There might not be singing, dancing, or mutants in Hugh Jackman’s latest movie, but it’s a big hit with Katie and Brian. Hugh stars as Gary Hart in “The Front Runner,” about the Democratic senator from Colorado who seemed destined to become his party’s presidential nominee in 1988. But an alleged extramarital dalliance — and the media’s newfound interest in a candidate’s personal affairs — led to Hart’s downfall and changed political journalism forever. Hugh talks with Katie and Brian about the movie, and joining the conversation are Matt Bai and Jay Carson, who co-wrote the screenplay.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Hi Katie, Hi Brian. Did you have a nice Thanksgiving? I had a lovely Thanksgiving. You know why why I didn't cook a damp thing. We went to a restaurant and ate everything from soup to nuts. How lazy am I? How was your Thanksgiving? Brian? It was very good. You know, my family cook so the turkey was dry, but the pie was good. Old I've never had a voice turkey. Actually no, I mean I think we should have like a Thanksgiving ham or something. I'd like to I'd like to Thanksgiving rip ros myself like a prime rib. Anyway, but it is an opportunity to kind of have a little time off and to give thanks in all sincerity for our blessings and that our bously, our family, our friends are good fortune and you Brian, and this podcast and today I'm exceptionally thankful that I get to talk to Hugh Jackman, Matt Bye and Jake Carson. Did they sound like afterthoughts? Well? Maybe because a jack. Hugh Jackman, of course, has a new movie out called The front Runner, all about Gary Hart's ill fated campaign and what happened to him in three weeks back in seven when it looked like he was going to win his party's nomination for president of the United States. But it was when everything changed, not only for Gary Hart, but for the media and for our country. And we should provide a little bit of background. Gary Hart was a Democratic senator from Colorado. He had run unsuccessfully for president once before. Everybody sort of assumed he was going to be the leader of the pack. But then the media started digging around his personal life and that was kind of the beginning of the end for his effort. I'm going to show you, Senator, this is relevant. It's just that we saw you leave and come back with this woman, and we wouldn't see her. No one is staying in my home. There's no need for that, right, I am serious, sir. How long have you known this? One kind of question? What kind of questions are? Is she a friend? Well, I don't know why I would tell you that, Tom, I am not going to you produce her to corroborate what you're saying. You have to produce anything. This has gone on along. We know you've made calls to this woman from Kansas and New Hampson every day. I don't see how I remember at your announcement speech. Okay, you said, you said, we weld ourselves the highest possible standards of integrity and ethics. Then why are we standing here now? Hugh Jackman did not do this on his own. It's based on a book written by Matt, by one of our favorites. We worked together when we were both at Yahoo News. Matt is still there is the National Political Columnists. So this movie is based on his book called All the Truth Is Out, The Weak Politics Went Tabloid. We're also joined by another one of my favorites, Jay Carson. Jay Carson helped adapt Matt's book into the screenplay along with director Jason Rightman. James had a pretty interesting career himself. He's only a senior advisor at Bloomberg Philanthropies. He's worked on a lot of big political campaigns. You and I, I think first got to know him ten years ago when he was the traveling press secretary for Hillary Clinton. That's right. Fun fact. Ryan Gosling played the character based on j in the two thousand thirteen movie The Odds of March As I'm looking at you, Brian, Ryan Gosling could play you in the movie All About Our Podcast. You know, find a nickel for every time somebody said that's me, Katie, I'm you know, I'm confused for Hugh or for Ryan particularly Shirt. Anyway, we decided we were going to have a long conversation with them about politics, the media, about Gary Hart, and how you really take a story that happened in nine seven and make it relevant today. So we started out by asking Matt why he wanted to write a book about this chapter in American politics in the first place. There are just stories. I know you've had this experience, kidding, They're just stories. They grab you, they don't really let you go. I'm not a person who has a million ideas I want to live with for a long time. In fact, this might be the only one. But you know, I had met Gary Hart at the end of two thousand two when I was in New York Times magazine. I'd written about him. I'd been found myself really compelled both by him and his story and also about the things I've missed about his story. I mean, the more I looked into it, the more I found that some things were just so misremembered about it, even things I'd repeated. Honestly, they just weren't right. And I think to myself as a journalist. If we've if we've just put something in a box and we've we've collectively misremembered it. Why you know, what, what why why do you do that? You don't do that for no reason. You overlook something for a reason. And I really began to look into it, decided I wanted to do the book, which really people did think was a crazy idea except for Jay, my wife, you know people. But you know by um, you know, the book came out in and you know, I should imagine because we started talking about um, all of us behind the movie, but you know, the driving force behind the movies Jason Reitman, our director and co writer, who uh you know, who heard me talking about the book on a podcast and on a radio that piece and just was immediately got it, you know, just was hooked. Read the book immediately, you know, if you know, Jason just like write the book in about twenty seconds. Uh, you know, I had the movie in his head by the time we all sat down, and uh and we we all just had this kind of magical collaboration. Really and what was it, Hugh that made you think, Gosh, I want to play Gary Hart? Well, Jason was a big part of it, and I didn't know a lot about the story, and I was amazed when I read it all how this incredible for me, incredible candidate and with an unbelievably strong ideas somehow quit politics forever, like this was the guy who was definitely going to be the next president. Three weeks later he's out forever. And this sort of mix about principles and ethics and public versus p of it. There was so much about it that fascinated me, and I was in probably twenty pages into the script. I thought the writing was so smart. I loved being part of a movie that wasn't heroes and villains. It was just a whole bunch of characters. I love the way that women were portrayed in the movie, and it really made me think, which ultimately is great thing if you're going to see a movie, and if you're going to be in a movie and you're gonna dedicate six nine months to be alive. He wanted to be something that's really going to grab you. Jay. There were very few negatives on Heart, but one was the sort of undefined sense that he was a little bit flaky. He had changed his last name he had changed his signature, he had even changed his birthdate at one point. But the other was Heart's reputation as a womanizer. And of course before reporters didn't look at the private lives of candidate's pretty much. Ever, why do you think this changed? Why do you think the Heart campaign was the moment that this shifted. I mean, there's a confluence of events that happened around eight um that lead to this moment shifting, and it shifts in it and it never returns. But there is a rule pre ad eight, which is that someone's personal life is never relevant. Um. The rule post is that it's always relevant. What we're arguing for in this movie is some judgment on the part on on all of our parts, the voters, the journalists, the candidates. Certainly there were times pre a eight where it was relevant we should have known what was going on behind closed doors. Certainly there have been times post eight eight where we don't need to know. And that's that's sort of what we're trying to start that conversation, UM, because I think that absolute rules, whether they are ideology or something like always and never are they're just lazy on all of our parts. So what Was it about the atmosphere though then and the environment Matt that this confluence that Jave referred to, that was it increased competition? Was it, you know, the US weeklies of the world coming into play. I mean, you know, I remember because I had worked at w TVJ in Miami and I was big admirer of Tom Fieedler's But yeah, he's from the Miami Herald that was really involved in in breaking this story. Right, What was happening that caused this? There are moments in time where things come together in a way that changes and it's not just politics, changes the culture. And I think, you know, in retrospect, what's easier to see now than at that moment in the mid nineties, you had a bunch of things going on. You're about a decade after Watergate, which changes journalism in a couple of profound ways. It changes, yes, in a sort of based career ambition way. Right, if you can take down a politician, now you can get rich and famous. But also quite quite rightly, I think puts the focus on moral character of our leaders more than it had been. And because it was embarrassing for the media to have missed that about Richard Nixon. You had the rise of feminism on the left, which changed attitudes about adult three, you had the rise of the moral majority on the right, which also put personal behavior much more in the realm of political discussion. And then you have the birth that you know better than I do, the birth of to like television right, CNN launches in the early nineteen eighties, flyaway satellite dishes. Right. Suddenly you have this moment where you can broadcast live anything from anywhere, and you've got to keep people in their seats, and the definition of news changes when it's an hour to hour sort of keep the ratings up, uh issue, And so all of these things come together, I think in that moment, and as a result, what happens is that we begin from that moment to treat our candidate's much more like we treat our celebrities. And I would submit that when you treat politicians like celebrities and create a process that demands celebrity, you will get celebrities as politicians and wanting to enter the process. And I think that's been the direct line that you can follow from that moment to the one in which we find ourselves, frankly more relevant than we thought writing the script. We we had the script done before thee election, but I think I think events have just made it so unsettlingly timely in some ways. You know, I think you accomplished something that I thought was impossible. You made Hugh Jackman actually unappealing to one. Thing that struck me, you know, because I remember Gary hard. I think I've interviewed him on a number of occasions, and of course I remember the story well. Even though I was in local news when this this story happened. Um, you know, I kept thinking, God, he's so humorless, and he's so lacking in Christmas. He's so obnoxiously earnest. That's what I thought when I watched this movie. Did you set out to make him that way? This is the least amount of acting I've ever done. I know he is, I know you. He's the antithesis of everything you are. I mean, did you just have to like try to sublimate any personality? No, I have a different perspective from meeting him and spending time with him. I find him very mercurial in a way. Like I actually jokingly said to him, have you ever thought about being an actor? Because when I'm around a lot of actors, I always feel like any adjective could work with that actor, Like actors have to chop and change so much that they can to time to be grumpy or earnest or funny. And I found him maybe because of everything I'd heard or read. I was surprisingly warm, funny, very inviting, very very hospitable. He was quite serious and brief in what he did, and people were even his own campaign team at important moments, were on eggshells at times around him because he was very serious and he wasn't mucking around. But I I my job was to bring you close enough, but never let you in. That's what I felt, and Jason I talked about that a lot, because he is a very private person, and a lot of people I spoke to even to this day, once it's been years around it was like I couldn't quite grab onto who he is. So I'm a little even hearing you now, I'm like, maybe I didn't quite work. I was hoping for a bit like I think I've got it, but I'm not sure like that, I mean, I mean, I felt he was almost contemptuous of the People magazine culture. We were moving towards definitely think it's a discomfort more than anything I think, And I think that's what he brings across so brilliantly. I do think he is absolutely brilliant this film. I think we all do, and and and part of it is is telegraphing something that's very hard to telegraph with your face, with your emotions, with your emotions. Is this this discomfort with the arena is not being able to feel yourself, with feeling always under a microscope and and feeling the ground shifting underneath you, and not being able to adapt to it. It's a hard thing to get across with somebody who doesn't deliver long soliloquies, which is and I think you did a great job. Don't get me wrong. I just didn't find Gary Hart very appealing for me because I think he was so intent upon maintaining this zone of privacy. As somebody who watched the movie, I you know, I just wanted to mess up his hair and slap him around and get him drunk. Right by the way he got mad drunk. He makes a main mountainy when I said in his house, oh yeah, no, no he can, he can throw him back, but he yeah, No, it's it's it's interesting because I think it was. I DAS was so important to him, and he spent hours on them. And so when he was doing a speech on economics or in anything, it had been years of working things out before he ran. He had been to every country, met with not just the leader but the opposition leader. So he knew, like his detail on how he could possibly lead the country very well overnight year period was incredible. Did he have enough EQ for this current environment and for mass media? And you know when they say people vote for the guy or gal they want to have a beer with, Like I mean, he just didn't seem to have any of those. Hey, let's let's hang out qualities. I know what you mean. And I think I find myself in the same place sometimes scolding myself for needing the person to have the right EQ. And and I have through the process of writing and doing this movie, I wanted to flip that around in my head and wonder why we put so much stress on that. Right, We're watching someone who's clearly brilliant, who's clearly thought the job through, but we don't like them enough. And this is weird thing where like we would never cheat our airline pilot that way. I mean, I flew through a lot of turbulence to get here last night, and I wasn't thinking as I was laying there trying to to sleep through the through the bouncing around, like do I like my pilot? Is he nice enough? I'm like, I want him to be able to fly the goddamn plane and landed and we flipped it around with President, which is much more serious than flying just two hundred of us across the country. I personally want to pilot chat and they do both right. They're funny and they can fly. But like, I'll take flying over funny and likable every day. But we have I do it too, Like I would pick candidates I would work for based on do I like them? Do I want to be around them all the time? That's not the right prioritization. Don't they have to be great communicators though, Isn't that? Part of Donald Trump's problem is that he just doesn't know how to heal the nation and times of duress. He doesn't know how to inspire anyone. All he knows is how to you know, hate on people really and and to me, communicating and setting a tone is as important as having the cerebral qualities of coming up with the best policies. But let me just add another little thing into that mix, in that there's a great documentary about his eighty four run and he's on camera saying, I'm I'm often called cool and aloof that when we win that first primary, everyone will call me enigmatic and he and and that's exactly what happened. So he wins in a landslide. If anyone's like, who's this guy out of nowhere? And Heart and all of a sudden, people seem in this different prison. So if we cut to seven, let's say he wins the first four or five pa these twenty points, they hit a bush. People seeing him in a whole different light. He probably carries himself in a different light. He doesn't have to work so like it would might have fit perfectly with his character and we would have just gone, ah, a lot of this guy. He's got great He doesn't have to talk on and on like I think it's it's just interesting that he did have an understanding of human nature. And maybe it was events as much as anything. Well, I'm front runners are covered differently. Heart was supposed by everyone to be the next president United States, and so he generated a lot of extra scrutiny. But I'm going to ask you about how much the rules actually changed. Because after Heart, Bill Clinton and Frankly, our current president have gotten away with extramarital affairs. Why do you think they were able to get through these controversies? But Heart was I mean, Brian, it's it's exactly what I was saying. You know, It's just what I was saying a moment ago. Because you create a process that rewards a certain amount of shamelessness and evasion and the willingness to drag your family uh in one of the cameras and uh and Frankly to be dishonest and uh, you know. I mean you can look at it and say, well, Bill Clinton survived. Now I look at Donald Trump and he's got all this checker stuff and he just says whatever he wants and sales through. Okay, But but I would look at it, I would suggest that it's very different, which is, you created a process that rewards an entirely different set of qualities. What we think of his leadership now is not what we thought of his leadership prior to. It's not about ideas. It's not about intellect, it's not about even a certain amount of reserve, which people generally expected in their leaders. It's now about how well how well can you evade the traps, how well can you emode on que how much of us? How much are you willing to share? What? How much can you humanize yourself? Uh? And and and how you know, can you lie effectively to get around the things about yourself that would be that would be morally damaging. I think when you create, when you change the definition of what makes a great candidate, you you you you get the candidates who meet those qualifications and a pretty good candidate instant. It ends up being incidental. You know, you may have someone who knows how to do the job, but that's their performing ability that we're looking at first. It's just what I was saying. It's it's not can they fly the plane, it's it's their performance ability. And oh, incidentally, they may have gone to flight school. But we're not really asking those questions first. That we have a process that rewards shamelessness. Is it because there's no marketplace of ideas? I mean, is it because of our modern media culture that emphasizes sort of the quick uh, you know, dramatic theatrical aspect of a candidate or a president. I mean, why did it all change? I mean, are we just stupid? I mean, what is it? Well? I think that's that's a chicken and egg question, right, is it is it? Does the process dumbed down the dialogue and and bleed bleeded of ideas or or does a lack of ideas create a more vapid process. And that's part of the conversation. I think people can debate, you know, when they when they think about these issues. To your point B about Presdental Bomba, which is a very interesting case and I think very actually quite similar to Center Heart in some ways in terms personality. I would actually argue that while President Obama is different than the other people we talked about, his mere existence as a candidate and president would not have been possible in a process that we're not dominated by a kind of entertainment narrative. He was the star of a drama. You know, we call him no Drama Obama. The truth is he had very little experience, very little qualification, had thought through very little about governing the country. But he was a story. There was a great story, arc and a great character to what he sold the country. And I don't I don't know, I know him, and I don't argue he wasn't a good president. I'm simply saying he is part and parcel of of an euro where entertainment has become intertwined and inseparable from politics. And I think this is what we're looking at. Here is a genesis moment. It's a moment, you know. What we're trying to show people is a moment where it shifted so they can leave and reflect and argue about how it got here, whether it should have been different, and where the responsibility laws. On the other hand, I was frustrated because ja I kept thinking, why couldn't Gary Heart just keep it in his pants? What the hell was wrong with him? I mean, look, I mean, I mean, is it too much to expect? Maybe I'm just not idealistic and naive, but I kind of want my president to be faithful? Is that weird? Matt? You want to notice that Teddy White said that of all the candidates he covered in half a century for president, only three Harry Truman, George Romney and Jimmy Carter had not enjoyed the pleasure of quote casual partners, which is kind of unbelievable. We could have I guess we could have twenty Carter administrations if that's what you want. But uh, you know, what should should I not care? You know? You should care? I mean I think that, you know, part of what we're arguing this movie is that like, it's okay for you to care, that you and a big block of voters do care, and that's that's just fine. It's not we're not arguing to go backward. No no, no, no no no. But everyone everyone may not care, um, but it's absolutely if that's on your if that's you know, if that's if they didn't care about Bill Clinton and suddenly now they care again because of Montica Lewinsky. M hmm. But I mean to bring it back to the movie The Clinton Cases. The Clinton case is an interesting one because it goes back to what we're talking about. There's a the performative skills and the and the willingness to do anything to get through a scandal leads to you know, he takes a number of steps that Gary Hart wasn't willing to take. A eight you know, if you'll the sixty minutes interview to start right, you know, I mean, heart was like, I am not going to force my wife to sit next to me and and do an interview about this. I'm just not going to do it. And you know, other other candidates, they all had us. They also had seemed to have a super weird relationship. To me, I'm okay. First of all, the assumption that all that happened with Gary is not a given. Uh so that's not deny it actually, and he has been on record to saying they had two separations to maybe three during they just celebrated sixt winning anniversary and I stayed with him at their house and Gary as she was recovering from elective hip surgery. And Gary, at six o'clock in the morning, we had the tray with the folded napkin and her pills for the thing and taking the breakfast to her, and I saw nothing but love and devotion and family and come on you sixty years it's never it's not going to be all right. But the point of the movie is not did he or didn't he? Even if he did, is that disqualifying? But I just feel I'm sitting here going I have to stand up with Gary because I know if Gary's he was like, well hang on his sex stop assuming that I'm one of those presidents, but you know who or presidential candidates who did or didn't. We're talking to Hugh Jackman, j Carson, and Matt By about their movie The front Runner. Will be back with Moore right after this quick break. Now back to Hugh jack and Jake Carson and that by Q. There's a famous moment that's covered in the film when your character is asked by a reporter who's e J. Dion in real life about his womanizing reputation. God sick. Just ask whatever it is you came here to ask. Whatever you're read. I told you to ask me. This is beneath you. Okay, m do you feel like you have a traditional marriage? Yeah? You want to know what I'm doing all my spare time. AJ is that it follow me around, put a tail on me, be very bored. A couple of points on that heart. Didn't think anybody would actually do it, and the Miami Herald reporters were already part They used that post facto as a justification. Yeah. I think I think Matt's book for Gary, one great takeaway for him was that Finally, I mean for probably the smartest politician that may have ever been in American one the smartest to be known as doing the dumbest thing. Well, I think to him was one of one of those great injustices, as Matt Book put that to right, so that it was a throwaway comment. And yeah, and they were already following him around, you know. But I encourage people to, Okay, so view the movie and his this whole three weeks from the idea that he did it right. Okay, so he did it, and then view it from the prison that maybe there was nothing we donn right, maybe nothing that he meant. Maybe there's there's this whole story in the Atlantic that Lee Atwater had set the whole thing up, And okay, take that as a and view it from that prison, and then watch a man who did not made it every time, right, but buy a ticket every time. You just mentioned that. It's kind of an aside that Jim Fallows piece in the Atlantic was pretty fascinating, man, I'm curious your view on this, since you're the world's expert. Basically, Fallows spoke to a very famous media guy, Ray Struther, who were for Heart, who had like a deathbed conversation with Lee Atwater, George Bush's strategist, who told him that the monkey business, the images, the whole thing was sort of set up by Bush's campaign. Do you buy that? I don't know, Brian, I mean, you know, I'm like you. I find it fascinating. I think here's what I know. I I think it's perfectly plausible that the Republicans would have set out to do Harden at that point. Uh. I also think that so many decisions were made by people who I known were not part of a plot that week that you know, I don't think you could construct a Rube Goldberg machine quite that intricate, right, people used judgment and bad judgment often, and so I think, uh, it's possible both things were going on. I don't think you could any conspiracy could account for all the things that happened that week or how it unfolded. But ultimately, for us, you know, where it's it's just interesting. I mean, we're more interested in the forces that set it all in motion and how it changed the industry. I mean, we regardless of what set that in motion. Um, So I'm fascinating. I've talked to Jim Follows about it, and I've given him new paths to down and I hope he keeps looking at it because I think it's a fun thing to speculate about. But it is just really expect relevant if if it happened, is it still is that like maybe for you that is that that disqualifies someone as a candidate. But I don't know. I don't know if it does or not. Honestly, I think sometimes it's a reaction to it um that that if he had said I don't know if I if we can go back to seven and say, well, what should he have done? What could he have done? Could he have somehow gotten out of this for the good of the country to to push forward his idea? I think that I'm watching it. I was like, if Gary was only interested in political survival, I have no doubt he could have got out of that in a seconds. What we have done here, I've been I've been for starters. I've been on record. You know, my wife and I have been married for thirty years. We've had two or three separations, but we're together, we're working on it, and like any couple, we committed to doing our best. Anyway. Can we move on to economic like moving on, like so in the moment, because that's what I'm saying. If you view from the prison, Let's say nothing happened right with that situation, and then you've got a man whose principle is the first thing is I'm going to protect my wife and children. So every time I get asked a question, my now grown up children are listening to this about their mom and dad. My wife is hearing me talk about this right, and he was against that. That's like, that's a betrayal to them. And it's not my right to just talk about our private life as well as the political process. Like every time I answer that question, every time I answer the question boxes or briefs or what's my dog's name, I am draining down the i Q of this political process. So he refused to do it. So let's say he's innocent, he can save himself politically, but he opts, you know what, I'm not, that's not a question I'm going to answer. Then he becomes almost like a marter, you know. So that's what I find is interesting about this process, you know. But I think everyone just vieuses from the perspective of personal survival. And he could have saved himself, but he may have had more at stake, I guess, but he really fell on his sword, right, And Donna Rice was just sort of, you know, just one instance. And I mean maybe I'm wrong, but weren't there a lot of other Daly? I mean, he been, he been, as you know, you have separated twice for a long periods of time, so it's it's hard. Yeah, yeah, I mean the candidates do not hang out with Warren Beatty. There's still a close friend in the film. You know, you see, you know, the evidence of another diet. But since you raised Donna Rice, can we talk about that from it, because because that was really, um, really important to us, both and Donna Rice. You know, somebody who went through this kind of modern scandal as the other woman for the first time really gets reduced to a punch line is just as defined by this and and made justice to dimensional as hard was, and then you know, expanding that to all the other women you see in the film. You know, we really it was very important to us. You know, obviously I talked to Don a lot for the book. This is very important for us to make sure that that perspective was not just expressed and not like in a token way, but actually like that we had three dimensional cares that Donna Rice was shown to be a very real human being with potential and emotions and she's bright and she's principled. And you know, we worked very hard at Helen Esterbrook, our producer. You know, everyone writing the script were guys, obviously, and Helen our producer, who was so brilliant and kept you know, with every draft, uh, you know, pushing us on, you know, what was complicated enough, what was important to understand about a woman's bit of how women in these situations get burdened with speaking for their entire gender. You know, I have to stand in. We really worked hard at it, and I think it's one of the things we're all really proud of. And the performances women in the film gives Sarah Packson chief among them. I just think it's um and and very famiga. Of course, it is amazing. Just I just you know, she brings you to tears, and I just think that's an aspect of the film. We've worked for a hard one and we're very, very proud. I really liked the line by the Washington Was that the Washington Post I couldn't quite figure out she had a big job at the yeah yeah, and she said a line about power, Uh, he's a man. A man with power has opportunity and take responsibility. For me that that line really resonated because as I wrestled myself watching this like doesn't matter? Should it matter? I felt like she was channeling the me too movement? And this is we wrote it before that and right the moment when the Donna Rice character says to the female heart aid, I've worked my entire life so that people like you wouldn't look at a person like me the way you are right now. Very powerful. Really, we tried to show everyone in this as as three dimensional human beings, the journalists, the women, and the candidates, the voters, um, you know, and show their their struggle and their pain as they go through this crazy process that no one had ever faced before. Now, you guys, I know, want this to be relevant and you want this to spur conversation. I mean, what do you hope that are some of the issues that people will be grappling with long after they leave this movie, in terms of the role of the press and the responsibility of our leaders and the climate and what we need to care about, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, what are you hoping people will think of? Certainly all of these questions and hats off to both of you guys and Jackson, which it's a script really without answers, And it would have been easy to give answers. You guys know that world inside and out. It would have been easy to give that, but you don't. And in the end, for what that does for me and I hope perhaps it does for everyone else, is what's my personal responsibility? Now I'm actually a historian, but of course you still wear responsibility. It's my fault. But we do in our choices of how we consume news, of how we vote. Are we what is our civic duty? Rather, you know what, how are we participating in the process? What is important to me? Have I really thought this through? Do I actually know what? What? Sorry? I know about the boat and the girl? What will Gary huts policies? Again? Like you know what I mean? Like when we pick up our phone, and we all have the phone, it gives us four stories right the moment you wake up, and two of them one of Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson. And do we click on that one. You know what, are we actively working out what is important over what is entertaining or interesting? And I think that's the question I hope people end up grappling with. Now, that's that's really well said from my prospect. Drum mean and we we we deliberately made a film that we hope gets people thinking and debating among themselves. We we we hope and it's been our experience that people walk out of the theater actually having an argument about it because we don't have the answers, as Jason always says, and it really resonates with me as a journalist because it's always been my journalistic impulse as well. He starts a story with a question and that he wants to ask, not with an answer. And this is not a film that gives you answers. If you're looking for them, you might be disappointed. I think this is a This is a This is a film that that shows you a moment that you may not have known existed, where it set us on a path, and and asks everybody involved, including you sitting in there watching it, to reflect on on where what the consequences of those decisions are, Whether you would have made the same decisions, and I think it's a for that reason, it's a very personal experience. I think watching it, we could use a little less relevance with this movie. And honestly, yeah, we started writing it, like you know, during the Obama administration, and all of a sudden, it felt like the world was catching up to the movie in terms of two thousand and sixteen election and me too, and um, it's really a question of what's what's relevant and what's important, and the movie actually asks that of you. From the first shot to the last, and that first two and a half minute one or which is our Hollywood speak for it's just a single shot uncut, you're tracking through different conversations. You're trying to figure out what's going on, and you're trying to do I want to listen to the guys talk about how to jump at a golf cart? Or do I want to watch this? Do I want to watch Walter Mondale on TV? Do I want to watch Gary Hart? Do I want You're trying to catch up to the last scene where you have a marriage trying to hold on on the left side of the screen and Gary Heart giving a speech on the right side, and We're just literally asking the audience for the entire time, for the entire time, to grapple with what's relevant and what's important. Well, it's really timely despite the fact everything happened in nine seven. I can't think of a better dream team to bring this story to life than the three really three of my favorite people all around the table and YouTube. Brian really really appreciate it and love to see you all. The front Runner, starring Hugh Jackman is in theaters now and that's all we got for you today. The crack team that made this show is producer Emma Morgan Stern, associate producer Nora Richie, and audio engineer Jared O'Connell, and is always a big thank you to Julia Lewis who helps with my so social media, Jim Brown who helps us book guests, and Beth Demas my assistant. Jared Arnold composed our theme music. You can find me on Twitter under at Goldsmith b and Katie is breaking the Internet every day while keeping her clothes on on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as what else k K. Most most days I'm keeping my clothes on. If you have thoughts about the show, our questions for us please reach out. Our email address is comments at currect podcast dot com, or you can leave us a voicemail by calling nine to four four six three seven. As always, thanks so much for listening. We so appreciate your support and we'll see you next week