The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: Chris Hayes

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Journalist, author and host of MSNBC’s All In, discusses the heated political climate and finding a way to flourish. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed human. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits,

my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, the Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I bowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I got you, everyone, I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. West Love Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio.

This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey, this is on Pay Bill. This week's QLS Classic features journalist author and host of NBC's All In with Chris Hayes. We discuss politics, we discuss hip hop, we discuss the Upper East Side. Originally released on July 4th, 2018. Enjoy. We'll hold your hand through the process. It's good.

Yeah, it's all good. It's all good. Suprema, sub, sub, subprima roll call. Suprema, sub, sub, subprima role call. Suprema, sub, sub, suprema role call. Suprema, sub, sub, suprema roll call. Chris Hayes is here to explain the fear. Yeah.

of why I panic. Yeah. What I hear. Woo. In the rear. Suprema, Suprema role call. Suprema.

Subrema, sub, sub, suprema roll call. The world's a mess. Yeah. These are the days. Yeah. To be all in. Yeah. With the sugar network.

Belmont. Suprema. Subrema role call. Suprema. Subrema. Subrema. Subrema role call. Ivanka Trump.

Yeah. Opens Embassy. Yeah. Film at 8 p.m. Yeah. On MSNBC. Roll call. Superima.

S S Srema Roe Call. Suprema. Srema, Srema, Rold Ceprema, roll call. I'm unpaid bill. Yeah. And here's my schick. Yeah. You know it's time.

Yeah. For politics. Rocawn. Supremea. So, Srema, Srema, Srema, Rold call. Okay. Supremea. Suprema.

A bral call. Roll Call. It's been a while. Yeah. Since I had to rhyme. Yeah. I'm sitting here. Yeah.

Just watching the time. Roll call. Suprema, S S S S. Suprema, Rold C, Srema, Rold Call. Suprema, S S Srema Ro Call. Supremma, S S Srema Ro call. Supremma Ro call. Now, T, wasn't that bad.

Not too bad. Not too bad. Okay, listen. Quest Love Supreme Brocky by the Sugar Network. Wait, can I ask a technical question about our theme? Yeah. Okay. Do you not hear any time it's the third person's turn to rhyme, normally to you when Fonte is here.

Do you not hear the sound of parking? That's just on the track? Literally. Really? Literally. That's like some beat-off in the background noise. All right. Well, the next time we...

do the theme song. I guess when we recorded the theme. The recording's fucked up. Do you remember the engineer's fault? Oh yeah. Yeah. And in between if nobody's rhyming,

you can hear your guide in the background. What's the guy? Leaking through. Right. But at what point was I in a car reverse driving to hear yeah. No, that part's in your head.

It is not. Or it's a harmonic of something that's happening. It's not in my head. Maestro, can we run the theme one more time? We're doing it all. Hello? I always hear it. And I'm like looking at you guys like, do you not hear it?

Do you not hear it? So wait, we have to do this all over again? Play the theme again. We're doing, yes, this is the first time. We're doing all new theme. No, listen to it without us singing that. Yeah, just listen to it. Okay.

Nothing there. Suprema I can't believe I'm doing this On my own show So Supremia This way The chorus comes in

Yada yada Okay So then That's what Amir speaks Yeah And then I say something else Yeah And then here comes the setup

Okay And then the punch line Ah The prima Shout out to Mark Kelly and Ray Angry They sound great on this Right Well the drums just drum

Themselves Oh the drummer You. Second. Yeah. Yeah. I hear a bunch of people talking. Yeah.

I hear somebody talking. All right. Now wait. Here comes the third one. You ready? Here we go. Someone's parking a car. I hear it.

Yeah. It's a feedback. It's a feedback. That sounds like someone. All right. Now we can lower it. Or it's someone backing up a goddamn delivery truck. Whatever.

You can lower the volume. Yeah. I'm just saying that someone was back. backing that thing up. Okay. U.S. taking over for the nine-nine. Let the small shit slide.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very deep political episode. Already. Oh, yeah. Already. Thanks for pointing out the horrible engineering. The politics of delivery trucks and shitty engineering.

I thought it was me. I don't know. I was like, did I make the theme in the car? I don't know. It just happens every time. Hey, look, we have a guest. Oh, damn. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Questlove Supreme. We got Suga Steve of the Suga Network explaining to our guests how powerful his network is.

Well, the long story short of what we're talking about is this new feature that Instagram has, which, yes, allows you to interview somebody on your live story where you're on the top and they're on the bottom. But we have a guest. We have double bill. We're double billed today, unpaid and boss bill. And our guest today, ladies and gentlemen, he is a journey. Some say that he's the co-leader of the liberal media along with Rachel Maddow. Bronx native, Hunter College, which is actually a high school.

Hunter College High School, yeah. Yeah, which is weird. Stupid. Yeah. Oh, no. I mean, just the name. It's a wonderful high school. I used to live right near it.

It's great. A host of one of my favorite MSNBC shows. And, of course, after this election cycle, my station channel always stays on MSNBC. all in with Chris Hayes and probably author of the best liberal spleen book of our imbalanced system. I have to say well written. I feel like it's almost to date myself a cliff notes. A cliff notes to people who are like sort of on the fence of, you know, like those people

that ask like, well, they must have did something. something and this is the best liberal spleen book i actually when i got it and i got it like three days ago i didn't think i was going to get through it in time for the for the um the the our interview today but it's it's an easy read i got through it that that was sort of by design that people would my favorite thing that people say two my two favorite bits of feedback from the book one is that people are like oh i sat down i read it in one sitting or i got through really quick and two is for the that are, you know, I don't think, the audience for the book, I don't think is people that are hardcore, like, you know, Blue Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter. Right. You know,

and I'm not going to boycott the NFL because Colin Kaepernick is kneeling. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's going to be hard to reach those folks. But there's a huge swath of people, particularly white folks that, I think, are generally sympathetic, but also like that kind of, they must have done, they did something, right? Right. There was a reason. Did he really? And the book is an attempt to try to walk people through kind of some of the realities of what it actually looks like. It's, it's well executed. Anyway, I haven't

said his name. No, what's the name of the book? Well, I haven't said the author's name yet, even. Let's see how long are going. Can I get to 10 minutes without him? Let's not try to. Steve, finish your Instagram. So one night I was on Instagram and I was like, I'm going to play. Wait, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome.

The author of Colony and a Nation and our friend Chris Ais to course of love you for free. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, before we get all to that, yes, Steve. No, you keep cutting me off. Well, we had a guess. That's your relationship.

It's taking me 10 minutes to explain who he is. So the feature just came out recently a few months ago, and I was just messing around with it one night, and I was super high, and I was like, I'm going to be Chris Hayes, and I'm going to interview a motherfucker. So I started, you can invite people, or you can invite people.

Does it just, how does that invite request show up on someone's account like you two have to mutually follow each other right so following please make that happen yeah yeah I should I don't know um you can either invite them where they can invite you it's obvious something pops up and you you you know you both have to be cool with it right you can't just show up on somebody's screen well you can do that too um I've there's no way maybe you have to be verified I don't have special oh shut the shit down Maybe I'm special powers. Yes. Verify people can just hack your phone.

The blue check mark. There's a list of people that I'm following that are following me that I can talk to. Aluminati. And then if I want to interview Erica, I can also search for her name. I have an option that lets me search for her name. Presser. And if she accepts. And then you go and then you go live and anyone who.

And people watch, it's a voyeurist game. People watch each other interview. each other. So Steve is taking us actually to the next level. I got a few hundred people going in the network. Do you find it unnerving to watch in real time how many people are watching?

Meaning what? How few people are watching? No, I just, I find something bizarre, like we'll do a Facebook live before the show and my whole life in a weird way gets, you know, we get the ratings every day at 4.15 and at MSNBC we get a spreadsheet and it matters a lot. Like what kind of numbers you're doing it it resonates throughout the building you know so in a weird way my a lot of

my professional life is oriented towards this number and i find something unnerving about the instant feedback as you're talking of like seeing the numbers go up and down like at some kind of dystopic like you say the wrong thing and it goes absolute extremist version of let me perform in the way what will maximally maximally get people to and you hate it when it trickles down exactly what am i doing what am i doing say something smart come back come back It's most people will probably sit for a good eight, nine seconds. Right. And I noticed that.

I mean, one time I had a very magical moment happened on my feed where it was like at an actual DeAngelo rehearsal. Oh yeah, I did one of those too. With common. No, I'm just saying that. It was like even at a DeAngelo rehearsal for the Roots picnic, like, you know, if my numbers went to ungodly like four figures. And then about 15 minutes later, it went down to like 300.

Right. Which, you know, maybe it is kind of ridiculous to, but the thing is that your people... I was at that rehearsal. It got kind of boring as it went on. Yeah. Wait, it was?

Uh-huh. Oh. See, my shows don't... That doesn't happen. It just drifts. Like, it was like, it was all hitting, and then everybody sort of just went for a walk

and it kind of went away. Yeah, but I mean, I think just the... the the art of or the the task of watching someone have a conversation yeah plus i mean one of the things that i learned one of the kind of crash course realities of this job is keeping people's attention is hard you you that's it's work to to keep people's attention you know so okay as as a fan of uh what was uh the show an agency HBO, okay, I'm going to take the long scenic route.

Star Dumb and Dumber. Not Jim Carrey, the other one. Jeff Bridges. His show on HBO about Jeff Daniel. Thank you. Newsroom. Is that you're talking about?

Yeah, newsroom, yeah. Okay. All right. So, when you're on the air, is there, do you have any earpiece in which there is a a producer like, okay, now ask about this? And then. So we, yeah, so you're always passionate the control room through what's called an IFB, right? So you got a earpiece. And there's a really wide spectrum of how active the control

room is in that in questions. In my case, almost never, I would say a few times a week, the control room will say, will suggest a question. But it's very rare, partly because I get, I get super annoyed. It's like it throws you off your rhythm, right? It just feels like backseat driving. It's like, I, like, I'm at the wheel. So don't tell me to me to make a left here. I know what I'm doing. Other people have different feelings about that. That's my feeling about it. Does that depend on the relationship you have with your producer? I think it does. It depends on, you know, different shows have a different balance between how host driven and how producer driven they are. Different hosts have different levels of comfort of asking questions in the

moment. Some want questions pre-written impromptor to go through that they've already done through like a a process. Some don't want anything impromptor. They just want to kind of think in the moment, which is usually the way I am. Like, I kind of know what I want to ask, but I want to be, one of the things I think that happens is if you script it too much, kind of like this, though. You don't listen, right? Because one of the things that can happen is if you've got your idea about question one is this and question two, and you ask question one, what you're doing in your head is, okay, uh-huh, yeah, now I'm on question two, as opposed to, wait, what are they saying? Engaging.

But I think it varies a lot. The person, the person I talk about, the person I talk about, to the most, which is the line producer on the show, who's the person who keeps time, which is a key part of the whole, you know, she's the drummer. She's the drummer for the show. So we got to figure out, you know, we got to bring things in at certain moments and we got to hit our marks to make a show because it's live. Right. It's a zero sum. You go long here. You got to go short here. You got to cut something here. And she's the one with cues. A minute. Got to get to break. Okay, we're over. So I'm not certain if All-in is the type of show that deals with real time. just in but certainly or surely with the time that we're living in especially with you know who

behind it will that can happen even this morning like you know howley jackson had an entirely different show plan and then she got 4,000 pages probably of transcripts and then she got she got a this just in yeah and then it how how much on your game well i know you have to be on your game, but how annoying is it that at any moment the world can fall apart? And you have to be fluid and explain and knowledgeable. It can be, it's both, I would say it's invigorating and thrilling in its own way, because there's a certain adrenaline to it when something happens at 715 and it's like, okay, we're making decisions.

Okay, this is the new A block, then what gets kicked out? Then A goes down to B, then B gets killed, or do we keep the guess there and then we move to C or do we move to G? And you're making all these decisions very quickly. One of the blessings, and I imagine it's actually this way on the Tonight Show, that there's a bizarre blessing of having a live show at 8 o'clock in that we don't have an option not to do it. Right? Like, if news breaks at 715, whatever happens in those 45 minutes, the show comes on air at 8.

And there's something weirdly relieving of. of stress about that because if it was like, no, it has to be perfect. Let's wait till 825 to make sure that it's perfect. Is that Mandy Patinkin? Hey, Mandy Patinkin. Hey, how are you? Wow, that's the most wild thing

that's ever happened to me in my life. Wait a minute. We just got up the ante. Mandy Patink is here. Lady Patink just randomly walks in a room. Star of Homeland. Yeah, come on in. You want to be a part of it?

Just, oh. well we're we're Hey guys Yes No No no No

This is Hey how are you? I'm good How are you? How are you? Good good This is fucking awesome Man

It's good to see you again I came in I saw all the furniture I thought where's the bed I'm going to put me up Awesome Awesome Very nice to meet you

What are you potting Casting I have a a podcast and Chris Hayes from MSNBC's the host of it. Yeah. Oh, I'm the guest. You're the host. I don't know who I am right now.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. Oh, that's his book. Oh, it's a copy of my book. Absolutely. That would be my great pleasure. Okay, guys, have fun.

All right. Thank you, Mandy. You're a legend. You're a legend. Literally. That was the fucking best thing that ever just happened. Thank you. I'm chatting with sugar.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football,

or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw,

unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger.

So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in someone's, correct?

I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown.

I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.

Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either.

We always say that trust your girlfriends, I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no.

I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the Girlfriends. Trust me, babe. on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Can I tell a Mandy Patikin story when you're willing to have on Instagram? Wait, can we interrupt your informant? Of course, yes.

Wait, hit me. I was working on a musical, and Mandy Patinkin was going to be in it, and he came and sang and delivered and told all these stories about his mother, and he's an very fascinating human being. I could talk about him for a long time, but that was an awesome cameo in Quest Love Supreme, only on Pandora Sugar Network fucking Mani Mendeepinkin

That was amazing We gotta get him to sign some shit We'll just cut it out No We can't We can't No he has to remain I mean he didn't get

DeAngelo assigned for his thing Yeah DeAngel didn't say shit though Did he? Yeah It's more R&B And then he walked out Wait what was the question to

I can't remember There's a print something Probably It's more R&B Then he went to get cigarettes And never came back Like dad all right so man he's so um what's the right word like he is so entirely himself oh yeah i mean

i you i would expect that but that that was what i would expect mandy patink to be like yeah that was pretty awesome wow that's that was great what was you're the host of the show now so what else you want to ask basically we kind of just got an example of when something crazy happens in the middle of a show and then you yeah and i lose control yes you were just talking about how you react to in the moment improvisation. I could never be on him. And you got all flustered. You were like, he's the host of my show.

I'm Chris Hayes. That's Quest. What was your very first journalist assignment? Like, what is the road that leads to you having your own show? And is there an internship that leads? Like, did you work at a newsroom? I came up a sort of a weird way in a way that doesn't, really exists anymore, partly because the ecosystem I came through has all died off a little bit.

I graduated from college and was really into theater and moved to Chicago with my then-girlfriend, now wife, and which in Chicago is super cheap. I don't know if any of you have ever lived in Chicago, but it's a great place if you're 22 and broke because it's so much cheaper than New York. It's so much cheaper than L.A. The winter sucks, but there's a lot of people in Chicago doing a lot of really cool stuff because people pay nothing for rent. And there's like people playing shows in the abandoned buildings and doing theater and photography. And I was there doing theater and also freelance writing and started right.

Yes. Sorry. What did you major in though? I majored in philosophy. Okay. Yeah. I majored in philosophy. I was doing theater and I was, I started writing for the Chicago Reader, which is like

the alternative weekly there. It's like the Village Voice. Uh, Washington, D.C. city paper like that. And I started freelancing and got, had more and more success doing that. started writing for more publications like online liberal publications. I got a job at a lefty magazine called In These Times. I then got hired by the nation. And then my wife got a job in Washington, D.C., clerking in the Supreme Court in 2007. We moved to Washington, D.C. She was clerking for Justice Stevens, which was an amazing thing to see up close. And I became the watch, through complete

accident, the longtime Washington Bureau Chief of the Nation magazine, David Coren, left to go to mother Jones three months after I moved to D.C. And they're like, oh, we need a new bureau chief. And they interviewed me and they gave me the job. And from that, I started appearing on television as a talking head puny. Head of the... Yeah, I'm the Washington Bureau Chief of the Nation. So what do you think about?

And this was in the sort of last year, the Bush administration and the 2008 campaign and the financial crisis and all that. But how often does that happen? Usually, don't you have to, like, work your way up the ranks out of paper and so... Yeah, it was a bunch of accidents. So timing was perfect. Timing. Timing and I think the fact that I had a little, I had a background in theater.

I'd acted. I had a little bit of performance background. I like to talk. I think that was, you know, we try people out on TV all the time. And talking on TV is a very specific and weird skill that is different than talking. It's different than being an interesting person. It's just a weird skill. You sit in a room.

You stare into a camera. You don't have any of the physical cues that come. Like right now we're all looking at each other. Like, you're not in your head. When I say something, which is a nice encouragement, I keep going. But you don't have that in it in a TV studio. It's a weird and alienating experience. Oh, you're saying even that's more different than this

than what we're doing right now. Oh, yeah. Because I feel like this exposes everything about me, whereas I'm better tweeting and typing thoughts than this. Than I am. Because I have to think about things and edit, where I'm even two years into this. I feel like I'm not fluid at all.

Well, I would disagree with that, but I would say that it's really interesting. Ask Bill. People have different experiences of how they, you know, how they talk and how easily that kind of, that form of communication comes to them. And I think I had a sort of aptitude for it. And so what happened was I started getting booked more and more as a guest. Eventually in 2010, I was asked to guest host a show for Rachel.

That was a huge deal. I went down in New York a day early. I read off the teleprompter as practice. I was nervous. A. F. I was so nervous. And then I did it and it went well. And it rated well. And then I started guest hosting more and more often.

And the more I guest hosted, then I moved from that to a weekend show and from the weekend show to an evening show. So it was a very strange route because I came through kind of liberal, lefty magazine alternative weekly journalism on the print side. I was a writer, always a writer. I didn't have any TV background. I didn't intern at a local station. I wasn't a news anchor at a, you know, station in Des Moines or, you know, people move from smaller markets to bigger markets. I came in this completely different direction and kind of had to learn TV as I went. Wow. Chris. Like you.

Yeah. You have to learn TV as you went. So did I. Hey, Chris. So what percentage of your current job is journalism? What percentage is performance, let's say? It's a great, great question. I only ask great questions.

You should tune in. I imagine your Instagram channel is amazing. The eight-hour extended Mandy Patinkin interview. Holy shit. The ring cycle of Instagram interviews. You know, look, I try to, I basically am consuming things all day and I'm trying to report every day, which means that I'm constantly in contact with a bunch of different people in different areas. But, you know, the staff is, you know, we've got 25 people to make an hour of TV.

And so much of it is taken up with just getting that thing on the air. If we had a, I would love it if we had a newsroom where we were sending people out, you know, we'd dozens of reporters to do enterprise journalism every day. In terms of what I'm doing, I think it's a combination. I mean, you kind of can't separate the performance part from it because if the performance part isn't there, then people are not going to watch. But the interviews, you know, my favorite, we had someone on last night, we had a political reporter, wrote a great piece about basically the Trump administration burying a report that came from their own administration about the toxicity levels of certain chemicals in water. And they were like, let's not release this.

It'll freak everyone out. And my favorite moments that happen on TV are when I'm learning something live in the moment from the interview, because that feels like I'm making discovery. So we talked to this reporter. She was great. I learned from her. I learned things I hadn't learned even in reading her piece. And I try to get as many of those moments as I can in the show where as opposed to some pre-rehears thing where I throw a lob and you dunk it, that I'm actually, like we're actually reacting to each other and I'm learning things in real time. So, all right, similar to the comedy world where save news of the week.

All right, all right. So say as of this cycle or this speaking right now. Kanye opinions are like a thing right now in the comedy world where Kanye is so crazy. Right. Or even just. Kanye takes. Let's go, you know, years ago where it was always OJ jokes, that sort of thing.

With the way that your particular channel runs, if everyone is telling the same story, is that just with the thought in mind that there's no one watching this story? show concurrently like nine hours in a row and that you just have to refresh and retell the story again and I'll take Stephanie Rules take on it and Hallie and so but what is there is there I mean I don't want to say a competition thing no no are you guys dream of like okay I'm gonna this going to be my Bob Woodward totally moment or you know my Carl Bernstein I would say that he's going to play me in the movie when I when I bust this story open well I you know, it's a balance between the two. So there's two competing impulses. I think one is you don't

want to run the same show over and over. And repetition is a real problem. And it's a real challenge. And there's, I think partly, we can't think of it as, okay, someone's watching the network for four hours because it's a little like 10-10 wins here in New York City, right? Like traffic and weather together every 12 minutes because people are just cycling through. And so it's like, well, I already know the traffic and the weather. It's like, well, you other people are coming to it. We've got to tell them what's up. So there's a little bit. bit of that, right? So a certain amount of repetition. At the same time, you do want to distinguish the shows. And the real hard part is, and I say this about TV all the time, which is that

plants grow towards the light. And what I mean by that is you can have a garden in your backyard, and you can plant everything all nice and spaced out. And if you come back six months later, and light is only hitting one part, all of the plants have grown over here. And the light is ratings, attention, what people are paying attention to. And so what will inevitably happen is people chase the stories that they feel like there's the most juice in, that there's the most attention in, and that leads to a certain inescapable level of redundancy about what the stories of the day are. Not always defensible. I think sometimes that there's certain myths get embedded in people's heads about what people are interested in.

There's a little bit of a bubble that can happen, which is that you work in this building where the TV's on all day. So you're constantly looking up at cable news and you're like, oh, they're talking about X. X is the thing we should talk about. So I actually try to keep the TVs off in my office for that reason. Okay. Precisely because I don't want to be... So you're not influenced? I just don't want to be overly influenced by what everyone in cable news is talking about all the time

because then you can have a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy about that. But that's, it's a challenge. We have a bunch of meetings throughout the day in which the production staffs of the different shows actually huddle and talk about what their respective rundowns are and try to make sure that we're not all doing the same show. Okay. So without being too biased towards whatever my cable news preferences. Right. I think there was, I was in a waiting room in an airport once.

And that's probably the longest. I've been in a place in which Fox News was constantly running. Well, they did some weird thing where Fox News was on this television, but then behind me was CNN. in the same room playing at the same time. That must have been a lot. Yeah, it was like one of them large, like waiting room things. And so then it finally hit me why Fox News's ratings is how it is.

One, I didn't know that they exploited women that much to that level. It's like practically every journal, even if it's with a male journalist, there's always, a leggy, thighy, stiletto-heeled, young blonde urns. And I was like, oh, this is why everyone's watching. Like, I finally got it. Because in my head, I'm like, people can't, I know people want to accept the reality that they accept. I mean, I feel as though of the three,

the big three networks that you guys tell the truth of what's happening, regardless of what it is. But is there, because there was a. point where a lot of my favorite shows were getting pushed to the side. Like suddenly Ronan didn't have his show in the afternoon and, uh, the, joy went off daily show and Joe and the Torres thing. Like a whole bunch of MS. And I was fearing that, oh, God, they're trying to, they're feeling the pressure of Fox News. Like, will they adjust or I didn't know if there's new management, but how do you fear that one day there will be, you,

the hammer comes down. It's just like, okay, people aren't here for the truth anymore, and we got to... You know, I actually, I sort of experienced this in reverse because when we launched the show in 2013, interest in politics was at a real low point. I mean, Barack Obama has just been really elected. Congress is in the hand of Republicans. There's this kind of stalemate, you know, and people just were like, I'm kind of done with politics. I think the, I think Barack Obama's real election particularly was like, okay, that's the end of. of that chapter, right? Like the...

I can go on with life now. Yeah, like we had George W. Bush and then like this crazy insane financial crisis and also the, this crazy insane campaign and also we elected the first black president. And then it was like, is he going to get reelected? And then he did. And it was sort of like, okay, well, we've got a sort of narrative arc here. Um, that was a dangerous four years of... Extremely. Yeah. But people, a lot of people checked out and we saw it in the numbers. I mean, so my experience is, I've been doing the show for five years. 2013. We started 2013, 14, 15. Those were lean years.

And that's when a lot of those shows were getting canceled. And I think it was a combination of there was new management that came in. But also everyone was kind of struggling, trying to figure out what gets people's attention. I mean, you remember the missing plane thing,

right, when the plane went missing. And that became this running joke, understandably, because it was insane how much cable news covered it. But people were covering it out of desperation because it was the only thing rating. It's like you couldn't get people to... Did we ever find that plane?

No. No. No, it's crazy. Okay. Yeah. That's one of those for where did we end up on that files? Yeah. Like where we end up on the plane? I know it was missing, but...

And they thought they found it, but they didn't. So what's happened instead over the course of our trajectory on the show is that we now have... We've got four times as many viewers as we had, you know, back in 2013, 2014 in the lean years. and my feeling, I feel like if the viewers are there, we're there. But TV is fickle. I mean, TV's rough. It's like the restaurant business in New York City. So you don't even feel secure in your position now as a anchor of that show?

I feel, I will say this. I feel the most secure I've ever felt. Like, I have a contract. I'm going to be there through, you know, through 2020. you know, barring something completely unforeseen. Right. And I feel as secure as I've ever felt. But I also understand that it's a crazy business.

And, you know, people, things blow up all the time and things get canceled. They get moved around. It's just the nature of the business. And you've got to kind of be a little at peace with that. Otherwise, you're going to stress yourself out all the time. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying.

Yep. That's me. Cliver Taylor the fourth. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes,

creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life. mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger.

So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.

The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so much, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern.

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.

This isn't over until justice has served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield.

And in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no.

I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Normally, well, we kind of worked our way backwards, but I always start at your beginnings.

Can I just ask one more question before we go backwards? And speaking of like fickle and TV and stuff, Trump fatigue. So I'm kind of a news junkie or I was, and now I'm kind of like, I have Trump fatigue. You've hit your point. Yeah, I stopped. That's interesting.

And, well, it's sort of correlated with the beginning of chatting with sugar. so I don't really do anything anymore. I said that. But no, in all seriousness, though, do you get that? Do you have that? Are you getting that? Do you fear having that? Yeah, I feel it sometimes.

I think, you know, there are times where it feels a little like being trapped in a dysfunctional or toxic relationship or a toxic household. Like, I've been very lucky in my life that the people that are closest to me, I haven't had to deal with people very close to my life that are really toxic personalities. People do. People have parents that are toxic personalities. They have partners that are, you know, siblings. Like, people deal with that.

They deal with that all the time. I'm very lucky. My loved ones aren't, you know, aren't like that. I feel like I have this weird experience of it now because so much of my day is dominated by the president of United States and what he's doing. And, and yeah, I think I have some craving to get outside that a little bit. We just, we actually just launched a podcast. that called Wise is happening where I get to have kind of longer conversations with people

and outside of the specifics of the daily news cycle that tends to be so driven by the president and partly I think that's because that's nurturing of need I have to understand yeah talk about other stuff I mean just just to talk about you know I've been trying recently I just found myself so trapped in the news cycle just for my job that I've been trying to like read more books and just, you know, read novels. But don't you think, like, I listen to all your podcasts on the way in, and as far as you try to get away from them, they all circle back to Trump and what's going on now.

Like the conservative one, the, it's all, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean. As far out as you go, you always get to suck back into this thing. That's a good point. It was like the Middle East and was all about, like, but then it was like Kushner, what's going on in the Middle East, like, totally one of them. Yeah, no, and I think as we go further,

I think we want to try to push to go further afield. Part of it also is, I mean, the funny thing, about that, right? This comes back to this question about, you know, the plants growing towards the light. So I was like obsessively looking at the podcast numbers last night because I'm a crazy, compulsive, addicted junkie. Sounds like me.

Yeah. This is the... No, I stopped looking at my metacritic numbers like maybe three months ago. But, yeah, at one point, man, like... It's so sick. We all do it. I do it too. It's terrible. Yeah. Authors, man. You talk

to authors. They sit there just hitting refresh on that Amazon page looking at the ranking and it's like it's crazy. Don't even give me start with that shit. It's crazy. So I was looking at it last night and sure enough, right? We put out three episodes and one of them is, one is very explicitly about Trump and how he fits in conservatism. And lo and behold, that's the best performing one, right?

Which is not that surprising because the, even if there are people, I think like yourself, and I think that's not an uncommon experience, this sort of fatigue, there's also just this insatiable desire to try to understand. But it also felt like the most relatable. Sorry, I don't interrupt you. It felt like the most relatable, the one about conservatism, too. It was very black and white to me. It was like, this is, the guy you had on was.

Query, yeah, it was very explicit about what he, it felt very clear to me. Yeah. Is it hard to not insert your personal beliefs into a situation to be neutral? Because the thing is that this is the first, time in which I'm seeing being neutral being a dangerous thing. I mean, I guess I would. You're not neutral.

Yeah, I mean, you define yourself. No, no, no, I know that. But I'm just saying that is it the days of, you know, you're not knowing where Walter Conchrancourt. This may take a while. Royal George. Walter Cronkite. Yeah.

With Walter Cronkite or Peter Jennings or whatever. But the days of just asking the question. Yeah, it's done. And you know. Yeah, I think that the model that we have and that I have is that I'm not neutral, that I have a set of beliefs and a worldview that people know and are familiar with. But we try really hard on the show to be, what I would say would be fair and to be open-minded, to not take cheap shots, to not just tell ourselves things that feel good,

to not be hacks, right, so that, oh, well, this Republican was accused of sexual harassment, and ergo that person is terrible, and we're going to do a hip-piece segment on them. And then the next day, this Democrat was accused of sexual harassment. Like, we're just going to keep that out of the show. Okay. Like the other night, for instance, half-40 minutes before we went to air, Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, there was a piece of a new yorker. Right.

A devastating, horrifying piece in which he's alleged to be this, just sort of psychotically disgusting abuser. I mean, with women and his life... Ronan's piece. Yeah, Ronan's piece. Yikes. Ronan does, man.

People on the record, women on the record talking about this horrible physical and verbal abuse from him. And it broke at 720 and I was like, we're doing this in the show

because Eric Schneider has been on our show. And it's important that this, we don't, you know, if you were a Republican, we do it, if the Democrat, we do it. So there's a level at which,

like, we have our worldview, but we also are not just out there trying to play for a team, which is really important to me, like that we are good faith arbiters from the perspective of a set of values as opposed to a perspective of one of two tribes or one of two colors or one or two teams. But like when you were coming up,

we're fairly the same age, like you were saying, I feel like Peter Jennings and Dan Rather, they're all like trying to be the face of neutrality and try to present both things. When did you decide to really define yourself as being liberal? Because like your Wikipedia page it says a liberal commentary.

It feels like that's something you're very proud of or whatever. Well, for me, it started, I mean, it went the other way. So people that come up through TV have to be neutral, I think, as they come up. Because if you're the, you're reading the news in Des Moines or in Broward County or whatever, you got it. That's the way the business model works. And then if you, you know, you work your way up past that and you're doing other stuff. For me, I started as just a writer writing for explicitly ideological publication. where everybody knew. So the Nation magazine and in these times and Chicago Reader, a certain extent,

like, they were places where that was just part of the social contract with the reader. Like, the reader understood. They knew what they were getting. Yeah, and I think, you know, I read a lot of, a lot of different stuff from different ideological corners that I really like. Because to me, the big, the most important thing is just to be honest and up front and not be deceptive, right? So the sort of sneak attack, the kind of like, oh, well, this is just, when you're smuggling stuff in and you're not telling them, as opposed to you're saying like,

hey, I'm a conservative, and here's why I think, you know, X about the tax cuts or X about our cultural rod of Hollywood or whatever it is, that's interesting to me, and I can engage with that. It's the bad faith deception that I find a little unnerving. Well, actually, this could lead us into a colony in a nation,

which I always felt that the term liberal was sort of a dog whistle turn. that conservative media has come up with when they describe a journalist that considers black people, gay people, brown people, anyone not under the white male kind of umbrella as equals. I always felt as though that has been the sort of dog whistle term.

Of which you, there's a great part of it in chapter four where you really explain the genesis of the idea of white fear and that the fear of losing, knowing, acknowledging that you have an advantage

and that one day it could be lost. And I almost feel, that's where that falls under. So even, I mean, I consider, when I hear liberal, I feel that that's the hidden, the hidden four-letter word that, I mean, basically, you're telling the truth. Right. In my opinion. But of course, like, the way that we're programmed and built today, that it's kind of like,

you know, you have to preface with, you know, I'm neutral and I'm that sort of thing. So, like, how do you feel when you hear that title? I don't, you know, it's funny. Liberal, I never feel, I don't feel like there's really a great term that I feel like I want to embrace. Like, liberal doesn't feel quite right. Progressive doesn't feel quite right. Leftist doesn't feel, none of those feel quite right. I don't know what the right term is.

Like, what does the Fox journalist call themselves? Oh, you know, they say they're unbiased or they're, you know, I think Sean Hannity calls them. I think, that's not true. I think Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, they would all call themselves conservatives. I think they would say that they were conservatives. I think if I were to, you know, my biggest commitment I would, and this is a word that you, I think sounds annoying if you go around calling yourself this, but an egalitarian. I mean, I'm like, I'm really, my worldview is really ordered around equality and getting to equality and what a society with real genuine, that took equality seriously. look like and what that would mean for full human flourishing. I mean, you know, it's easy,

I think sometimes to lose sight. Everything gets so cramped of like, what is the project? Why are we as humans? Why do we build a democratic society? Why do we do any of this? What's the idea behind this all? And the idea is to facilitate human flourishing. The idea is everybody has an opportunity and a chance and is given the tools to flourish, to do things they love, to do things they enjoy, to be in relationships that are fulfilling to them, to go on vacations and play on the beach. I mean, that's the, that's the vision here. And there's a bunch of questions about how do you get that vision. But to me, when we have hierarchies and categorical systems that put some people on one side of a line and some people on the other of it, whether that's

through the way the economy works or in the case of a colony of nation policing, like that's the fundamental thing that I'm taken with that I think about is, are those hierarchies and getting to equality and ways that we can upend those hierarchies. When you were a kid, what were your aspirations as far as what you thought you were going to do as an adult when you were six or seven years old?

When I was six or seven, I probably wanted to be a basketball player, to be honest. That did not work out. I was barely a high school varsity basketball player, so I was a long way. Okay. But that philosophy degree from Brown.

Yeah, yeah, weirdly. Yeah, I knocked around the D-League for a bit. No, I would say that the two biggest things I thought about was something in some kind of way of like, I think I always wanted to perform in some ways. And then I think I wanted to be, I really wanted to be an intellectual, even at a really young age. Like I wanted to be a professor. You know, I want to be someone who learned for living and wrote books for living and, you know, engage with other people about ideas. And I think I wanted to do that even when I was really, really young. I think seven, eight, nine probably I wanted to do that.

That's weird because I feel like I was just forced into that position. Forced intellectualism? No, I mean, just forced into the whatever the teacher role that people expect me to be. Then I was like, well, what the fuck? Okay. What did you want to be? No, I was going to be a musician. From real young?

From the age of two. But the thing was is that because... Did you come from... My family, I came from a musical... Think the Black Partridge family. So I came from that sort of environment. But now that I think about it, it's either you're going to be a musician and

pursue and create art, which I think I did but then I get equal amounts of pleasure of studying other people's method of making art so it's like would I rather you know

go batch shit crazy over watching other people make art and marvel over it and figure out the process of how they did it versus me just doing it myself like my version of it I actually think that the former is what I gravitate towards. Really?

Yeah. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Cliverts Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream,

this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed

revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test. twice in selling, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected.

They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian, Michael Marincini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces,

consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Ameriopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, Never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends,

Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed.

I will be his last target. he's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I always think to myself, if I could be given any power or ability in the world,

I mean, the honest and lame answer is probably dunk of basketball. But if you put that aside, like really dunk. I mean, like, really. I don't mean like the just get me over. Like, I was the dude on YouTube. who trained for 10 months. Right. I mean, like,

throw down. Throw down. But I would say after that, the number one thing would be to, like, write a great song. That to me seems like the ultimate superpower, like to walk through Earth

and being able to do that. See, that's weird. I'd rather discover a great song. Like, in my mind, it's fascinating to me. Really? I know somewhere in, it's like, do I dream of like,

man, I'm going to write a great song that's going to change people's lives. And hey, it's me a writing song of the year and I'm holding my Grammy. I don't have those dreams. My dreams are, man, I know that Prince's fault. Let me in. Yeah, there's at least 41 songs.

At least of those thousands, I know at least there's 41 songs that could change my life. Got to get to them. Like, nothing will. Change other people's lives or just change your life? My life. It's just discovery.

You're saying discovery as opposed to creation. know what it was? Okay, so when, I'll give you an example. So maybe a month before the, the Purple Rain reissue came out. When, quote, My Connect gave me, uh, whatever the, the, the, whatever the final listing was going to be of the extra songs that were making it. He sent me a particular song. He sent me, uh, we can funk or we can fuck, uh, funk. Uh, funk. Funk. Um, funk. and I can't describe it to you but in hearing it and knowing that song already and heard it and it's different inclinations of in bootlegology at one point for a particular minute I was back to being that 13 year old that there's nothing like staring at the speaker discovering new music and how It just brought me back to 5212 O Sage Avenue and the bowl of my cereal bowl and the color television with the set, you know, with the antenna.

So yeah, it's just like I don't know if maybe, and maybe that's why I also obsess over, well, I've explained like, watch me obsessing over Soul Train isn't necessarily about me loving the show Soul Train, but more or less because every episode does a synesthesia thing with me that I can, I know what happened this particular day. I may, it be silly shit. Like, the most silliest one was like, Shalamar's first appearance on the show. Oh, I love that one. Shalemar's first appearance on the show in 1977, triggers off.

a can of Pathmark no frills spaghetti meatballs, which... The good stuff. Stop dismissing me, Steve, in my dreams. I'm just saying that... Stop a little of these dreams, Steve. That's what I do. It's... No, but it just takes me to a magical time in second grade at seven years old.

And I mean, it might be silly, but maybe that's how my memories are preserved. That's totally how mine are. Yeah. So it's almost... like I don't, I'm happy with, you know, the Grammys and stuff. But maybe that's why they're in my bathroom. Like, I don't dream of my own achievements more than I dream of preserving my memories. But I don't think that's, I think he was talking about what would be your best super,

your superpower he was said to write a great song. I'm not sure that that's answering. Right, but that's the thing. Like, I never, well, my whole point was that I never had those dreams for myself. more or less discovering other people's great songs. Right, and like putting, part of that taste maker and putting people onto things. I feel like that's your other great thing.

Because we have tastemakers on this show all the time, and that to me is always interesting, is watching you talk to those people because they can define the culture and define music and define things. I don't even know if I'm gonna put... See, that's why Bill is here. Like, Bill is my put people on... Right, but you're kind of...

I'm like 10 years that expired, though. Or that. He's old. He's old. That's the point. Well, yeah. But so you, but for you to be a, to be a teacher at such a young age, like. I just really liked, you know, I was a kid.

I grew up in the Bronx in the 1980s. My dad was a community organizer. My mom stayed home with us and then she did arts and education. So I was a real, I was like a middle class outer borough kid. I went to this gifted program that was a borough-wide. gift of program in the Bronx in the 80s which is a fascinating group of people

can you explain the bro because like a lot of us and by a lot of us I mean mean like I'm still thinking of come out and play yeah right right so you know pretty much that was right basically you look like one of those explain the Bronx and it's different

because even now like when I went to see Michael McDonald in the Bronx like I was like wait a minute people Well, the thing about the, first of all, New York City, New York City is enormous. Each borough is enormous. You're talking about a million and a half people somewhere thereabouts. Now, the Bronx in the 1980s was in a bad way. I mean, my dad's community organizing was basically focused on neighborhoods that were bordering the neighborhoods that were literally burning from like the Bronx is burning, right? So arson, disinvestment, huge spike in both in crime, in drug addiction, all those things.

he was doing community organizing in these neighborhoods that were sort of adjacent to those, trying to kind of hold the line against this scourge of disinvestment and flight that had taken place in the borough. You know, the world that I lived in was a really interesting world in grade school that I'm forever grateful to because it was very multiracial. I mean, the borough is probably, you know, 25% white. I'd never knew. Yeah, it's probably.

like it's 70 or 80% black and brown. And so the program, the school I went to, which was a borough wide program, you know, you just got really used to being one of only a few white people in spaces all the time in school and classes and dances and all in competitions and all that stuff. And I think it was a really good formative experience. And, you know, for all of the Bronx is burning warriors, all that. You know, it's a huge borough with a huge working middle class. And these were people whose parents, you know, owned a bodega, drove city buses, worked as bank tellers, you know, had working class, middle class jobs.

And, you know, it was not a place with a lot of privilege, but it was a fascinating and culturally explosive universe. I mean, we were exposed. I was exposed to... What year were you born? I'm sorry? I was born in 1979. So after the hip-hop explosion of...

Yeah, so it wasn't like the, you know, DJ Cool Herc, like, apartment party sort of formative years. But I do remember my friend Kamal telling me that his cousin was in a special ed music video and then showing me the dance. Oh, okay. I have a very live memory of that. Right. But so, so yeah, and I think that it just was a very, what was interesting about my upbringing and my upbringing in the Bronx particularly was because of my parents and their education level. And then we moved to this neighborhood that was more affluent than the one that I grew up in. And then I went to a magnet high school in New York City.

That's where a bunch of people went, including Limel Malo Miranda, a moral technique, a whole bunch of different books, Bobby Lopez, who's, you know, got an egot and wrote Avenue. Q and Frozen and with his wife and all these really interested in interesting, talented people. But because of that, I had a very interesting upbringing in which I was exposed to like the full spectrum of American class status. So everything from kids in my class who were in and out of homelessness, food stamps, or in housing projects, through people who had 15 room apartments on Park Avenue. From, from ages, you know, from the time I was born to the time I went away to college. I had social interactions and saw patches of life in each of those different worlds. And that was really a huge part of, I think, my formative experience.

I don't condone bullying, but still the thought of a moral technique being the school bully to you and when men was one of the most hilarious. It wasn't as funny at the time, but yes, in retrospect. back. I think when I first met you and didn't know that you knew Lynn when you were interviewing us about Hamilton, you two told me like, yeah, he used to throw us in the trash can,

which I was like... One of his best stories. He loves that story. I'm sorry. Okay. For hip-hop, for hip-hop verses. Like, what verse would you have to study in high school? The thing they were always making people

sing Bucktown. That was the thing. It was always sing Buckdown It was like putting people in trash cans Of making them sing Buckdown I'm sorry I don't know why That's one hip hop crime

I'll give a pass to I'm sorry Because I want to do that to kids now Sing Bucktown damn it Oh God So leading to a colony in a nation why did you feel it was necessary to do you see this as sort of a supplement to Tanahasi Coates's uh

Between the world and me I'm thinking of Tupac. Me against the world. Yeah, exactly. Same thing. He knows what he meant. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I hope it's a, I hope it's a, for a lot of people, I hope it's a kind of gateway to a whole, a whole massive literature from,

you know, racecraft by the, by Barbara and Karen Fields, between the world and me by Tonnesi to the New Jim Crow by Michelle Crow, by Michelle Alexander. There's a great book by James former Jr. that actually won the Pulitzer this year, came out right around the same time as a colony of nation called Locking Up Our Own, which is about the politics, crime and punishment in predominantly black neighborhoods and cities, which is a really fascinating book, a great book. The reason I wrote the book was I've always been really interested in criminal justice. I think the experience of growing up in New York City in the 80s and 90s during the peak of the kind of crime boom. I mean, 1993 or 1990.

The crack years? Yeah. When I was 13, I started commuting down to Manhattan. You know, New York City's got 2,400 murders a year. It's got about 350 last year. So, and that's true. All index crimes basically were the same, right? All index crimes basically reduced by 80% from the peak in 92, 93 when we were when I was,

a 13-year-old walking around getting my starter caps jacked like every other day. Whoa. First, you've been in the cap. Wait, what? Yeah, oh, yes. Slaving the cap. Wait a, wait a. Is that that the start a cap?

Yeah, but we went to starter cap. I just, sorry, that's what I brain went. Okay. So I wanted to write about it and I wanted to write about, I was covering, I was covering Ferguson, I was covering Baltimore, Freddie Gray. I was covering some of the stuff that went down. in Chicago even before Laquois MacDonald and our Garner here in New York and wanted to kind of write about it and was kind of worried about, I think I had a moment of, is this a book,

is this a topic that a white man should write a book about? And I think I came to believe that actually part of the problem with the way, I think particularly white people think about the system, even if they're sympathetic to the aims of say Black Lives Matter, is that it's essentially like some other ancillary problem. Like that's a thing that is a problem. It's not my problem. Like it's a bad thing and it's a bummer that happens. But I'm, I feel bad. I'm not implicated in it. It's like part of the point of the book is like, no, you very much are. We collectively as a democratic society, but particularly as white majorities and particularly these white voters have created this system that puts more people in prison than anywhere else in the

world in a per capita basis. It didn't just come about. It wasn't handed down by, you know, Moses, and it wasn't the product of backroom lobbyists. It was actually voters going to the polls and voting for people that ran really racist ads about getting tough on crimes and crack, you know, crack thugs and things like that. And so part of the project of the book is to say, look, you're implicated in the system. We all are as Democratic citizens, and the system that we've built fails to live up to the Democratic aspirations and promises we have. and so we should all be troubled by that and we should all be trying to unbuild that system

and that's sort of the idea behind why I wanted to write the book well as far as the target audience to whom it should hit how do you how do you propose not even reading not even reading your book per se but it's like how do you even plan the seed in people's minds, especially where we, the times that we live in now, where journalists aren't trusted that much, the idea of fake news and liberal media is just,

oh, you're just a liberal, which is like instant turnoff. So it's like, how do you, is it like, okay, let me just save the people that are on the fence now. I think, you know, it's a good question. And I, you know, the hope always, I think, when you're writing is that you can speak to people whoever they are if they're willing to give you a charitable read. The book, it's funny, watching now this sort of national conversation that started to click in a deer. Do you see the thing about T.I. today? No.

You see this? I was on the way way here. T.I. got arrested because someone called the cops on him as he was trying to get into his own gated community in Atlanta. Yeah, no, that's, it's real. Because sometimes you don't have your code. Yeah. Yeah. No, and someone was like, who's this? dude. Right. And I think as we're having this national conversation about there's a Starbucks incident, there's been a bunch of this and I think it's been really

really... Wait, he got arrested? There was an AP bulletin as I was coming up here saying the T.I. got arrested by breaking into his own house. For breaking into basically banging his own house. Damn, even the cops could remember like, oh, you're T.I. Yeah. Well, I don't... That's horrible. Clearly they didn't

go as well as I thought it would. So, you know, the book, A Colony Nation, like, it starts in ends on a question of when to call the cops. Like the first sentence of the book is, when's the last time you called the cops? And the last sentence of the book is recounting a story of me being a Proswick Park and taking on my phone and

considering whether I should dial 911. And the reason that I started and ended with that is because that is a thing that you know, Ferguson or the police shooting people might seem abstract to a citizen. Like, well, I'm not a cop. But people call the cops

a lot. You're part of the link in the chain. And I think it's really important we're having this discussion right now. We, I think primarily white people, and I think people that, you know, don't want to end up screwing people over about like, when should you call the cops? Right. Should you call the cops because someone has been at a Starbucks or two minutes or that people are going too slowly on the golf course? Like, I don't think so. I think you should not call the cops. I think you should not call the cops unless someone's life is in danger, basically. You know, if there is violence imminent or, you know, if there is violence imminent or. or that you witnessed. If there is a danger that you're witnessing, you should call 911. Short of that.

I think a lot of the times cops are used because people are generally just afraid of confrontation. Conflict. They don't want to say. Oh, of course. Of course. It's so much easier. I mean, and that's the...

You do my fighting for me, like... Yeah, and the first example I gave in the book is the last time I did call the cops was when watching a guy basically intimidate sort of threaten his girlfriend on the street and screaming at her. And yeah, I didn't want to go out there and be like, Hey, you, what are you doing?

Get your hands off of her. I was like, no, I'm going to make a phone call. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clever Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football,

or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast.

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You doctored this particular test twice in someone, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian, Michael Marantini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County

as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules

that any man should live by. Rule one, never. mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man.

A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. There's also a part of the book in which he explained that, which I'm actually shocked at the fact that, you were explaining about you coming home from a school dance and you got accosted by some undesirable

we call them thugs. Yeah. We call thugs. And somehow I was like, wow, like that would have instantly changed my mind. Because even in my head, to this day, when I visit my childhood home, I'm still looking for Big Reggie and his cousin Lamar. Yep, yep. Like, I'm certain, and I hate to say this,

I'm certain they're dead by now, which I shouldn't say this. No, it's still there. Even in getting out of my car, like, as a near 50-year-old, my first thing I thought about was Big Reggie Lamar. Might be down the block. Big Reggie Lamar. Hey, man, take someone's Pac-Man money and some big shit back in the early 80s.

So, yeah, and I, you know, like that one incident at the arcade in my childhood has almost scarred me for life where I'm always looking, you know, I'm shell-shocked and the fact that that happened to you. And I thought like, wow, at no point were you just like, dad, why the hell are we up here? And I should be living this life of, you know, and I don't know if the P word is a four-letter word to white people to say like privileged or anything but like we don't have to live here that like what why did you not ever actually what made you come to this point of understanding where most people don't do that i think that yeah there's a lot of you know we were scared all the time

and we we got and part of that was i think it was true of every teenager in new york city at that age like you just that happened you got jacked like run your loot run your bus pass, jacket, backpack, starter cap, whatever. You know, I think part of it was at the same time that was happening, the ethos at my high school and at my middle school and even in grade school, although more when you're an adolescent, you're thinking about like what's cool, everything that was cool was urban. Everything that was cool was emanated from communities of color. Like the center of gravity of everything culturally, of the worldview of what we wanted to be of the music we listened to, everything was it was non-white.

Right. So it, and I think there's ways that that can get real pathological and kind of fetishistic, you know, in certain ways. But our experience of it, I think, was just that, yeah, that was just part of being in the city, but the city was great and we were urban kids and that's what mattered. And that was the kind of cultural world we inhabited. So to you, that was just a part of growing up in New York? Yeah, I mean, it stressed me out a lot. It definitely, like, I spent a lot of time scared. I really did.

I walked around the city all the time. You know, my brother tells this hilarious story because when I was telling him about the book, he was talking about how, you know, we would all work, everyone wore Jansports. And the style was that you wore them, like, hitting against your butt, like, with the, you know, they were all the way low on you. Like, the, the loop was as big as possible. but that if you were about, if something was about to go down,

you would like preparatorily grab the straps and pull them up to tighten because you were going to have to book it and you didn't want it like, Bill was laughing in recognition. Bill did that in Indiana for sure. I'm having flashbacks right now. Yeah.

Like, Bill, you're like seven feet tall. Didn't matter. Just the moment, the moment right before shit was going to go down was always like strap them up. Like pull the, pull the, Pull the straps on the jansport so you could book. So you can book. Okay.

So you, you, you, you, uh, thanks, Steve. What? Do people not say book? It's an old school turn. Yeah. I get it. It's like when I say, when I call my, I call my wife boo. And, and the millennials in my office are like, what are you saying?

Book is, book is much older. than boo. Yeah, that's true. You explained how, you know, because you're saying that at one point crime was at an all-time high. Yeah. And then suddenly it stopped. And now as a new New Yorker, I always wondered about that because when I first arrived in New York City. When did you move here?

well okay I'd moved here in 2009 which I'm in gentrification they're already taken over but I'm talking about when we as a group first started to record up here I mean we would stay here but

I mean I guess technically maybe I'd have lived here for 25 years and just haven't admitted it yeah but but the thing was is that when we first moved ironically or in 46th Street where Hamilton is right now.

Everyone kept complaining about the Disney, the Disney-fied occasion of Times Square, which I didn't know any better. Like, I didn't get that they were longing for what was, I didn't, and I didn't even know that was there. And I was like, wait, this is great. Like, it's like a mall. And there's Roy Rogers chicken across the street.

And there's a McDonald's over there. And there's a movie theater. Like, this is really awesome. And people are like, everyone complained. about that happening. And then even more recently in looking for homeless people,

I discovered that they've all been moved out of Manhattan. So... Why were you looking for homeless people? I did a... We did a photo shoot in which they ordered way too much food and the interns were about to throw like 20 boxes of pizza way perfectly good

and I was like no let's give them to the homeless but then it was like a two hour search for that's fascinating yeah like I found people in Brooklyn at a near a shelter but

at 42nd Street when I was going through the bus station the cop was like Westlaw I was like I didn't do it and I hit him I was like yo I said I thought I'd come here with you know the bus station but

where the people at? And they kind of laughed at each other like a joke like, isn't that cute? It's, nah, man, you can't go find nothing down here. And I was like, what happened to them? And he kind of level with me. He's a black dude, so he just level with me. Like, yeah, dog, they don't want a homeless anymore.

Like, they up and, like, pass the Bronx, like in Yonkers. And I was just like, oh, so it wasn't, because when people say those stats, like, you know, crime is going down and homelessness and da-da-da-da. You're made to think, like, suddenly, like, you know, there are more jobs and people and less crime because people were more moral. But, no, like, either people have been killed or thrown in jail or just displaced and put, yeah, he explained about the one-way ticket system that I never knew about. There was a period in, I think, 2001 where if they put you on a plane or a bus, then some of you. one's on the other side to get you. That's how they got rid of you, which isn't necessarily

fixing the situation either. Yeah, there's two things about, I think, the way the city changed. One is that it really did get less dangerous. But then there's this ambient thing I talk about in the book of just like seediness. And that was such a part of what the experience of New York was, which was a little related to the threat of danger, but also just this kind of ambient thing of there were squeegee men who would come and there were a lot of panhandlers. And there were people all the time who were kind of like quasi living in subway stations and it had this feeling. You see a lot of discourse about this around San Francisco right now. They're constantly writing about that.

Like, oh, there's all these drug addicts or all these homeless. And New York City was very much had that feeling to it. And it was a real thing. And this sense of like cleaning it up, which is very loaded politically in terms of what it means. And for whom? Particularly in Manhattan, right? I mean, particularly it's like, well, we're going to clean up midtown. We're going to clean up downtown.

clean up the financial district, clean up Brian Park. That was all this very much kind of business-oriented thing, much more than, you know, communities coming together because they wanted it for their neighborhood. But one of the complicated things about this, right, is that folks who live in neighborhoods don't love a bunch of people hanging out outside the liquor store either, a lot of times.

Like, it's not always just this external thing of, you know, the business district or this power structure from outside. there's always, this is one of the things that James Warmer Jr. talks about in his book, locking up our own is like the internal dynamics of neighborhoods about who's, you know. I'm sorry, side note, I kind of missed the neighborhood wino. I haven't seen a good wino in about 20 years. You've been searching the wrong place, apparently. Oh, man, I just missed the neighborhood winnow.

I'm sorry, go ahead, Chris. So there was a real transformation that happened in the city and the experience of it. And that experience was, that was a very intentional thing that was done by Giuliani. in Bloomberg, broken windows I write about in the book, like this whole thing about how there's a whole theory that there's a relationship between those two things, that if people are jumping turnstiles, it sends a message to everyone else that lawlessness is okay and then you get lots of murder. And that was the argument. And a lot of people, it wasn't a bad faith argument. I think people really believe that argument. But what ended up happening is the city starts enforcing these

low-level misdemeanor thing, selling M&Ms on the subway jumping turnstile. aisles, yada, yada, yada. You can't sell M&Ms on the subway no one? People get those little kids. People get citations for selling M&Ms on the subway every day and you're. Putting their feet up on the seat. Or putting their feet up or doing the showtime thing. Oh, yeah.

Showtime. No more performances? Move up. Move up. No. Steve prevents me from getting on the subway, so I would have actually seen this. I suggested that he and I take the subway down there and Steve has this thing in his mind where he has to be my protector. It's not the most pleasant place to be, you know, as a celebrity.

right if that's ever in the subway with him and like nobody I had a hoodie on I rode a celebrity with a tuxedo on with the rest of the roots and no one bothered us really it was like Obama was in town did you see that Instagram of the when the calves were in town when the Cavs were in town where they were on the subway they were on the subway they were on the subway like it was like the whole Cavs squad taking the subway to Madison Square Garden when they were in town to play the Knicks and I forget what happened but LeBron is definitely on there he's got a hoodie on and I think no one recognized I'm pretty sure that sure no one recognized them. I can't remember. But it's a really funny. Like there's, there's a woman next to LeBron, I think who's kind of like making a face because they're like acting the fool a little bit.

Right. And she doesn't like them acting up, but has no idea that she's next to like literally one of the most famous people on earth. Right. See? Let's take it. That's a squad of eight foot black guys.

And instead of me and you on the subway. That's a different thing. Big Steve and little mirror. A mirror. A new projection. So, where do you see do you see an end of the

to this nightmare? Why does everybody laughing? But the thing is, if the nightmare ends but if the nightmare ends then we won't watch the news I'm not saying you yourself are like more. Thanks a lot, man.

Well, didn't let's move that said? Bad for the country, good for us. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the answer. I don't know how it ends. I really don't. I think everyone So you don't have a vision of your head of like, okay, so, you know,

you got to check your phone every 12 seconds to see if Michael... That I do. That I do. Michael Cohen got indicted. No, he didn't. I'm saying, check on my phone to see if he did. Oh, oh, dude. I'm like, really good. Actually, Manny Pittigkin's come back in and tell us. He'll sing it. But do you...

But do you have this vision... Sorry, go ahead. I'm doing all my Manny Pittikin'it stick. Enroll. Go. Do you have this vision of, like, all of them getting arrested in slow, motion and you know yeah I mean look I think everybody has their own kind of fantasies about how it all ends and you know I think there's some I feel like it's going to happen but I here's my can I my my thing about this which is a little school marmish but I'll I'll do it anyway which is that I think people

want some deliverance they want a white knight they want a day as ex machina they want some way to be rescued they want the bad guys to get carted away they want Bob Mueller to sort of ride in and slay the dragon and my thing about this which is the same theme of the the book is it's just us in a democracy. Like, it's just us. It's us as citizens. It's we. No one's going to do it for you.

The work, like, that's just the way it works. It's the hard thing about democracies is they're freaking, they take a lot of exertion to make them work well. You can outsource all that shit. You can say, I'm, you know, I trust these people in charge are just going to do it. I'm going to show up to vote or maybe even not vote, but at the minimum, just show up and vote and be like, okay. But so even in the hands of Stormy's a lawyer Michael Avinati

I mean he's a great character Do you roll your eyes at him But do you not feel as though he has traction He's got traction man Do your thing dude I don't like I don't begrudge anyone anything Everyone's doing all this stuff I'm just saying

The ending will I think the ending will be written by us Collectively as a society As opposed to some squad of Elliot Ness untouchables That bring down the ring And even though even though I think that

there's a possibility that Bob Mueller does like indict a lot of people, don't get me wrong. I think they probably, I think people in the president's circle definitely committed crimes. That's already been established, but even worse than we know, I just think that in a deeper sense of will it be okay, the answer of that question lies of us

as opposed to someone else. Do you believe that Mueller is, all right, to compare this to like a police drama, instead of arresting the corner boy okay instead of arresting the corner boy and his drug dealer boss that Mueller is actually trying to

cast a wideness amongst anyone involved like this is a bigger story even bigger than Trump being president I think he has gone all indications on the outside is that he has gone about this in both a methodical way and in the kind of way that you would attempt to go after a roll up and organize crime ring.

And I think that's been pretty clear. I mean, the stories, the craziest stories to me are the international stories where, you know, some oligarch shows up on a private jet in Kennedy and gets off the plane and it's like, excuse me, sir, with the FBI come with us and like search his phones, question on that whole thing. And that's happened multiple times to multiple people. They've got agents working overseas. So, you know, there's a lot going on in that. I don't know what ultimately that will bear out, but I do have a fair amount of faith in the, in the diligence with which they're approaching that job.

I just don't know. Okay, so in your version, this is my last question, your version of all the presidents have been, who's playing you in the movie? And I'm slowly. Nice. Go ahead, go ahead. Who's who's playing you? Mandy Patinkin. Mandy Patinkin.

There you go. Mandy Patinkin. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, Chris Hayes, for enlightening us. Hopefully you're not too traumatized right now. On behalf of Boss Bill, I'm Dave Bill, and Sugar Steve. This is Questlove, Quest Love Supreme, only on Pandora. We will see you on the next go-round. Questlove Supreme is a production of I-Heart Radio.

This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from I-HeartRadio, visit the I-HartRadio at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey,

or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok's podcast network on TikTok. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I got you. I'm Ago Wode. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar. of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.