Jessica Tarlov on being the lone Democrat at Fox, what she knows about Pete Hegseth, and why she defends her conservative colleagues

19:02Jessica Tarlov:Yeah. So I'm on every email list that exists. I think it's just smart to be informed about what's going on in all of these races. And I have relationships with a lot of people on campaigns. And no one would it be a dream scenario if I would say things that they want me to say, I'm sure. But I think also they're very aware of the fact that I do my own research. I build my own argument. And if it fits into something, a case that I want to make, for instance, then I might include something. But no one has ever thought that I could be like a shadow campaign aide type person. I'm curious. You mentioned Janine Pirro a few minutes ago, used to be a fellow cast member, colleague of yours at The Five, now has a job in the federal government.

19:57What is Fox like these days for your colleagues who know that the president is watching? He's talked about you. He's tweeted, truth socialed about you, not in a very flattering way, unfortunately. What did he call you?

20:11Max:A disgrace to the broadcasting industry or something like that?

20:15Jessica Tarlov:Yeah, I do like when he just says, like, dear Fox executives, like, fire her, which.

20:21Max:And he knows the names of like a lot of Fox executives. He also he can get on the phone with them pretty easily, I think. But he is the president. He is. That's true. He can get on the phone with pretty much anybody. Anybody. He wants to pretty easily. Yes, exactly. But what is it like these days for your colleagues who kind of know the president is watching? And are can you tell or any is anybody trying to get like a or any of them auditioning for for a job in the administration?

20:47Jessica Tarlov:I don't think so at this point. I think the people who wanted to go have gone. Right. I mean, we're and we're heading into real lame duck season. And, you know, I'm not sure if Democrats pick up the Senate, too, but my expectation, I'm knocking on wood in my pantry to win the House. That's not my feeling at all. And at least on the five, it's kind of a running joke that he's watching. Like, I'll make the joke. Jesse makes the joke. We had J.D. Vance on. You know, he co-hosted for an hour, for the full hour when he was on book tour. and we were all joking about it because it's insane right that the leader of the free world no matter what he's doing he's in the middle of a bombing campaign is like let me check in on what greg's thinking about this um or so that i can shit on jessica so jessica is is like jesse waters like during the break leaning over and being like hey check this out trump just sent me saying xyz he think that's never happened um i had some like funny moments uh with janine where i and she wouldn't mind me saying this or i presume she wouldn't mind but she has very big font on her phone and i would see some texts not from trump but from like big republican names that were like that effing retard we can say retard in the trump second term like they be like how do you stand it like sitting next to her and I'd be like Janine and she's like oh ignore that he doesn't know what he's talking about so yes obviously people are sending in their opinions but nobody cares is she still watching the show even though she's got a day job these days she does have a day job she definitely keeps up with everything and she's in touch with everybody too you know I I text with her and check in, you know, want to make sure she's OK, because obviously the president is not particularly fond of her right now because she told the truth about the vandalism on the reflect vandalism on the reflecting pool.

22:59Jessica Tarlov:So I don't think she's an appointment viewer necessarily, but she's still very enmeshed.

23:04Max:What did you learn about Pete Hexeth from working with him?

23:06Jessica Tarlov:He was always very nice to me. You know, very pleasant. Was on The Five a few times. I did Fox and Frides a bit. You know, I would, when we do, like, he used to host the Patriot Awards. So, had been, like, in Nashville with him. I mean, I think that there was always a sense that he wanted to go in a very different direction from where he came from. You know, I remember there was a conversation we were having on The Five. He was in for Jesse, so he was sitting next to me. And they were railing against higher education and the Ivy League. And I just said, like, didn't you go to Princeton? And then that's when he said that he returned his degree, which I don't think is a thing that you can do or that it matters to anybody.

23:56Jessica Tarlov:so I you know when you guys have seen old clips of him like about Donald Trump about you're talking about Ukraine like obviously this is someone who has pivoted very far from what would be more traditional neocon he was anti-trump for the listeners who aren't familiar with the whole arc but he was anti-trump basically everybody was anti-trump it was fun saying that to JD Vance though when he was on the show I did enjoy that moment well we have to take Take a short break, but we'll be right back with a lot more from Jessica Tarloff after this.

24:37Max:This week on our branded segment from Think with Google, I talked to Google's VP of Marketing, Josh Spanier, about whether most marketers are bad at their jobs. Josh, you recently published a newsletter with a subject line that raised a lot of eyebrows. I believe it was, most marketers suck at marketing. do you? That's a provocative, some might say, insulting approach. But you backed it up with a statistic from Ipsos that said that 70 % of marketers fail a basic test of marketing fundamentals. Are folks in this industry that bad at their jobs? The truth hurts, Ben. I did write that. Although to be fair, I was actually channeling Mark Ritson, a guest on my Frontier CMO podcast, and famously a bit of a curmudgeon about the marketing industry.

25:23Max:But he's not wrong. Dentists, doctors, scientists, they get degrees in the discipline they're working in. Marketers just turn up and get on-the-job training. What Mark thinks is that that has led to a crisis of credibility for marketers and a crisis of competence for marketers. What did you and Ritson agree are the absolute non-negotiable fundamentals that marketers need to reclaim? So Mark and I discussed in our pod a number of things that marketers can do to really stop sucking at marketing. The first thing is really, you've got to start with market insights first. You have to have an unbelievably deep understanding of the category and sector you're operating in, what your competitors are doing, what your products are, the pricing, the profit margins, every aspect of the market.

26:09Max:If you're spending money without knowing everything about your market category, it's just going to be wasted. Second, brand strategy matters more than tactics. and in marketing, we are guilty of leaning into tactics. We wanna talk about the ad we're making, the thing we are producing. And if you don't have an incredibly clear articulation in two or three words best of what your brand purpose is, what your reason for being is, what your positioning is, everything you make is gonna get fragmented and diluted and all over the place. Brand strategy is more important than your individual tactics. Third, you need to be in this for the long term.

26:49Max:Mark in my conversation spoke about his favorite brand of all time, KitKat, and how their brand strategy of have a break, have a KitKat has been in place for over 50 years, and it still works. In marketing, we're guilty of chopping and changing all the time. Actually, KitKat knows it's working, and their customers understand it as well. Just reinvent it and reinvent it. Don't replace it. Stick for the long term. Where should people go to find out more? You can subscribe to Frontier CMO wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube and beyond. And look for the episode with Mark Ritson to capture this conversation.

27:32Max:I was thinking of the thing you said about people who are on some cable network saying they were straight up the middle and then got on their own and are so left-wing. And how it drives viewers crazy and I think makes them feel like they're being tricked. And I wonder the other thing I think that drives people crazy is the sense, and I think this is a particularly like media-saturated administration, but it's all – it's been true forever, that people kind of move in and out of media and into the administration and that maybe we feel a level – like I have former colleagues who are working for Trump and former colleagues who are working for Biden.

28:00Max:Like that we feel a sense of kind of collegiality with them and then with us that we can't really be trusted to be honest about them. Like how do you navigate that with your former colleagues?

28:11Jessica Tarlov:Really uncomfortably, frankly. I mean, Scott Galloway will joke about, you know, how much I'm squirming because it's just different when you're talking about somebody whose kid you've helped in the bathroom or something like that. You're not even talking about people who you've casually met, right? You're talking about people, you know, their spouses, you know, their children. You have had real, like I said, connective tissue with them. And it has taken a while to ease into, I think, being able to be more objective about Pete Hexeth, for instance. I mean, when he was first nominated to be secretary of defense, I wouldn't say I defended him.

28:56Jessica Tarlov:I still said I don't think that he's right for this job, but that to minimize him as just a Fox News weekend host was doing his service a great disservice and was completely unfair and biased. and that there were things that Pete thought about where the military should go and how to modernize, though it does seem like they're actually not that interested in modernizing and more into push-ups and taking testosterone. I see a lot of the Pete Hexath workout clips. There was a new one today. And everyone's making fun of them. I can't even do a push-up, so it looks good to me. But in general, I do see a lot of people who served making.

29:43Max:But I guess just to just just go back to that, like, don't you think that's like sort of like in terms of like this being kind of like part of one of the many reasons people hate media? Just that they feel like we're kind of too cozy with the people that we work with, that we cover.

29:57Jessica Tarlov:Yes. Yes. This is how the deep state. I mean, the deep state applies to obviously the intelligence services, but it also applies to the MSM, right, where it's all just one big hang and everybody shows up at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Oscar parties, you know, wherever it is that we may see each other. And people get enraged by this. So what's the solution to that? I think I don't know. I really don't. It's one of the reasons that I actually feel very lucky that I'm a paid partisan. You know, I go to great efforts and lengths to report things that are true and rooted in facts and objective perspectives.

30:41Jessica Tarlov:But I think it's a really tough time to be a reporter. It's like they don't want people to even have personal relationships. Like if Caitlin Collins takes a picture with Scott Jennings, it's like the apocalypse. Right. And the left and the right feels this way about the cozy relationships. Ben, I actually, I want to I want to flip this as we occasionally do here on the show. And I want to ask you that question because, you know, as you were saying, well, Ben is a prominent, prominent commentator and analyst of the media. Part of the reason that we have this show. But one of the things that I have realized in my career in the media of the last 10 years and reporting on the media is it has gotten a little bit harder as I've gotten to know people and it's been it's humanized them.

31:28I think with Jessica, you read her book and, you know, you get that. And this is I've gotten this from knowing you a little bit and running into you over the years, Jessica, and also, you know, from seeing you, watching you a lot on Fox. Like, I think clearly you are, you make an effort to try to understand people. And part of the project is kind of understanding the other side. And, you know, part of the book is, oh, we have a lot more in common, our shared humanity. But I found in my time as a journalist that it has gotten a little bit more difficult writing about and talking about some of these people who I know in a personal capacity.

32:01And I enjoy seeing around at parties. It is challenging to then be like, oh, hey, you know, didn't you kind of fuck this up or whatnot?

32:08Max:Yeah, maybe we shouldn't like let people like, while we're doing age limits, like maybe nobody over 30 should be allowed to be a journalist. Like once you develop these relationships, it's over. Yeah. Because I definitely feel that. Like I covered politics for years from New York. And so I didn't really know people I covered that well. I had little kids. I wasn't going to parties. And I thought that was always an asset against my competitors. And then I only covered media for about a year and a half for The Times. And I felt like I could do a good job to the degree I was willing to lose friends.

32:32Max:And like after a year and a half, I was sort of out of, I was like kind of feeling like I was going to run out and quit. You're going to have no more friends except me, Ben. Exactly. But I think it's a real, I don't know. I don't have a real solution there. You just got to, Max, we got to lose you some more friends. You know, I have lost enough. And then you gain them back briefly and then you lose them again. If you're doing this job.

32:54Jessica Tarlov:Well, I feel like you guys are trying to lose me friends in this hour. Like, I keep hearing about my book and you're like, I'm literally sweating, though I'm in this weird pantry. And I think the AC went off. But I wonder, and I'd love to get your guys' take on this, because I think we would have less of a problem if we didn't have so much independent media. And I don't just mean, you know, kind of like new news sites, like a semaphore, for instance, which feels more institutional than someone who's going and just doing a sub stack or even what Dropsite does. Right. Which is part newsroom, but also independent creators or whatever you want to call it.

33:38Jessica Tarlov:But now that literally everybody is a content creator, which is jarring to me, you know, as someone with an academic background, I'm like, I went and got a PhD so that I could be called a content creator. like that that feels bad and i don't i certainly don't want to tell my supervisor this is where i ended up i mean he loves what i do for a living but you know it's a blessing and a curse of having so many places to be able to go to get your news because there are people who genuinely feel like they are completely informed by whatever they're seeing on the daily wire or mitis i mean this is cross-partisan.

34:25Jessica Tarlov:People who, one of the craziest findings that I ever saw from a focus group, it was of swing voters, mostly women, in battleground states. And there were two Kamala Harris voters in there from the 2024 election whose main source of news was Candace Owens.

34:45Max:Yeah. Yeah. Back to like, to be more serious about like the question of relationships. I mean, And I mean, the thing is, I would actually rather, I mean, I kind of do want you, the fact that you know Pete Hexeth means you know things and you can tell me real things. And so much of that independent space is just fantasy land. Like they have no idea what they're talking about. And that is, I mean, they say access is a curse and it kind of can be. But also there is a level of understanding you get knowing people. And I think ultimately more serious people, maybe Pete is one, you know, want direct coverage and criticism and can deal with it and respect it.

35:18Max:I would, like at least you would hope. I don't think that's the real answer. I don't think maybe Pete. Okay, maybe he's that one. Other people, others do in the cabinet for sure. And Pete isn't, unfortunately, maybe the wrong example. But I but I but your point is correct, Ben, in the sense that like, you know, to talk about Candace for a second, you know, she had Hunter Biden on her YouTube show, you know, after talking about him and, you know, all of these conservative commentators, you know, Tucker Carlson, you know, talk about Hunter Biden, you know, say he's a criminal, all kinds of stuff.

35:45When Hunter goes on the show, they're like, oh, well, we've actually got more in common than you think, and we've got all these connections. You wrote a letter for my kid to get into school.

35:54Max:Here we are grilling poor our friend, poor Jessica Tarlow. You do nothing wrong.

35:58Jessica Tarlov:This is the question at the heart of what's going on with modern media and coverage, and it also links to an issue around book writing, which I've done. My book isn't a reporter's book, so it's different in that sense. But the sense of betrayal that people have when reporters or they perceive reporters as holding information back to be able to put it in a book adds to this level of distrust and concerns around who has a cozy relationship with who. Jessica, one thing that struck me in reading your book, and it struck me paying attention to some of the interviews that you've done around the book so far, is, you know, you're often on Fox defending Democrats, hard job to do.

36:48And then also in the real world with you live in New York City with, you know, many liberal left leaning people in your life. You're often defending Fox to them to a certain degree. Why do you feel the need to do that, even if you disagree with many of the people who are your colleagues on Fox?

37:05Jessica Tarlov:Well, I know I know them and I know that there are some preconceived notions or perspectives on them that are not rooted in fact. And then I feel an obligation to actually explain that context, because especially when people are taking in just clips, they don't know what happened before that. They don't know what happened after it. I was actually talking to someone just yesterday who was going on a rant about Jesse Waters and then talked about the online rumor. And he made a joke about it, but that he took the air out of Emma, his water, Emma Waters, out of Emma's tires. And that's like how he got a date with her.

37:44Jessica Tarlov:And it's not true. And it's a joke. And it's a joke amongst people at the table on the five, especially because it shows up online all the time. And you miss context when you don't actually engage with the show. And a lot of people think that they're experts on it. And I feel like it makes my criticisms that much more weighty and important when I am able to be objective or kind of explain what's actually going on there. And doing some of these interviews has been really interesting to me in that I've seen how in some cases folks at legacy media outlets or more traditional outlets still don't understand the conservative ecosystem and don't understand these players.

38:33Jessica Tarlov:Right. And I get it. It might be fun for somebody who, you know, doesn't like Jesse Waters or, you know, is mad about rewriting of January 6th or whatever it is to read me a slew of things that some of my colleagues have said. That feels like a waste of time, right? You're not going to be persuaded by something that I'm going to say about it. I can add context in some cases. In some cases, I would just say, I totally disagree with that, which is why I was sitting next to them when they said it, and I pushed back against it. So is it a bit of masochism? Maybe. Like, this is a weird job, certainly, to have ended up in.

39:14Jessica Tarlov:And my mom, you know, jokes that I basically came out disagreeing and obstinate. But I do think that for all of the autopsies and all of the ink that's been spilled about how important it is for liberals to engage with conservatives and to show up in these places, especially in more social forms like the Manosphere or like a flagrant or a Theo Vaughn, they're still dipping in and out and they're missing texture that is animating tens of millions of people, right, who vote differently than you. And I like being that bridge where I can be.

39:55Max:Yeah, I mean, Max talked to Gavin Newsom a while ago about how much Fox he consumes. I think it is clearly a lot, a lot. Yeah. I'm sure he's very familiar with you.

40:05Jessica Tarlov:Yes. Does he text? Yeah, Gavin is I don't know where he finds the time. I say like, how does Donald Trump watch TV while he is like having a war? And I don't know how Gavin Newsom is able to maintain this level of personal relationships with people. It's astounding to me. I don't know if you guys have found similar, but he's. He is aware of reporters' names, bylines with our colleague Dave Weigel. It was very funny to see him at the DNC a few years ago. He's walking by a whole group of people. Everybody was trailing him. This was actually at the Joe Biden-Trump debate. And, you know, he spots Weigel and he just kind of pulls over to talk to him about something that he's written, which was kind of one of the amazing things to see.

40:54And I know he's he texts with many of your colleagues, even many people of your colleagues who disagree with him, like Sean and like Jesse. He is he was when when I interviewed him, he was mentioning to me these like very niche media newsletters that focus on what happened in conservative media, like stuff that I don't think many people who work in media were even aware of. But he's like rattling this stuff off to me. And, you know, I think his staff is minorly mortified. But that's neither here nor there.

41:24Jessica Tarlov:I'm sure there are some moments where they're like, not this again. Or like you are exposing yourself to be a little bit insane, right? And like maybe you don't sleep. But obviously people are flattered when you know them by name and you care about what it is that they're doing. It is smart politics because there's a personal relationship. You know, Jesse Waters likes Gavin Newsom personally. Like, they've spent time together. It's the same thing that even happened with the Abdul El-Sayed interview last week, right? Where Jesse was like, I liked him. I didn't want to like him, but I did. Because sometimes just showing up and being a normal human being, even though you're talking about circumcision, can permeate that.

42:03Jessica Tarlov:I also, and this is maybe wrong, but I do know other people who are dyslexic, that they spend so much more time prepping for things and committing things to memory. You know how Gavin said, like, he doesn't read a speech. He has to internalize all of it because he can't guarantee that he'll be able to read it in real time, even if he's prepped for something. So I think there's probably a little bit of that going on, too. where everything is just stored in there and it allows, you know, Dave Weigel callback and the capacity to be reading all this stuff. But I'm just guessing that. Two more quick questions for you, Jessica.

42:46You're on Fox every day sharing data points, you know, arguing kind of your side of the case. Do you think you've changed anyone's minds?

42:56Jessica Tarlov:So I make it clear in the book, and I really believe this, that I don't consider my job to change minds. I want to open minds to the idea that there is an alternative point of view worth engaging with, that it makes a difference in people's lives if they can associate a liberal or the Democratic point of view with somebody like me who is data based, who is civil, who is friendly and can take a joke and give a joke. so I don't think that I'm going on there and I'm you know responsible for moving votes I want to win elections I think there are better outcomes under democratic administrations but I don't see it that way I do have evidence of minds being open to an alternative point of view you know anything from and Jesse has spoken about this like he's changed his mind about some male democratic politicians by listening to me talk about them and bringing up what it is that they do that gets them a lot of support.

44:01Jessica Tarlov:It just happened with John Ossoff, where he—I wasn't even on that day, but he starts talking about how John Ossoff does all this constituent work, and that's why there are crossover— Saw that, yeah. Yeah. And that comes from—I mean, Jesse does his own reading, or he tells me that it isn't. I'm just kidding. Jesse does prep. But that comes from also talking to me and probably to his family, other thoughtful liberals that he respects about what they see in people. We had the same thing happen with Wes Moore, who he was kind of taken aback when he saw Wes Moore shotgunning beers outside of the Raven Stadium and was like, oh, that's a dude.

44:42Jessica Tarlov:Because if you listen to Republicans talk about Democrats where all the men are just beta males, right? Like eating ice cream off cones and drinking through straws or whatever. The straw thing is for people who don't know, Jesse says, he uses a straw. Jesse said that men, this is a, this is a really good one. Jesse said that men shouldn't drink drinks through straws, which I was drinking something through a straw the other day and I was telling that to somebody, I was like, I love this one. This is really good.

45:12Max:Do you think – it seems like Democrats are really reacting to that. I don't know, Jess, if you feel that. But like it seems like I was seeing that – what's the – the Indiana candidate. Evan Bayh. Evan Bayh's son or Evan Bayh's son who is lifting in the ad. Like it feels like actually the clips of Democrats that I see now are almost entirely like really muscular guys sweating.

45:34Jessica Tarlov:I'm not mad at it. Like, it's a much better environment for me that I don't have to deal with that aspect of it. It's like you can criticize a whole bunch of stuff because they're still going to be talking about universal health care or something like that. I mean, Abdul, too, clearly. Yeah, though, that one is weird. I don't know. Like, they can never make a decision about what they actually think about someone. That's what kills me. I'm like, what is it? Is James Tallarico gay? Is he trans? It does he have a hot Latina girlfriend who he took advantage of because she used to work in his office.

46:10Jessica Tarlov:Is he a vegan? Does he eat too many ribs? Like, what is going on here? Like, pick a lane in your criticism. And I just found out actually that the Talafrico merch is their best selling merch. So everybody is like living in this ecosystem together. And to be successful, I think you have to really understand also how to wield right wing criticism of you into something that, you know, gets support. Jessica, one other thing that we want to ask before we go is about the other show that you're on, which you mentioned, Raging Moderates, which you co-host with Scott Galloway, who's been on this show, though I don't think he seems to remember.

46:49I went up to him at Cannes and I was like, hey, you were on talking to us for like 90 minutes. Do you remember? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But has it introduced – has that show introduced you to a more liberal audience? You write in the book that, like, you called up Hillary Clinton for advice because, you know, she had co-hosted the show. Has it – has – while The Five seems to have introduced you, obviously, to millions of conservatives, has Raging Moderates introduced you more to liberal audiences? Has that changed your image with liberal audiences?

47:19Jessica Tarlov:I don't know if it's necessarily changed my image. I think that it has created an image in and of itself for some audiences. Like, if I get recognized in New York City, where I live, 99 % of the time, it's Raging Moderates. And it's not the five. I mean, maybe they've seen clips of me, like, flying around, but not even enough to say, oh, that's Jessica Tarlov, right? And even so, like, Asin, who cuts a lot of these clips, you know, like Aaron Rupar and Asin. Yeah, the clip guys on X. Yeah. Yeah. Which feeds all of these shows and their watermarks are on everything. And the whole economy of that is fascinating to me.

48:03Jessica Tarlov:But, like, Asin doesn't even put my last name. He just says Jessica, right, colon. And so I think a lot of people don't even know my name. But once Scott started having me on first as a guest and then we launched Raging Moderates, there are a bunch of 25 to 40 year old men, frankly, because that's a lot. Scott's base is very heavy men, not like their weight, like heavily skews male, who started recognizing me or they hear my voice, which is distinctive is the nicest way that I could say it. you know, like in a bar. You focus on that a lot in the book. I don't, you know, I understand where it's coming from, but I also, I didn't, I didn't really notice.

48:45Maybe that's just me. Oh, really? Until the, until you wrote like a chapter about it in the book. Okay. But I see, I get it.

48:50Jessica Tarlov:It links to one of the most important lessons I wanted people to take from the book, which is that when people criticize you on style, it's because they can't deal with your substance. And I think that that really underlies the work that I do at Fox and the way that I'm perceived by those who are fans of mine and those who aren't. And I think for women in particular, learning that lesson is really important because we do face all of these hurdles in terms of how we present and how we say this. And like we want, you know, we love mothers. We want you to be a mom, but you're like a bit too much of a mom and like you should be here more.

49:32Jessica Tarlov:You should be here less. Like it's rough out there. And when people pick on stuff like your voice or the way that you're dressed or what stereotypes you fit in, like my glasses, you know, very much Rachel Maddow, Tina Fey, whatever, you know, Lisa Loeb, OG, you know that they are not able to actually come at you effectively with the substance of the case that you've made. So learning that and mastering that a bit more has been really helpful for me. Jessica, thank you so much for joining us. And of course, yeah, people should check out your new book or should listen to your podcast or if they dare, watch the show.

50:15Jessica Tarlov:Dare to do it. What's the worst that could happen to you? You hear some stuff that you disagree with and like, we're all gonna be fine. That's the thing. Yes, exactly.

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51:33And I think that Jessica has found a, has clearly developed a whole set of procedures and principles and ideas for how to manage that. But that is a historically very tough gig to be the punching bag. And I think she occasionally was with us on the show, but she has a lot of practice, so it didn't seem to phase her too much.

51:58Max:I mean, in a way, she's kind of a new kind of professional media person who is on television, on podcasts, totally familiar with and on a first-name basis with the random people on Twitter who clip things. What do you make of that? I think that it shows the interconnectedness of various different parts of media kind of at this stage. I really do think that everyone is expected to do everything and know everyone in various different parts of media. I mean, it used to be the case even when I was getting started as a media reporter that the TV people kind of didn't really know the internet people at all and didn't really care.

52:38And, you know, some of the big name newspaper people certainly didn't know the internet people. And maybe they, you know, sometimes they would go on TV. But there was just clear hierarchies and spheres and different parts of media that just didn't interact and talk to each other. And you really see with Jessica, you know, she is texting and talking to Hillary Clinton, who is engaging with the raging moderates. And she's also, you know, hanging out with Sean Hannity. That is – and is responding to and paying attention to the people who just watch the show and clip it for users, you know, on Twitter and on X.

53:18It shows how interconnected kind of the whole thing is now, which I think is kind of fun and exciting and I enjoy.

53:25Max:Yeah, it really is like the notion that you talk about new media versus old media is really kind of pretty fully collapsed at this point. I think you see it in how she thinks about the world. You see it at Fox too. I mean, I think since which they've been – and I think people might not have predicted that they would have figured this out first. But it does feel like they're really ahead in terms of, you know, they bought our friend Chris Balfe's company, Red Seed Ventures, have kind of sucked in a lot of the conservative podcast ecosystem in a way that you're starting, that I think Versant now is following.

53:58Max:Yeah, I think you get a glimpse here in the kind of cable news slice of the world, really what's happening across media, as you say, this total interconnectedness. Ben, were you surprised by the fact that she said that people on Fox were not auditioning really for jobs anymore and anybody who wanted a job who was there probably got one? No, I think that seems right. That seemed dead on, right? If you still work at Fox, not in the White House, it's because you want to work in television, not politics. Right, right. Although, you know what, like, I mean, it is notoriously difficult to work in the last two years of a second term presidency.

54:35Max:Everybody who can get out is going to get out. I mean, who the White House press secretary is going to be, you know, mid-2028, who knows? Any of these folks could be Jessica. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if it would be Jessica. That might be a tough interview with Trump. Well, that is it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore Media. Our show is produced expertly, as always, by Manny Fidel, with special thanks to Josh Billinson, Amber Olley, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Daniel Haif, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Kaur.

55:14Our engineer is Rick Kwan and our theme music, of course, is by Steve Bone. If you like Mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcast and feel free to leave us a five-star review. And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter, which is out every Sunday night.