0:01

The first criminal trial against former president

0:03

Donald Trump is scheduled to begin in

0:05

a couple of weeks. This

0:07

is the case concerning hush money paid to

0:09

adult film star Stormy Daniels during Trump's initial

0:11

run for president in 2016. The

0:15

trial is both a historic moment for the

0:17

country and a test for reporters. As

0:19

we've seen in recent weeks, news outlets are

0:22

struggling with how to fairly report on Trump

0:24

and on his supporters who tried to

0:26

overturn the 2020 election without falling into

0:29

the trap of both sides-ism. NBC

0:31

News has ousted former RNC

0:33

chair Ronna McDaniel just days

0:35

after hiring her as a

0:37

paid political analyst. I

0:39

spoke about this struggle last May with my

0:41

colleagues Jelani Cobb and Steve Call, staff writers

0:43

at The New Yorker who also teach at

0:46

the Columbia Journalism School. At

0:48

the time, CNN had just aired a

0:50

live town hall. Can you mind?

0:52

I would like for you to answer the question. Okay, it's very simple to answer.

0:54

That's why I asked it. It's very simple

0:57

to... You're a nasty person, I'll tell you. The

1:00

event demonstrated how the usual methods that reporters

1:02

use to hold power to account just

1:05

don't work with Trump. This

1:12

idea that CNN defends itself

1:14

by reference to fairness is

1:17

a defense based on something that no longer

1:19

exists. Almost a year

1:21

later, Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee

1:23

for president, and the media will be

1:26

following his re-election campaign and his trials.

1:29

So we're revisiting last year's episode

1:31

with Cobb and Call about neutral

1:33

objectivity and how to report on

1:35

what Trump says without unintentionally becoming

1:38

a platform for misinformation. It

1:41

seems as if the idea of

1:43

treating him differently would be unfair.

1:46

I would make the counter argument, treating

1:49

Joe Biden the same as treating Donald

1:51

Trump or any other political

1:54

candidate, whether it be Democratic or Republican,

1:56

without that track record, would actually be

1:58

unfair to them. People

2:00

who have done none of those things. You're

2:05

listening to the political scene. I'm

2:07

Tyler Foggett and I'm a senior editor at The New

2:09

Yorker. Hi,

2:17

Jelani. Hi, Steve. Thank you both so much for speaking

2:19

with me. Thank you for having me.

2:22

Glad to be here. So the

2:24

media has been struggling with the challenges

2:27

of covering Donald Trump since his first

2:29

presidential campaign. I'm wondering if

2:31

you two could start by just laying out

2:33

for the listeners who aren't in the media

2:35

and who, you know, maybe have never conducted

2:37

an interview before, what it is about Trump

2:39

as a person, like his style, his rhetoric

2:41

that makes him a uniquely difficult subject to

2:43

interview and then to write about. Like how

2:45

is he different from the usual source? Okay.

2:48

I'll, I'll, um, take

2:51

the pass on it. Thank you, Steve. Journalists

2:53

are used to dealing with politicians who don't

2:56

talk straight, but they're not used

2:58

to television performers who

3:01

will insult them and

3:03

whose lies are so outrageous

3:05

and so difficult to address that

3:08

it's almost a category problem. Like if

3:10

you, if you deal with a politician

3:12

who says something about the way Medicare

3:14

works, that's wrong. Well, you can interrupt

3:16

him and say, no, that's actually not

3:19

what the law says, Senator,

3:21

but when Donald Trump starts

3:24

talking about observable facts

3:26

like the size of a crowd that

3:28

turned out to see him, that not

3:30

only the journalist, but the audience can

3:32

see is false. It's

3:35

not obvious to professional reporters, you know, how

3:37

to intervene and hold Trump

3:39

to account. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

3:42

I think one of the things that was

3:44

notable when Donald Trump first emerged

3:46

was that, you know, people didn't take him

3:48

seriously. That, you know, it was a very

3:51

common perspective. And then

3:53

when people did engage

3:55

with him, the journalists

3:57

generally had a better

3:59

command. of the facts, which

4:02

you would think in theory gives you

4:04

an advantage, except that it

4:06

was kind of an asymmetrical conflict,

4:09

because on one side you were

4:11

talking about facts, and on the other

4:13

side you were talking about rhetoric that

4:15

was mostly directed at people's

4:17

emotional sentiments. The other

4:20

thing that I think people

4:22

know about him now, but

4:25

probably have underestimated the importance of it,

4:28

is that he has excellent

4:30

comedic timing, which is generally not

4:33

a skill set you expect journalists

4:35

to have. And

4:37

so if he is hitting someone

4:39

with a one-liner or an insult

4:42

that his audience in particular

4:45

has been conditioned to accept or

4:47

think of as funny, he's going

4:49

to win time and time again

4:51

on that score. Yeah,

4:54

I feel like his sense of humor

4:56

and comedic timing, it's something that we

4:58

definitely saw that on display during the

5:00

recent CNN Town Hall. It seems

5:02

like that Town Hall was almost designed to play to his

5:04

strengths, in the sense that it put him in front of

5:07

an audience. There was fact checking,

5:09

but it didn't really seem to be

5:11

that effective. I guess I'm wondering

5:13

what you think the right setting to interview Donald

5:15

Trump in what that setting would be. I

5:18

mean, I think that it's

5:20

an interesting question. I haven't thought a lot about it, but

5:22

what leaps to mind is that a

5:25

one-on-one interview with two people sitting across

5:27

from one another in chairs without an

5:29

audience would be the best

5:31

way to interview him. And when

5:33

I was thinking about relative

5:37

successes where individual

5:40

interviews have elicited comments from

5:42

Trump that made news, not

5:45

of the sort Trump wanted to make, they

5:47

have almost all come from that

5:49

format, and also

5:52

not live. So with

5:54

the ability of journalists to select the portion of the

5:56

interview that they believe is news for the audience, I

5:58

think that's a good question. worthy and the burden

6:00

is on them to be fair, but

6:03

still the live setting

6:05

plays to the performer, plays to

6:08

the populist. He's speaking

6:10

over the journalist's head to an audience

6:12

in a live setting in a way

6:14

that a traditional sit-down one-on-one doesn't allow

6:16

him to do. It's

6:19

almost like the old television

6:21

talk show format where you might

6:24

have someone on a stage with

6:26

no one there, dark background that

6:28

it's simply two people having in

6:30

exchange. With someone like

6:32

Trump, to use the tennis analogy,

6:35

he's a grass player who you have to put on

6:37

clay. To

6:40

simply be in a format that favors him

6:42

is going to make it very difficult for

6:44

any kind of news function

6:46

to take place. But

6:48

that's hard, right? Because you would assume that especially

6:50

a cable news network that they would have an

6:53

incentive to want to make the

6:56

interview more of a spectacle and to

6:58

have an audience. You could see

7:00

the risk of a one-on-one interview

7:02

while actually producing more relevant information

7:05

being kind of boring in comparison to something

7:07

like a town hall. Well,

7:10

I think we go back to the

7:13

infamous comment that Les Moonves made at

7:15

the outset of this, where he said that Trump was

7:18

terrible for America but great for

7:20

CBS. And so the question,

7:22

I think, is which of those is the

7:24

priority? If you are concerned about

7:27

the journalistic element of it, then I think

7:29

you do it in a format that highlights

7:31

your ability to get this person on the

7:33

record, to get this person to answer questions

7:35

that they may not want to answer, and

7:37

to minimize the ability to play to the

7:39

crowd like a kind of schoolyard bully. If

7:42

you're interested in particularly that spectacle

7:44

of the schoolyard bully whipping up

7:46

a frenzy, then you

7:48

take the approach that CNN took in

7:50

the town hall. The

7:53

CNN town hall made me reflect on

7:56

how we judge television

7:58

networks like CNN on the

8:00

basis of an almost

8:02

nostalgic idea of what the duty

8:05

of television is in politics. That

8:08

goes back to the 1960s and

8:10

the 1970s when there was this

8:12

kind of unwritten constitution that

8:14

the commercial networks would not

8:17

gratuitously stage a spectacle because it attracted

8:19

ratings, that they had a duty to

8:22

function as moderators of a kind

8:24

of political public square. In

8:27

another country, a publicly owned media company

8:29

might do this, the BBC or state

8:32

broadcasters in France, Germany or Japan,

8:34

but in the US, commercial networks

8:36

did it in exchange for regulatory

8:39

permission. Well, that

8:41

era is long gone, but we still

8:44

trot out CNN executive producers and interrogate

8:46

them on whether or not they're carrying

8:48

out the public interest. Maybe

8:50

we should be more realistic. In

8:53

this era of polarized politics, the

8:55

money in cable news is from

8:58

connecting with passionate, if

9:01

narrow audiences the way Fox does.

9:04

CNN has struggled to

9:06

identify a strategy that produces

9:08

a sustained emotional relationship with an

9:10

audience, even a narrow audience. Maybe

9:14

we should be thinking about

9:16

how to judge journalistic performance

9:18

in an updated kind of

9:21

context. I

9:23

think that's a really great point that Steve

9:25

brings up and it kind

9:28

of segues into our

9:30

recent experience at the journalism school where

9:33

our commencement speaker was Christian

9:35

Amanpour, who made some

9:38

very pointed criticisms of

9:40

the way that CNN conducted the town

9:42

hall with Donald Trump. What

9:44

I think the salient thing here is

9:47

that she mentioned at

9:49

the outset that she had been at

9:51

CNN for 40 years, that this is

9:53

her 40th year at the network. She

9:56

really bridges the era that Steve was

9:59

talking about. at the beginning and

10:01

to the era that we're talking about now, where

10:03

cable news was just kind of presumed to

10:05

operate under the same source of imperatives

10:08

that network news had, and

10:10

now an era where in

10:12

competing with everything from social

10:14

media to other

10:16

far more kind of

10:19

tabloid inclined cable networks,

10:22

they have to find a new way of operating.

10:24

And I think that her comments really highlighted the

10:26

distinction between someone who has been able to see

10:29

the entire arc of

10:31

development at CNN. We'll

10:34

be back with the political scene from The New Yorker in

10:37

just a moment. You

10:46

come to The New Yorker radio hour for

10:48

conversations that go deeper with people

10:51

you really want to hear from, whether

10:53

it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia

10:55

Rodrigo. Liz Cheney, who

10:57

are the godfather of artificial intelligence,

10:59

Jeffrey Hinton, were some of

11:02

my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at The

11:04

New Yorker. So join us

11:06

every week on The New Yorker radio hour wherever

11:08

you listen to podcasts. It

11:23

seems like CNN's defense of the town hall

11:25

after it received a bunch of criticism for

11:28

airing it. It seems like their defense has

11:30

sort of been centered around this idea of

11:32

fairness. They've talked about how they have a

11:34

history of holding these kinds of live town

11:37

halls with political candidates. And someone who

11:39

worked there made the point that basically

11:41

we have to treat Trump like anyone else running

11:44

for president. I mean, I guess my first question

11:46

is, one, is that even possible? I mean,

11:48

how can you be sort of

11:50

objective and fair when

11:53

you have someone who has been accused

11:57

of inciting an insurrection? And at the same time, I

11:59

think it's same time, I mean, it does

12:01

seem funny that like CNN might have a

12:03

live town hall with Joe Biden, but then

12:05

do a one on one interview with Trump

12:08

in a room that isn't aired live and,

12:10

you know, has content back checking and whatnot.

12:12

Like how do you, I guess, run news

12:14

coverage in a way that's fair when you

12:16

have two candidates who are so different? I

12:20

think that this gets at the heart of

12:22

the real question, which is

12:25

the extent to which Donald

12:27

Trump represents something atypical

12:30

in American political life. There

12:33

were lots of people who thought this at the

12:35

beginning of his political career. Notably,

12:39

the New Yorker did a

12:41

whole digital issue called Trump

12:43

and the Truth. And

12:45

it pointed out that even as a

12:47

candidate, his voluminous

12:50

untruths outstripped what you

12:52

were accustomed to seeing the kind of

12:54

default level of, you know,

12:57

mendacity or stretching truth that you might

12:59

expect from a political candidate. Then

13:02

that was just maybe a theoretical

13:04

observation, but we now

13:06

have a track record. This is a person

13:08

who has been impeached twice, a

13:12

person who told the

13:14

Secretary of State of Georgia

13:16

to find 11,000 votes for him

13:19

in that election and

13:21

who is under investigation for

13:24

those actions and

13:26

a person who attempted to mount an

13:28

insurrection to overturn a American

13:31

presidential election. It

13:34

seems as if the idea of

13:36

treating him differently would be unfair.

13:39

I would make the counter-argument, treating

13:42

Joe Biden the same as Donald

13:44

Trump or any other political

13:46

candidate, whether it be Democratic or Republican,

13:49

without that track record would actually be

13:51

unfair to them, people

13:53

who have done none of those things. This

13:56

idea that CNN defends itself by

13:58

reference to fair Fairness is a

14:01

defense based on something that no longer

14:03

exists. In a way, you can

14:05

flip it and say CNN is liberated.

14:08

They should just do what they think is

14:10

right, whatever that is, and then defend themselves.

14:13

And this idea of

14:15

treating two political candidates

14:17

equally is explicitly

14:20

rooted in the bygone era of

14:22

the fairness doctrine and equal time

14:24

and all of these principles that

14:26

used to govern how network television

14:29

behaved, and that's

14:31

all disappeared. I mean, look at social media. Facebook

14:34

decided, and Twitter I

14:36

suppose, independently after

14:39

the last election cycle and January

14:41

6th to ban Trump because of

14:43

principles that they articulated that

14:46

they believed were universal. I

14:49

find those principles unconvincing

14:51

and I find their

14:53

sequence of decision making unpersuasive,

14:56

but at least they explained what they were doing and they

14:58

were free to do it because they're not a

15:01

public square. They're a privately owned profit making

15:03

corporation that seeks an audience

15:05

that looks a little bit like a public square.

15:09

So I just think we can simplify

15:11

the question. We don't have to judge

15:13

the networks by the

15:16

bygone standards of Edward Murrow. Let's

15:18

look at the world we're actually in. You

15:20

can take the view the best way to combat

15:22

bad speech is more speech. That's

15:25

kind of my view. I'm very

15:27

nervous about censoring anybody on the

15:29

basis of some abstract principle, but

15:32

at the same time, I couldn't

15:34

possibly defend putting Donald Trump in

15:36

front of a friendly audience and

15:39

allowing him to essentially rehearse campaign

15:41

statements in that way and calling

15:43

it journalism. Yeah.

15:45

What do you think was the calculation for

15:48

that? I've been wondering whether this idea of

15:50

having a town hall with a Republican audience,

15:52

whether that is CNN trying to show

15:55

people that you don't have to go

15:57

to Fox News in order to get

15:59

coverage. It. Like what what

16:01

is going on because it doesn't seem like

16:03

an obvious decision aside from just a pure

16:06

incentives of or will get people to watch

16:08

and it'll go viral on social media and

16:10

that in a more money. Says

16:13

has been. In the

16:15

past six years. A

16:18

kind of. Circular. Loop

16:20

that we've been in as it relates

16:22

to his which is it is a

16:24

default setting. The people believe that the

16:26

media says if people wanna write, believe

16:28

that the media is liberal or Leslie.

16:31

And when the criticisms of

16:33

Donald Trump began to escalate, some

16:35

points that people but we're

16:37

really at odds with what

16:39

we think of as normal political

16:42

behavior and the United States.

16:44

That sounded to very many

16:47

people as the liberal bias

16:49

of the media rearing it's

16:51

head and. That. Would have

16:53

the sense that they have been like

16:55

beef. Counter. Efforts to make

16:57

sure that they don't appear and

17:00

that way that you give you

17:02

know a hearing to trump and

17:04

the way that you would give

17:06

to anyone else. Now what that

17:08

has inspired but among people on

17:10

the left: activations of normalization. And.

17:12

People say oh all the others

17:15

behavior is in also him at

17:17

odds and you're You're treating it

17:19

as at the way that you

17:22

would treat anyone else as opposed

17:24

to the way you treat feel.

17:26

This really volatiles and dangerous development

17:29

in American politics in that kind

17:31

of soul searching this the plane

17:33

market realities intrude because the idea

17:35

of holding a a town Hall

17:38

with Donald Trump in order to

17:40

appeal to viewers. Who

17:42

might have written off Cnn in of

17:45

years ago is fine as long as

17:47

you recognize that you also put at

17:49

risk the viewers. You already have their

17:52

people who are watching Cnn precisely because

17:54

they don't think they were likely to

17:56

see the kind of spectacle that the

17:59

Town Hall. Walden to. It.

18:01

May just be as opposed to augmenting

18:03

your audience. You wind up swapping out

18:05

a significant portion of the one you

18:08

have. For. Some other poor said

18:10

to be determined. Of people who

18:12

are watching previously. God.

18:15

We. Live in an era many journalism's right.

18:17

There's not one big church anymore, any

18:19

more than there is in politics. So.

18:22

You have to decide if you're running Cnn,

18:24

What does integrity mean to you? You're under

18:26

no obligation to hold this town Hall your,

18:29

and under no obligation to. Ever

18:31

put Donald Trump on the air but

18:33

Tyler I'm in. your you know, your

18:35

speculation about what might have motivated with

18:37

them to put on the Town Hall.

18:40

That all sounds right to me. I

18:42

mean surely they look over and see

18:44

Fox News disrupted by the Dominion Trial

18:46

and to Tucker Carlson's forced resignation and

18:48

a signal. Maybe there's an opportunity there.

18:51

I. I can't imagine they haven't at

18:54

least thought about that. They've got new

18:56

management. Or David Zasloff as the ultimate

18:58

Boss had Cnn. It's you know, they're

19:00

running a very big, complicated media business.

19:03

In the age of streaming, Cnn is

19:05

a big asset whose futures up in

19:07

the air. And. So. I

19:10

don't want to guess of their motivations,

19:12

I just want observed that is really

19:14

on them out to decide what kind

19:16

of an outside to they want be.

19:19

This. Cycle is going to test them

19:21

over and over again by heard Chris

19:24

liked i guess is his name the

19:26

head of Cnn. defend the use of

19:28

the audience by say wealth. People need

19:30

to understand what Trump voters really respond

19:32

to and what they sound like. It's

19:34

a Reality Checks Does your them applaud

19:37

from a sergeant A stick insult from

19:39

the stage to realize this is your

19:41

America a com Os I mean I

19:43

have I heard he known as hard

19:45

America I don't need it turned into

19:48

a surface. How many reminders? Yeah. yeah

19:50

so it's not good enough to defend

19:52

the town hall on those grounds if

19:54

you want to do at town hall

19:56

you'd you'd have to think through how

19:58

to manage the audio This is a place, there

20:00

are lots of different ways to do it the way they did

20:02

it is indefensible. Coming

20:05

up, we'll hear from Jelani Cobb and Steve

20:08

Cole about the questions they've been getting from their

20:10

students. Hi,

20:19

I'm Lauren Goode, I'm a senior writer

20:21

at WIRED, and I'm co-host of WIRED's

20:23

Gadget Lab, along with Michael Kalore. Each

20:25

week on Gadget Lab, we tackle the biggest

20:27

questions in the world of technology, with reporters

20:29

from inside the WIRED newsroom. We

20:32

cover everything from personal tech, Because

20:34

asking people to put a computer on one

20:36

of the most personal and sensitive parts of your

20:38

body is just like, it's a big bet.

20:41

broader trends in Silicon Valley, there are

20:43

just so many laid off workers out

20:45

there that workers just don't have a

20:47

lot of power. and the exciting and

20:49

terrifying world of AI. It's inevitable that

20:52

the internet is going to be filled

20:54

with AI-generated nonsense, and so he just

20:56

thinks he might as well make some

20:58

money, playing a small part in a thing

21:00

that just uses unstoppable. WIRED's Gadget

21:03

Lab is here to keep you informed and

21:05

to keep it real. The

21:07

entire point of the phone

21:09

should be on some level

21:12

to hate it. New

21:14

episodes of Gadget Lab are available weekly,

21:17

wherever you get your podcasts. I'm

21:28

wondering what you guys think will be sort of

21:30

the role of journalism in this upcoming presidential election,

21:32

Just in the sense that, you know, when Trump was

21:34

running the first time, we didn't really know what he would

21:36

be like as a president. But

21:39

now we obviously know what a Trump presidency looks like. We

21:42

know about the things that happened during the presidency. We know

21:44

about what happened in the immediate aftermath on January 6th. We

21:48

know about the pending legal challenges that Trump is facing. And

21:53

so, I mean, just given everything that we know about

21:55

him as a president, as a king, What

22:01

are you expecting to see

22:03

from journalists who were interviewing Trump in

22:05

this upcoming election cycle? There

22:09

are lots of different outlets with lots

22:11

of different inclinations and orientations. And

22:13

so at the risk of sounding like

22:15

I'm hedging, I think you're going to see a little

22:18

bit of everything. I do think

22:20

one of the things that will be interesting

22:22

to see is what the relationship with Fox

22:25

News looks like. Having

22:28

that gargantuan settlement in the

22:30

Dominion case, which is directly connected

22:32

to the close proximity of Fox

22:34

News to the Trump campaign, it

22:37

would be very interesting to see how they

22:39

position themselves going forward as he runs for

22:41

the White House again. Yeah,

22:43

that's a great point. That's probably one

22:46

of the most interesting media stories ahead

22:48

of us. And it feels very unsettled

22:50

because of the Dominion case, Tucker Carlson's

22:52

departure. There

22:55

seemed a moment a month ago

22:57

when the DeSantis surge was

22:59

drawing Fox's attention and making them

23:01

overtly hostile to Trump. He certainly

23:04

felt that way and was firing

23:06

back. But if Trump is

23:08

going to stampede to the nomination, then Fox

23:10

is going to have a big choice on

23:12

its hands about how to

23:14

manage this. And based on their history,

23:16

I would assume they would ride the Trump wave

23:18

again. So your

23:21

question about journalism's role, I

23:23

think another way to ask the

23:25

question is how will journalism really

23:27

matter in the next election cycle? And

23:29

I do think it'll matter in the

23:31

traditional ways. There's a lot of complicated

23:33

events ahead of us. These grand juries

23:35

are going to report out. There's already

23:38

one criminal case that's going to move

23:40

forward. We don't know who Trump is

23:42

going to rely on to run his campaign. We don't

23:44

know where his fundraising strategy is going

23:46

to land. There's going to be a lot

23:48

of reporting to do. So all of that,

23:50

I do think will matter and will inform

23:52

at least some of the electorate.

23:55

But we have to recognize, I mean,

23:57

these are strange times in American politics.

24:00

We've got a heavily polarized country

24:02

in which the two groups of

24:04

voters are very, very locked in.

24:07

And they already know what they think. They already

24:09

know which lever they plan to poll in 2024.

24:13

And if you read the political science

24:15

about independent voters, I mean, the great,

24:17

great, great majority of registered independent voters

24:19

already know who they're going to vote

24:21

for, are locked in. And

24:24

the so-called swing voters is a small

24:27

and maddeningly diverse and elusive

24:29

group of people. You

24:32

know, most people who are

24:34

unplugged from the country's polarization

24:36

don't vote. It's

24:39

the peculiar person who makes the

24:41

effort to vote but really can't decide between

24:43

Donald Trump and Joe Biden after all this.

24:46

Like, that is a peculiar person. And

24:49

a lot of money is spent trying to focus group

24:51

with these people are and how to influence them. And

24:54

I don't think that traditional reporting about,

24:57

you know, campaign finance or the

25:00

decision-making of prosecutors around

25:02

indicting Trump, like, that

25:04

is not on the minds of this

25:06

group of people. That doesn't mean

25:08

that journalism shouldn't march forward, play its

25:10

constitutional role and that it won't matter. Of course,

25:13

it will. But it's

25:15

a strange time for the relationship between

25:17

journalism and the voting public. To

25:19

the point that Steve made about those voters,

25:22

I usually say that is what

25:24

happens when a margin for error grows arms and

25:26

legs and goes out and walks down the street.

25:31

At this point, given everything we know about Trump,

25:34

what are sort of like the main questions that

25:36

you think journalists should be asking him if they

25:38

get the chance to, you know, sit down one-on-one

25:40

with him? Or what questions would you

25:43

ask him? I guess it's just so hard to know.

25:45

I mean, that town hall the other day easily could have

25:47

been all about January 6th.

25:50

I mean, a lot of it was about the Eugene Carroll

25:52

trial. There's so much history and

25:54

baggage. And so, yeah, what topics

25:56

do you think journalists should be focusing on and

25:58

trying to get him real factual

26:01

answers to, assuming that that is something

26:03

that is possible under the right conditions. Well,

26:06

I think they should be asking him what

26:08

he would do as president about the war

26:10

in Ukraine. What does he mean when he

26:12

says that he's going to solve

26:14

the war in 24 hours? What

26:17

is his attitude about Russian aggression? Would

26:19

he continue to supply weapons

26:22

to Ukraine and go

26:24

around the world and ask him specific questions

26:27

about what he would do? Because he often

26:30

responds to those questions authentically, meaning the way

26:32

he actually speaks in the White House, which

26:34

we now have a very disconcerting

26:36

and thorough record of how

26:39

he deliberates around matters of

26:41

war and peace. If

26:43

you just go pick up John Bolton's

26:45

memoir, where Bolton actually took notes

26:48

at every one of these meetings in his memoir

26:50

is essentially a declassified record

26:52

of national security meetings

26:54

around all kinds of subjects. That

26:58

the president of the United States would address matters

27:01

that would affect the

27:03

American military, the American public,

27:06

the management of our border in the language

27:08

that he does and with the knowledge that

27:10

he displays. There's

27:12

not much of a gap between what he will

27:15

say in an interview, if you ask these questions,

27:17

and what he actually says in the Situation Room.

27:20

Just take that formula and apply

27:22

it to all the things you'd

27:24

be thinking about in a second

27:26

Trump presidency, his enemies list,

27:29

his idea about retribution, which he speaks

27:31

about openly. What does he mean? Ask

27:33

it in a friendly way. Tell

27:35

me about your ideas of retribution. Who do

27:37

you have in mind? Have you given us some thought? What are

27:39

you going to do on day one? Last

27:43

time you didn't fire your attorney general at

27:45

moments of crisis, what you're thinking about

27:47

next time around? What are you going to do? You're not

27:49

going to let Bill Barr screw you again, are you? What

27:51

are you going to do? And maybe

27:53

it'll shake people up, but in any event, it's

27:56

a role journalists can play to try to get

27:58

this on the record, and it's a tradition. question that

28:00

journalists ask, what are you going to do as president?

28:02

I would add to that that many

28:05

years ago and at a

28:07

different institution, I had

28:09

a student whose likelihood

28:13

of opining in class was

28:16

inversely relational to his likelihood of

28:18

actually having done the reading. I

28:24

relate, yeah. And

28:26

I mean, I had up to that point

28:28

in my career been, you know, acquainted with

28:30

students who hadn't done the reading, but

28:33

I had never had anyone who

28:35

was as vocal as this person without

28:38

having graced a single page of the

28:40

assigned readings. And the

28:43

approach I eventually took was

28:46

to ask pointed, highly specific

28:48

questions that related to

28:50

the subject matter that we were dealing with

28:52

that week, you know, not the previous week,

28:54

not the particular specific thing that

28:56

we're dealing with right now. I

28:59

think that there has to be really

29:01

specific questions with him, not

29:03

open-ended questions. The economy

29:06

did this at this point. What is the

29:08

response to this? You know,

29:10

you made this point about the deficit.

29:12

You know, the deficit grew during your

29:15

presidency. What do you say

29:17

about, you know, what is the approach to

29:19

lowering it? Like, why didn't you lower it

29:21

before? I think that there has to be

29:23

like very particular things that don't lend

29:26

themselves to the kind of open-ended

29:28

platform where a person can just

29:30

kind of, you know, turn

29:32

those things into like verbal dissertations. You

29:35

know, you have to kind of nail these things

29:37

down into a format that admittedly would be more

29:40

boring, but unquestionably would

29:42

likely be more substantive. Yeah,

29:45

sort of going against the whole like TV

29:47

theatrics thing. So I want

29:49

to play a clip just of a

29:51

2020 interview from Jonathan Swan, who

29:53

has sort of become known as

29:55

like a Trump whisperer. And in the

29:58

clip, Trump brings out a chart to try to prove that The

30:00

US is lower than the world, his

30:02

quotes in relation to COVID deaths. The

30:05

world? Lower than Europe? What

30:07

is Europe? In what? In what? Take

30:10

a look. Right here. Here's

30:12

case death. Oh,

30:16

you're doing death as a proportion of cases. I'm talking

30:18

about death as a proportion of population. That's where the

30:20

US is really bad. Much

30:22

worse than South Korea, Germany, etc. You

30:24

can't do that. Why can't you do that? You

30:28

have to go by where... Look, here

30:30

is the United States. You have to go by

30:32

the cases. The cases of death. Why not as a

30:34

proportion of population? When you have somebody... What it

30:36

says is when you have somebody that has...

30:39

Where there's a case, the people that live

30:41

from those cases. It's surely a relevant statistic

30:43

to say if the US has X population

30:45

and X percentage of death of that population

30:47

versus South Korea. No, because you have to

30:50

go by the cases. Well, look at South

30:52

Korea, for example. 51 million population,

30:54

300 deaths. It's

30:57

crazy. You don't know that. I do. You

31:00

don't know that. I

31:02

walk into that because they have a very good

31:04

relationship with the country. But you don't

31:07

know that. And they have spikes. Look, here's

31:09

one. Germany, low, 9,000. Here's one

31:11

right here. United States. You take

31:13

the number of cases. Now, look, we're last. Meaning

31:16

we're first. I don't know what we're first in. Take

31:18

the look. Again, it's cases. Okay.

31:22

And Jonathan Swan is brilliant. And

31:24

one thing I know about his methodology

31:26

is that he,

31:28

and I'm sure a lot

31:30

of great broadcast interviewers do this, this is

31:33

not my thing. So I'm fascinated to learn

31:35

what you do to become good

31:37

at this. He watches

31:40

his interview subjects' previous

31:42

live interviews very thoroughly

31:44

and maps out their

31:47

standard responses and figures

31:49

out what questions they have mastered so that no

31:52

matter how many ways you ask it, they've already

31:54

got their canned answer and that's what you're going

31:56

to get. And I think the purpose of doing

31:58

that up front is to avoid asking

32:00

those questions to figure out some

32:02

other way to get to the subject. And

32:05

so I think when

32:07

I read his transcripts, I

32:10

see that homework on the page because

32:13

he's figured out a way to ask a

32:15

new question. And there's something about the way

32:17

Trump or other world leaders

32:19

that he's interviewed respond to it that

32:22

makes it harder for it

32:24

to just be that file card they have

32:26

in their head that they repeat

32:28

over and over again. Do

32:32

you guys have time for one last question? It's

32:34

actually related to Columbia. I'm just wondering what kinds

32:36

of questions you get from students about,

32:38

you know, sort of political coverage

32:40

during this era and sort of

32:43

like, it could be anything from like, how do

32:45

you cover someone like Trump to like, what is

32:47

the state of journalism or how does one stay

32:49

objective? Like I'm curious about the most common things

32:51

that you have young journalists asking you about and

32:54

then what your advice to them is. Steve,

32:56

would you like to go first? Well, I

32:58

mean, I teach covering politics in

33:01

different ways. And I

33:04

think the best students are interested

33:06

in figuring out how to go

33:08

beyond the election cycle

33:10

and write about the

33:13

stuff that the longer arc of politics is

33:15

made of. Those are the most

33:18

inspiring students to be around. A

33:20

lot of other students who are great,

33:22

but maybe not so ambitious, they

33:25

just want to know how to do what we've

33:27

been talking about. They understand what

33:29

the spectrum of political journalism looks like.

33:32

And they're basically asking, how can I

33:34

be good at it? So

33:36

you can go from the quotidian to the

33:39

profound in a single

33:41

class. But I do love

33:43

the fact that students are still

33:45

interested in this function because

33:47

we need them. Yeah. Do you

33:50

find that they're excited about journalism right now

33:52

and, the coming election

33:54

cycle and the craziness of it,

33:56

are people Worried just

33:58

in the sense that Trump was... The guy who

34:00

coined fake news and even know was like

34:03

a sort. Of financially flush time for

34:05

the industry under him just because

34:07

there is more more subscribers and

34:09

people tuning in to kind of

34:11

understand the Trump Presidency. He was

34:13

like simultaneously. Insulting. The

34:16

media every chance he got. A

34:18

big bird devote a great deal of

34:21

excitement You know with the students that

34:23

I interact with. It is

34:25

that a fairly tied to. Your. The

34:27

coming election cycle, even the law

34:29

suits or here from abroad the

34:31

early know that next year that

34:33

there will be a presidential election

34:35

that will be consequential. Oleksyn A

34:37

Federer. but I think that they

34:39

are much more interested in the

34:41

kind of big scope questions will

34:43

be interested in covering local news

34:46

in local politics and even if

34:48

some other kind of high level

34:50

ten thousand foot questions about what

34:52

does objectivity look like, the of

34:54

what is the role of objectivity

34:56

and contemporary reporting. Your that because

34:58

tumult that we've seen in the last six years?

35:00

Has not sake in the zeal

35:02

and enthusiasm. Of the students

35:05

that we interact with in a

35:07

for journalism and for covering politics

35:09

and particular. Item Title: Or

35:14

think you bought some apps and I see here. To

35:20

any party, study on the house. He

35:25

call and staff writer at Any

35:27

Water and former at the Columbia.

35:29

Journalism for that have been the

35:31

political I'm terrified and the shell

35:33

is pretty soon. As it would help

35:36

from Sydney cough with special production assistants

35:38

to. Die. From Tom are secular producers

35:40

even dance party music as I

35:42

also like to thank you so

35:44

much for the. john

35:53

stewart a second hosts chair at the daily

35:56

show which means he's also back in our

35:58

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