Fast Politics with Molly Jong-FastThe Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson skewers Tulsi Gabbard’s turn to Trump world. Status News’ Oliver Darcy examines the media’s poor coverage of the election. Then we’ll talk to New York Times’ Anupreeta Das about her new book, Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World."
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds.
And Donald Trump says JD. Vans can be weird because he's so straight. Yep, that's it. We have such a great show for you today. Status Snews. Oliver Darcy steps by to talk the media is quite poor coverage of the election. That we'll talk to The New York Times Enna Prita Das about their new book, Billionaire Nerd Savior, King Bill Gates and his quest to shape our world thought. First, we have the host of the Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson.
Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Rick Wilson, Mollie Jong Fast.
Can we talk about this weird weekend we're in now? It is officially the start of the political season for anyone paying attention.
Oh I'm sorry. The political season started for me in twenty fifteen and it hasn't ended. Sadly.
It's so funny because it's like you saw that, and it's like, well, what is traditionally the start of the political season.
Have you met social media?
So first, let's do two seconds on the mainstream media of which.
We are a part.
We are we are.
Print media failing to meet the moment.
This is not the first time anyone said this, not the first time you've said it or I've said it. But every time a story is written where they righte aheadline that says Harrison Trump plans for housing both face challenges and Harris has like a plan, and Donald Trump says things like I like houses, fancy the Betner, And they treat them like the same thing. They treat them like they're the same identical moment, and it's just not. And unfortunately, I don't know if you're seeing this. I feel like there's like a rising tide in a lot of the mainstream media of like, fuck you stop criticizing us. Yeah, I kind of sense that's out there right now. You're not professional journalists. We'll tell you how we cover Donald Trump, even though it's been working out so well since.
Well.
One of the things that I was struck by was how much mainstream media, for whatever reason, can't get out of it, like this guy is an autocrat. He says he's an autocrat. Everyone who covers him for a million years agrees he's an autocrat. He has said he's going to be a dictator. On day one when he says he's kidding, he's not kidding. They're raising signs that say mass deportation. Now at the fucking convention. Why are we behaving like any of this is normal.
You got a guy in Florida running for office, Republican running for office, who is saying, the minute we're in Congress, I'm going to get a bill to suspend habeas Corpus to arrest not only the deep state, but the critics of Donald Trump. These people are not kidding. These people do not have any humor in them. This isn't some sort of like wacky rhetorical flex. This is what they believe. And if we treat Trump, I know, I've burned some relationships with some of my reporter friends, but if you keep treating Trump like he is a normal Republican candidate, yeah, you are going to get more Trump. And you all know this, And so I'm starting to have to presume that a lot of them want more Trump. It bothers the fuck out of me, Molly. It's like, what part of this idea that you normalize Trump has worked out for us? The part where we had a million people die from COVID because we thought, oh, we'd be a normal president and do all the responsible things that a royal president would do. The part where oh no, the guardrails will certainly keep Donald Trump from trying to steal the election. He would never do such a thing. That's outrageous.
Oh really, But I also wonder, like, this is the thing I was thinking about this morning. First of all, why don't people ask questions that are like, Okay, Donald Trump, you're going to lower inflation. How are you going to do it with tariffs? Okay, tariffs? How did tariffs lower inflation? Because they make things more expensive? So however lower inflation? Right, Oh well, you know then people will buy things made.
Noble l blah blah blah. And you know, look, just Donald Trump making mouth noises is not a sufficient reporting to right.
No, I agree, And I think one of the biggest problems here, just to get nuts and boltsy for a minute, is that people don't ask follow up questions. So like, for example, here's a question, like if you're going to ask, I mean, I don't want to get back to this thing because like I like Dana, she's a lovely human being, but like you are going to ask Harris what she thinks about Donald Trump saying she's not black?
Okay, all right.
What I would have said was much meaner than what she said, But she said, you know, I'm not going to answer that question because this is not a question, right, I mean, it's not really a question. What do you think of someone's racist slur? I think it's a racist.
Slur, right, Look, And a lot of what happened on that interview. And again, I like Dana Bash. I like Dana Bash a lot. Dana Bash is a very professional journalist, but these are things that are produced. It's not just her writing these questions. It's a produced thing, right. My concern, my issue is that you don't just take insane talking points from Donald Trump's campaign, rephrase them as a question and to present them to the other candidate, right, Because I do not hair reporters saying the Harris campaign says, you're a weird, creepy rape guy, You're a strange, racist fuck wit. They never say that, because it's always like this framing that they have priced in the insanity of Trump into their reporting is a disservice to the country, and in my humble opinion, a disservice to journalism.
Yeah, I mean, I just also don't understand what the goal is, right, what's the goal?
You've asked the correct question, Molly. What is the goal? Is the goal to treat this as a horse race, a ping pong match, back and forth? You know, if that's the case, then they're doing a great job for themselves. If they think that the horse race coverage that worked up until twenty sixteen to serve as a second order effect to educate voters about the differences in the candidates, if they think that world still exists, I have to remind them it has not existed for a very long time. And my concern is that they continue to frame this he's a normal Republican and she's a normal Democrat. Well, she is an normal Democrat. Actually she's kind of a better Democrat than we've had in a long time.
Yeah, that's the other.
Yeah, but they treat Donald Trump in this way. It's like participation trophy Central for this guy. Every time they get him out there, they price in, Okay, well Donald Trump's going to say something really crazy and stupid, but then we're going to take what he says and go to Harris and say, what's your response, madam.
Yeah, yeah, I just don't get it. I don't understand what the goal here is. And I also just don't know, like what's the let's just stop her second. If you're doing an interview like this and you want to get to do so, you want to get to know the candidate, even though she's had many positions in all.
Three branches of government. But okay, you want to.
Get to know her, and then you want to like, you know, know her policy. I don't want to know what she thinks of Donald Trump. I know what she thinks of Donald Trump. I know what I think of Donald Trump. It's enough about fucking Donald Trump. And I do think like when you ask these trumpy questions, A, you elevate him, but B you end up.
With answers about Donald Trump. Who the fuck cares?
Yeah. Look, the conception that Donald Trump is like a singularity, like a black hole in the middle of everything we do is part of the reason. And I don't know if journalists understand this yet. They got a sugar high off of Trump for a long time. But one of the reasons now that people are basically saying, yeah, that's okay, I'm making up my mind using other information is because they continue to insist that he is the only thing in our politics, and he is not right.
And the other thing is it's also not factual because we're.
Seeing that there is a Harris bounce.
Oh yeah, the Democratic Invention got better numbers than the Republican Convention, so there is actually a Harris bounce. She has these kind of Obama numbers, So it is not She is not Joe Biden. Which is not to say that Joe Biden isn't great, because I truly believe that some of the things he's done are singular policy achievements that maybe no one else could have gotten done because of his knowledge of the Senate. But this is to say that the mainstream media actually people want to see her on television, and I think that that is important.
But let's wait, wait, wait, hold on want saying myley. Actually there are a lot of them that they want her on television so they can zapper. You and I both know this is the case. I have my theories of why it is, but it's not about ideology. The acella chord media fucking hates Joe Biden. They fucking they hate him. With the fire of a billion.
Suns because he's boring, and he's bad for business because.
He's procedural and boring, and they hate him. Their hatred of him was not a good look for them. But we'll skip that for now, and this idea now that she's going to play by her rules. The things that are working for her and her campaign and not their rules are the same things they praise Donald Trump for doing. Oh, Trump's transgressive. He sets the agenda, he tells the media what he's going to do, and not the other. And they're angry at her for doing the same thing. They're angry at her. And I don't mean that. I don't mean the like the soaked and evil shit that Trump does. I mean the way she's dealing with the media. They praised Donald Trump, they say, and it's remarkable, groundbreaking, never before candidate like Donald Trump. And with her, it's like, what's this bitch doing to us? Why is she not sitting down for a four hour interrogation? Get the fuck out of here.
The takeaway here is Vice President Harris doesn't owe you shit.
Right, I mean correct, she doesn't. She doesn't know the CNN.
I mean, by the way, CNN, we know that CNN has been pushed to be Fox News Light. We know that because we've seen a million pieces about it. So like, why she gave her first interview to a company that is really trying to be Fox News Light is sort of interesting to me.
But we don't even have to talk about that because fogus.
I will tell my friends at CNN this since I've been banned there since Jeff Zucker, but I will tell them this once again, just the tip trump Ism does not exist, right. You are not going to get Trump's audience when they can get the unadult traded pure crazy on Fox or Newsmax or Oan or on you won't get them. They hate you. They will never not hate you. They will never not treat you as an enemy. And you are first against the wall if Trump gets back in office.
No, and we know Trump started with CNN socks as a chant and now CNN is like, maybe Donald.
Trump has some good ideas.
But Jesse Kennon wants us to move on to a new subject because he thinks that there's something that you and I should both talk about, which I don't disagree. Who do you think, Asad's favorite former congresswoman is, would.
That be also Putin's favorite former Congressman Tulca Gabbert.
She gives streaks a bad name, discuss all two colored hair. Political pundits are good.
You know, there is a streak of inevitability about the Tulsi Gabbert transformation where she was raised in the politics of Hawaii. This climate that, you know is quite progressive, not like a little progressive, like extremely progressive. Hawaii is like San Francisco, those those right wingers in San Francisco. But but she was raising that. And but the inevitability of her becoming a media creature, becoming a Fox News person is you could have drawn the arc, you know, a couple of years ago. It started out Molly, I think as kind of like she wanted to be like a novelty, like somebody who was transgressive, and like, oh, yes, I'm I'm willing to listen to all sides. I'm going to go to to give a sod a fair shake. Yes, you know it's sod. It's notoriously been notorious, set upon, notoriously been set upon at home, that poor fellow. But her enough endorsement of Trump should surprise no one. She is one blowout and a makeover away from a Fox News gig, and that's what she's after.
That's the goal here.
That's exactly what she's after. I think we shouldn't interpret her as a broader political evolution that goes beyond Tulsi herself. I think this is all about her, all about stardom, all about trying to get a Fox gig or maybe a gig in the Trump administration.
Yeah.
I think that's a really good point.
And obviously every single conservative, I mean, because we know what the Trump administration looks like because he was president for four years. It will meet right, everybody and their fucking brother will work in that ad man because you know, it'll be a Vanka stylist, Avanka's secretary, Avanka's publicist.
It'll be Baron's racquetball buddy whatever, right exactly.
He'll be the head of HUT. I mean they have to.
They're gonna have to fill all these government jobs, and they're going to find some of the most incompetent people we know to do it.
RFK is going to be a Secretary of Polio. I want to make sure all Americans increase their roadkill in their diet.
Yeah, the roadkill stuff is bad. I have to say, Like, by the way, I don't understand who is eating roadkill?
I didn't know this was a thing.
Is this a thing?
What the hell are we doing?
Well? Let me let me say this as you are aware. I am a Southerner, fifth generation Florida man.
Right, that's right. So you have killed many a squirrel in your life.
I've killed many a creature, many a four legged creature, mostly four legged creatures. I've never killed the long pig, but that's another start of the day.
Waits the long pig a squirrel?
No, the long pig is slang for killing a human and eating them. Oh, yeah, I've never done that. So I mean, I'm not to say I haven't hunted a human. But okay, does Tulsi move the net?
All?
Tulsa doesn't move shit?
All right.
It's sort of the first week of full on politics season. What should Vice President Harris be doing?
She should be doing what she's doing with these rallies and these campaigning in places like Look, she filled an arena to the rafters in Savannah, Georgia.
Yeah.
Now, look, Savannah is a purple area in the city proper, but surrounded by a big red area. She filled that place to the rafters. She should continue to treat Trump like the irritating racist gadfly that he is. She should continue to be out there doing these swing state visits because they're going great. She's, like I said, stacking them to the rafters and Trump every time. You've all known this from twenty fifteen, the biggest Trump lie. We have forty seven, three hundred and ninety people waiting to get in. We have screens for miles so people can watch this. There have a million people wanted to come, but the deep state stopped. You know all that. She's actually having that problem. They're maxing these arenas, They're not closing off the upper decks in these in these auditoriums and these stadiums, They're filling them. Keep doing that every day, Okay. Also take a lot of that gigantic pyramid of money and get up in the swing states and swing districts and pound the ever living shit out of Trump and his flip flop on abortion and his flip flops on everything. Because look, if I had to spare twenty five million dollars laying around, I would be up doing direct targeted work to evangelicals, telling them. Donald Trump has abandoned you. He lied to you. It was all about him, and he thought life was precious. It was only about him. But now he's a baby killer. Now he's one of them. Now he says abortion should be allowed even past six weeks. The fuckery that could be conducted there is epic.
But yeah, but it's true.
But also because he doesn't believe anything, He just wants to get elected. I mean, also talk about him wanting to fund He's going to pay for IVF for every man woman in the century.
Good for him, man, I love that.
Listen. I don't know if anybody noticed that line, though it was the complete line was we would either mandate insurance companies pay for it, or we would pay for it. Mandating insurance companies pay for things. I believe that's called Obamacare.
By the way, like insurance companies are like in the great State of Florida.
Perhaps you know something about this.
Climate change has really had its way with property insurance companies. So insurance companies are not in a great This is not a great moment to be an insurance company. But I'm sure having to pay twenty thirty forty thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child in this country should help them out.
They'll never raise those prices across the board to make other people cover that, will they? That could never happen with insurance companies, those struggling mom and pop insurance companies just scraping by.
By the way, can.
I just say it's so fucking stupid? Like one follow up question like won't that be expensive? IVF costs twenty thirty forty fifty thousand dollars multiple rounds, doesn't guarantee your pregnancy. Nobody ever asked that, right, Like how are you gonna pay for that? How are you gonna make insurance companies pay for that? Won't that raise everyone's insurance? Like two extra follow up questions.
Here's the thing, none of it matters to Trump. He's looking to get out of a hole. That hole is one that he created for himself. He doesn't understand how to escape it. He doesn't understand how to move from the insanity that he's engaged in and the failure that he's engaged in to a place of political stability. But I'm happy that he's there. I'm happy that he's flailing like this because it really has sent a shockwave into the evangelical world on the abortion question in particular. This is not like a few people at the edges of it now there's like a oh boy, maybe if the tide changes, he won't be for getting rid of gay marriage. Maybe the tide changes, he won't be for a national abortion ban. I mean he said that now. But it tells people something about Trump that there are two bad answers when they look at Trump in this problem. Either a they finally have to admit Trump is a lying liar who lies and that's one, or they have to admit he's being led around by the nose by his polsters and his consultants.
Which is also probably true.
Which they also do not like.
Thank you rip well any time.
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you know the Lincoln Projects Rick Willson of Fast Politics bleijug Fast are heading out on tour to bring you a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest. We'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the twenty first of September, and on the twenty second, we'll be in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to hit the East coast. On September thirtieth, We'll be in Boston at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October, we'll be in Pfilliate City Winery, and then DC on the second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just announced that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as we get through this election and hopefully never hear from a guy who lives in a golf club again, we got you covered. Join us in our surprise Guests to help you laugh instead of cry your way through this election season and give you the inside analysis of.
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Buy your tickets now by heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as Unusual dot bio. Oliver Darcy is the publisher of Status News.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
You've been on Fast Politics before, Oliver Darcy, but now you are no longer Oliver Darcy of CNN.
You are Oliver Darcy of Status.
Status which is your brand new tell us exactly what it is.
It's my brand new publication that comes out ninety five times a week, and I'm covering media and tech and politics, all that fun stuff, connecting those different parts of the industry together for readers on a ninety basis, and trying to hold all these key figures accountable for the decisions that make that affect all our lives exactly.
First, we're going to talk about the CNN interview, and then I have many, many, many, many many things I want to talk to you about. But first I want to talk about the CNN interview.
I love Dana. She's a very lovely human.
She's very nice, she is very every time I see her, I'm delighted to see her. I want you to explain to me what the virtue of that interview was.
Well, I mean, I think it was meant to get Harris and Walls on the record on a number of different things. And I think that's what Dana had really set out to do on policy ships here in there and get her response to maybe Donald Trump bonk has really heinous attacks. I think that's what they had set out to do. Let introduce Harris to the country. What did you think it? Wally?
This is like a fundamental problem with interviewing more generally, and I think this is why we're in this situation. So what I think is helpful for voters is to know policy right policy differences, to know what these people want to do when they get in office. A lot of the questions that she asked where things like Donald Trump says you're not really black?
Okay, I mean Donald Trump says a lot of shit.
Donald Trump retruths horrible misogynistic lies about her and Willie Brown yesterday, Why should she answer for Trump's racist at tax on her?
It's offensive? But b it's like what And I spend a.
Lot of time interviewing people, so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to get people to answer questions in ways that will be the most fulsome And I know for a fact that when you're interviewing someone, it is never useful to go at them to get them in a defensive posture.
It won't get you anything.
You want to get stuff from your interviewe. You don't want to make them so defensive that they just are like whatever. Now, the blackness question, I don't even know how we could learn more information from a question like that, right, I mean that question centers around the reality that Donald Trump is a racist and he's using a racist attack.
What should Harris possible say to that?
Yeah, and a clue she did not want to talk about it and wanted to move on quickly to other things.
What would she say? You know, yes, my father is black, my mother is Indian. I went to an HBCU. But because Donald Trump, I mean, like it just it's an unanswerable question. So if I had had that interview, which of course every journalist in America wanted that interview and then felt they should have had that interview, But I would have asked her, Okay, So Republicans are using inflation as a cudgel. Is inflation like, talk to us about inflation. Is inflation worse in America than it is in other economically absoluent countries. It's not right there, it's not and explain us why it's not right like and then also explain to us what you would do to lower inflation, and explain does what you think Trump would do to lower inflation, like give people information about the voting choice they're about to have versus about Trump's racist.
Lies, like what does that do? How would you possibly even answer that question?
And like there were a bunch of questions that were like that, I don't understand the merit of asking a candidate, especially when it's a Trump lie. It's not a real lie. So it's like this is all Trump does. I mean, I just don't get the merit of that.
Yeah, I think it's a little bit.
I don't know.
I can see to some extent both sides. It's to both sides something.
Oh good, all right, well let's do it.
You know, I think that Trump's appalling behavior is actually a fundamental thing that people are going to be voting on because they just do not like the way he behaves in public. They think he's disgusting. They see his racist and sextus attacks on Harris and others, I mean, so many others, and that's just that is just something that is dominating people's minds. And so I think, you know, trying maybe to get her on record responding to some of that, or like offering her thoughts on that, I think that made some sense to me. I could see, I could see why you would ask that question. Clearly though that Harris did not want to go there, and and Dan I moved on. I think within like, I think that lasted. The whole moment lasted maybe like under ten seconds or something.
I see where you're going with this.
I mean, Dana is a lovely person and she is a very talented journalist. But it is the same as a journalists asking me, well, your mother is Erica Jong and Dan Bongino says you've never done anything your.
Whole life and you're only where you are because of your mother.
What do you say to that? Okay?
I mean it's like, what should I say? You don't know.
I would accept a very witty response from you, Molly right, But you know what I mean.
I mean the question is like if the fundamental job of an interviewer is to ask questions, to get answers to give information. Yeah, I mean there were some questions that were different, but like, for example, Tim Walls, Tim Walls, so Trump has said this about your military service, okay, and he was like, well, they've lied about this, this, this, and that, and they're attacking my special need son. Right, is true, and it's a good answer for the campaign. And I guess it's a good answer for Bash but he doesn't tell us anything, right, It's just like the reality is like if you wanted to.
Get into it.
Walls decided to leave the National Guard to run for Congress because he was upset about the Gulf War.
This is an important data point.
Then no one has taught right like he did that, and then his students went and worked for him, and he campaigned in this very purple district and he actually won.
Nobody thought he would win.
He didn't get a money.
Ram Emmanuel is famous for saying, this guy doesn't have any money, why would we even get involved in this, or something to that effect. That's an interesting data point. Instead, she sort of tries to get him to engage on this right wing smear and he says no, which is the way.
To handle it.
But information is a given.
So so my question is like, what are we even fucking doing?
Yeah.
I think one of the problems with just broadly speaking, like political journalism today is often like Trump said what is your response, and then voting to Trump and Harris said this, and what is your response? And it just this constant by back and forth, and it doesn't, like you said, really illustrate anything for anyone that doesn't offer really new information, and it means that every time you spend time talking about this back and forth, which is much more politics base than policy base, you're not talking about solutions and how these peopark want to govern when they're in office. And I think I do agree that that is something that just constantly problematic, and unfortunately a lot of the national political press does prefer to focus on the politics of these races, often more than the policy when they're doing interviews and just in general.
And if you watch the coverage.
But I don't even care about policy versus politics. I mean I do, and I'd rather have policy. I did a little TikTok Instagram, video, YouTube, whatever where we taught where I asked Democrats policy proposals. It was like, by the way, nobody ever asked anyone about policies. They were like, oh, you know, and they came up with cool stuff, but they were like, oh, no one's ever having me that. More of the question is this Donald Trump is not a normal Republican candidate. He has been running for president for almost a decade, so he's normalized in our eyes. For example, yesterday he said he's going to give everyone free IVF.
Okay, now, IVF.
I don't know if you know this, but I have two of my three kids out of IVF. It costs so much money. I live in New York, and I was like, holy shit, this is a lot of money.
Okay.
Famously, insurance really doesn't. Some insurance does, but it's pretty unusual to get all of it covered.
It's tens of thousands of dollars.
Okay.
Donald Trump in twenty seventeen said he was going to give everyone insurance.
Okay.
Now, then he tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act and wasn't able to because of Arizona Senator John McCain, who then shortly afterwards died. First of all, there's no math in which you're going to be able to give twenty thousand and thirty thousand, fourty thousand dollars for IVF to each American couple, right, that's not going to happen. And he's not going to mandate insurance companies to do that because insurance companies would go to business. So this is undoable. It's like I'm going to buy every American child a pony. And yet you have mainstream media outlets being like Trump promises to make IVF free, and also the Republican platform is now that life begins at fetus or at fertilized egg. And you know, on the Heritage Foundation right now there's a there's a essay about how there are about many essays about how Americans must regulate IVF to prevent the deaths of these embryos.
So make it make sense to me, Well, the thing that people need to stop doing, obviously, is taking Trump out his word or treating him like a normal candidate. I think that's man's that's really I mean, every time you hear someone tried justifying a Trump interview, they're like, well, he made so much news, and it's like, well did he really and like, well he said this about that, and it's like, okay, yeah, Like I guess if he were in normal Candida and he made a poppy he took a policy stance that would matter a lot more. But he's not a normal candidate. And I think that that that really comes down to. He's an anti Democratic candidate. And that's really the biggest you know that the elephants of the room in this election when people go to the ballot box is it's this guy who wants to be an authoritarian versus a pretty run of the mill democrat running right. And so it just feels like the news media at times they just have blinders on and they refuse to see this reality, and they want to pretend that we're like in nineteen ninety five, when you know, you would have a Republic Canada the table what beat the press, and you'd have a Democrat at the table, and they would give up and the one would say I want text cuts, another it's say, man, maybe we shouldn't do that, and then afterward they'd all go to brunch and everyone was happy.
And I think it seems like it's so much of a media.
Really just longs for those days, and they refuse to acknowledge the reality that one of these parties had been hijacked by really dangerous people who you know, honestly have anti American values. Here are people who are at time it's promoting guys like Vladimer Putin right, And it just feels like this reality is something that's inconvenient for a lot of journalists who live in the Beltway, and they just don't want to acknowledge that. They don't want to talk about it. In plain terms and use a plain language to describe it, and so you end up with a lot of both side jurism and just cover it. That makes people our own want to tear their hair out when they want it because it's like, why aren't you guys able to see the thing that everyone else is able to see? And the last thing I'd say is these journalists, we are covering a lot of these these these topics in this way privately, like I think they would all acknowledge this. Right, you can't go to a bar in DC and talk to a class of bookwo reporters who are not going to say that Jim Jordan is just a liar whose pedals conspiracy theories. But then you read their copy and it's like, like Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Traditionary Community said Thursday that like, you know, Harris committed this crime, and it's like, well, wait a second, shouldn't it be like Jim Jordan, who has a lengthy history promoting unfounded information and unhinged conspiracy theories, leveled yet another one of those Like it's just like that contact, it's just so necessary is missing from these stories. And I think like The way I would think about it is if I'm fast forwarding one hundred years and I picked up like one of these newspapers or watched one of these cable news segments, It's like, I wouldn't really understand who Jim Jordan is.
And I think that's a problem.
Right, Like, you should be very clear about who these people are. Everyone understands it behind the scenes. Yet when it comes to making air often or making the prints paper, it just doesn't seem to be there in clear eye fashion.
And I think that's the problem.
I think that a lot of this is because they're worried about being called partisan.
Okay, or opinion Like someone someone the other day I think was reading something, you know, back to me and I had written that the RNC speech that Trump gave or something like that with Live Field, and I'm like, but that's not an opinion, that's just like objectively true, right, like that right fact? And I think honestly can did sentences like that, and when you when you talk what it can to some people seem like it's opinion, But I think you need it to. I think people need to be reminded that that's not that's not an opinion, like look at the fact checks online. They're being talked to Daniel Dale like demand lies like at a very irte and that might make you feel uncomfortable or it might be like awkward for you to say and use this language. But if you're not doing it, if you're not direct with the audience, is they're not getting a full understanding of what's happening.
Yeah, so talk to me about the industry what it looks like right now. You cover everything CBS and Sky, Will you talk to us about like the sort of the big mergers you see going, what you're what you see happening.
Yeah, I think well, I mean I cover the news media obviously, and we just talked about that. But also there are so many bigger things happening in the space that end up impacting.
The news media.
So one of those things, for instance, would be like CNN. Right, CNN is owned by Warner brother Discovery, which is a company that is in tremendous trouble right now, and they're in a lot of decks there. They just wrote down billions of dollars so admitted that their business is not worth I think nine billion dollars. As it was like a few years ago, and so that company's a problem in trouble. And when a company like that's in trouble, it always trickles down to the company's owns, like CNN. So if you want to know why CNN as to make budget cuts, for instance, or why certain things are happening there, you have to look at what's happening at the corporate company level of Warner brother Discovery and what someone like David'saslom is doing. Same thing over at CDs. You know, CBS News is known by paramounts Global, and Paramount Global is a massive trouble. They just also wrote down six billion dollars saying that their company is not worth as much money as it once was a few years ago. And so that company's going to now be merging with David Ellison's Skuydance Media. There's a deal that said to go into effect early next year, and that will mean that for instance, Jeff Schell, who used to head NBC Universal, will be president and run effectively run all of CBS and all those Timemount assets. And so I'm covering that all this this bigger I guess picture stuff in our Night newsletter status and it might be. I think at first glance, for some people who are mostly caring about the news media and how that relates to democracy and our current politics, it might seem like that's a little bit foreign. But when you actually start paying attention, you realize that everything you know or a one of the things that these news companies are doing, our impact it by the mergers and acquisitions happening at the much higher level.
Yeah, I think that's really, really, really important. And it seems like streaming is the future of cable news right because a lot of people under the age of forty five don't have cable boxes or don't want to pay for a cable, or it seems like counterintuitive for them to pay for a cable. NBC has News Now, which is a streamer, but I'm not seeing a ton of entries into streamer.
World, and I'm curious why that's not happening.
Well, I think the economics aren't so good, Molly, I think that's that's one of the reasons.
Right, don't you think there's a place for like you can just put ads on there like YouTube? I mean, I'm someone who comes from magazines in the nineteen nineties, so like it was clear to me in the nineteen nineties that you would take the stuff in the magazine and put it online.
And people would read it.
And for some reason, some people did that and a lot of people didn't, and eventually everyone got there, but the people got there slower died. So like, isn't this sort of the same thing, or am I just an idiot?
Well, I think that you're seeing people try. I mean CBS as their thing, NBC has their thing, CNN has its own thing on the max streamer. I just think the economics are really challenging when you talk about the talent which is used to being paid, for instance, like a cable news setus let's say gets paid a few million dollars.
I don't know.
If the streaming business is going to support those really high salaries, and so I think it's challenging to just copy and paste it over into one other area. There's going to be there's going to have to be a lot of slashes in terms of salaries, and then can you hold on to the talents that they're paid a lot less.
And then the other.
Problem too, Mollie, is that a company like Comcasts or direct CV is going to be very unhappy the moment, you take the current programming and put it on streaming. So what ends up happening is you have to create new shows on the student platform. So for instance, on MB News, now that's a different that's a different thing than what NBC News is offering. And then sometimes I think audiences are like, do I want to watch the b string? You know, not to be mean, but like the stuff that's and it's viewed in those lenses. And then the last thing, too, Molly, is that the audience watching cable is about seventy years old, and I just don't know how many other people are going to download an app and then like type in their credit card information or whatever, or just even download the app and watch a separate thing. I think they're very used to turning on their television and using the guide and going over to seeing other MSNBC when they want it. The younger audiences are really not watching cable news, and do they even want cable news or do they just consume contents on YouTube and TikTok and online in different ways.
I just wonder if they don't have the option, how do they know they could want it?
Yeah?
I don't know.
I mean that's it's very tricky. I don't know the answer is.
It's the five hundred million dollar question. I don't know the answer either, but it's something I think about a lot.
Thank you, thank you, thank you all, Darcy and the tell it.
It's called status and you can go to Status ones to sign up. There's a free component let me. It takes two seconds to sign up and I'd really love for more readers to check it out.
Thank you, Oliver.
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Pretadas is the South Asia correspondent for the New York Times and the author of Billionaire Nerd Savior King Bill Gates and his Quest to Shape Our World.
Welcome to Fast Politics printa Das.
Hello, Thank you, Mari.
So you wrote an unauthorized book about Bill Gates. Number one I always ask people is why did they write this book?
V My book isn't a strict biography, which is what to me made it very interesting. I didn't want to write a traditional biography of Bill Gates. He was it's interesting to me in that manner. I mean, obviously is a very fascinating character. But what struck me as interesting is the fact that he's been on the public stage for so many decades, and unlike a lot of billionaires and other relation illness people, he has been known for all these different things. You know, in the eighties, being the Microsoft co founder and kind of being this nerding boy genius billionaire, and then fortun time in the late nineteen nineties, all people could compare him to was Rocketfeller. I mean, if you look in the news coverage from that time and then in the past two decades. I think until the Epstein stuff happened, people really just looked at him as a good moral billionaire using his money to you know, shelt thousands of people to provide vaccines, that kind of thing. And then I think when the divorce happened in twenty twenty one and two years earlier, there were all these news reports about his connections with Jeffrey Epstein. And then right after the divorce he started seeing news about his extra manter affairs and it has continued, and so at that moment, I was like, who is this guy? I mean, Wow, there's a whole different side to Bill Gates. That's what got me really interested and like using him as a way to just kind of like look at bigger picture ideas like insluence and power of billionaires on society.
Yeah, it's so interesting because it is I mean even to the you know, the COVID pandemic where the two of them works, how important vaccines were.
Do you think that he was.
Able to hide his true self or do you think people just weren't looking that carefully, or do you think he changed from having all that money.
During the pandemic. I mean, this is a guy who has a very science and technology obviously driven mind, He's very rational, he's very data driven. He has studied vaccines and science in public health for decades. And the Gates Foundation was so influential outside in the US. Basically it's pretty important, but its focus has been on US charter schools, and globally it has like much more importance. I think people were surprised to see Gates kind of stand up and be this private actor standing alongside doctor Anthony Fauci and really advocating for vaccines. And it was an unexpected a role to see him as an advocate for something. You know, kind of thought guy, okay, philanthropist, Microsoft co founder, you know, someone who weighs a nontech change, But why is he a spokesman now for the pandemic? So I think that also introduced a new element of who Gates was to the world at large.
So do you think, though, that being a billionaire changed him or do you think that he was better at hiding his true nature?
Or is it both?
I mean it's both.
I think he's been a billionaire for so long, you know, I don't think he really thinks about those things, you know, whether he needs to, like, for instance, do you think about Epstein. I don't think he went into it worrying about optics. I think he went into it because some people told him that this was a guy worth meeting, and he made the trade off and said, Okay, I mean, maybe he's meaning and will get me a lot of money into the things I want. I mean, that's the extent of the story that's out there, and I couldn't tell you, and I think no one has been able to tell the world what exactly happened between Dates and Epstein. And of course Jel always said was collapse in judgment and she shouldn't have gone back. So I don't think this is a guy who like either oneself for another. He just is who he is, and a lot of people you know interacting with him don't really like him, even if they acknowledge that he's done an amazing job at Tech and then to anthropate. But his media handlers obviously do because they've been working really hard to burnish certain aspects of this image so that he comes across in a certain way. It was like very benevolent person.
It is so so strange though that if you're so careful about your persona and you're so careful about, you know, how you look to the world, and then you hang out with Jeffery Epstein after he already there's already whispers.
Didn't they hang out after it was a.
Convicted sexual centive? Yeah, I mean very much. So I think you know he had served there's a loose sentence in Florida jail. But yeah, I think you know, even a Google search would have told you that this was their character, that was the basic Google person. I did that, you know, I was like, okay, let's see maybe people hadn't written about it, but you know, vickim Ward back in the nineties Rope two bandies there kind of compare him to this, like, you know, slightly like almost sindy person, but who hung out with Donald Trump? Who hung up with all these different people, And you know, there are all these reports of how he always liked to hang out with beautiful women, and that was one piece of it. And that's you know, that was before and then you still had a lot of coverage, you know, in the years before Gates met him. So I don't know were his people asleep at the splints or did they think it would never get discovered, or did they not think about it at all, or could they not stop Gates because Gates just wanted to do things his own way and didn't bear Again, as I was saying, you like about Image and Optics, is it a leaky.
Crew around Gates? It seems like it's very much not.
It's a very combative crew around Gates. I mean, I think especially after the divorce and they pad like it's not the easiest time for anyone in that job, right, like trying to swat things down because there are all these negative stories that you know, if you're a PR person, you're going to vulture drive. But some of it I think comes from the way Dates himself is, and that was told to me many times that he's again a very data driven kind of guy, and he's like the reporter comes to him and says, hey, this is what I'm hearing, he'd be like, where's the evidence. If you don't have the evidence, he tends to dismiss, and I think that can set the tone through what like a lot of PR people end up doing around him. So you end up dismissing, but then you know, in reporting, you come back with more information and then at some point you're forced to backpack or forced to tone down your message and forced to kind of like engage, but by then you just already like created this very combative atmosphere. So it's a strange way of handling, but it's not surprising, and a lot of people can be like that.
Yeah, do you think that having a ton of money changes a person totally?
I mean, you know, it disconnects you right from the world, like from the experience of others, and you can only have a filtered experience, like even I mean, I would say, obviously Gates and the lend of French Gates have a lot of contact with what's going on, you know, in very poor countries and all the problems, but it's still a very filtered world because if they're going to something, it's like a trip that's prepared, you know, nine months in advance for the foundation, right and you're going there and like everything's been set out for you and you're meeting this person who you know has been chosen for certain reasons, So it's kind of a very sheltered experience. Although I would say they still you know, obviously meet and know much more about the world now than they did. But yeah, I mean, I see you can get out of charge because, for instance, Gates is responsible, his money is responsible, or you know, money is directing film is responsible for the livelihoods of like two thousand people. Right, you have one hundred people at the foundation and earned people on his personal staff. And I don't think anyone's kind of it's in no one's interests to really stand up to him, so people end up referring to him. So I think that gives you a sense of yourself that might not be one hundred percent rooted in reality. And I think that's function of massive wealth and influence.
I think that's right.
So can you explain to us why they got divorced or what happened there?
Because they've been married for such a long time.
Yeah, twenty seven years and their relationship started in the office, right, she's nine years younger. From everything that my reporting indicated, it was a troubled marriage. And I think people who had seen Gates and Nwlanda up close for many years felt that they had a good working relationship, but he could still be a certain way, but that maybe on the personal front that it was not as good as you might saying. I don't want to like overstate the case, even though that ended divorced. But you know my reporting and I think it's come out since then that he didn't conduct extra medal affairs and he had a reputation for being something of a ladies man in going back to the eighties and nineties and so, which again didn't fit into the persona. But I think that fed into what was a troubled marriage that they couldn't do anything about. To me, the Gates Foundation, the Origin Story Foundation, so tied to their couple them, right, this is like a foundation that was formed from them going on a trip and seeing kind of the poverty of like so Saharan Africa and coming against coming back and saying, oh my god, we need to do something, and that's how they started the foundation. So you couldn't suddenly up to people just.
You know, go their own ways.
But I think Lorenda has since said that boast the Epstein rep relations and all of that scrutiny, that came a moment that where she felt that she couldn't go on anymore. And so she clearly indicated as well that it was pretty troubled marriage for many years.
So interesting, what's too much, right, because like the idea that it was abstute really that did it is sort of interesting one of Meddy.
I can't imagine that it was the only thing. But I think also the fact that, I mean, it could be true for anyone. Right, you might live with the knowledge about something, even if you don't like it, hated, whatever it is. But once it becomes public, right, once it reflects.
On you too.
And for Melinda it was at a time when she was really trying to build her own hyper public brand that was focused very much on women's empowerment and gender equality and things like that. So you can imagine that news of rx husband's connections with a convicted sex offender at that time was probably not just not the best look for her, even though she had obviously known that he had met with Epstein many times in that twenty eleven to twenty fourteen time.
Harry, there's a real dis divide.
It seems like you have these male divorced billionaires like Elon Musk who tend to become very trumpy.
I'm thinking of.
Also Bill Ackman, or even like I mean, Harold Ham is an oil and gas executive, so that makes a little more sense. But all of these billionaire wives and I'm thinking about McKenzie. Bezos have actually come out as Democrats. How do you explain this?
I think again, like once you're a cheaper level of through and down and you begin to it's not just money and it's not just you know, you've created the companies to become wildly successful.
Everyone knows your name.
But I think at that point she become very confident in stating your thews and maybe we're all stuff that way. And now it's just that, Okay, I have a bullhorn and I can say this, and I have been learning you to actually make things happen if I like it a certain way, if I don't like it a certain way, must is obviously a very obvious example of that, right that he didn't like the way Twitter worked, and so he decided he could buy the company and like make it more in line with what he thought it should be. I mean, and this is a guy who you know has the money to do it, and so I think it would embolden you a lot. And Gates has been interesting because he is publicly like he is very apolitical, and I think he has needed to do that so that the Foundation doesn't get into these politicized battles. I mean it already has. But you know, he was actually pissed off and the Trump illustration during the pandemic because they were making all these pronouncements on vaccines and he just said, you know, craft but the areas of top administration nutritional saying wasn't exasperated at that time. But for the others, I mean, I think there is there's an element of supreme confidence that money and extreme success brains that makes you kind of feel that you can weigh in on whatever it is and you're protected, you know, so you can double down. You're based in India right well, right now in New York. But yeah, what happened was that I change jobs. The process of writing books is a long run and so I used to be financed at there until a couple of months ago. And now on the South Asian cors comment based in Delhi.
So what's happening right now in Deli. It's such an interesting moment.
Yeah, I mean, India has been at the center of a lot of geopolitical shifts, and it does have a Prime Minister who is adored by much of the country, despite you know, given his record in terms of the treatment of some minorities, mostly minorities, and also.
His washing dissent.
There are a lot of media organizations and research organizations on foreign organizations like being Peace and Amnesty that have long worked in India kind of being curtailed or like self essentially as a result of the money government's crackedout. So despite that, I mean, here's a guy who is very determined to put India on the world stage, turn it into a middle income country, and invite foreign companies to invest in India, and trying to take advantage of the fact that the US channel relationship is important used to be and has a really become tense and soured. And I think that puts India kind of at an advantage according to Moti, according to the world. So it's a good time to kind of put yourself out there. So we are powerful where the dish of the largest population in the world, and a lot of Indians take pride that. There's a lot of cheerleading going on as a result domestically orn mooding.
So interesting, it's scary but also interesting.
No, well, it's interesting. Also there's this whole sort of Gates and Lodi connection, and I take that up in my book briefly because the Gates Foundation's biggest office outside the US is in India, and he and Mody kind of had these highly publicized sit downs. And I think for Mody having that connection to Gates is extremely important because it's a legitimizing force globally, and I think for Gates, the Foundation does a lot of work in India is like a crucible right. You have to have India succeed on development goals if you're going to meet global goals for development, like assisting ale development goals. So there's sort of like an interesting dynamic between the two of them. I think it's mutually beneficial. So that's really interesting to see as well.
Yeah, so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, thank you, Mollly, thank you for having me.
Now moments Ritt Wilson, Molli, Jong.
Fat What is your moment of fuckery?
My moment of fuckery is and remains Arlington National Cemetery. Yeah, which we're pretty flip on this show a lot of the time. But I was so revolted and saddened on behalf of you know, watching this grotesque display on behalf of anyone in America, who ever had a family member who served or who served themselves. That this guy demands access to one of the most sacred places in American life, to one of the most sacred spaces in a memorial that holds the remains of four hundred thousand Americans who've died in combat and who've died after serving this country. That Donald Trump tried to set up a political prank in coordination with Fox News to claim an memorial was going on, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to visit and only Trump would show up. And the fact that Corey Lewandowski and Chris Losovita and whatever thugs were with them shoved and verbally abused an Army staffer.
Yeah, and we still don't know this story about that right.
Who was trying to maintain the dignity of Arlington and who later said she wouldn't foul charges because she was afraid for her life, because she was afraid of being doxed and attacked by these people. That to me is a moment of fuckery. That is I mean, look, a lot of times the moment of fuckery has some humor to it. This one has no humor in my mind. To it. This just makes me more determined to beat that motherfucker's political brains in and be done with him.
Well, yes, in.
A completely political and not violent way at all.
I said political.
Yes, yes, no, I know, I'm just specifying. I thought that was a very good way.
You know, it was good of you to be careful with saying that this is about politics and not anything that is anything else.
My moment of.
Fuckery is this continued discourse about Donald Trump's age. So Joe Biden was told he had to drop out. He was too old, he was way too old. He was too old.
It was not good.
Did you hear that Joe Biden was old? Did you hear that? I heard that. I heard a couple of people mentioned that. Yeah.
I never heard it, but I got the sense that people thought he was too old. Okay, Now, Donald Trump not too old, And in fact, there was a piece.
In the Washington Most about how he doesn't read as old. He's a spry seventy eight year old.
He's the oldest person to ever run for president.
And did whoever, I don't know who wrote that, but Matt boy.
Oh okay, okay, all right, yeah, okay, had they not watched a single Trump rally, briefing, press availability speech, or various two camera mumblefest.
Yeah, because Trump is not well. This guy is not well, not young. He doesn't scan as young, not young. A friend of ours sent us a photograph from somebody in a restaurant and Palm Beach other night, just ann anonymous couple. But there was this sort of like full haired but seventy five ish, slightly portly fellow sitting across the table from a hot young girl and a little dress, clearly not his daughter, and it was like, oh, my god, that's Donald Trump. If he hadn't run for office, he'd be sitting in some fucking steakhouse in Palm Beach with some little chippy Like do you know how rich I am? But he is just so gross. He's so gross, and he's so senile, and I'm sorry. You know what. The downside of this world right now in the media is what we were told was a screaming central must consider issue every single day for almost nine fucking months with Joe Biden is now like we didn't say that, what are you talking about? I feel like we're being gas lit on this particular issue more than almost any other.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Thank you, Rick Wilson anytime.
I'll talk to you again next week. And by the way, folks, don't forget to check out Politics as Unusual Bio because Molly and I are on our speaking tour and it is a blast. People are loving it, we're selling it out and we'll be adding some more dates, so come and get it.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
