There Are No Girls on the Internet - Why Trump’s Kennedy Center Takeover Matters

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Culture has always had the power to move people. To shift narratives. To shape politics. Which is why when Bridget heard that one of Trump’s first moves after taking office was to take over the Kennedy Center — Washington D.C.'s premiere venue for performing arts — she had questions. Why would Trump care about a cultural institution best known for theater, music, and the arts? If you ask Carri Twigg — co-founder of Culture House Media, co-host of Twig and Jenkins, and a former member of President Biden’s Advisory Committee on the Arts that oversees the Kennedy Center — the answer is: a lot. In her Rolling Stone piece, "Trump’s Cultural Power Grab: Why His Kennedy Center Takeover Matters," Carri breaks down just how influential culture is — not just in politics, but in shaping hearts, minds, and futures. In this fascinating interview, Bridget and Carri talk about the enduring importance of cultural power, and how the left can reclaim culture as a force for justice and progress.  Read Carri's article in Rolling Stone: www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-kennedy-center-cultural-power-grab-1235268600/  Subscribe to Carri's Substack: substack.com/@carritwigg  Follow Carri on Instagram: instagram.com/carritwigg/    Follow Bridget and TANGOTI!   instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/   tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc   youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast. and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations

about what happens when the brain goes off course. Listen to Intercosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Politics is where some people are some of the time, but culture is where everyone is all. all of the time. There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio

and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Lately, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the power of culture, how it shapes what we believe, how we vote, and even who we grieve. So when I was a kid, I didn't know anybody who had AIDS,

or at least I didn't think I did. But I do remember crying when Pedro Zamora, the openly gay HIV-positive cast member from MTV's The Real World died in 1994. His story was powerful enough to move millions, including then-president Bill Clinton, who released a statement honoring Pedro for humanizing the HIV crisis, especially for Latino communities,

all from being on our MTV reality show. Culture has always had the power to move people, to shift narratives and shape politics, which is why when one of Trump's first moves after taking office was to take over the Kennedy Center, right here in my backyard in Washington, D.C., I had questions. Why would Trump even care about a cultural institution best known for music, theater, and the arts? If you ask Carrie Twig, co-founder of Culture House Media, co-host of the podcast Twig and Jenkins, and a former member of President Biden's advisory committee on the arts, the answer is a lot.

In her rolling stone piece, Trump's cultural power grab, why his Kennedy Center takeover matters, Carrie breaks down just how influential culture is, not just in politics, but in shaping hearts, minds, and futures. So I asked Carrie what her first thoughts were when she heard that Trump was moving in on the Kennedy Center. I felt like, oh, no, they have it together way more than I even thought that they did. I felt like foreboding, which may be more of the thing that I felt. Because in 2016, he largely ignored culture. And culture is important for so many reasons. It is how we determine what we consider normal, acceptable, and right.

It has also long been the sort of domain and main tool in the toolbox or the main, like, weapon and fighting back of the left. And so if Trump captures American culture, it's a lot easier to convince people if the culture is on your side that what is happening is normal and right and should be happening. So if we have a culture in this country that health care is an individual concern and not a government concern, whereas so much of the rest of the industrialized world considers providing health care a government of. the core government function. And so if he goes through with this budget and we see these massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and the ACA is further stripped out of Americans' lives, but he is able to propose and promote a culture that says that that's both right and fair and just, and people believe that, then they don't really know to push back.

They don't know that things could be better or different. Like, culture sets our boundaries in this really profound way. And then also, so that's really problematic. And then also like the left, whether that means Democrats, or that means something's more revolutionary than Democrats, have always used culture, have always used visual language, cultural language. I've always used protest songs and protest anthems, cinema, television, whether it's Norman Lear or Bob Dylan.

We use culture to change America, to push America, to make America more progressive. to more fair, more equitable, the civil rights movement, had a massive cultural component to it. The gay rights movement has had a massive cultural component to it. It is how we understand and start to socialize ourselves around change. And so him using those levers and using those tools and tactics is really quite concerning. Yeah, I mean, it was easy for me to be like, oh, it's just the Kennedy Center. like, with everything going on, that's so trivial.

But in your piece for the Rolling Stone, Trump's cultural power grab, why his Kennedy Center takeover matters. You actually argue that this is not disconnected from this larger, you know, power grab of democracy. And in fact, those things are like ultimately connected. Yeah. I mean, culture provides really powerful headwinds. And you look if you, you know, if you look at fascist Italy, if you look at fascist Germany, you know, like, Arts and culture and propaganda is a cornerstone is like the go-to, like, fascism relies on spectacle because it actually is quite hollow from an ideological perspective.

And it's actually quite hollow from a policy perspective, right? It's not truly about making government work better for individuals. It is about changing an individual's belief so that they are convinced that government should just be wanton and do whatever it wants and really only serve a tiny, tiny select portion of a population. And they are able to accomplish that through spectacle. And so the Kennedy Center, the nations are this iconic, beautiful building on the river in D.C. that we've seen lit up in beautiful ways that has the best view of the fireworks in D.C., like that building being turned into sort of a Maga parade ground is really, will be

very potent, will be very powerful. Something that you point out on your piece that I love is that Trump has not really had any real connection to the Kennedy Center. You're right. Despite not having attended any of the Kennedy Center's marquee event or any events at all in his first term or sense, Trump installed himself as chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center, promising to usher in, quote, the golden age of arts and culture. And I guess part of me wonders, like, why does it matter that he is taking over this thing,

that he doesn't really have any kind of like real connection to you. He really, as you said, ignored it in his first term. Like, do you think it's just what you were saying that he sees the incredible power that culture has and sees what the Kennedy Center represents to culture? So he's like, I got to control that. Yeah, I mean, basically. And I have to stop it from supporting a culture that is opposed to me. And I have to move it into supporting a culture that reinforces my value, my pay,

power, my centrality. I think he have targeted the Kennedy Center because it's so successful, because it's so powerful, because it is such an important part of our national fabric, not because he doesn't think it's important. Culture is important, and it can be used to reinforce or challenge power. As part of Culture House media, Carrie produces television and film projects that connect pop culture to political change,

like haretails on Hulu and Ladies First. Netflix's docu-series about women and hip-hop. But her work goes beyond producing. Carrie also collaborates with entertainment companies to help infuse their content with a more authentic and nuanced cultural lens. She got her start as a political organizer, and even now, working in Hollywood,

that foundation is still central. For Carrie, storytelling is just another form of organizing. I'm someone who, as he pointed out, started working in politics really young. I've always been a big reader. I still, to this day, I don't watch a ton of stuff. But I, yeah, I know.

It's really dirty. It's my dirty secret as a... It's very surprising to hear. As a film and television producer to my dirty, dirty secret that I don't love to watch things. I would much rather read a script than, like, watch a show. But I grew up on novels. So I would read hundreds. I'm a total nerd and would just read hundreds of books a year and just mostly all novels.

and I think that that's what made me good at politics. I think my ability in the novel as a form, that ability to transport you into someone else's lived experience and someone else's life and point of view and their struggles and their things that you would never have got, like I will never have lived through the dust bowl, right? But I can read John Steinbeck and have a visceral experience about how terrifying that would have been that hardship, right?

And so then you go into a line of work like government and politics and policymaking and having all this ability, having that ability to stretch yourself and your empathetic ability and like imagination to think about lives that are different from your own, but equally valid and equally valuable, makes you a better policymaker. And so I think that is something that directly influenced me. But then I also think that being kind of black and growing up in suburban. in Ohio and not seeing myself reflected in broader pop culture and then the ways that you would really cling to the representations that were occasionally offered to you and the way that that started to change over the course of like the 90s and the 2000s. In 2013, Chirios released an ad featuring a young girl who ad ad ad ad addurably misunderstands when her white mother explains that Chirios are good for the heart.

wanting to help, she pours a box of Cheerios over her sleeping father, who is black. It was a sweet, funny moment that unintentionally sparked a national dialogue about mixed-race families and identity in America. Not all of that conversation was positive. Within days, General Mills had to disable the comments on the ad's YouTube because of a wave of racist backlash. But here's the thing, General Mills also said that comments supporting the ad outnumbered the hateful ones 10 to 1. Still, the vitriol that surfaced reflected a deeper racial tension in a country that had just re-elected

its first black president who notably was himself biracial. Carrie remembers it well. Like I even remember seeing the Cheerios commercial of the little biracial girl like pouring the cereal on her dad's heart and just being like, oh my God! You know?

I remember that! Right? And it was so memorable because you've never seen anything like that. I'd never seen anything like that before. And so that, those types of moments are really, really emotionally resonant for me. And then finally, I think that there's just, we've seen it, we've seen, the proof is in the pudding. We've seen it over and over again. It's not a coincidence that the number one show in television in the years preceding Barack Obama's election was 24, where the president was a black former senator, a basketball star with a, with like a high moral compass. And then years late, like, you know, 70 million people watch the show every week, week after

week for years and years and years. And then Barack Obama shows up. And people are like, oh, he actually seems familiar to me. That doesn't feel like this massive departure from something that exists in my life and in my world. Will and Grace. Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, when we started trying to advocate for gay rights and for LGBTQ equality and for all.

marriage equality, all of these things, there was this cultural precedent that let people know what was on the other side of the change that we were asking them to make. And that these people who loved these characters were like, I want the best for them. And therefore, I refuse to deny them rights any longer. And so culture shows up and allows us to imagine what is possible and why it should, what our values that truly are or could be. And then we can legislate in policy, around them. So I think both from my own personal experience, but also what I've seen in governors off, like from serving governor's office, we've been in the White House, if there is a cultural precedent to something, it is a lot easier to create laws and legislation around it than it is if you're asking people to embrace a change that they don't know what's on the other side of, right? There was all this sort of white space in the cultural imagination around what the ACA could be, what Obamacare could be, what national health care could be. And so the right filled that white space up with like Sarah Palin talking about deaf panels. And that was so easy to do because people

didn't know what it was. There wasn't, it wasn't like ER was doing, was like, you know what, we should have nationalized health care. All of these problems would be solved. Dda-da-da-da. Grace Anatomy isn't about that. Like if, but if they had been, maybe that would have been a little bit easier and less contentious of a policy to implement. Well, I've never really thought about that before, but that makes so much sense that really the job of culture can be to help people imagine a future that it's better than the future that we have now and what it might look like, what it might look like to have, you know, marriage, equality, affordable health care, like all of these things that we want,

but maybe it's a little hard to imagine what it would actually look like or be like or feel like if we had these things, it's about world building and future looking. Or the opposite, right? Like, one of the most popular shows in the country right now is Yellowstone. And that's been true for years and years. And what does that show about? That show is about a patriarch who runs

for governor, who operates outside the law, murders people, does whatever he wants, but still gets to be the hero. Right? And, like, that's a hell of the show. I love Yellowstone. I've seen every episode. But is it good for society? Probably not. I mean,

It makes Donald Trump and figures like him seem familiar, seem reasonable, seem like the hero. When they are not, it's all fun and games on a cattle ranch in Montana. But like, we're talking about real people's lives. And yet we are allowing the John Dutton and not even as good of one to be the president. Like, what are we doing? But again, like, that culture allows us, like normalizes and kind of really, passively sets the parameters for the political outcomes that we see in the country. Let's take a quick break.

Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk, to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah.

Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion?

We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Human be. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again.

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That's 844-8-4-I-Hart. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast, Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before.

And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate. the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense.

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Hey, I'm Joe Dono. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than me. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian.

And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope I'm a Hippocrat, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff rant and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream.

Cream and chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. A few years ago, it was kind of a given that people who made and cared about culture, the kind of culture that anybody was really paying attention to anyway, were not people on the right. But today, things have really changed. They may not have Beyonce or Taylor Swift, but from podcasts to streaming, a lot of the most powerful voices at the forefront of culture are right-wing internet personalities that you might not have ever heard of.

Tell us about this new cultural celebrity ecosystem because I feel it, I see it. It's hard to, it's hard to verbalize, but like you know it when you see it and you feel it when it's there. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, so like Trump is actually not even particularly. particularly individually responsible for this. But ages ago, not ages ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, the best and brightest sort of thinkers in the conservative movement

understood that the things that made Democrats powerful and meant that they would win elections was culture and the cultural narrative of the country and people. So storytelling and unions, basically. And they systematically have tried to either dismantle or take over both. So unions have never been less potent in American life than they are right now. And then, too, they started making these massive investments in culture, that they understood that culture reinforced progressive values that leaned more towards Democrats. And so they started creating their own distribution platforms.

They started creating their own stars and farming talent and investing in people like Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, who then built these massive audiences for and shifted consumer demand. We know that the average American spends four to six hours watching video content today. And so the Wright started meeting that demand and giving them content that would bring them further, bring your generalized audience further and further and further to the right. And we've seen it work extraordinarily well with young men, but we're also seeing it in things like tradwives and like very kind of conservative takes on how women should be and how we should dress and makeup disorders and all of this stuff. And so they did it over digital. And then it really sort of

created the self-fulfilling, the self-feeding machine where Hollywood, which is a commercial enterprise, Hollywood is not a social good. None of these television studios care about social good. They care about making money. And they saw that there was this demand for these more kind of conservative-esque worldview types of shows programming talent. And so they started getting into the game as well. And we started seeing it show up in TV and movies. And so that Donald Trump, because he is such an entertainer, say what you want.

I have a lot of critiques and criticisms of this man. but like he is entertaining and he seems fun and he seems like he's having a good time. And so he understood very quickly and very intuitively the power of these entertainers. And he always has. He was always on WWF or WWE. He was always, he's on The Apprentice, right? He was a massive, massive television star. He was doing the cameos in Home Alone.

Like he understands the power of popularity and the power of sort of mass media and pop culture. to ensure a particular outcome, or at least vastly increased the likelihood of a particular outcome. And so he really doubled down, and his campaign really doubled down. They recognized that his celebrity and his ability to be like Johnny Goodtimes on a four-hour live stream was this massive strength of his. And so they had him out there. They had him showing up. They had him really participating in the rules of the game of the digital sphere and sort of broader,

culture and entertainment. And they just understood it a lot better than we did. Andrew Breitbart, who's again like this, like kind of founding father of the modern conservative movement, understood culture in a really potent way. And they have very quietly, over the course of the last 15 years, been taking over culture in a way that we have not, we have on the left been really passive about, right? For so long, culture was just, inadvertently on our side without there having to be much interaction or intervention on our

part. And so we just sort of allowed it to happen. And so now you see these guys with these massive platforms, the Logan Pauls, the Joe Rogans, the Nelk boys, all of these guys, Theo Vaughn, right? And they're all like, they're all really, really good at what they do. The Aidan Rosses of the world. It might not be your taste. But they are incredibly good at what they do. And they operate in incredibly sophisticated ways. They platform each other. They interact with one another.

They seem like they're having a great time. And President Trump is just like, I will give you all the time and attention you want. You can come to the inauguration. You can come to these parties. You can fly around on the plane. It's going to be great. And it works, right? I am in the middle of a research fellowship at Harvard's Brookfield.

Klein Center, studying exactly this phenomena, right? Like, I'm a podcaster, you're a podcaster. When you go on Apple Podcasts, the top 50 podcasts are all the shows that you've just mentioned. And the thing that gets me is, and I could talk a day about this, is I do think that specifically in podcasting, we let these voices and these platforms grow to be astronomical in size, in reach, and influence while simultaneously being like, oh, well, what happens in these spaces doesn't really matter. It's just two guys in a garage talking. Who cares? Meanwhile, I would argue that some of those guys with microphones in their garages or in their dorms or whatever are the reason they're out another Trump presidency, right? During the inauguration, that's who Trump's team explicitly

shouted out. It was people like Theo Vaughn. I want to thank the Nelp boys, Aidan Ross, Theo Vaughn, bustling with the boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan. What do we do with that? Like, there are still people who don't recognize the massive power that these platforms hold while they continue to build that power and influence. Wait, if you're not recognizing the power of these guys, then, like, you're just not a serious person. Like, I'm sorry. You don't know what's going on. you're out of touch or you're naive or you're just in a closed loop of information because it's

incredibly obvious and very serious people. And there's all the data to support it. Like it's not my intuition. This, this, it's, it's, it is fact. And so if people are taking that seriously, then like, because they're not serious. I mean, I don't know what to say. Sorry. You can send me an email. We can talk about it. And so, but you're right. I think that for too long, and I'm guilty of this too, a couple years ago. I would have been like, who cares about any of this? But about a year and a half ago, it's like, oh, my God, it's a disaster, you know. But that's, but we all want to, you know, liberals want to read the New York Times and the Washington Post or whatever.

Semaphore and overly rely on journalism and really poo-poo culture and really poo-poo entertainment. And that's just where, that's where everyone is. Like, I don't, it's been a massive judge, it's been a massive, uh, wrong choice that we have made around how we, how we think about how information moves through the country and interacts with individuals' lives. And to be perfectly honest, even when we do quote unquote get it, we don't, we still don't. As a podcaster, I was deeply fascinated watching the role that podcasting played in the last presidential election. People even called it the podcast election, and I kind of agree. Trump recognized the power of podcasts early on, from Joe Rogan to Theo Vann's this past weekend to the Nelk Boys' Full Send podcast.

Say what you will about Trump, and Lord knows I do, he used the podcast ecosystem effectively to get himself out there. Vice President Harris got points for an appearance on Alex Cooper's super popular sex and relationships podcast, Call Her Daddy. A smart move for sure. But call her daddy's listeners, who call themselves, the Daddy Gang, have come to expect certain things of the guests of the podcast. For instance, guests usually share an emotional story about their romantic lives. Host Alex Cooper usually wears sweatpants. A nod to the shows, let's call it, relaxed style. So how did Harris show up to this

platform? One of my sort of pet peeves from the, of which I have several, but one of my pet peeps from the Harris campaign in 2024 was not even just that I'm happy that they did call her daddy but like the manner in which they did it right and so if you compare and you contrast I think I think Kamala Harris had an extraordinary job she was given a totally raw deal I she was not served well by that campaign um and we can have that conversation in a different way but even when they would do things I call her daddy, right? They make Alex come to her. She doesn't wear a hoodie.

She doesn't talk about sex or Doug or it's not a particularly like intimate or warm conversation. There was no airing of an insecurity. And she broke the format of the show. Alex Cooper has built something extraordinary and she's done it on purpose like call her daddy is that way on purpose because it works because that's what the audience wants because that's what Alex wants

and so Kamla came on and she broke the form she made the show conform to her she went on Charlemagne and didn't obey the rules of the show she made the show fit her rules she went she talked about talking points And Charlemagne tried to get her.

He's like, you called her out for it. And like she gave a peppy, sassy answer. I get it. Like, that's called discipline. I get it. You're right. And you are not actually doing yourself any favors by going on a show that viewers have an anticipated operates in a certain way that has rules about how it is governed, that has a

structure about how it works, and then breaking that form. It actually makes it much more. difficult for people to hear what you're trying to say, and they're not turning into Charlemagne for a policy lesson. Like, people know where to go if they want a sermon, they know where to go if they want a lecture, and it's not Charlemagne the God show, and it's not call her daddy. And so that was really, I think, really poorly executed on behalf of the campaign. She got bad strategic advice about how to appear on those shows, and it did her a real disservice, because we know she's that.

girl. We know she loves talking about dud. We know she can kiki. We know she can sit with the girls and do the thing. We know she can sit with the brothers and do the thing. And they didn't, she didn't, she did not get the advice to do that. You can trust that with how Donald Trump showed up. And he would show up. I've listened to him on the null boys. I've listened to him on Aiden Ross, right? He shows up and he's like, what are we doing here? You tell me how we're going to do this. Am I here for three hours? Okay, do. Like, what are we like? And he's just like, kikiing and having great time and he's showing up with some respect and consideration for these massive things and these massive entertainment properties that these individual talents have built.

And is like, I will do what your audience has said that they want by tuning in every week. And I will conform to the boundaries of the form. And it works. And that's why his appearances on these things are so much more successful. Not only did he do volume, he did way more than she did. but he also did it in the right way. And we have got to be training our candidates and our leaders and our spokespeople to do a better job of this. AOC, spectacular that she gets it.

She's intuitive. She's like, if she's going to show up on something, she shows up appropriately. She knows what the audience won. She understands the assignment and she aces it, right? But that she can't do it by herself. Like, she can't put the Democratic Party on her back. and climb us up the hill. Same with Jasmine Crockett.

Same with Senator Chris Murphy. So the small number of people who get how this works, like needs some more help. And I know that people are trying. I know that you see a bunch of influencers going to the hill and trying to get these Congress people to get it together, which is great. But, you know, at least for this round,

it's too little too late. Yeah. And I think you're really onto something about how it shows a further devaluing of or misunderstanding of the power of culture and the power of these spaces because call her daddy, for instance, the platform that she has built has so much power. What do you get from going on the show and leaning away from the power of that platform being like,

oh, the little things. Like, what do you get from that? I don't know. I don't know. As if anyone, like, because I think there's this obsession that Democrats have that is really, I mean, I remember this in the Obama era. It was just like this continued pathological belief that if only people understood the policy better, they would know that we were the right pick.

And it's like if anyone cared, if the American voter cared about policy or enough American voters cared about policy, Elizabeth Warren would be president. Like, what are you talking about? So why are you putting her on these shows to deliver policy? policy talking points. Like that, the political reporters at Politico or the New York Times might care about that, but like voters don't obviously. They care about having a president that seems like they're like them.

And that's not what we were doing. And I get why it might be tempting to kind of dig in your heels and plug your ears and say, la, la, la, la, that's not true. But it's not getting us anywhere. Like, like it or not, that's true. But what you just said is the truth. And so, like, I do sometimes get frustrated that I feel like they are trying to serve something that does not align with the reality that you just articulated, which I agree with.

Yeah. And it's like, it doesn't come from a mess. It comes from the right place. I get it. People should care about this stuff. We want them to care about this stuff. The problem is that they don't. And so, like, play the game that's actually on the table, not the one that you wish was on the table.

More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, uh, You only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group.

The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard. But they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged. One erection.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me. Seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast, point game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows, without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series.

because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing.

That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers while he got the ball, like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah. You figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're gonna get the bomb. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jared Adano. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself.

And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. psych! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice! Join me and my comedian friends as we riff rant recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary.

Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream. Cream a chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the Mike Coultera podcast network available on the I-HartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. Everyone is talking about the role that culture can play in shaping politics, for better or worse, now. But Carrie's been talking about it for a really long time since she was in the Obama White House, and it's those conversations that ceded her newest project. The podcast, Twig and Jenkins, it really sets at this very, interesting intersection of politics and culture.

Through the show, are you trying to sort of shape both? I mean, I guess. Honestly, Brad Jenkins and I shared an office at the White House for five years. And so he's the homie, you know? Like, that's the, that's my big dog. And so he and I just yap all the time anyway and terrorize each other with our opinions. And so we just sort of inflicted up, decided to inflict it on the, on the public. And I think in the, and I think in these times when there isn't, there's so, there's very, very few binary right, wrong answers in this moment, right? There's a lot of analysis, a lot of data, a lot of ways of interpreting what's going on. In a country this big and this complex, often almost doesn't have a right answer. And so I think

a huge part of what Brad and I are doing on the show is as much for us as it is for anyone else, which is just like teasing out what some of those different ways of interpreting what's going on are and then meaning making of them, like trying to make sense of what's actually happening. And then also sharing a perspective that doesn't get a ton of a ton of play, right? Like I'm pretty upset. Or I'm not upset, it's not the right word, but I feel pretty underwhelmed and unserved by political coverage. I feel incredibly poorly served by cultural coverage. And so the, I think there are just obvious realities to both Brad and I, because we both sit,

we both were in politics, serving the Obama administration, left and went into culture work. And so there are things about politics that feel really obvious to us, but don't seem super obvious to people who don't come to it from a cultural lens. And then there's stuff about our culture that seems really obvious to us. that isn't obvious to people and culture because they're not coming to it from a political lens. And so I think we just are trying to almost serve as a bridge between the two. It's like the people over here, like people in culture, you guys need to be paying attention to like this particular part of politics and this particular thing. We recognize that no one's paying attention to all of it.

But like here's something, we want to point and signal to something that you shouldn't miss or that you should be flagging. And then in politics, we want to do the same, right? So, like, serve as a bridge to culture. It's too much to try and follow all of it. You're not going to. We all have a limited ability to think about everything when you're trying to, like, live your life and drink your water and get your electrolytes or whatever you're doing, plus do your career, plus, you know, plan for fascism. So, like, here are the handful of things that you should be paying attention to that are showing up in culture, that you're going to have to. have to interact with at some point down the road. So I think we very much think of ourselves as like

a bridge between the two just to bring them a little bit closer into dialogue and or be a cheat sheet if you are further on one end of the spectrum than the other. And just sort of like, here's a couple things that you should be paying attention to. I love that term a bridge because I do think for a long time there was this attitude where culture was over here and like politics was over here. And the reality of how people live their lives is that it's like a Venn diagram or that Venn diagram is a circle where culture and politics are borrowing from each other. And they're in a lot of ways are like the same thing. And I think you're right that we don't have a lot of media that reflects that in the way that I think that it needs to be reflected. Like unserved, something about that word really speaks to me because it's like a it's like a hole in my diet that I didn't even kind of realize needed to be filled.

Yeah, totally. Totally. And Yossi Sargent, we had him on the podcast a couple weeks ago, and he said something really interesting, which is, you know, politics is where some people are some of the time, but culture is where everyone is all of the time. And I think we lose sight of that, especially those of us in politics full time. I think we really lose sight of so much anyone is paying attention to anything related to politics. I remember I grew up in Ohio. and I was working when I was in the White House at the time. And I was home for something and, you know, ran into somebody I knew or was talking to one of my girls' boyfriends or something.

And they were like, so what do you do? And I was like, oh, I work for the president. And they were like, the president of what? And I was like, right. Like that doesn't mean any. Like, and I was like, oh, President Obama. And they were like, oh, cool. I was like, I usually get a different response, you know?

I usually get a little bit more feedback. But that's because I'm usually telling people that in D.C. Right. And that means something, but it doesn't mean anything to people in Columbus, Ohio. Like, not really. Other than, like, oh, God, is she going to talk to me about politics? So I think we underestimate how little they're thinking about us. When it comes to cultural impact, is it over for us?

Have we given up too much of the game when it comes to culture? Do you see us gaining any ground here? Well, there's nowhere to go but up from where we are. So, yeah, I mean, they are running the board. We don't live in a monoculture, right? And so there's no one winner at any given point in time. But I think that the trend lines are trending towards them and have been for a while much longer than we've been comfortable or willing to admit.

And I think they have a lot of momentum and trajectory on their side. That said, trends change really quickly. Like, I'm wearing baggy pants again, you know what I mean? And, like, side-eye people and skinny jeans. So, like, check a picture of me from five years ago. It's like, who knew that? Trends can change really, really quickly, but not on accident. Like, we need to start investing way more cash into these culture, into culture makers,

into platforms beyond TikTok and Instagram. We need to be investing in podcasters like you, like Twig and Jenkins. We need to be making sure that we're all appearing on each other's shows, that we're all representing and bigging each other up, that we're working on big projects together, that we're paying attention, like getting rid of these, like, hold my nose and be sanctimonious and uppity about what they've done on the right. Like, though, if any, I don't care if a podcast has 700,

subscribers, every single elected official, every single person that cares about anything to do with making the world a better place should be doing two, three hours of podcast time a week. Like, if you're a senator, there is someone in your state that has a podcast about what happens at the grocery store. I want you on it. Like, what are you doing, baby? You're in call time trying to raise all this cash. Do two to three hours of podcast time. per week. Don't want to hear about it. Don't pex me. Don't DM me in October asking for some shit. I don't want to hear it. You know what I mean? Like none of that. Dig the well before you're thirsty. It's really basic. And so like all of that has to happen. I don't know, you know, who's doing it.

There should be a podcast studio in the DNC building. The whole thing should be turned into a content you don't know what they're doing over there. It's like, we're so far behind. But now it's just about, like, it can change. We will, of course, have trajectory again. These are fads. These are things that go in and out of fashion. But, again, you have to build it.

You have to take advantage of the opportunities that exist and invest in talent, invest in people who want to participate in this infrastructure. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello. at tangoty.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio

and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano.

It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was crying. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come in.

He's like, you know, I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car and then my car got stolen. I was having panic attacks.

I was like orophobic. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ashanti Plummer from Fud Around and Find Out. This week, AZ Fud and I sat down with Step and Curry. Step talks pressure, confidence, and what it really takes to stay great. There's different categories, I guess,

so on like conditioning, shooting drills where you try to simulate kind of games. Look at her face. Look at our face. We have a love-hate relationship with those because you know you're getting something out of it. You don't look forward to those days. Listen to Fud Around and Find out

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.