Devil Wears MAGA

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0:23So are we supposed to start the podcast? Ready, one, two, three. Patriots, gay-triots, they-triots, black-triots, brown-triots, and the people who don't support them can fuck off. Fuck off. That's right. You guys, it is a big time in the big city. We have a big time guest, Jen Psaki with MSNBC, but I think it's going to be MS Now. It is. I think you should do jazz hands. Jazz hands. I think like everybody, I think Rachel Maddow should go, welcome to MS Now. Yes. And anyone who doesn't like it can fuck off. Yeah. Should we start there? That's exactly. Yes. We welcome you. Even if you don't like it yet, please come like it.

1:01I know. I'm excited about it, though. I am, too. I'm very excited. I think it's an opportunity for a feeling of at least getting away from all the capitulators. It's funny you say that. I've been thinking about how it feels like a healthy divorce. Right. When you look at the other side and you're like, I'm ready to move out now and I'm ready to move into our space. Yes. And I'm really excited about the reporters who are coming to MS now who are already with us. I mean, people who have – Carol and Ken have broken – I don't know. It feels like a story every day. Yes. And they're part of what we're going to be doing.

1:38And a lot of what we do is storytell and not bullshit and just tell people what's happening. And that's exciting to be a part of and to be our own world of it. You know, I've been on CNN and then I was on the MSNBC weekend. And people ask me what the difference is. And the difference is this. When you're on CNN, you have to walk in and have regressive conversations. You have to argue about decided facts and people saying that, no, that isn't a fact. This is the truth. And when I was on MSNBC, I was on with, by the way, is so attractive in person, Eamon Mahaldana. Yeah. Yeah. You know, his wife is like a model.

2:17Yeah. I follow him on Instagram. They are gorgeous. And he's so nice. It's just so nice. Yeah. He's fantastic. All the things. But I was on his show and it was just it was so refreshing because the facts are just assumed and then you can get into the nuance of conversation, policy, grievances, whatever. But on other networks, it's like this is so regressive that we're debating a fact. Let's not debate the sky is blue. The sky is blue. Right. And I don't think we have to have another side of was it the pros and cons of Letitia James being indicted. Right. There are no pros. There are many cons.

2:55Here are all the things with it. That is one of the things I so appreciate. And I remember when I started, I can't remember, it may have been Ari Melber actually, who has done a lot of interesting reporting on criminal justice reform and things. And he said to me, one of the things that's really exciting is that you can decide to do an eight minute package on criminal justice reform and talk to people who are experts. And you don't have to feel like you have to present a hundred sides of the issue. You're trying to inform the audience with information and nuance and a depth of details that you don't have the luxury of doing even on a range of networks and a range of mediums right now.

3:30Well, what have you had it with? That's the number one thing we got to talk about. I love this. I've had it with so many things right now. First of all, I'm just going to start with a political one because here we are. I have had it with little Mike Johnson and taller John Thune. Don't forget to have had it with him, who pretend like they are powerless observers of the shutdown of anything you can do in Washington. Little Mike Johnson is second in line to the presidency. He is the most powerful person in Congress. There are many things you can do to end the shutdown, to pay military troops, to make sure people have health care subsidies.

4:12And John Thune is walking around. He's a new addition to him. I have had it. group is walking around like, I don't know. We've neglected him. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Please add him. I have totally neglected him because his silence is really causing a lot of problems. Yeah. And he behaves as if, I guess we'll see what happens. You're the leader of the Senate. Have you ever seen this many emasculated men that are so terrified of so many things in your life? Can you imagine being a conservative and navigating a remote control? Jimmy Kimmel, you know, Stephen Colbert, Bad Bunny, Cracker Barrel commercial, a drag queen, a gay person, a black person, Spanish speaking person.

4:56I mean, these people are so terrified all the time, yet they want to talk about how masculine they are. And it's like, bitch, please. Bitch, please. That's the tell. Little dick energy on steroids. It's really that is such a because I was I mean, I feel like Donald Trump himself, just to go back to that guy, has like a member that game Battleship. We used to play. Yes. I loved it. He's got a game of battleship and kind of little military figures that he's like moving around. And it would be funny, except it's not funny because it's a horror show. But that is what this is about. This is like, I am weak and small.

5:32So I'm going to play battleship over here and I'm going to tell the military what they're going to do. And I'm going to send them into cities because I need to feel bigger. Right. Yeah. Well, and I get Pete Hegseth, who's a complete fucking moron, completely not qualified to do what he's doing. And he's running the battleship. And that scares me. Like for national security, everything else. I feel like our enemies are looking saying these bozos couldn't stop a clock. So, you know, our enemies are taking the dub. Oh, I mean, this is fantastic. This is a W for all. I mean, this is this is they don't have to do anything.

6:07No. China, Russia, they can just sit back and go, have at it. This is such a good point because, I mean, I spent a couple of years with the State Department. And when you have foreign leaders come visit, and they do this in other capitals, too, you get all this briefing materials of what is the coverage of them in their countries? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What are their vulnerabilities? Imagine what that packet of information looks like for a briefing when somebody is going to meet with Trump. It's like, flatter him. Flatter him. Tell him he has big hands. He's technically looking good and his hands are big.

6:39Good golfer. Yeah, he's a great golfer. And what else do you say about him? And then maybe you'll get what you want from him. I mean, it is, that's the kind of briefing they're getting. And I, you know, Jay Johnson, who's the former Secretary of Homeland Security, made this point on my show last night, which is, it's like we can't, the United States usually when you're traveling with Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense or the President, we're imperfect. We have a long history of being imperfect. But you usually go to other countries and you say, if you don't improve your human rights, if you don't treat the media with respect, if you don't treat freedom of speech and expression with respect, we're going to have to have a conversation about the kind of money we provide to you.

7:17Right? You have these conversations. Now, how do we go into other countries and have conversations about how they treat the media, how they treat freedom of expression, how they treat the right to gather, all of these issues that we are now grappling with in our own country? What about the inverse of that? What about we talk a lot about corporate capitulation, university capitulation, you know, all of the Republican Congress, the national security guys. But what about our allies? Are they capitulating in a sense by going along when they meet with the United States of America, like the Jay Carney was in the Oval?

7:53And while they are piling on effusive praise to this malignant narcissist dictator, Trump, we're not on the verge of an authoritarian takeover. We're right in the middle of it. Are our allies capitulating by kissing his ass and not saying, we're not going to do deals with you if you are denying people due process? You are on human rights watch list. Our relationship is different. So what do you think, having been at the State Department, about that look at it? I mean, it's very Neville Chamberlain-esque, in my opinion, of our allies to go along with this. Yeah. And you kind of want that Hugh Grant moment.

8:32Remember that Hugh Grant moment where he says, we are not a small country, we are whatever he says? I think, I don't know yet. And I think they're making this calculation clearly in their own strategy meetings, some of them, just go flatter him and it will help us get what we want, right? Maybe we can get him back on board with being on the right side of the war in Ukraine, which is a crazy thing, but that's where we are. Maybe it will help him. It will help push him back from pushing all these tariffs. That hasn't worked yet in most regards, but I think they're calculating if we can just flatter him a little bit, we'll treat him like they treat him like a child a bit.

9:10Right. Does that work? I don't think we know yet, but that seems to be the calculation. Well, and people in his administration have really like J.D. Vance, who we refer to as Lil Smokey, short for Smokey Eye Sociopath. So Lil Smokey has said some very smokey eye. He said some very disparaging things about Europe. And of course, Elon Musk is with that far right German party. And then he's meddling in UK politics. And it feels like there is this desire from dark forces. This is my theory. You can tell me what you think about it. Like Trump has the cult. He keeps it together. Our allies and adversaries know how to flatter him, but also the people within the White House know how to flatter him.

9:54What are his number one things? Are his decorating and arts and crafts projects? He's building an arch. We've seen the Oval Office. He's got his ballroom. He's selling watches. He has his online thrift shop. The watches. And all of the people that work for him, like particularly when you get to Stephen Miller and then J.D. Vance, and then you just peel back who they're associated with, people that would never get into politics, that think they're better than that, like I'm talking Peter Thiel and other oligarchs. And I feel like they are really trying to concentrate the power in the executive because biology is going to catch up with Trump.

10:32None of these guys can win a general election. The cult will completely fall apart. So they have to consolidate in the executive, go full tilt authoritarian so that little Smokey can come in and execute this crazy plan that these weirdos Peter Thiel and this guy named Curtis Yarvin have that they have decided we no longer should have a democracy. I think the little Manchurian candidate, J.D. Vance, wants to be president more than anything else. I always wonder what's going on in the mind of his wife. Like, are you OK? Please blink four times. We'll come over here. We'll save you. And that he's willing to do anything to get there.

11:15And that your whole iteration you just outlined. I mean, he's scarier in certain ways. He's smarter. In some ways. And he's young. And ambitious. And ambitious. And agile in the sense that he is a chameleon who makes himself into whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear from him. Now, what's also true, though, is J.D. Vance is not, he's in some ways goodish on paper, if you like what he believes in, I don't know. But I don't know that he can take the whole movement with him. No way. I don't think so either. He's no riz. It's got no riz, right? And he's got, he just is a little odd. And so Trump's odd in a different way.

11:57So I'm skeptical of that. So yeah, he's got to, I mean, everything going on right now, and I think we have to be very clear-eyed about this, is about trying to manipulate the public around elections. And so even pre-J.D. Vance ascension or attempt for J.D. Vance to ascend, we're looking at the midterm elections next year. And J.B. Pritzker's called this out. Gavin Newsom has called this out. These troops in the streets, these attempts to manipulate the elections by doing these mid or middle of the process redistricting. This is all about making it harder to participate in the process, making it harder for Democrats and for people who want to support these candidates and even just people who want to check on the power of Trump to participate.

12:44That's what this is all about. So that's just the lead up to taking greater and greater and greater control. And even taking the military underneath his wing, taking the press, which They're completely reshaping the whole press room and who covers the president. All of this is consolidation of power and consolidation of information to the public. And that's what it's about is maintaining power. And then you have Fox News that's got all the boomers that don't get on social media. OK, so here's my we've been talking about this. The press corps that goes to those ridiculous propagandist press secretary, which I want to get to.

13:23But this is on this point. is there going to be a time that the press says, we're not doing this. We are not covering this president or this press secretary because all they do is lie. And so you can have Peter Doocy, you can have, you know, whoever the podcaster of the day is, Benny Johnson can get in there and just go for it. Is that something we can see? Because I don't see another avenue to getting the truth out unless there's like some type of pushback from the press, which we're seeing the Pentagon press do more than I've seen the White House press do. It's a very good question. Here's the challenge of that.

14:02If I would say Peter Doocy, bless his heart, is not as bad as Benny Johnson. This is the world we're living in. He's got the rank order of options. Is that if the Associated Press and the Washington Post and the New York Times and ABC News say, you know what, we're walking out of this White House briefing room. that's the best thing that could ever happen to Donald Trump and Caroline Levitt, because that's what they're trying to reshape without saying they're doing it. And in that room, and this is what I find to be so challenging, is the things that are happening behind the scenes that you can't always see or know unless you've lived it.

14:38And I think this is true in law firms and the Department of Justice and places too, is that in that briefing room, the Benny Johnsons of the world are slowly but surely taking over more and more of the questions in the briefing, right? And having a greater and greater presence in these press pools where you have a smaller group of reporters in the Oval Office. And sometimes Trump and a foreign leader will take 45 minutes of questions. And it's Benny Johnson and little Benny Johnson, whoever that may be. And yes, maybe there's one or two other real reporters. But the problem is they're taking up so much real estate.

15:11So if all these other reporters leave, that's all the real estate. And then you know what we have? We have what the Kremlin press corps is. And that's the challenge. So if you're these reporters, I don't know what the answer is and what you do. There's still very smart people in there. They're just getting overtaken in terms of space and real estate by people the White House selects to say things like, Donald Trump looks so good in his workout. What is his workout? That was literally a question one day. It's crazy. Yeah. Okay. And one thing, okay, so I'm going to tell you what a big nerd I am.

15:41We're all nerds. It's a safe place. Yeah. So I get on social media And then when I would get home after work, I would watch the press, your press conferences when you worked for Biden. God bless you. Thank you. Just to see like, OK, what's the real story before I got into the meat of it? Because I was like, OK, what's the White House saying? Because I'm getting all this disruption. And I think that it's a, you know, it's precious for the United States to have a representative of the president to come out and talk about policy. You had a stack of books this tall. I couldn't even believe all the crap you went through.

16:13Now I am enraged every time I see Caroline Leavitt, who prays before she goes out there and lies her fat ass off. So she goes out there and lies, and it's propaganda after propaganda. Is there no check on that? Like, is there no, like, I guess there's no law that the press secretary has to be honest. But like when she acts like, I can't even believe you would insinuate Donald Trump would make money off of the presidency as the Trump watches are going. So is there no like rules or anything? I guess they don't care about rules. But does that break your heart to see what it's been turned into? It does.

16:50And I say this as obviously I worked in democratic politics for 20 something years. I'm not shy about my views. But even for people who like Dana Perino or dare I say even Sean Spicer, I don't know if I should use them as an example. It's a very different briefing room now than it was then. And Dana Perino is probably a better example of this, right? I disagree with Bush on a bazillion things, right? But you had to go in there and answer questions from the same type of reporters and often the same reporters I had to answer questions from. And this is a part of how the United States is unique as a democracy, is that you do have a person who goes out there at the White House and answers questions, even on days.

17:29And believe me, there are some days where you before you walk out into that room, you're like, oh, shit. Yeah, there's no information. That's not the reporter's fault. It's like there's nothing I can offer and they're going to just yell at me for 45 minutes. It's sad because there aren't so many people who have ever done that job. And what it feels like, it is diminishing the job. It is diminishing the role of the press secretary, the honor of being in that job, which is speaking on behalf of the United States of America, which sometimes it's edgy. A lot of times it's not. Sometimes it's, you know, people think it's boring, but it's important.

18:03And this is really changing what it is and what the expectations are around it. And that is sad for the White House. It's sad for the institution. It's sad for anyone who's had that job. And it really takes it away as something that the American people can rely on as at least a source of information. One thing that I think he's really good at, Trump, and Republicans in general, is they are – Is he? I don't know. I'm not sure. They are constantly promoting what they're doing. And Biden, in my opinion, he knew how to govern, loads of experience, knew how to reach across the aisle, knew how to get shit done.

18:44But there wasn't a lot of marketing that accompanied the successes that he had. And because everything has changed, and it's the really weird thing being a Democrat, because like when Obama was in office, we had all the young techie people and kind of controlled social media. Well, that narrative has really switched. And now I feel like we're the conservative party, not in the sense of our values, but in the sense that people are not progressing forward within the Democratic Party. They are sticking to the status quo like I've never seen the party do. So in that regard, if we get to midterms and if we ever get a Democratic president, having been the press secretary, what do you think, and now what the American public is used to, obviously honesty is first, but don't you think the Dems need to razzle, dazzle, and perma campaign their presidency?

19:36Because now the public is primed for that. We can't just go back to, well, today the president did. I'm not saying you did that, but it's going to have to be more entertaining. Would you not agree? Totally. I mean, Democrats, God bless their hearts. Some are better than others are holding on to like, remember the running CD Discman? Yes. Yes. Yes. But not in a cool, vintage, ironic way. Right. It's still, you know, it's interesting. When I started my job as the press secretary, well, I'll go back a little before that. When Donald Trump won the first time and we all thought Hillary Clinton was going to win and we had binders ready for the people we knew who were working for Hillary Clinton because I was Obama's communications director and I was still I was there at the time.

20:15we would have suggested them, they could have done what they wanted, to change all sorts of things about the briefing room, the way engagement with the press works, because it's been archaic for a very long time. And there's not enough thought put into what the thought should really be about is how do you reach the broad public out there that doesn't press refresh on whitehouse.gov. And that's key. That should be the guide because the American public is your constituency. And the briefing room is only a part of it, of course. I know you're not just asking about that. But I think it's about rethinking the modes of communication, how you use your own platforms.

20:54I love Joe Biden extremely deeply, which I know I don't have to say to both of you. He was never going to be a natural TikTok person, right? And there were reasons we didn't have TikTok because of national security concerns. Frankly, I think everybody running for president and who want to be leaders should have TikTok or whatever the new iteration of it is. It's always evolving and should really think about not do I feel good because my written piece was in the Washington Post, which by the way, nobody reads. I also think that all departments of government should have social media. 100%. I think it's I think that in order to I think you've got to govern smart, govern honestly and govern with style and govern with an entertainment lens as well, because that is what our culture has become.

21:42Good, bad or indifferent, you have to evolve to it. And the problem with Democrats and the reason why I keep saying the word conservative, and I think I want to say more preservative, they want to preserve these systems, is that shockingly, the conservatives that I thought were just crusty, old white people have morphed into this young group of misogynists that really know how to navigate social media and the media landscape. And then we have the Democrats who are preserving. And the biggest problem for Democrats for me right now and in the past is we operate under what I call assumption politics.

22:19We assume everybody's going to do the right thing. We assume nobody's going to vote for Trump. We're so hopeful. We assume we assume that people know that Caroline Leavitt is lying. We assume that everybody knows that Antifa is not real. It is an idea. We assume these things. And in that assumption comes hubris to where then you cannot plainly speak to constituents. And this is the problem. When Democrats don't do this, really bad actors fill the void. And right now, Marjorie Taylor Greene is filling that void. She is seeing the curtains on kinks. That's what we call Trump. Short for kinkles. I'm tracking.

22:59I'm a listener. She sees the curtains on kinks and she is teeing up and she's now she's talking about health care. She's talking about America seems to have Israel first policies. Why do they have health care? Why do they have higher education? And we don't. Well, we live in Oklahoma. And so that kind of shit that is going to hit hard. And then Democrats are explaining more nuances about those issues. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, as she does all of this, she was on CNN last night, spitting facts, sounded like a normal fucking person. And then I went to her Twitter. And last night, just because she has to pacify the crazies, she's like, by the way, Antifa was at January 6th.

23:39Blah, blah, blah. I mean, like within a two-hour span. It's like the different universes. But the point is those vacuums get filled by these very crafty, manipulative grifters on the right. Benny Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, J.D. Vance, a little smoky. I mean, they fill these vacuums that Democrats don't fill. I a thousand percent agree. And I think part of it, this is just a small part of it, but the preservation is such a good way of describing it. There's still this what is presidential? What is governmental? What does a senator do? Get the fuck out of here. Who cares? Like, it doesn't matter.

24:16You're trying to reach people. And guess what? Most people are not sitting on their couch wearing a suit watching you. So it's like you have to – people just have to become a little bit more relaxed. Let go of the talking points, which it's funny because in part of my transition from being a communications ex-person to being on television is we would have officials on. And I would finish an interview and I'd say, we can't have that person on again. They just they like literally read a list of talking points. Right. And there is a letting go and a being a little freer and not being so preservationist with how you talk about things, the words you use to talk about things.

24:55Just talk like a human being with a heart. That's it. You know, that's what Democrats care about. Right now, the government shutdown. They want to protect health care. That's it. They want to make sure you're not paying more for health care. That's the whole thing. So just talk about it like a human being. Stop being so overly formalized and strict with yourself about it. It's a really good example. We recently had Cory Booker on and I asked him, do you think Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal? And he wouldn't answer it. And he filibustered after every answer. And after the interview, I thought.