The Watch - Ep. 77: 'Designated Survivor' and Political TV Coverage With Jon Favreau

Episode Date: September 19, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan, Andy Greenwald, and Jon Favreau team up to break down ABC's new political drama, 'Designated Survivor.' Then, the trio dives into the current political landscape on television and Trump's appearance on 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Jaguar, the art of performance. To learn more about the all-new Jaguar XE, visit jaguarUSA.com. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Hello. And welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer.com.

And joining me in the studio is Andy Greenwald and the Jack Bauer of American speechwriting, John Fabro. Whoa, he got my intro. Wow. That was pretty, yeah, I just cut it right out there. You know, I'm noticing we do a lot of semiotics talk here. You guys are literally having a conversation, and I'm just sort of off to the side. I'm conversation adjase. This is a very special episode of the watch.

It's sort of a crossover pod. Cross pod. It's the watch that everyone's been asking for it. Meets Keeping in 1600. John is nice enough to join us to talk about one of the most hotly anticipated shows that's come across our radar in a long time. At least in the second term. Designated Survivor. starring Kiefer Sutherland.

Now, unfortunately, Dan Fifer could not join us today. So Dan is the designated podcast host. That's right. Should something happen here to the studio? Dan can host all the pods. The watch, keep it 1600. Dan can be like San Vesmil, what's up? But we wanted to talk about the show Designated Survivors.

It's on ABC this week. I believe it's on Wednesday? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we're going to talk about it. We've seen the episode. We're going to talk about it. Look, in the promo clips for this episode, it's very clear what happens.

Kiefer Sutherland, who is stars as Tom Kirkman. Is it Kirkman or Kirkland? I think it's Kirkman. Kirkman. Kirkman is a stronger name than Corny. This is why I'm on the side of the mic. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the United States of America. And he is the designated survivor.

We're going to go into what that is. And he is basically like the guy who's kept away from the State of the Union address so that were the catastrophe to happen, he would be next in line for the presidency. Wouldn't you know it? That exact thing happens in the first 30 seconds of the state. this episode and it's been promoted very heavily. So we're going to have quote unquote spoilers, live a little. If you want, you can listen to this now. Otherwise, wait until the episode comes on, listen to it then. But we're so happy to have John here to give us a little bit of insight.

Because when you have something as realistic and just finally detailed as designated survivor, you need a guide. And I want to talk to you, John, about, obviously, crafting State of the Union speeches, about the designated survivor protocol, about just the accuracy that's throughout this show. Obviously, one detail, and I apologize that this is a slight spoiler, but one detail about the show really jumps out of me. I need your POV on, your insider POV. How much of a role did Dobstap play in your day-to-day life as a speechwriter in the Obama White House? Why don't you tell people where you were just giving a little bit? I don't want to spoil too much.

I just want you to know that Dobstap and a teen's interest in Dobsstep plays a vital role in this play. It's an entire plot line. It is. It is. As it has been, as it was in my life in politics. That's amazing, because there's the A plot, which is the capital building of the United States of America is destroyed, along with all of Congress and all the cabinet, save for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Jack Bauer.

And then there's a B plot where a teenager goes to a dubstep concert. Yeah. And he has to be pulled out by the Secret Service. Who probably were just, you know. It sort of reminded me of the Zoe Bartlett gets kidnapped plot line from the West Wing. Or I thought something like that was going to happen. that ever happened to Elisha Cuthbert on 24. Or one of our favorite films, Chris Spartan.

That's right. Where Kristen Bell, I believe, is lifted from some sort of nightclub. I bet David Mammett should get right in credit on designated survivor. But I'm stepping over with John. Like, just dubstep politics, like, talk us through it. I never had any experience with dubstep during the speech writing process. Can I put it this way? Were you ever aware of the Obama kids' listening habits, like their music?

I have been recently. I think their big, they're big. They're big chance fans. Yeah. Malia is for sure. Yeah, yeah. Because I think she's been doing playlists for, she's been putting together a playlist for her dad.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Wow, because he's been putting playlist together for we Americans. So it's good that he has someone. Yeah, I think his daughter may have had something to do with that. What is being president but putting together a playlist for America? That's beautiful. Yeah.

We will get into the minutia of your former life and job that we're very interested in. But we have to talk Des, what are we going to call the show? Desigsov. What's the, what's the, It doesn't. It's designated survivor. Okay, so big picture, this is a real thing, the designated survivor thing. Is it chosen with real care or is it just sort of a thing that is completely random? It's completely random.

Is it really? Is it like a lottery else? And I didn't know that. And then, you know, once I got to the White House and we started working on the State of the Union, it's sometimes they, sometimes the designated survivor is chosen based on like are there programs or policies? policy's going to be a highlight of the state of the union. In which case, you get them far away so that they don't steal the spotlight. Like, if you're going to call out a certain cabinet secretary during the speech, you can't have that person. It can't be like Maggie Smith at the Emmys. Right. And so there were years where, you can have better things to do.

I remember there were years where, like, education would be a big deal in the speech. And therefore, Arne Duncan, who was the education secretary at the time, could not be the designated survivor. I mean, it's always good to put Arne as designated survivor because he's probably the best pickup basketball player ever seen in my life. Right. So should the aliens that wiped out the capital and want to play five-on-five? I think he had to stop playing in the Celebrity All-Star game at All-Star Weekend because he was too good. That's definitely probably why he... Because he played again the year he was out.

Yeah. I remember. Yeah. He was bad. Okay. So if you have something that's in the speech, you got to be in attendance. Generally with State of Union, is it like easy to get tickets? Is it easy to attend or is it really difficult to get in? It's very difficult to get in, usually. Although members of Congress have a certain number of invites.

Okay. that they can give out to people. I went a couple times just because I figured it was a cool thing to do. Yeah, that's a bucket list. And one time the deputy chief of staff, Alyssa Master Monaco, gave me an extra ticket, so I brought my dad. Oh, that's cool. And it was like the highlight of his life,

and he immediately went to various MSNBC stars, like Ed Schultz and others, and introduced himself as the speechwriter's father, which once the state of the union was over, I was watching Ennis NBC and like Chris Matthews and they're all talking and they're just and and and Schultz was like I just ran into Mark Favrell who's the father of the speechwriter and I was like what has happened? Everything is material. Did you stop attending the state of the union because someone in the cabinet noticed you mouthing the words while the president was saying them? And you were just like yes.

No, you really, I got a better view on television. It's hard to watch it from in there. Oh yeah. It's like like a football game by that. Yeah. It's not a good view. Also that something might happen like what happened on television. designated survivor.

Right. Yes. Well, thank you for, you are the veteran. How about that segue? Who's the best podcast host here? So in designated survivor, CalPem plays a speechwriter, plays any surviving speechwriter. Is there a designated survivor speechwriter? There's not.

Oh, gosh. They're replaceable. Well, most of the speechwriters aren't at the state of the union. Okay. So there's playing speech writers. There's a full stock of speech writers should something happen. Was his desktop setup accurate? Because he had a very, very large screen.

and then a secondary screen. Absolutely. Really? If we're talking about accuracy in that show, Cal's computer was... It seemed like he was working through a weird interface.

Did you guys type speeches into like a secure platform? No. Oh, okay. It's just Google Docs. If you were working with classified information, which, you know,

almost by its definition should not be in a speech. Sure. But you'd be on a separate computer. It should be in a private email server. Crosspot. Nailed it.

Now we're going to talk about our home brew servers. No, we walked into the White House in 2009 and everyone had gateway desktops. It was awful. The technology did not catch up for a very long time. Wow. But by the end, they gave you these screens that you could tilt so they could go vertically.

Nice. Which for speech writers was actually quite helpful. Oh, okay. Because you could see a whole, yeah, you could look up and it's an up and down screen. And did his, I mean, we will focus on the speech writing part for now. So in the show, obviously, there is a catastrophe. And then the speech writer, you know, the FBI agent starts FBI agenting. and the speech writer starts speech trading.

Who I imagine is also an accurate representation of what all FBI agents look like. This show is just dead on. He basically has to pick himself up off the bathroom floor because he's so shaken up by this event and immediately start doing what he does. Obviously, you were lucky enough not, and we as a country were lucky enough

not to have a catastrophe like this happened. But you have to really just be able to just start writing words and speeches and pulling stuff, right? Like that aspect of it was active. Yeah, you would have to just start. I mean, we had, look, the tough part about speech rating when you're in an environment like that in the White House is if something happens in the world, someone dies. There's a catastrophe. The president has to go out and make a statement, and the president doesn't have a lot of time to go out and make a statement.

Because if he doesn't make one within an hour, suddenly everyone's like, why isn't Obama saying anything? Yeah, right. So you really only have, that's the toughest writing assignment right there is when you have like 30 minutes to write a statement that is of significant importance. And what is the first step? Because the thing that I'm always curious about is that you have to contextualize that. You have to have a grasp of the issues. You have to know what he's going to say almost more than what you have in the statement, right? I think the first step is probably to be like, holy fucking shit, the capital building.

No, that's step one. And we're going to come back to that. I know we're getting off topic here. Step two, I believe, would be www.wikipedia.com, like, tell me about Suez Canal. Just Googling designated survivor. Really? Like, how much time, say you have like, you have an X amount of time to make a statement on something that happened in the world.

How much of that time is spent being like, no, really, tell me what this is about. Well, so the fastest I ever had to write something was, I remember I woke up one morning. It's like 6.30 a.m. I look at my Blackberry. It was back when there was Blackberry still. And no emails, no news,

going to the shower, five minutes come out. And in like the five minutes I was in the bathroom, there were 100 emails on my Blackberry. And it's because they had just announced that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, something that. Absolutely no one was expected Including Barack Obama

And they were like he has to speak about this In an hour Did you think you were being pranked I did think out I thought I was being prank And we had to go into the White House And immediately I like Drove in as fast as I could because he was going to speak at like 9 a.m.

And Ben Rhodes and me and David Axorod Just huddled around my computer And tried to bang out a statement But it's like what do you say I mean A he had to be appropriately humble And say I can't believe I won this But B he can't say like no, I don't want it.

Yeah, but there also had to be a little bit of WTF, too. Like, I know that I maybe don't deserve this hat. That was immediately on our mind, so we had to say that. And then, you know, AXRod told us what the, what Malian Sasha's reaction were when they found out. I guess they told him. I can't remember who it was, but one of the girls told him. woke him up and said, like, Daddy, it's, it's Bo's birthday, and it's a three-day weekend, and he won the Nobel Prize.

And it, like, came out all like that. He's like, Nobel Prize for what? But it's little things like that. So we heard that story. I'm like, great. That's an anecdote. Let's put that at the top. That'll take up some words. What do they do for Bo's birthday? Yeah, seriously.

That was Cuttergram Floor stuff. Oh, okay. Was Obama ever like, I got this? I don't need a speech. I can just, I can just rip on this. Because he's a writer too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once in a while when something came up, he'd be like, don't, he'd usually resist getting something. Okay. Right. Like, he only needs something if he, it was something of national security importance or, I mean, like, something where he has to say the words exactly right. Right. So he wants, and then he's usually involved in the writing of that as well. One other thing about the show that struck me is that we don't really spend much time with the president before he gets blowed up.

But there is one just devastatingly handsome aide who is very close to the president who immediately becomes involved with Tom Kirkman's nascent presidency. Judging by his dashing good looks. Adon Kanto, who played Sunspot in some of our X-Men films. Judging by his feature film star Good Looks, he played a superhero. I assume he's based on Dan Pfeiffer, which is why he couldn't join us today. Is there one devastatingly handsome gatekeeper? to the president? Like, is this guy basically a composite of, like, the chief of staff or the body man?

Yeah, I don't know who that was. He's supposed to be the assistant chief of staff or deputy chief of staff. He'd the one who didn't get blown up. Yeah, right. So I think the regular chief of staff is gone until November. Definitely a composite of multiple characters. There's, like, the body man. Right.

That's what Reggie Love was for a long time. There's deputy chiefs of staff that aren't usually like the direct gatekeeper. There's like the president's personal assistant, but there's a group of people are at them. There's not just one devastatingly handsome. But if there was someone devastatingly handsome. But if there was someone who was that handsome, maybe he would be able to, like, you know, basically collect all the power and be that person. That's right. That's possible. Which is what I think we saw in designated Survivor.

There's also a moment in Designated Survivor where Tom... I love that we just keep saying Designated Survivor. It is a mouthful. The more you say it. There's an issue where... Due to the chaos of the event, a young woman who works for Kiefer Sutherland's character is unable to storm into the White House when it's on full lockdown. Luckily, they yada yada at that part, and then she does get in. Yeah.

Can you be on the list? Like, can you just be like, no, no, check the guest list, I promise. So that, you have to have a blue badge. So if you have a blue badge, you can walk in and out of the West Wing whenever you want. If your office is in the executive office building, which is next to the West Wing, usually, unless you're like a senior, senior staffer, then you will have a green badge, meaning that you have, you can't just walk in and out of the West Wing whenever you want. So because she was at a cabinet agency, HUD, most staffers at HUD probably couldn't walk in and out of the White House.

Can we talk a little bit about cabinet? Yes, yeah. This is what our listeners thirst for. I don't want to denigrate any of the great work that anybody in housing or development,

agriculture, interior. What is some other cabinet? I mean, there's obviously state and treasury and all that stuff. Yeah, there's state, Chris. That's a state's one. Defense is one. Defense is one.

That's a good one. What is like probably, does it feel like almost a team where there's like a guy at the back of the bench who's like Yeah. And what? As politely as

possible. Is there, what is I have a lot of friends who are at cabinet agencies? Is it clicky to the sense where like, obviously we know from. Because when he comes in the beginning of the episode and he's like, I have a lot of great programs. I'm hoping to get in the state of the union. And they're just like, yeah.

So not only are you not, but we're going to fire you and make you go be the aviation minister to Canada. I mean, as a speech writer, I had problems with that because like the state of the union is, I used to say to people who try to get the president to like mention their programs. I'd say like the president is not your PA system. Right. That's great. The president's features are not to just like list off various programs. Right. So I would, no matter what your cabinet agency was or whether you were like a White House policy

staffer, we try to really think about what policy pronouncements are in a state of the union and specific programs at a random agency. Right. Not even a random agency. An important agency. Sometimes you're just like, we'll do a whole event about that later. But we're not going to put it in the state of the union because it's going to sound like a laundry list. But separate apart from the state of the union, we know from.

such other accurate entertainment such as like House of Cards. And when there's the horse trading, when they're like, I want state. Otherwise I'll reveal that you, you know, step. Through Cape Mare in front of a train. Or like trade your favorite barbecue chef. But, and they're like, not state, you get

interior. Like, fuck you. You have to, can we just pull a curtain back at last day when we were watching the Emmys? Greenwald saw Reggie Kathy walk in and then those two guys have like their argument. And he was like, the Emmy clip. Is the, he's like, is the barbecue guys still on House of Car? Of cards just pivoted late in the game to be about Kevin Spacey just bankrolling Freddy's

Barbecue shack again, I would watch it. That is more interesting to me. Freddy's barbecue. It's a whole show. It's like the bar. It's like Phil's place in Murphy Brown, right? It's like a place where powerful meat. I would load if they did that but with like a Marco Polo budget.

Yes. With a bloodline budget. A quarter of a billion dollars to blow the lid off the political influence in the barbecue industry. But my very serious question, we know about the horse trading where people are like, I want in the cabinet, I want this position, this position. Right. Once the administration is up and running, like you are, you are happening, you are the government. Is it still kind of clicky? Are people like, you know, you get to see the table today, but...

I think there's always tension between the cabinet agencies and the White House because, you know, they just think that they're like, they feel like they're separate, right? Because it's like a physical thing, right? They're not in the White House all the time. And so sometimes you feel like, oh, the administration's not listening to us. But I don't know. I think, at least when I was there, the first round of cabinet secretaries, just about all of them were like very important advisors to the president also. Right. You know? And so he had a cabinet where there was a lot of people. I mean, he had quite an all-star cabinet in those first couple years of people who had been like governors in their own right and, you know, big deals.

But also it depends on the administration because, you know, one of the things that you guys did so well on keeping 1600 was push Tom Perez. That's right. And screaming to the limelight. an incredible surrogate for the president and for Hillary Clinton and worthwhile. He was on the short list for VIII. Thanks to you guys. That's right. We did that.

The Tom Perez boom. But the bigger point to me is that in a different administration, the labor secretary might not be an important figure, but in a labor-friendly administration, he is. So one could assume, I don't want to read too much into this. Maybe we're going to get some backstory in terms of before the council of one boom. I'm sure, Tom, that there. But the president, you know, who, was with us for fours of seconds on screen,

doesn't seem to be a real housing advocate. I want to ask you this. Or urban development, anti-urban development. Because here's what my move would be. Let's say I'm secretary of the interior. That's my move, right? I'm going full team of rivals. I'm going aloof.

And if I am talking, I'm a dick. I'm just like, nope. Team of rivals. I disagree. You just keep saying that? Yeah, exactly. No matter what. Shout out of yours.

Just wait for them to fire here. Yeah, right. No, but then I'll go straight up. I'm secretary of the interior. speak for the trees. Exactly. Yeah. Is that what the interior guys do?

The interior, I know this because one of my very, very good friends is deputy chief of staff interior. And they basically go around and make things national parks. That's what they've done. So they go to a piece of land and it's beautiful and they say this is now a national park. But that would be tough if the president was like, I want to make more parks. And you're like, no, we got too many parks. Guess what?

Let me prove something right back at you. I'm a team of rivalsing this. Too many parks. What if we had less parks? Run on that. Let's talk a little bit about. about the show. Can you...

At minute 27. No, I want to hear from John. Where does Keith or Sutherland sit in your constellation of favorite stars? Like, is he a bright one? Is dimmer? I was a fan of 24. Okay. I watched...

I think I missed, like, didn't they come back with like an extra... And now they're coming back with a reboot of it. I didn't see those. You're purest. Back in the day, I watched all the 24s. Did you watch 24? The first few seasons... I mean, it was incredible the first couple of seasons.

Incredible. Yeah. I will say it's, since that's my main, that's my main reference point for people, this is my thing. Yeah. Like, I'm not, some, like, 35 and I don't, like, I didn't watch all of Kiefer Sutherland's movies way back in the day. But I watched him on 24.

He's like, so it's, it was a little jarring and designated survivor to see like a super toned down Jack Bauer, who's like a nerdy HUD secretary. Now, maybe that's part of his character. Maybe he's going to become Jeffbauer. This is the question I have. Was this. just typical network TV like over showing

you know over explaining everything to have him in an Ivy League sweatshirt every second he's on screen to be like he's smart he's smart or was it just like I you know I'm just or was it the first note from the daly's like I don't buy it why isn't he shooting the rude speechwriter in the kneecap

we need to put him in a doughy sweatshirt from an Ivy League college and not even one of the tough ones I think it's like Cornell every time somebody said anything bad to Kiefer Sutherland, whether it was the general or Cal Penn, I was just like, he's going to make this guy eat a light bulb. He's going to He's kind of, when you see

Keeper Sutherland on this guy's nipples, this is going to be amazing. When you see Kiefer Sutherland in a situation room type environment. Yeah. And Cal's sitting there just destroying him, and he just kind of takes it. You're like, come on, man. Keeper Sutherland. You are keep, act like it. Hang him out of windows. Come on. Get your way. Here's here's my big, I'm going to

put on a little TV critic hat. Okay. The thing about when I was watching this show is that every year, you know, these networks try to come up with bigger and bigger concepts. They try to come up with the idea that's going to be killer. It's going to get people to watch. It's going to, you're going to sell it on the poster. This is a good idea. This is a very good idea that people get almost right away.

And obviously, it has a lot of marketing muscle behind it. They got Kiefer Sutherland. They got him to wear a sweatshirt. It's go, go, go. Like, this is a good one. But it bummed me out watching it because it was a network TV show. because all of the things about this idea that really could have been fodder for a more interesting cable show or a show that just wasn't as, just didn't have to hit the notes where, you know, Chris, you said that correctly,

that the capital gets blowed up in 30 seconds. But the previous 30 seconds are just noted to death dialogue between Kiefer Sutherland and his wife, Natasha McElan, where they're just like, how is our daughter? I love our daughter. I love our family. You can't let her get away with everything, but I'm her father. I'm a good father. Like, it was all of this just obvious on the nose.

and also within the show's 48 minute without commercial runtime. Like, there's a line where a newscaster is like, the worst tragedy since 9-11. I'm like, quick edit. This is, no offense. Like, this is maybe worse. Like, this is a really, really, really intense,

crazy terrorist act. And yet there's still time for meetcutes and still time for, like, lovey-dovey moments and smiles. Okay, so I have a counterpoint. Yeah. This show is incredibly stupid and a bad idea. Yeah.

and is actually executed quite well. Wow. This is the Crossfire podcast. Wow. This really is a crossover. Okay, so there's no way there can be a third episode of this show. And we were just talking to John Lovett on the way into here. And he was like, what's the deal?

So now that he's not, he's no longer the designated survivor, he's just the president. They changed the title next week. Yeah, it's just called the president. Jack Bauer president. Love its analogy was he's like, what if they called Friends Runaway Bride? But my point is... He's gonna fix Hollywood. This is such a stupid idea.

You would love it to do the podcast. You guys could have this town figured out in 45 minutes. So it's a really dumb idea. But what I really responded to, because yesterday I was kind of dragging my feet, I'm like, I gotta watch this, I got to watch this. And I was like, I've been watching all these, like, prestige dramas, and they're so good,

and they're just, like, so measured. And it's like, this person scratching their beard and looking at the Mississippi River and being sad. This is so breaking. neck. I don't even have time to be like, why is Maggie Q watching the Capitol burn on a television in a Georgetown bar and grill when she's in the fucking FBI? And she's like, oh, do you need me? Do I need to get to work? FBI agents can get a night after us. They can unwind. It's a stressful job. The whole reality of this show is so stupid. It's lifespan. Kiefer's

Sutherland when he saw the pilot script for this, apparently said, I could see the next 10 years of my life. Now, whether or not term limits actually are coming into play here. and designated survivor. I'm not sure. But I can't see this being a 10-year show. But that's why I... A couple things I'll say about the show. One, I'm very excited to see the second episode.

So it's got me hooked. Okay. But that's partly why. Because I'm like, where's this going to go? What happened? Why did the explosion happen? What kind of president is he? Obviously, it seems like he stays on and doesn't quit.

But is the whole show about people trying to stage a coup and get him out? Like, what is his day-to-day existence? Does it become like 24? Yeah. Is it just him fighting bad guys? That would be awesome. My feeling is that it might be like that for a while. And then like next year when,

site season two, when President Kirkman has to deliver a state of the union speech. And then he blows up. He blows up. And then dumpstep kid becomes the designated service. The whole whole episode is just like, who should be the designated survivor? And it's just like, you know, day player, day player, day player,

Leah fucking Shriver. As the secretary of the interior, he's like, I love trees. Who is the next male actor who needs to be the designated survivor? This is a really good question that I wish we had prepared for. Yeah. We weren't live in front of microphones. Is there anybody from the cast of Young Guns?

Is Lou Diamond next? Is Emilio next? LDP could do it. Yeah. I feel like after last night to Emmys, I want Courtney B. Vance as the designated survivors. That's good. Obama! I want Courtney B. Vance at the Emmys as the designated survivor.

He's just lit. He's just like, I'm done saying what's a national park. Oh, no, now I have to be the president again. We can sort of wind down our designated survivor. So you're out. You're not going to keep watching. Well, no, I mean, I think that this is, it's one of those best-case scenario network pilots. And it is absolutely emblematic of what networks want a pilot to be.

And in that, you know, it's great. It's great. It's exciting. It's noisy, which is a real word they use in development meetings. And it is because it is. But it's also emblematic of it because it doesn't seem to have much concern as to what they're going to do next week or next year or in the next 10 years. I remember I was going to ask you. Why is it that the Joint Chiefs of Staff guy is always the villain?

Why is that guy? It's like laziness in writing. Did you know any of those guys from like just around where they always just like, hey, man, my fantasy football team is dying out here. They always seem like super serious guys. Yeah, they did. They're probably know things that we can't comprehend. They're not laugh riots. They're not left riots.

No, they're very serious people. But yeah, no, I don't know why that guy's just a villain. Yeah. We're going to talk about a bunch of other stuff, including the election. Donald Trump's appearance on tonight show, but let's take a quick break before we do that. We know it's a little rude to interrupt, but while we have your ear, let's have a brief conversation about manners. As the British like to say, manners make it the man. So it's no wonder the Jaguar's first ever compact sports sedan, the Jaguar XE, and their first ever performance

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So I remember, and I don't know if, Chris, you back me up on this, but like in the 90s during the Bill Clinton presidency, there was a sea change in the way the presidents were portrayed in movies and media. And there were like a couple think pieces before we called them think pieces, before we called them hot takes because they were published in Newsweek once a month or whatever. But it was just like, oh, the president is now more virile, like Independence Day or Air Force One. Yeah. Like the president isn't the older figure that he was during the 80s in a lot of these movies.

Michael Douglas and American president. Yeah. Probably like the manifestation of that too. And so that was, for whatever reason, tied to Bill Clinton's presence in the White House, even though I don't believe it's fuzzy. It was the 90s. I don't believe he ever punched a terrorist on Air Force One. I don't know.

He may have punched Gary Olden. I think he punched Ron Berkel. I don't know. I don't know. But it was a really good argument they were having. From the inside, what is your take on how the depiction of the presidency has evolved during the Obama presidency? How it, like in movies and in TV. Was there anything when you guys were watching culture happen if you had a spare moment when you weren't yucking it up with the Joint Chiefs?

Where you were like, oh, I see what they're trying to do there. This is a comment on what we're doing? Or even just like, is this how they see what we're doing? There's the level or that, the latter. Because I don't, I haven't, I can't think of any presidents and culture that reflect Obama that much. It's true. But when I talk to people about, you know, people ask me like culture, television related questions about the White House, they're always like, is it like House of Cards? That's usually the first question.

And then I always say it's more like VEP. Yes. Because it is. I actually think it's a combination of VEP and West Wing. Okay. West Wing would make just about everyone roll their eyes because people are cynical and no one likes to think it's idealistic. But there are moments in the White House that do feel a little West Wing. Most of the time it's like VEP.

I mean, I always tell people, we are conspiracy-driven culture now. Everything's a conspiracy. Everything's rigged. And so that's very House of Cards. But VEep has it better because usually when someone screw something up, it's because they were acted like idiots. And they made a mistake and they were just, you know. What about the time you invited Vladimir Putin over? He got wasted on vodka and made out with Michelle Obama.

Which show is that? Obama's been actually in, like, I don't know what the laws are or if they've changed or anything, but people basically, like in the last five or six years, I feel like just use Obama as the president. Like they'll just cut away. That's true. Like a Mr. Robot. I think he's president in World War Z, which is really like an L to take. Why you got to put that on your restaurant?

I know. He just like, oh, we're really dealing with a lot here. Similarly, Mr. Robot. It's like, well, that was the worst hack ever. Thanks, Obama. We should do a summary of all the fictional disasters Obama has overseen in the last few years of movies and television. That's not fair. But no one, I don't think anyone's captured politics very accurately in recent times.

Well, is it because, you know, one of the things Chris and I talked about in the Emmy, build up the Emmys and during the Emmys, is that there's still, Emmys tried really hard to figure out what's a comedy and what's a drama. make rules, but obviously you kind of can't stop them from mixing these days. The best shows are both. Is it because, as you said, day-to-day life in the actual real White House is constantly a shifting mix of the House of Cards, West Wing, Alf, I imagine, when you talk about Roswell. But it's not an easily classifiable experience because every day or minute to minute when you get out of the shower is different. It is quite a mix of drama and comedy. So there are many moments that are almost exactly like something that happened in Veep.

There are fewest moments of things that seem like their house of cards. You just never see anything like that. Maybe that's how, maybe that goes on behind our backs, but I don't know. When we, when we talked to Dan on our show like a year and a half ago, I think he said that there were a couple of moments when he became self-aware

that he was walking and talking and he was like trying, he was very sorky. Yeah. The hallways aren't long enough. That's the problem with my walk-and-talk thing. Like, I thought about that a lot when I was in there, but the West Wing is very old and cramped.

Yeah. And so you're not doing a lot of walking. Is the profanity as, like, athletic as it is in V? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like someday, years from now, when all the White House emails come out, there will be lots of profanity. Years from now?

We don't have our phones on us now. It's very possible. They got gateway computers. I'm all in here. We have a big listenership in Siberia. Well, should we pivot away from... Oh, actually, no, I have one other question. for our guest today.

Do you, like, we asked you to watch Designan Survivor, and that was very kind of you to do that. Although, I guess it was only 48 minutes. When Fyfer came on, he was like, did you guys finish House of Cards this weekend like I did? And I was like, honestly, no, you did that. You're crazy. That's a very prepared.

He is the most prepared. That's why he was senior advisor to a president. That's why Dan's not here today is he's just watching House of Cards. And I'm just here. I just podcast for a living now. Do you have, and you've been, you're obviously not fully, You're not out of the game, out of the game, but you're not in the White House day to day.

Do you have a thirst or appetite for political entertainment? Yeah, that's a good question. Because, you know, one thing that Chris and I found, I think a lot of other people who are journalism adjacent, we were like, oh, the wire is the best show ever. We love everything about it. Oh, the versimilitude of the show is staggering in terms of the drug game. And then there was the season of the newspaper. And we were like, that's a bit on the nose.

Yeah, I think that was actually the, I mean, I know you loath at the newsroom, but I actually found it to be quite entertaining, except for the part about the internet and just its relationship to working on it. So do you, does that come into play for you no matter what you're watching if it's political because you just are like, I know, I know too much, I know.

Well, what's interesting is I think the best, like the best political show out there to me is Game of Thrones. Interesting. You know, because that, the themes. We should check that show out. I don't know if you, that was the right podcast to say that, right? Definitely not.

No, but the themes that it wrestles with are really honest political themes that you see. occurring over and over again. Maybe not in the details. To be fair, Circe looking out the window at a flaming wreckage of an important gathering place politically is echoed. She's like the original destination that DeNeres has with

that Dineris has with Dinklage. Tyrion. You're in the right room for this. We got you. At the end of last season about power. And I'm like that is, they got to the crux of a lot of political arguments that people really have. Yeah, but anyway, I'm dying for the show that comes out that someone creates, that actually depicts politics quite accurately.

I think there's, I mean, so I'm always interested in, like, interesting political shows. So speaking of interesting political shows, we wanted to talk to you about some of the ways that, obviously this is the most, in many ways, in mostly bad ways, the most made-for-TV election. Yeah. Or at least inspired by reality TV election. But we want to talk to you about the ways those have intersected of late, specifically. was it Friday or was it Thursday or Friday? I think it was last Thursday. Because we wrote about out of Friday.

The Republican nominee for president, I blanking on his name right now. Mr. Tyrion. Small hands, small hands. Appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and was greeted basically with the warmth and ardor of anyone who shows up to play inflatable flip cup. And I don't know whether this was sent out as a promotional image or it was just screened. It was just instantly memed. Yeah.

But the Jimmy Fallon. Hair tussle. Tussled Donald Trump's hair like he was some sort of amusing carny. I don't know. I guess he is an amusing carny. But anyway, it appeared very subservient. It appeared very soft. The counter argument, of course, Jimmy Fallon is not known for his hard-hitting interviews.

And that was apparently Jimmy Fallon's argument. But to many people, this seemed really, really appalling. And I was curious to your take on it. both as a consumer of news, but also as someone who has, not directly, but been a part of the game of who gets what access, who gets what platform for your candidate. I felt very conflicted because I've always liked Jimmy Fallon a lot, and I think he's hilarious. And then I was one of the people who was outraged when I said it. I'm like, what is he doing? And I try to put myself in his shoes, you know, and I'm like, okay, well, if his thing is, I'm not going to be tough on anyone, I guess that's one thing.

I guess it's also a comment on how scary Donald Trump has become. Right. If Jimmy Fallon does that interview, even during the Republican nomination, the Republican primary, when Donald Trump still has said the wall and the ban and all that kind of stuff, I don't think it would have gotten the reaction that it did still because people don't, people did not view him then as a real threat, as a serious threat that he could win. I think having that interview happened right after the birtherism and all the stuff over the last couple of weeks. It sort of sparked something in people. And there's also been a whole conversation, you know,

about the media coverage and the media gone too soft on Donald Trump. So come at that moment, I think that's what set everyone off. I think particularly on the day that it happened, this was basically the end of a two or three day period where Trump had crowed about how he had just played the media, completely played them like a fiddle. It was the night, it took place the night, or no, it was on Friday day it was the day he did get to or the hotel. I'm pretty sure that tonight show episode aired at the end of the day, of the end of the day. day that began. And maybe they taped it on Thursday because often these talk shows, you know, they double

tape Thursdays. So maybe that's how it worked out. Sure. But that he had basically told everyone who was going to make a statement. And so he got the old press to come to an infomercial for his tacky hotel. And then and then doubled down, you know, on an even worse, almost worse lie. Replace one conspiracy with the other. Yeah.

And then got his hair muscled for it as a reward because without taking any questions the first time. Well, it's the other thing, too. We used to get a lot of shit in the Obama administration for. having the president go on what was considered like light television shows so he would do interviews

on the Tonight Show and Letterman and John Stewart and all that kind of stuff and my take on that was always those guys maybe they didn't and women maybe they didn't ask him like gotcha political questions

but they asked him substantive questions about issues Barack Obama would go on Jay Leno and Jay Leno would talk about the Iraq war Afghanistan climate change like he might have not pressed him like a political journalist would have. So maybe it's not tough in that sense. But he would ask substantive issues. In that interview with Fallon, Fallon, like, casually mentions Putin at

one point and then nothing else. Yeah. So there's not even, there was no substance in interview whatsoever. I think that the thing with Fallon also is it's, and to this extent, there's a whole other question about, like, are we, everybody's always like, it's got to be fair imbalance and it's got to have like, you got to hear both sides. And I don't think that that necessarily applies to late night hosts. You don't have to be fair in balance. There's no reason to be fair in balance if you're hosting this night show other than to not alienate advertisers and viewers because you're trying to get as much money for your commercial blocks as possible and attract as many people to watch. But Jimmy has set up this world in which the people who are on his show are almost entirely

divorced from what they are outside of the show. They're just characters to play beer pong to get like whatever like games they play on it. And so that's like basically an equal opportunity situation. And if it's, just because it's cool when Channing Tatum and Justin Timberlake do it, like if you have Trump do it, you're going to feel disgusting about it. Some people said, it's not Jimmy Fallon's job to take down Donald Trump. No, I agree with that. And also, and Fallon said, oh, I'm, I'm nice to all my guess. I'm not mean to any of my guess. You don't have to, he doesn't, you don't have to have Donald Trump on and be a complete dick to him. Yeah. But that doesn't mean you can't, you can't, you don't have a

responsibility when you have a presidential candidate on your show to you. And there's millions of people watching. And there's an election coming up to at least ask about one or two substantive questions. And this is what everybody's freaking out about. This summer is the rationalization of the irrational. It's like the... Well, it's normalizing. It's normalizing. You call this in a piece that you wrote,

you know, in every piece that you've written for the ringer. I mean, you saw this coming because the system is built to only pass certain things through certain tubes and everything comes out looking the same. There's one candidate says one and the other candidate says the other. And let's consider these two things as equal things. Right. And there's no ability for

proportionality more in how we cover these things. It was strange last night when Julia Louis Dreyfus was accepting her best actress for comedy and she said, she was joking, but she was like, I want to apologize for ruining, like, politics because what was supposed to be a satire is now a docu drama. And it's interesting that that was what happened at the Emmys last night was covered as like something jarring and different, you know, when I heard her say that, I was like, yeah, obviously. Yeah.

I think I was watching Veep this year thinking it's almost, it has a little bit less edge because it's not as absurd as it used to be. Because we are now much more absurd. Yeah. I'm curious about your thoughts on this idea because I, maybe I am too much of a sap or believed in the West Wing because I generally like moments that make me feel like, well, they're all good men and women. Like, they're all good Americans and they come together.

I like those photo ops. Like I like when presidents become ex-presidents and they all stand together or they like raise money for things together or the fact that like that your former boss seems to have a perfectly warm enough relationship with his predecessor. Even though I had very negative feelings about that, maybe he was an office. You do not have a warm relationship to his predecessor. Personally, no. But I maybe I'm a sucker for that. And maybe I am normalizing extreme behavior, extreme points of view. But I am a sucker for that.

I don't mind it when people like Jeb Bush shows up in the Jimmy Kimmel thing. I don't mind that. I don't mind Boehner showing up at the video. No, I think that was great. We wanted Bainer to show up on that video with Obama at the correspondent's dinner. We thought that was great. I like it makes me feel like maybe we are somehow,

maybe I'm a sap, but it makes me feel like on some level we are all in the same country or all doing the same thing. There's still like a semblance of civility. There's some level of civility. Yeah. Is it because Trump is so extreme that I am now,

is that a privilege that I've had, basically? Yeah. Where now, oh, of a sudden, no, I'm offended. Now I'm starting to pull up the ladder and be like, well, no, he can't joke around with Jimmy Fallon because I'm offended, or is the balance really threatened in a larger way here? It is right.

And one of the hardest parts about running against Donald Trump is screaming about how different he is and how out of the mainstream he is. And what's ironic about all the coverage is for years during the Obama administration and before the press was all like bipartisanship is the most important thing ever. We've got to have bipartisanship. Well, right now we have an election that is unprecedented and that leaders of the Republican party, candidates,

Republican candidates, Republican governors have lined up against Donald Trump, at least enough of them have. And so the only agreement you have, or like the most agreement that you have in the country

between Democrats and Republicans is that Donald Trump is a bad idea for President of the United States and it's very scary. And you have like national security officials saying it, and you have various Republicans saying it and the Bush family hasn't lined up

and Romney and all this kind of stuff. And you think that would be enough to signal to everyone else like, hey, this might be a problem. If these people who can't agree on anything are saying this is, a bad idea, this is a problem, but yet it hasn't. There's a recurring thing that people

have said on Twitter with increasing frequency over the last year, which is nothing matters, hashtag nothing matters, because clearly nothing matters anymore. And I kind of think some things do matter. And I, and I've, one thing I have enjoyed seeing is this surprising comedy, let's call it, between Democratic operatives and Republican

operatives who are united in horror over this. And, you know, so I've started reading like Stuart Stevens, who was a key Romney advisor and is a key never Trump person. And now that I'm reading him without my partisan filters on, or maybe now because he agrees with me, I'm like, oh, what, it seems like a pretty smart, accomplished guy. And I wondered about that relationship. Not just with him, there's the guy Tim Miller, Tim Miller, people who are now friends of your mind. I'll tell you, it's a silver lining of the whole thing. If we can get past this and not elect Trump. Yeah. And survive. Yeah, like, I don't

expect to continue agreeing with Stuart Stevens or Mike Murphy or Taylor. I don't expect to continue agreeing with them, but from now on when I hear these guys say something, you're not going to dismiss it on hand. I'm not going to dismiss it. And I'm going to think, like, I know those guys and those gals. Like, I know these people, and I've talked to them, and I can, at the end of the day, disagree with them, but at least I know where they're coming from. And I know that they stood up and took a courageous stance at a very important time. Is this a moment like that, like, those stories of like World War II trench warfare during Christmas when, like, the German soldiers and the French soldiers, like, came out of their foxholes and sang Christmas carols and then went back to shooting each other?

Let's just hope it's not World War I and World War II still coming. That's actually what I mean. But can you describe, like, you could talk specifically about those people or just that role in general, like your equivalent on the other side of the aisle. In the heat of a campaign, and you've said this about your relationship with people who worked for Hillary Clinton in 2008 and how that's clearly mellowed and changed. Right. In the heat of a campaign, things are said and opinions are running hot, but is there a magical place like Freddy's barbecue where you guys at the end of the day can toss a couple back and realize that you have some things in common? Or is this really a moment where you've realized that and gotten to know them? The time it happened before was after the 2008 campaign, we ended up, some of us on the press

communication side ended up becoming friendly with the McCain staff. Oh, okay. Just because sometimes we took similar jobs. A lot of them ended up in Silicon Valley, so did the Obama people. But even before that, in Washington, we started hanging out. And I just think because McCain, minus the pick of Palin, which is a very big minus, you know, was like the last sort of standard Republican to run. and was also like, sort of have an independent streak.

He's a mammary. Yeah, he attracted people who were not the most right-wing people in that party. Yeah. And so a lot of those operatives I'm still friends with, even though, you know, I don't agree with them on a lot. So there is a place like that. I mean, I think, and I think it's important for people to know it's not some game where we all just put on a show to yell at each other.

And then when the cameras are off. You eat bananas and drink air. But, yeah, I think that goes on in Washington green rooms all the time. Yeah. Especially with some of the older. generations of consultants, but I think, like, at least for me, like, I'll be friendly with Tim Miller and Stewart, but I'll also be very open when I disagree with them. I think that's all real.

In some ways, the thing that bothers me, and this actually goes back to Fallon, but the thing that kind of makes me the most sick to my stomach is the fact that in a lot of ways, and I don't mean this about anybody in particular who works there as much as NBC's where Trump got to start as a media figure, you know what I mean? And so to see him on the NBC flagship. show promoting himself and that person being like yeah man go ahead and promote yourself you're the right after matt lower who just really acquitted himself wonderfully i felt the same way when kimmel said to burnette last night the brunette joke was great yeah but it was just like he was just like he was

serious it was like almost not a joke he didn't say like yeah i'm really sorry you know what i mean he was just like it's all in the game and i think that the all in the game part of it is what i think people are reacting to where you're just like you couldn't even have a fucking network moment of like i'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore as like a as a as a right thing thinking person in this world because people would be like, what's next? What's the next, like, freak out, what's the next meltdown? What's the next, like, moment that we're going to move on to? It there's, there never, it never stops, you know?

But speaking of moments that were pivotal in awakening this, this ego beast that threatens to devour our entire republic. And you've mentioned, you've talked about this a little bit on the pod, but there's obviously the state of, the, the correspondent dinner. Yeah. And, you know, your own, your own role in this. How, does the president. Has the president actually joked about that and being like, I guess I shouldn't have done that?

Or does he still feel? We haven't talked about it. It's too tender to bring up? No, because I think we still, I mean, it was such an obvious target at the time that we would do that. And we wrote the jokes before the birth certificate came in. The birth certificate, the long-form birth certificate that he presented the day before the correspondence center was sort of a surprise. Yeah. That someone found it, you know, and it was flown in for the occasion.

but he just thought Trump was a buffoon. Yeah. And yes, you go on. That's why I was right, you know? And, yeah, so it was obvious that we'd write those jokes. I just, and this, we can pivot away from this because this will be more for your pot, I think. But the fact that this, the double standard here in the coverage where Trump has gotten it, but not much, because the press did sort of, you know, if you poke the press, the press will actually react in an angry way. Yeah.

But so they do feel gamed, so the coverage is actually a lot. little bit more appropriate in this recent one, but the idea that he, well, he changed his mind on the birther thing, so it's all done. And meanwhile, the president of the United States who has been attacked and, you know, this unprecedented attempt to delegitimize him and has never said anything, really, other than a couple jokes at a correspondence dinner, has to just sort of take this. He doesn't have to, but he does. He has the dignity to do that. Well, he's also very good at, look, the guy follows the news and he consumes the news, but he does keep it at arm's length. Right.

He lets people beat themselves. Yeah, he lets people beat themselves, but he also has a great sense of perspective. Reminds me of another guy, like President Tom Kirkman. Nice! He let other people beat themselves, meaning he let them incinerate themselves in a terrorist fireball, like, very cool. Very cool. Lournics out on Tom Kirkland.

No, he does have a great sense of perspective in proportion and context and all the things you would hope a leader would have. And that's one thing I actually learned about him over the years through the job. I always knew that I was, I like, like him and he believed what I believed and he was in favor of all my positions and everything. But there is a personality that you need if you're going to have that job. Yeah. And it's a person.

And it requires a certain steadiness and calmness and coolness. And you realize up close, like if you don't have that, really bad things could happen. Super bad things. We don't want a president who's good at Twitter or bad. We don't want a president who can go viral or do memes. We don't. We may think we want it during a campaign. because we're bored.

But we don't want that. It's nice that Barack Obama was a cool president and was a culturally significant president. That was great and that he was funny and he would go on. I hope in his last six. That was good and it helped us and it helped him. But you're right, that's not important in the job.

That is just, and we have convinced ourselves that those are the important thing. That performance is the most important thing of the job. And I think performance is part of the job. Public performance. It's not like having performed. No, public performance is absolutely part of the job, but it is a small part of the job.

But it is like, you know, like Cheetos, it is satisfactory. So like when when Hillary tweets delete your account Right yeah it touches some pleasure center and maybe in his last six weeks Obama can start doing like TFW the Bulls beat the pistons it's like Jimmy Butler hanging on a rim or something Yeah me just tweeting me are in I mean I wonder whether or not like this will be we'll look back when we're in our 60s or something Remember when presidents didn't tweet that much? president president tweet too much

Yeah, that's that's the Chappelle update We should wrap it up here John. Thank you so much for joining us this was a very very very Very, very fun. Everyone, please, if you aren't already, listen to Keep it at 1600. It's my favorite podcast. I'm not just saying that because the co-host is within arm's length. You guys have to come on sometime. Oh, we'd love to.

We'd love to. If only the new cycle would pause. So you could have a luxury of having like to do that. Income Poop guests as opposed to accomplish guests. Me and Andy will be back on Thursday with a re-up. We'll be talking about the finale of Mr. Robot with a special guest. Hopefully, Sam Esmail will be joining us. You may have heard him last night on our Emmy's after party.

Yeah, if you didn't check those things out, we did an Emmy's after party live. It is still available to watch as a video. Yeah, Facebook.com slash ringer. You can still find it there. And then it's also available as a podcast on the watch feed. We had Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg from the Americans and Sam S-Mail from Mr. Robot called in. Only one of those creators took Chris to task for his really vicious criticisms of their show. But it's all in good fun.

All right. We'll see you guys Thursday. Great job, Braidskees!