campaign for pay. She, I believe, said that she interned on some campaigns. So the strategist title is a hoax. Okay. So she goes on there and she bashes Elijah Cummings. Why is she bashing Elijah Cummings? Because Cummings was looking into Trump's treatment of children and women and men at the border. So he's, it's like a, what's it called him pool? where they're, this is an angled shot, taking out Cummings for trying to take on Trump. And she goes on and she says, you know, coming should focus on his own backyard, all the poverty in Baltimore, in his own district. Look at these abandoned row houses. Look at these sites where people

are dumping trash. Of course there are struggles in Baltimore. I went to school in Towson right up the road from Baltimore. I know this district really well. But Donald Trump watches the Fox segment and he tweets out like attacking Cummings District like why would anyone who ever want to live in this rat infested district 600,000 people live in this district there's like beautiful farms and there's really wonderful suburban areas and there's also wonderful urban parts of the district that are not blighted and yes then there are blighted parts of the area right like what the hell are we doing with this situation where a woman goes on fox gets airtime to show you know, that she walked around the neighborhood

and saw some boarded up homes, obviously it's a problem in Baltimore. And then the president gets to attack Cummings and attack an entire part of the population. Like, oh, man. Sorry, I just wonder, traditional ways of covering news don't capture this story, do they?

No. What I loved that day, CNN's Victor Blackwell, who grew up in the district, he went on the air. He called this out. He said, who would want to live there? My family. And I think that more personal, that more emotional, even way of covering the news is the better

way to cover the kind of lying and deceit that we're experiencing. And just to square the circle here, Klasik is now running for Elijah Cummings' old house seat. Yes, yes. And look, unlikely to win a Republican in this district, but she's trying. And she's been on Fox and she was given a spot at the Republican Convention. I'll tell you what really

bugs me about this. So it happened on Fox and Friends on a Saturday morning. And Trump starts tweeting. Fox gets excited. They start covering the story more. Battle over Baltimore. Battle over Baltimore, right?

It becomes a week worth of programming on Fox. They even send one of their opinion people to go interview residents in Baltimore. It's not like they sent their news anchors. They sent their opinion folks. But the point is, they never talked about their role in starting the fire. It's like they never said, hey, this all started on Fox and Friends.

And we misled the president. And then the president got really angry. And he tweeted a lie. And now we're covering the lie. No, no. They treat it like it came out of nowhere. Like the president just happened to learn about this. And that is the fundamental dishonesty about Fox and Friends.

Yeah, you point this out in the book that the president tags them in tweets when he finds something on Fox and Friends. but they're much more, they're less interested in showing their own part of the complicity in this, which is fascinating to me that the president of the United States is happy to plug them, but they don't want to plug it the other way, which is really, really strange. You also talk a lot, Brian, about the resistance within Fox, such as it is, which almost reminds me, again, of the anonymous like Trump op-ed that ran in the New York Times that there's this resistance in the White House. How big is that resistance? And what are the motives for people actually staying there? after all those. Right. There are a number of motives. Some of them are very different. But I had so many staffers that say to me a version of this. They would say, we are trying to hold the line. You know,

we are trying to do our best and promote real news and real journalism on Fox and squeeze it in wherever we can. But they feel like, and this is dozens and dozens of people. I'm talking about production assistants at the lower level. I'm talking about executives even at the higher levels who feel like real news is being squeezed out, and pro-Trump propaganda is being pushed in and encouraged. To the point where we've seen quite a few journalists leave from Megan Kelly to Carl Cameron, from Catherine Harrods to Shep Smith. Some people do leave. They say, I don't want to be a part of this. So why do the others stay? I think is your question. I think there's a few big reasons. One is money. Fox pays really well if you're at a certain level at the network. fear of not getting another job elsewhere or at least as well paying a job elsewhere.

Power, you've influenced. You do have influenced the president and the aides and the White House, and that could be intoxicating. Sense of family, sense of connection to the network and wanting to be there and to see it through. I know this might sound small, but when the network, when the company renovated the offices, luxurious new offices, gleaming new studios, those kinds of things were big morale boosters. I had a daytime host say to me, we all came in and said,

this is a game changer. And by the way, you know what else is? It's pretty nice. When Fox hosts the Super Bowl, you're going to get tickets, right? Your family is going to be able to come. There are all these fringe benefits of being a Fox star or even someone as a correspondent

that they do count for something. This is always fascinated me. But going back to before Trump got elected, media criticism has been this huge subject on Fox News, even in primetime. And I always found that puzzling, given even what you and I do for a living. Like Donald Lemon does not devote a huge chunk of his show

on a nightly basis to media criticism. Rachel Maddow might do a little bit, right? But it is not the singular subject. Why is media criticism so interesting to Fox viewers? I think it's because Fox is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week ad for Fox. Every media bashing segment is a way of saying don't turn the channel. Every media bashing segment is a reminder not to change the channel to CNN or NBC. It's like every segment about some other outlets screw up doubles as a way to say only trust us.

It's pretty cynical. Yeah. Like I sometimes wonder, would Jesse Waters have anything to talk? talk about if it weren't for other cable channels? Like, what would they talk about all day if it weren't for media bashing? But look, it does make a certain amount of cynical sense. And it is what the audience expects. It's a, it's a really cheap and effective form of content.

Do you remember there was a day that this is kind of, maybe this is too esoteric, there was a day that Trump was at a rally in Montana. And he started complaining about Hannity. I was so confused. He started complaining about all the haters that are on Hannity show. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, but Hannity never books liberals anymore. And maybe every once in a blue moon, but not very often.

And then I realized, oh, Trump is talking about the clips of other anchors on other channels criticizing him that Hannity chooses to play to stoke the rage of his audience. And I thought, wow, like Trump's even upset about that. He's even upset about the clips on Hannity's show. A clip reel that often includes you, right? So what Trump is essentially saying is why are you putting a clip of, Brian on your show criticizing me even if it's in service of criticizing Brian. Brian, why are you bursting my bubble? That's right. Why are you bursting my bubble? And yet, you know, the last time I saw Trump in person was years ago, it was during the campaign. And he looks to me, he says,

good show, good show, good numbers. And I'm thinking of myself, you know, we fact check. We call out your media attacks. It's not a good show. But, you know, what he cared about was the attention. A couple more for you, Brian. Let's say Trump loses to Biden. in November. Do you think he goes and creates a Trump TV-style media company as a lot of people have speculated about? It's definitely a concern inside Fox. It's a conversation inside Fox. I am skeptical for the following reason. I think that Fox is bigger than Trump now. I think it has a monopoly on the audience. I think Newsmax and One American News and others have tried to peel away Fox viewers, but have not been successful. Newsmax's ratings are whatever is below the basement.

OAN is not even rated by Nielsen. And so these channels are struggling to take on Fox. And I think any Trump channel would obviously have some benefits or advantages that Newsmax and OAN do not, but would still come up against that monopoly power. But crazier things have happened. And it's definitely a source of concern, even I think within the Murdoch kind of empire. Not as if, not as if Lachlan's losing sleep about it or Rupert's worried about it on everyday basis. But it is a topic of conversation. What does Trump do if he doesn't win the election?

Could you imagine the Murdox bringing him in for a series of interviews, some kind of presence on Fox News to make sure that he's still in the tent in some way? So like a primetime show or a weekend show? Or just something or a series of paid interviews or something. You know, we're going to talk to you every X number of weeks. I don't know. So just pay him to be a commentator, right? Yeah, I mean, it's right next to Dan Bonino.

They're like Newt Gingrich. Right. Yeah, the reason I'm hesitating is that I was guessing this in 2016, right? I was thinking, I even had a segment on CNN that I kind of regret where I said, is Trump really running to be a cable news host? Which clearly he was not just running to get a cable news contract. To me, that seems like a very small way to pursue a post-presidency, right? Can you imagine Barack Obama as a cable news talking head?

No, but he's got a Spotify podcast. Right? The Obamas have Spotify podcast. So they do have part of their empire, right? Isn't, isn't true. They're very selective of what they do and when they do it. But, you know, he wasn't a television addict. And Donald Trump is a television addict.

A friend of mine had an idea. What if in two years, either on Fox or on his own website or something, Trump says to all the 2024 GOP candidates, come do an interview with me. right and he televised it and it's halfway between the apprentice and that new york times thing that made binion apple bomb into a meet okay the trump is going to interview the candidates and see if they're worthy to to be his you know to follow him into the white house as awful as that sounds wouldn't that do a huge audience wouldn't there be an enormous amount of interest in that kind of program you're right there absolutely would be and it does feel like every year we're moving

closer in that direction, you know, more and more about this merger of politics and television, politics and entertainment. I do sometimes think that the news business can learn from the sports business in this respect, you know, like what is the news equivalent of putting mics on the players? And maybe there will be an equivalent of that soon. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the hot mic we get every once in a while, like with Elliot Engel and it always turns out bad for the... Right. Right. It happens as an accident, but, you know, what is the version of that in news? I don't know. Brian Stelter's new books is hoax, Donald Trump, Fox News, and the dangerous distortion of truth. Thanks so much for being here, Brian. Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right, time for David Schuemaker,

guess is the strain pun headline. Hmm. See, that's the kind of groaning we like. Monday's pun headline atop a journal article about a cytokine affected by the coronavirus was clean up on IL6. I like that one. It was so good. So good. Today's pun headline comes from Robert Carlson. It's from The Economist. Turns out that various airlines in Asia, not Antifa Airlines, but various airlines in Asia, David, are selling airplane food direct to customers. So if you're too scared to get on a plane right now, you can buy the meal to eat it at home.

Thai Airways, for instance, will sell you stir-fried tiger prawns. You see David's face right now. He's incredibly intrigued by this idea. Now, your keyword here is beef. Beef. What was the economist's strained pun headline? Wait. Asian Airlines are selling you food.

Like, if you really just like the way the Thai Airways serves their tiger, serve fried tiger prawns, that's like a thing that you think about a lot. Then you can still get that food. And where this is happening in the world is not particularly important. Beef is your word you need to begin with. Beef. Where's the beef? Beef.

It's what. Keep going. Errs the beef? No. Different pun. Keep going. Beef Wellington. Beef.

At the grocery store, you go buy a package of ground beef. Oh, grounded beef. Grounded beef. Oh, that's fantastic. Grounded beef is our pun. He is David Shoemaker. Ryan Curtis, research by Chris Almeida. Production Magic by Erica Servantes.

We're off Labor Day, but back Tuesday. So warm up some nice non-weaponized soup and join us, will you? See you then, David. See you, Brian.