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Welcome to citations needed news brief.

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I am Neiman Shirazi. I'm Adam Johnson.

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0:11

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We do these news briefs in between our regularly

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scheduled full length episodes when

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there is either breaking news or

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something really important that we're seeing across

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media and we really just want to tackle

0:33

it in a way that is slightly different than our

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regular episodes. And we are actually

0:37

really honored today to be joined

0:40

by Matthew Cunningham Cook,

0:42

a reporter at the Lever a writer

0:44

and researcher with deep expertise

0:47

in healthcare retirement policy in capital markets.

0:49

Matthew has been one of the most reliable

0:51

and dogged journalist covering the

0:53

February third, Norfolk Southern trained

0:55

derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

0:58

It's a town in northeast Ohio

1:00

close to Youngstown, and the Pennsylvania

1:02

border and the site of

1:04

a recent train derailment, which then precipitated

1:07

a real life airborne toxic

1:09

event. And so we are thrilled

1:12

to have you with us,

1:13

Matthew. Welcome to citations needed. Thanks

1:15

so much for having me on. Yeah. Thanks

1:17

so much for joining us. So it's been

1:19

give or take three and a half weeks we've had the initial

1:22

sort of coverage and the meta coverage and the meta coverage

1:24

of the coverage. We're now one, I think, our fifth or sixth date

1:26

of meta coverage. This immediate criticism

1:28

podcast. So we will largely talk about media. We

1:30

have the undignified task

1:32

this evening of discussing kind

1:34

of where the narrative, quote unquote, sits now with

1:37

respect to what the actual facts

1:39

are, how it's being exploited by some of the parties,

1:41

how it's being obfuscated by by

1:43

other parties. But before we do that, wanna

1:45

kinda go back to the square one here if you would

1:47

indulge me to the initial days after

1:49

the accidents, the controlled explosion

1:52

immediately after for the publication

1:54

you work for the liver, they're kind of thinking about what to

1:56

ask, how to ask it. The store had been kind of developing

1:58

on social media. Since the explosion,

2:01

the day of the explosion for obvious reasons, which had

2:03

looked like something out of science fiction movie. And

2:06

it is true that my documentation

2:08

ignored for ten days by MSNBC, ignored

2:11

by the Sunday morning shows for two weeks.

2:14

It was reported on here and there, but it was largely

2:16

kind of Norfolk Southern press releases

2:19

sort of qualitatively. And

2:21

so it wasn't so much that it was ignored is that wasn't

2:23

really part of a political debate in Washington.

2:25

And I think that's thing that the liver tried to

2:27

do, tried to sort of make it about accountability. So

2:30

if you could, I want to sort of begin by talking

2:32

about why that kind of adversarial approach was

2:34

missing what the lever tried to do. Obviously, other

2:36

publications kinda did it as well. I know lever

2:38

was one of the first. Can you sort of talk about

2:40

the initial thinking behind that editorially

2:43

what you thought was kind of missing from that

2:45

first wave of coverage?

2:48

Well, we had been covering rail

2:50

issues since August. Of

2:53

last year. And I've been thinking

2:55

about logistics my whole

2:57

career as a reporter and

3:00

as a union

3:00

offer. Right. To be clear, I wanna be clear, you you weren't

3:03

just some, like, instep on it. You don't do what

3:05

what Nemo and I do where something pops

3:06

off. Yeah. You can compare real quick. You actually

3:08

know. I'm

3:09

now an ex expert on Norfolk Southern

3:11

train derailments, by the way.

3:13

Clearly. But you've done actual reporting right

3:15

in on on rails. You had had the breadth of experience.

3:17

Right?

3:18

Yeah. Well, and and we have been covering

3:20

my kind of personal hobby horse.

3:23

I salted in a very

3:25

briefly, but was involved in a bunch of

3:27

stuff in a Walmart warehouse. You wanna

3:29

explain what salting is real quick for those who don't

3:31

know? Salting is when you start

3:33

working for a workplace with the

3:35

intent to unionize it. And

3:37

so I'm very briefly salted

3:41

for this campaign to organize a Walmart

3:43

warehouse in Elwood, Illinois,

3:46

and Joe De Manuel Hall, who's a

3:48

writer at Labor Notes. He was there much

3:50

longer than I was, but we were part of that

3:52

kind of initial wave. And Joe has done some

3:54

really fantastic coverage of rail

3:57

union issues as well. But I wrote

3:59

about logistics in the aftermath and the

4:01

stories when I was young, you know, got

4:03

like a bunch of attention and it

4:06

was always something that I was pretty

4:08

aware of that this was a

4:10

really under covered section of

4:12

the US economy. These choke

4:14

points I basically think

4:16

about American capitalism that

4:18

way, you know, as like a logistics system.

4:20

There's all of these choke

4:23

points where workers have a ton of leverage.

4:25

And for the most part, that

4:27

leverage is not being used. Strategically

4:30

for one way or another and There's

4:33

a great book called the forces

4:35

of labor by Beverly Silver

4:38

that goes into some of these questions

4:40

in in more detail. But, yeah,

4:42

when it derailed, it really seemed like a

4:44

big opportunity for us to both kind of

4:46

really dig into this story,

4:48

but also to really tell a broader

4:50

story about the American economy with

4:53

strongly ecological components.

4:55

So it really seemed like it was

4:57

an opportunity for us to converge

5:00

on different threads that we've been thinking

5:02

about but also to really

5:05

expose this issue as one

5:07

of regulators asleep at the

5:09

wheel, which is whenever Rail

5:12

is a highly tightly regulated

5:15

industry, arguably one of the

5:17

tightest even though it was deregulated there

5:20

still is the empty

5:22

shelves of the Interstate Commerce

5:24

Commission, which was at one point

5:26

the most powerful federal regulator.

5:28

It's now the Surface Transportation Board, but

5:31

it basically exists to regulate

5:33

railroads in the railward administration

5:35

under the Department of Transportation, and you have

5:37

all of these different agency,

5:40

you know, the pipeline and hazardous materials

5:42

security administration. So,

5:44

yeah, you you guys had sort of much of this had been

5:46

anticipated. Right? And and other accidents have

5:49

happened as we talked about the New York Times. In

5:51

those, I guess, sort of lever up ad you all did.

5:53

Can you sort of drill down and maybe give me

5:56

one or two sort of main headline things that

5:59

the current White House, the Democratic Department

6:01

Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, as

6:03

well as the White House itself, what

6:05

they could have done that they sort of didn't do

6:08

to give a sense of what the primary criticism

6:10

is here. Because I think there has been an effort to call

6:12

it Monday morning quarterbacking or nitpicking

6:15

or kind of blaming decades of neglect

6:17

and union busting on one poor

6:19

former McKinsey consultant. Can we talk about

6:21

sort of what those main kind of entry

6:24

points into y'all's reporting was and

6:26

why you thought it was important?

6:27

Yeah. I mean, so we found

6:29

out I believe it was Rebecca who found this.

6:32

Rebecca Burns, my colleague, who found that

6:34

Norfolk Southern had been championing these

6:37

new brakes called electronically controlled

6:39

pneumatic brakes. That allow every

6:41

car on the train to stop at the same

6:44

time. And that

6:46

was really important because the current

6:49

technology that the overwhelming majority

6:51

of freight train use is comes from

6:53

eighteen sixty eight, and it's

6:55

basically like a ricochet effect.

6:58

For a braking. So the engine

7:00

stops and then the first car stops and

7:02

then the second car stops and then the third

7:04

car stops. The story that I

7:07

always tell about it is this is technology

7:09

that was really designed to

7:11

be used for a much

7:13

larger railroad work force. So seventy

7:15

years ago, there were about a million people

7:18

working on the railroads. Now there's a little

7:20

bit over hundred thousand. And

7:23

the reason why bigger

7:25

workforce is really needed when you're using

7:27

this ancient technology is

7:29

because it's really

7:31

bad to have larger heavier

7:34

train cars bumping into

7:36

lighter train cars. So if you have uneven

7:39

loads across the cars, you really want them

7:41

in order you don't want a heavier

7:43

car bumping up with a lighter car. That

7:45

creates what's called in train forces

7:48

that can destabilize a

7:50

train. So as railroads have

7:52

pushed this precision scheduled

7:55

railroading, which is basically just

7:57

how can we extract more revenue

8:00

off of the back of our workforce, they

8:04

have cut back other workers who would

8:07

set the cars in the right way and then have also

8:09

aggressively resisted implementing these

8:11

new brakes because of the expense

8:14

involved. And so the rail unions

8:16

have championed these new brakes.

8:18

They got a modest expansion in

8:21

terms of a modest mandate in

8:24

twenty fifteen rule under the Obama

8:26

administration that would not have covered

8:29

that Norfolk Southern train. It would have only

8:31

covered even higher risk trains

8:34

but which nonetheless would have kind of set

8:36

a marker that this was the gold standard

8:38

technology that should be used for rail safety.

8:41

The industry and congressional Republicans

8:43

fought this very modest rule to

8:46

the nail. Trump repealed it.

8:48

Millions of dollars flowed into Republican

8:51

campaign coffers from the

8:53

railroad industry. So

8:55

we think and all the experts

8:58

we've talked to think this as well that

9:00

Pete could have started

9:02

this rulemaking again right

9:04

away, but he hasn't done that. In

9:07

terms of rulemaking to expand the usage of

9:09

ECP brakes, one, and we're

9:11

making to expand the definition of

9:13

this high risk train, high hazard,

9:16

flammable train. Yeah. He

9:18

absolutely could have done it starting on

9:20

day one, and he hasn't.

9:22

And it's still not totally clear.

9:24

We haven't gotten a clear answer as to kind

9:26

of why that's the case Pete initially

9:29

tried to or his people originally tried

9:31

to say, well, we're constrained, and

9:33

then the Biden administration basically the

9:36

White House basically contradicted that and

9:38

now it looks like the rulemaking is going

9:40

forward, but on what

9:42

timeline that's totally unclear. Yeah.

9:45

So Matthew, you've done so much stellar reporting

9:47

on this in the past few weeks. Really,

9:50

incredibly illuminating, so much more

9:52

helpful, I think, to read your stuff. A

9:54

lot of the corporate news reports

9:57

on the train derailment. I'd love to

9:59

hear kind of the way that you think

10:01

a lot of the major media has been framing

10:03

the story. And then how

10:06

the lever has approached us differently. And this kind

10:08

of gets back to what Adam was mentioning earlier about

10:10

there's an accountability angle here. There's

10:13

something different going on than just

10:15

that there's this horrible tragedy with

10:17

terrible ecological and environmental

10:20

consequences. But, you know, if you could just talk to

10:22

us not only about what framing you've

10:24

seen from the mainstream, which is different

10:26

than some of the other reporting, like, namely

10:29

yours, but also how you have

10:31

then been able to dig into and

10:33

you were just kinda getting into this, like,

10:35

these relationships which are often

10:37

not put front and center in

10:39

the reporting, namely say the relationship

10:42

between the Railroad

10:44

Company, Norfolk Southern, and

10:47

Ohio's own governor Mike

10:49

Dewein. If you could just tell us about how you're

10:51

seeing those framing differ from

10:54

outlet to outlet, but also then what

10:56

you've really discovered as you have dug deeper

10:58

than I think a lot of other folks have.

11:00

Yeah. I mean, I think that there's two

11:02

kinds of reporters, you know. I mean,

11:04

there's those stenographers, basically,

11:07

and then there's reporters

11:09

who ask tough questions even at

11:11

the most mainstream outlets

11:14

you'll have reporters who

11:16

will ask tough questions. I

11:18

think the framework that we've been able

11:20

to do with the lever is really because

11:22

we're independent and ratings supported.

11:25

We've been able to kind of devote I

11:27

mean, number one, every single one of us I'm

11:29

in all four of the reporters

11:32

at the lever to ask tough questions, style,

11:35

a reporter. And two, we're able to

11:37

kinda devote our entire newsroom to

11:39

covering this issue and

11:41

this event and uncovering the hidden

11:44

networks behind

11:46

power behind the response to

11:48

this disaster. So yeah, I had an article

11:50

that came out

11:51

Friday, I think, that was or Thursday,

11:54

that was just looking at the fact that Norfolk

11:56

Southern has been a donor to

11:58

the wine. They've been a donor to groups

12:00

and committees. Supporting him,

12:03

their lobbying firm on

12:05

retainer in Columbus is

12:08

incredibly close to DeWined and is actually

12:10

caught up in a major separate scandal

12:12

regarding a bailout of the state's nuclear

12:15

power plants and that that

12:17

could potentially explain why Delign

12:19

has refused to declare a

12:21

disaster, which would allow FEMA

12:23

and other federal programs step

12:25

in and provide additional assistance to

12:29

the families. And there's all kinds of horrible

12:31

stories about the consequences of the failure

12:33

to make this disaster declaration, but

12:35

one of them that I just saw. On

12:38

Twitter, I think that's really sad is that

12:40

there's special provisions for people being able

12:42

to get their pets. After a disaster

12:45

declaration. And so like a bunch

12:47

of pets like went like a week or longer

12:49

without food being in like a totally

12:51

poisonous environment and because

12:54

DeWine had refused to issue

12:56

this disaster declaration, which would

12:58

allow for protocols for people to

13:00

go and get their pets that

13:02

didn't actually exist. So that's

13:05

just one example of of kind of consequences

13:07

of this. I think in terms of broader

13:09

media coverage, yeah, you think we're gonna talking about

13:11

political a little bit more down

13:14

the road, but you saw it from

13:17

some people at The New York Times too. You I think

13:19

you see it all over the media. It's like, is

13:22

there's been this part of it, this story where

13:24

it's like, well, the left is mad at Pete,

13:26

you know, and that's why this

13:28

is a story. Or the right is mad at

13:30

Pete. And this is why that's a story.

13:32

And I mean, that's really I

13:35

mean, not surprising. That

13:38

that's kind of what the more stenographer

13:41

kind of groups of journalists will

13:44

go to. It's still horse shit, you

13:46

know. I mean,

13:48

all we're asking for is for Pete

13:51

to do his job and do it quickly.

13:53

We think that's a very logical response

13:55

to this disaster. If

13:58

the right decides to use our

14:00

reporting to score political

14:03

points, in my view that's

14:05

incumbent on Pete and the

14:07

Biden administration

14:08

to hold the rug

14:10

out from underneath them. And

14:14

as a really kind of move forward very

14:16

quickly with rulemaking that

14:18

will prevent disasters like

14:20

this from happening in the future. And

14:23

I think that that just kind of really rubs

14:25

up against

14:27

what centrist Democrats kind

14:29

of view as the

14:31

job of the federal government where, you

14:33

know, I think in terms of the fundamental

14:37

relapse that they operate under are no different

14:39

than the right where it's the job

14:41

of the government to ease

14:43

the business environment. It's not really

14:45

the job of the government to protect citizens

14:49

from Repetis corporate

14:51

power. And I think you can see that

14:53

in the Biden administration more broadly outside

14:55

of The small group of

14:58

interesting people. In antitrust, the administration's

15:00

approach to federal government regulation has

15:03

been functionally the same as

15:05

every president since

15:07

Carter. Yeah. So it's the Hillary Clinton. You know, went

15:09

down the Wall Street, and I and I told him to cut it out.

15:11

Right? It's like there's a stern talking to

15:13

whether it's a congressional kind of dressed down or

15:15

food a judge showing up and doing a thing where he's like,

15:17

you guys really gotta stop pushing back on regulation.

15:20

It's like, Okay. And, again,

15:22

regulation wise, we wanna be fair to the Biden.

15:24

White House. They're obviously preferable to Republicans.

15:26

Right? One of the really major things when people

15:29

say that parties are the same. I think it's fair

15:31

to say that, like, your sort of average regulatory

15:33

bureaucrat is just better than Republicans,

15:35

but they're still not very good because they they sort

15:37

of institutionally don't have a lot of power.

15:39

There's no real sort of motive to, like, aggressively

15:42

lobbying these things. One theory I heard proposed and I want

15:44

your opinion on it was that this is

15:46

also true of the Biden White House union

15:48

busting last November and December by

15:50

basically making it illegal

15:52

for railroad workers to strike preemptive

15:55

before they got any of the concessions they wanted

15:57

in a in a really cynical way that really turned people

15:59

off. And that there was

16:01

this idea that because of the election, but

16:04

also kind of broader supply chain issues and

16:06

inflation issues that capital

16:08

could punish they can punish a democrat whenever

16:10

they really want. And they

16:12

were gonna have a lousy fair attitude about

16:14

safety and environmental issues because they

16:16

needed the trains and trucks and they

16:19

were gonna you know, they supported certain parts of the

16:21

labor department and other parts

16:23

of the White House and congressional democrats, you know,

16:25

even supported easing rules about, you know,

16:27

eighteen year olds driving semi trucks,

16:29

all this other stuff, because they kind of they didn't

16:31

want another inflation punishment

16:34

scenario where Cal

16:36

role was being petulant. And so there was kind of

16:38

it seems like a pretty hands off in

16:40

the early first couple years of the Biden White

16:42

House. Can you talk about that being

16:44

one of the kind of motivating factors here? Obviously, ideologically,

16:47

former McKinsey consultants aren't, like, really

16:49

out to get corporate Right? They're there to polish

16:51

resumes and cut ribbons and whatever. So

16:54

when you hire people without any ideological commitments

16:56

to environmentalism or labor that you're gonna sort of

16:58

get what you pay for, But can you talk about

17:00

the kind of obsession with supply chains that's

17:03

kind of let corporations

17:05

get away with this kind of thing, including, of course,

17:07

busting up real strikes? I mean, so much

17:09

of the administration's responses to rail

17:11

issues generally is

17:15

the unions don't do themselves. Any

17:17

favors. I mean, the whole reason why

17:19

our buddies and railroad workers united

17:22

exist is because they recognize

17:25

that it's totally insane that rail

17:27

workers are in like fourteen different

17:30

unions across like nine different

17:33

international unions and

17:35

in unions some unions that

17:37

just are totally illogical places

17:40

for small groups of rail workers to

17:42

be. And with

17:45

only a hundred thousand workers, you know, I

17:47

mean, they shouldn't really all be in

17:49

the same union with probably the

17:51

teamsters union, and then they would have like,

17:53

one rail director at the Teamsters

17:56

who would speak for the entire industry.

17:59

That I would say, more than

18:01

fear of corporate pushback, like

18:03

the total disorganization and

18:05

rail labor. In

18:07

my view. Even despite the fact these unions

18:10

are strong, they occupy like

18:12

a major strategic as I said, it

18:14

major strategic chokepoint in the economy.

18:16

Having this workforce be totally

18:19

disorganized. Well, and then there was also, if I'm

18:21

not mistaken, this we we discussed in our news brief

18:23

on this. There there was a real distinction

18:25

between the union

18:27

leaders of the major unions and

18:29

the rank and file, which is why they they put things

18:31

up to vote, and then they would overturn the

18:33

will of the union leaders who were I think

18:35

it's fair to say traditionally more conservative, more

18:38

close to the White House, more partisan.

18:40

Yeah. And the I mean, the president of the

18:43

brotherhood of locomotive engineers and

18:45

trainman, which is one of the larger rail

18:47

unions, was actually defeated shortly

18:50

after this contract. Was implemented

18:52

basically because of the

18:54

way that things went down and it looks like

18:56

there'll be kind of more upheaval to come

18:59

for sure in the coming months. In

19:01

the real labor scene, but there's

19:03

definitely much higher consciousness

19:06

of rail workers that the contract is

19:08

a shitty deal. I think

19:10

our or not. I mean, you

19:12

know, in the grand scheme of union contracts,

19:14

it's not actually that shitty. But considering

19:17

the sheer power that these workers have,

19:19

when forty percent of long haul freight in

19:21

the US is transported on the rails.

19:23

Yeah. You know, it's a shitty deal. And

19:25

in terms of the understanding that across

19:28

craft and class and, quote,

19:30

skill level unquote, that rail

19:32

workers need to be in the same union, I

19:35

would say there's less of that you

19:37

know, I mean, that's the level of sophistication that

19:39

railroad workers United. It's kind of working

19:42

to build, and I do think that that

19:44

explains a great deal to buy an administration's response.

19:46

I think the to the other

19:48

point is, you know, we cover this too,

19:51

is that, I mean, Day Powell,

19:54

has enormous amounts

19:56

of leverage and power over

19:59

the Biden administration and to really

20:02

make or break the president's reelection

20:04

campaign. And for whatever

20:07

reason, the Biden administration

20:10

has chosen to not confront Powell

20:13

about it. I think mainly because

20:15

Trump, who is the first president, since

20:18

Nixon to really complain about the

20:20

Fed's actions, it didn't really

20:22

do anything for

20:23

him. You know, the Fed still

20:25

Trump kicked and screamed about the Fed raising

20:27

interest rates, and they still did it anyways.

20:29

Just gonna note for listeners that Jay Powell was

20:31

the chair of the Federal Reserve, just in

20:33

case, not everyone has Jay Bowell's

20:36

name at the tip of their brains. So

20:38

wanna ask about this Ascendant kind of

20:40

quote unquote white genocide narrative from Tucker

20:42

Carlson from JD Vance

20:44

who's now turned this into a reelection campaign

20:47

where he's going down and, like, standing on a river

20:49

for some reason and talking about how

20:52

It's woke Democrats. I

20:54

mean, I look, I've been doing the seven years. Right? I've seen

20:56

it all. This is, like, gotta be in the top five. Just you're

20:58

just, like, oh, man, this is, of course, what they were gonna do.

21:00

Gonna turn this whole thing into you know, that they'll

21:02

sort of gesture or make some superficial reference

21:05

to, like, greedy corporations, but then they pivot to

21:07

basically Democrats

21:10

don't care. Again, never mind that they oppose unions.

21:12

Never mind the Republicans suppose, environmental protection

21:14

unions, etcetera. Right? Forget all that.

21:16

But woke Democrats are neglecting places

21:19

like East Palestine and other sort of rural

21:21

predominantly white places because they wanna

21:23

kill white people, basically. They'll sometimes they'll

21:25

sort of say on Fox News, they'll say they wanna kill Republicans

21:28

to make it seem less overt, but that's basically

21:30

what they mean. It's kind of a white genocide narrative.

21:32

And one thing I argued in my piece I wrote for the

21:35

real news, which is basically like democrats in

21:37

a Buttigieg ten days to really say anything at all

21:39

substantive. MSNBC, of course,

21:41

ignored it for for ten days. A lot of

21:44

we would say generally centrist media, which

21:46

is, I think, fair to say, generally, pro democratic,

21:48

all their pundits all their punditry. Right?

21:51

Which is the kind of moral language.

21:53

We discussed policy and completely ignored it

21:55

for ten days. That in that

21:57

vacuum, you know, you know, of course Biden

21:59

didn't release anything for a very long time. In

22:01

that vacuum, you sort of create the

22:03

opportunity and open up space for these

22:06

dark cynical world views. It was kind of my argument.

22:08

Not a particularly original point, but I thought it was very

22:10

acute in this particular moment. And, like,

22:12

if you could, as someone who's trying to

22:14

sort of, again, doing the reporting and

22:17

push democrats to do better to own these issues,

22:19

to talk about things like union busting, which of course, they

22:21

can't do credibly. But to talk about corporate

22:23

greed, to talk about the sacrifice zones that

22:25

exist all the other country, not just in white areas,

22:27

but, of course, in Port Black areas, poor white and poor

22:29

Black alike, Can you talk

22:31

about how this became the Ascendon

22:33

narrative and turned into this kind of partisan

22:36

pissing match? And where you see

22:38

how moving forward people in

22:40

your position who sort of of the left trying to

22:42

sort of create a counter

22:43

narrative, what that kind of counter narrative should

22:45

look like and what the reporting focuses

22:47

should be on. Yeah, there's both kind

22:49

of this immediate rapid response factor

22:52

where, you know, the administration's just

22:54

total inability to see that

22:57

Americans would be pissed about the

22:59

fact that a totally preventable

23:01

railroad accident resulted in an

23:04

entire town of five thousand

23:06

people being poisoned. There's

23:08

that, but it's like, yeah, you know, I mean,

23:10

Joe Biden voted for that bullshit piece

23:13

of legislation, you know. And

23:15

the whole failure to address

23:17

issues of media concentration is

23:20

a major part here where Fox News

23:23

is there are no constraints on its

23:25

power. There no constraints on the

23:28

lies that they propagate. And so,

23:30

yeah, you know, what's going to make money for

23:32

them? Yeah, you know, East Palestine is a

23:34

white genocide kind of zone.

23:37

It's absolutely the case that the

23:39

Biden administration created the conditions

23:41

for this to happen. And

23:44

I hope that we can continue to

23:47

break through a little bit and provide

23:50

kind of this analysis that it's really

23:52

a bipartisan disaster. It's

23:54

something we try and do all the time. It's

23:56

always really hard. You know, I think it's

23:59

it's really easy for people to

24:01

just kind of fall

24:02

in. Well, you know, one party is

24:04

at fault here and not

24:07

see kind of the bipartisan

24:09

nature of the assault on the regulatory

24:11

state and kind of the consequences that

24:14

that's had for ordinary people. As

24:16

you've said kind of like who's been able to fill

24:18

the void here and really shape the narrative

24:20

or at least, you know, exploit the lack

24:23

of a central narrative here, lack of a

24:25

kind of media focus and as we've been

24:27

saying like a media framework, I think it's

24:29

really a loud the right

24:31

and opportunity to frame this the way

24:33

they want to. I wanna actually kind of get us

24:35

back to your reporting and actually

24:38

how because of the work that you've been

24:40

doing and that your colleagues have been doing, you

24:42

know, and of course, I should say some other folks

24:44

who've been doing some really stellar writing on this,

24:46

has actually led to the

24:49

US Department of Transportation feeling compelled

24:51

to respond to what you

24:53

have been writing about to these

24:56

kind of, you know, yes, there's a way

24:58

to report on this where

25:00

then it's, oh, well, the Trump administration

25:03

did this thing. It's not really our fault. Yada

25:05

yada. But I think that you've really been able

25:07

to put a lot of pressure on

25:10

these organizations, these

25:12

government officials, and

25:14

Transportation Secretary, Buttigieg himself,

25:17

can we talk about kind of like what

25:20

your reporting and reporting of some

25:22

other folks has led to in

25:24

terms of the response that now

25:26

you've gotten and now we've all gotten

25:28

from the US Department of Transportation and

25:31

how kind of defensive they have been

25:33

Can you talk to us about kind of what

25:35

you have seen from them?

25:38

And then I think we can also pivot

25:40

into some of the media's most

25:43

shameless supporters

25:45

of the government narrative, which is definitely

25:47

tied to this as well. Yes. I'm in

25:49

the Department I guess it was about ten days ago,

25:52

the Department of Transportation's Twitter

25:54

account just started arguing with

25:56

our official account saying

25:58

that our reporting was

26:00

false without providing any

26:02

evidence to support that conclusion

26:05

whatsoever. I've never

26:07

seen it before. You know, I mean, I

26:09

definitely have had flags for

26:12

governmental officials call me up to scream

26:14

at me, but I have not had the

26:16

experience of having an official government

26:20

Twitter account to say that my reporting

26:22

was false. I

26:24

feel pretty confident it was beat behind

26:26

that. Too deep,

26:29

Buttigieg. Yeah. I mean, I

26:31

I think that, you know, we were able to get a response

26:33

frankly because basically nobody

26:35

outside like the trade press

26:37

and the American prospect and us

26:40

cover the Department of Transportation. The

26:43

sheer amount of federal

26:45

rulemaking that gets no coverage at

26:47

all is I mean, it's shocking. There's

26:50

major stuff that we would like to cop

26:52

but we just don't have the

26:54

resources to

26:56

be able to cover. You know, it's like

26:59

Biden just proposing these great new

27:01

rules on nursing home

27:02

ownership. We're like a four

27:04

person news team, so we'd

27:06

love to cover that. But We

27:08

just don't have the bandwidth to both do

27:11

that in trains at this

27:13

point. And respond to the Department

27:15

of

27:15

Transportation, h Twitter Yeah.

27:17

You know, it's good that they

27:19

finally respond to me. Pete needs to respond

27:22

from me. No. He he's a you can tell he's frustrated

27:24

poster. He wants to be a poster. He should just be a

27:26

poster. Just

27:27

on.

27:27

I know. Yeah. Twenty twenty three, we don't need

27:29

all the we don't need the, like, you know,

27:31

kinda detached voice from nowhere politician

27:33

thing, especially because you know, but may not be consistent

27:35

with these inauthentic. So post post

27:38

post in your own voice. So

27:40

one final question, speaking of Secretary Buttigieg,

27:42

he has been somewhat strangely. This

27:44

is kind of a little petty, but I actually think is a really

27:46

interesting sort of lesson in how Washington

27:49

political media works. And again,

27:51

as we are a media podcast, it seems relevant.

27:54

Secretary Buttigieg has been leaking

27:57

very, obviously, extremely transparently to

27:59

the point where I don't I don't even think the guy denies

28:01

it. Making spend to Adam Ren of

28:03

political --

28:04

Yeah. -- in a way that seems very

28:06

defensive and and desperate and

28:09

is based on trying to

28:11

frame his critics as the Republican Party.

28:13

This is a classic tactic where you sort of

28:15

if you have a tax from both Maga,

28:18

Trump, Boner, sixty eight on Twitter,

28:21

and some Aridite leftist making nuanced

28:23

critiques and deeply researched. Also,

28:25

a classic the way, near a tangent tactic. You

28:27

only respond to Magna Boner four twenty or

28:29

whatever. Right?

28:30

Yeah. Yeah. And he's kind of doing a version

28:32

of this where he's responding to the bad faith republican

28:34

criticism, but really not addressing criticism coming

28:37

from places like the Lever or even

28:39

the New York Times or the Guardian, New Republic,

28:41

etcetera. This sort of pain as critics as

28:43

a bunch of Slackjolt locals and one thing that Adam

28:45

Ren did that was very controversial. It caused a lot

28:47

of outrage on both left and right media and

28:49

center media and everywhere else, whereas he

28:51

he posted these pictures of, like,

28:53

what had to have been fifteen thousand

28:56

dollar homes or mobile homes with

28:59

Trump twenty twenty and, you know, f

29:01

Biden on it or whatever saying, you know, scenes from

29:04

East Palestine. The the implication being, of course,

29:06

rather cheekily even not so subtly. The implication

29:08

being is that The reason why

29:10

Buttigieg is getting heated is because this is hostile

29:13

Trump country, and the implication, of course,

29:15

from that being is that these dumb locals kinda

29:17

had coming anyway. For Liberals who sort

29:19

of don't believe in anything, right, other than

29:21

partisanship and being smarter than dumbass

29:23

Republicans, is kind of the whole list of holy

29:25

criticism. Basically, like, oh, Republicans, you know, they

29:27

voted for DC regulations. They vote for Republicans. This

29:29

is what they, you know, this gotta reap what they

29:31

sell. It's all

29:32

very nasty stuff. So can you kind of dissect

29:34

the leaks that have been coming out of quote unquote, Buttigieg

29:37

world, which is it, Adam Rink, called it, which is political

29:39

for people, Buttigieg? Can you talk about

29:41

the lease that have come out of Buttigieg world

29:43

and how you sort of view them as being

29:46

perhaps not very they don't necessarily

29:48

port ten day shift in tone here.

29:51

My boss would view it as, I think,

29:53

as, like, the interpersonal kind of component

29:56

about, like, Pete has mad at us, you know,

29:58

and so Hold

29:58

on. I I wanna talk about real quick if you don't mind. Yeah.

30:01

I feel like in full disclosure, we have to note that your boss

30:03

David Serotta was the chief speech writer for the twenty

30:05

twenty Bernie Sanders campaign. Yeah. It's fair

30:07

to say especially with the southwestern coverage. He's

30:09

been criticized as maybe being slight tinge

30:11

of personal kind of grievance

30:14

or animus. I know that that's not to any

30:16

way question the actual journalism, which has been

30:18

Again, no one's even found anything wrong with

30:20

it. Substantively, but

30:22

he's been criticized as having a grudge

30:25

against mayor Pete because of the Iowa primary

30:27

you kind of comment on that? Because I do feel like we

30:29

have to sort of mention that. I think Buttigieg

30:32

world would would think that was unethical

30:34

if we didn't. So can you talk about that? And and

30:36

how they're trying to also spin it as that.

30:38

No one in Buttigieg world

30:40

listens. No. Not chance at how they listen. But

30:42

I'm just saying I'm trying to be intellectually honest.

30:44

Yeah. In case this leaked.

30:46

Yeah. I

30:48

mean, my my feeling is is

30:51

like, yeah, we disclose kind of

30:54

our backgrounds. Yeah. I mean,

30:56

I'm I'm sure all of us supported Bernie

30:58

in twenty sixteen and in twenty

31:00

twenty. No. I don't think

31:03

you know, just like the entire

31:05

media class outside of us supported

31:08

everybody besides Bernie.

31:11

Sixteen or twenty. I think it's

31:14

you know, if they find a factual error

31:16

with our reporting, they're welcome to

31:19

bring it up with us and we'll make a correction

31:21

if we get something wrong. We're

31:23

very careful that we avoid

31:26

mistakes as often as possible,

31:28

but Yeah. I

31:30

mean, I think that the bigger thing

31:32

is I mean, just to go back to the earlier question

31:35

is just that yeah. You know, I think that

31:37

there might be this kinda tendency to,

31:39

like, see it as this people

31:42

being mad at us because we're

31:45

telling uncomfortable truths. You

31:47

know, that's our narrative or their net narrative.

31:49

You know, we're mad about the twenty twenty.

31:51

Primarily is in the way. Pete's role in it.

31:54

My view is more that

31:56

political is owned by Axel

31:59

Springer, which is an extreme

32:02

right wing German publishing house

32:05

that makes its German employees

32:07

sign loyalty oaths to

32:10

the the transatlantic alliance

32:12

and NATO, specifically, I believe,

32:15

and Israel. And in turn, Axel

32:17

Springer's majority stockholders, KKR,

32:20

we just published a very

32:22

critical article on KKR's labor

32:24

practices a week before our

32:27

feed coverage started. We've been

32:29

incredibly aggressive about covering

32:31

private equity probably more so

32:33

than basically any other

32:35

publication around. And Yeah.

32:39

That to me is kind of my more thing.

32:41

You know? It's like even if there's not an explicit

32:44

directive from KKR that they don't like

32:46

us, employees of political know

32:48

that they are owned by private equity

32:51

firms and they know that we're

32:53

relentless critics of private

32:55

equity. And I think that that

32:57

leads itself to and not just

33:00

that. You know, we're also relentlessly critics.

33:02

Critical, and we have published a ton

33:04

of articles on branded content

33:06

in

33:07

newsrooms. Yeah. They're notorious for doing

33:09

oil companies, climate polluters, have

33:11

been funders of political at

33:13

some

33:13

point. Yeah. Pharma's publishes

33:16

their health newsletter. Yeah.

33:18

You know, I mean, we've been yeah, we've been

33:20

very critical of of those practices.

33:22

And so I I kind of see it

33:24

as more than anything else as just

33:27

really a clash of cultural norms,

33:29

you know, between us who sees

33:32

journalism as a way to hold

33:34

people in power accountable and

33:36

others who see it as an opportunity to

33:39

ingratiate themselves with people in

33:41

power. It's almost as if the candidate

33:43

loyalties of twenty twenty are indeed

33:46

proxies for ideological commitments rather than

33:48

just arbitrary personal

33:50

grievances. Right?

33:51

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

33:54

Very very well standing. Yeah. I supported John

33:56

Delaney till the very

33:57

So You know what? That man was

33:59

yolked. Did you see his gym routine? He

34:02

had arms for days. Well,

34:05

We always like to end our news briefs with a with

34:07

a obscure John Delaney

34:08

reference. So

34:10

we will do the same this time. Thank

34:12

you so much for joining us. We've been speaking with

34:15

Matthew Cunningham Cook, a reporter

34:17

at the lever. Matthew was a writer

34:19

and researcher with deep expertise in healthcare

34:21

retirement policy and capital markets

34:23

and has been, as we've been saying, one of

34:26

the best reporters covering the

34:29

Norfolk Southern trained derailment in East

34:31

Palestine, Ohio. This past month.

34:33

So Matthew, thank you so much again for joining

34:35

us today on citations needed. Thanks

34:37

so much for having me on. And that

34:39

will do it for this citations needed

34:42

News brief, of course, you can follow the show on Twitter

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