Jon Favreau On How Be A Better Public Speaker & Have Your Ideas Heard

38:53I remember when Obama did Marc Maron. Yep, that was huge too. It was like, it was like, people hadn't heard of a podcast before. Yeah. And so, you know, obviously it's a, we've evolved with the medium. Recently we had RFK Jr. on here and obviously like that hits a nerve on both sides. Some people are very excited. I'm sure everyone was thrilled. No, but what I, what I, appreciate about the medium is whether you agree with someone's policies or not. If somebody's actively in office, they're going to affect you in some kind of way. So we had some clarifying questions. I've seen you talk about this in the past where you say you think more people on both sides of the aisle should do more long-form content.

39:32And one of the criticisms we got, which I read, a lot of them I ignore. I say, okay, the people are just angry because somebody's on, I'm like, ignore. People are like, do better, ignore. But some of the feedback was, hey, why do you guys have this person and not invite more people on the left? And what I don't think they see is like recently we invited Gavin Newsom on, Gavin, if you're listening. And maybe if it got to him, not sure, but it for sure got to his people and it's a decline. And what I've seen doing this is there's maybe a willingness for more people on the right or the perceived right to come and do long form and maybe less so on the left.

40:05I don't know if you agree with that or not. I think that was that has definitely been true over the last couple years I think it's changing a lot I mean Gavin I'm surprised he said no because he's been doing a lot he's got a new book I'll try to get to him I'll try to tell him and listen maybe he didn't even know but I sometimes you know like I think maybe one of his people saw it and they're like oh they had this on and they think it's the perception is one way or another but you know that for him is not a problem because he has been among a lot of different Democrats Gavin's good about this Ro Khanna's good about this is like going on right wing or not right wing, but even just like right leaning or not political at all podcasts and just like talking with people who may disagree with him.

40:47And Gavin has a podcast and he's had, you know, he had Charlie Kirk on, he had Steve Bannon on. So he's been trying this, like talking to people. He's been trying to get into the medium. Yeah, I think, I think. Well, that's why I thought he would say yes. Yeah, because I think, and look, some of these things is he's, he's got the book and he's running around. It also could be also the people. We can't just blame Gavin. But anyways, what I'm addressing is I think like, you know, as hosts, all you can really do is extend the invites. Yes. Like we have. And what I've noticed and again, I won't get into particulars and put everybody.

41:18I did that for Gavin because I want to pressure him to come on. But what I've noticed is we're typically able to get a few more yeses for people that are maybe considered in the right camp than we are in the left camp. And I don't think it's just the show. I just think there's more people in that realm that are open to doing long form like this and having these debates. Maybe it's changing and I just wanted to talk to you about it. I mean, I think, I hope it's changing because I, you know, I very much believe that Democratic politicians are left leaning political figures should absolutely be everywhere all the time.

41:52and I think it I think the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians have been slow to realize that um not everyone in fact most people aren't getting their news from CNN or MSNBC anymore we don't have the news in our house anymore I mean it's we don't watch it in our house it's not on and I do it for a living that's crazy and that's interesting to hear you say that yeah because it's just it's not well I mean also part of the problem is we have two little kids yeah and so I'm like I I can't put the news on. I go to my 82-year-old dad's house and that thing is blasting and it's just like, it takes me, I put it on mute when I go in.

42:26It's PTSD right back to childhood. It is funny. No, my parents live up in Thousand Oaks and my wife always notes that when we walk into their house and the TV's on MSNOW and it's like, she's like, they just always have that TV. That TV is on. Yeah. But I think that Democrats were slow to realize that people are consuming information in so many different ways and you just have to be there. And I don't think it's a, partisan reason for like, oh, we don't want to go in more right-leaning spaces or places that aren't friendly to Democrats. I think it is a fear of like, am I going to do well? Am I going to be normal?

43:03Am I going to say, you know, like there's this sort of innate caution that I think for Democrats is born of now having lost two elections to Donald Trump. And a lot of most Democrats in the party don't trust their instincts anymore because they're like we lost the first election and then we lost the second and actually makes sense i now we don't know what to say so they'll be all stiff and you know like everyone's like oh joe rogan everyone should go on joe rogan yes but i could also like count on one hand the number of democratic politicians if i was working for them that i would trust to go on joe rogan because a lot of them i think would be have no idea what they were getting into because with that and i because he's so smart just because he would just because he would throw them questions on topics that they are totally not prepared for.

43:46Yeah, like you could go down a lot. But I think that, but funny enough, I think that's what people are looking for. It's like, I want to hear your perspective on policy and ideas. I also want to hear how you think about parenting. And I also want to think about what you do for a hobby and what you like. And are you going to watch the new Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian? I think people want to know that stuff. They want to know them. I think they want to know the behind the scenes. And what I've always viewed it as, because we've been doing the show for a long time is it whenever you start to broach those conversations say hey we're gonna have this person on well what are the topics what are the questions i'm like no we're gonna like just have a like we can give you ideas of what we want to talk about but there's no like these are not there's not like set talking points there's no set questions it's like we're gonna have a conversation and i think that throws some people we have in the in the in the democratic party we have a lot of um uh front row kids uh who are in their in class they were like in the front row raising their hand asking for more homework and I think the challenge is when they're in those settings and you're asking them like what are your hobbies what do you like to do they know the answers but in the head the editor's going in their head and they're like what is safe what if I say this and this upsets this person if I say this then this person's gonna be mad and what if people don't like my hobby and what if my hobby's like in the the edit the self-editing starts and they're just too nervous to which is again that goes back to like what Obama has which like you have to be comfortable in your own skin and just like, this is who I am and these are my answers and if people don't like them, whatever.

45:12Well, Obama can do it and he does some shows and I think he's great at, obviously Trump does. And to Secretary Kennedy's credit, there was no preempted questions, there was no script, we made him sign a release like everybody else ahead of time. It just had a conversation and he answered the question. And I thought that, you know, we tried to keep it very like down the line of like what's going on, particularly in health and health policy. but like we threw some questions at him and he at least had answers and i think like people appreciate that because they want to see that the people in charge are at least thinking about trying to figure out a solution whether you agree with the solution or not like we want to know like hey what are you guys working on over there yeah how are you thinking about taking care of us right that's and i think people appreciate when even if they um falter a little bit or even if they kind of stumble and they are trying and you're seeing like they're they actually are thinking about it like i think we're we recognize the human element and appreciate people doing that yeah no it's just i think it's also the only way anyone makes progress on anything is like having real conversations sometimes difficult conversations having sometimes disagreements and debates lives that aren't like perfectly mediated and and planned and ahead of time like that's that's how like real change comes about and persuasion speaking of persuasion you said politics is a persuasion game what's uh and this is from the team this is not my question i will say this is a team question they said what's a specific political belief that you've held that you were successfully persuaded to change well i think this is i think this is sort of over the last couple years but when i was a democrat coming up in democratic politics anytime you would give a speech about israel or democratic politician would give a speech about israel you would talk about how amazing israel is and our closest ally and wonderful and it's like you have to be pro israel no matter what and that's like the whole that's like a core thing to the democratic party and i think even when like obviously october 7th happened and i was just horrified i think it's like you know what hamas did was like the worst things you can do to other human beings and And I think when there at first was criticism of Israel's prosecution of the war in Gaza, I was much more likely to think, well, that's just people who are on the far left.

47:38And then as more came out and the war went on and the killing continued, I really did start changing my opinion of the Israeli government and Israel and what it was doing in the Middle East. and it's hard in the Democratic Party even now. I think it's a big split in the party because there's still people who's like, well, that's our closest ally in the Middle East. I also think like, you know, here in the United States, I very much believe that we have a president who is, you know, has authoritarian tendencies and wants to turn the United States into something that I don't, you know, believe it should be turned into.

48:19and so I'm always like, why couldn't that happen in Israel as well? I think that's what Bibi Netanyahu and a lot of the Israeli government has done there as well. So my opinion on Israel and not to bring up an issue that is, I know this is an easy issue that everyone agrees on, but it's changed over time. It's changed over time. I highly consider myself independent largely because I've never been in politics and I try to take issue by issue. but I imagine when you have the party affiliations that's more like yourself has they're that close and you start to change your opinion like is that a challenge to do do you lose friends over that do you start to have pushback do you have professionals reaching out you saying don't do that like yeah you do I mean on the you know I people have gotten out of well it's funny because when I was in politics um it didn't happen as much because you're really in the bubble when you're working in politics you're in the white house you're on a campaign and so you're just surrounded by people who think like you and there is a bunker mentality especially when you get to the white house i think that's true of every administration of both parties um once i started podcasting and being a political commentator you still have some of that like the first couple years i think i still had that now i am much more willing to say something that i believe and if people on my side get mad at me yeah well you've like really broken out and built your own think picture media company show so it's a bit different but i imagine that's a struggle because it might it almost feels like you're like abandoning i mean this wasn't like a policy issue but the um the the most criticism we got was after that first debate with biden and trump and we all right after that debate said you know biden should really consider dropping out yeah but i I mean, like, do people, I mean, like, I think all of us at the time were like, well, there's something off a little bit here.

50:10Well, I mean, that's why we were like, and we would get, like, so much pushback from the Biden campaign, from friends of ours in Democratic politics that we've had forever. It was like, what are you guys doing? You don't know what you're talking about. You were just, you were always jealous of Joe Biden and the Obama White House, and it's a vendetta that the pod guys have, and, you know, Hunter Biden was very mad at us. But, of course, like, I was like, do you guys realize what most of the country believes right now? But that was, you know, and it's not like it was tough. I was very happy to do it, and I think we were right.

50:44Well, I mean, like, the country, we all have eyeballs. That's what I said. Yeah, exactly, you know, but it was like, it was, you know. Well, I think, I mean, credit to you, because I think the people that didn't do that and kept up, like, you know, maybe were, like, carrying on a facade that they knew was not true. I think a lot of those people lost a lot of credibility, right? Because it's like the truth always kind of shines through, and we can all see what's going on. And so if you didn't do that, I don't think you'd have the platform you have now. We were just talking on an earlier episode about how one of the highest signs of intelligence is flexibility of the mind and being able to change your mind.

51:15And it feels like sometimes in this day and age, if you change your mind, it's the torches and the trolls coming after you. We have to be able to get to a point where people are allowed to change their mind. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry, just because I thought, you know, five years ago that I liked this or that doesn't mean I have to think it today. Well, and as it relates to politics too, and again, I just will, I'll pick on the RFK issue one more time, like agree with his policies or not, whatever. I want to hear somebody come on and give a counter idea or a better idea if you disagree. What I don't like is these people just fighting and attacking each other constantly.

51:51It's like, okay, if we all can step back and say, well, maybe there's a health issue going on in the country. We're all kind of aware of it. If that's not the right idea, I'm not highlighting a specific policy, then what's the better idea? But when people just scream and yell and say this person's this or that, I think it does a disservice to everybody in the conversation. Well, RFK Jr. is a great example because I think that if Democrats just write off the Maha movement as a bunch of kooks, then that is not only wrong, but politically dumb. because you know I heard I heard some of the episode where you guys talked to RFK and like a lot of it is stuff that Michelle Obama could have said when she did Let's Move as an initiative in the White House and I get it like the I'm very into health and wellness I fiercely disagree with him on vaccines and I also wish that a lot of what he believes about companies and food companies and like what they do to our food that there was actually more regulatory pushback in the administration.

52:59I think he has wanted some of that and the rest of the administration has said no. The glycevate issue he brought up. Yeah, I think it says something about the priorities of the rest of the administration and I think actually some of the stuff that I probably agree with him most on, he hasn't made as much progress on as some of the stuff that I don't agree with him on. But I get that there is complexity there. Even recently about Iran, right? Like I'm very against this war and I want it to end. and Tucker Carlson gave a 40 minute monologue on his show about the war that I listened to this morning and I like posted it and I'm like I know I'm supposed to say like I don't agree with Tucker but he made a few good points I'm like I thought that 40 minutes of this there was a there were only a few things that I disagreed with here well this is where I think that we're seeing the breaking of the traditional parties in this country because there's people now that are like Like, I mean, there's things that, again, we've been around a little longer than some of the audience.

53:54If you go back 20 years, some of these policies that we're all talking about used to be on the left. Now some are on the right and they like flip flop positions. But somebody's like, wait, I'm still on this side. And like, how'd that get over there? And that's over there. And so it's confusing, right? Like, and, you know, Bill Maher's been on the show and he talks about that all the time where he's like, you know, I, he's, he always says that he didn't change. Like things have changed. And I think what we're viewing here is that people are wanting to take common sense, practical approach. I'm talking about the majority of American people.

54:26They want to be healthier. They want their kids to be okay. They want to thrive. They want to be safe. They don't want to be in endless war. Those are things that people want. And I think sometimes if it doesn't align, they feel scared to say that. But we're all kind of looking for the same thing, which is prosperity for ourselves and our families. Yeah, and look, sometimes people can very much agree on what the problem is and have very fierce and legitimate disagreements on the outcome. Like healthcare coverage is a great example of that. You know, like you can have most of the country thinks that we pay too much for healthcare and that everyone in the country should have access to affordable healthcare.

55:02How to get that done is obviously a point of fierce disagreement with both parties. and I have my views and other people have their views, but at least you can agree on a problem. I do think there's two different things we're talking about here. One is policy differences, and the other is a larger political strategy, how we talk to each other, whether we give each other grace for making mistakes, for not using the exact right words for everything, for changing our minds, for going back and forth on things, for making mistakes. and I think that both parties have had issues with that especially over the last decade, especially in the social media age.

55:43And this goes back to our conversation about sort of going on other podcasts with people you disagree with. I think there was a time where it was like, don't platform this person or don't say that or you can't be seen with this person or you can't be having, you can't be associated with this person. But they're not going away. They're not going away. And again, it's not like if you go on someone's podcast or you're associated with someone, and you have to agree with all of their views. I look up to Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters, I think, interviewed Saddam Hussein. Yeah. No one on the internet said, you're giving Saddam Hussein a platform.

56:15Like, guess what? He had a platform. I'm a media outlet. If I like to interview people of all different walks of life and I like to understand why people came to that conclusion, it doesn't mean that I'm co-signing them. And a lot of people that come on here, I don't agree with. Yeah. But it's up to the audience to form their own opinion. I don't have an agenda to work through the person to get to the audience. Well, you know, and when sometimes the audience gets upset, what I always try to tell folks is like, when you're listening to something or watching something, the point of it is not to make you feel that all of your pre-existing views are validated.

56:52Because maybe it is. But if that's the case, then like, what did you get from that? It's like, it's comfort food, right? It's like, I believe this. I listened to this. And I was like, absolutely. That's why you turned Seinfeld up and had to go to sleep. Right. It's not ChatGPT. No, like I want to be challenged. I want to listen to a challenging conversation between people. Like the criticism that we get sometimes, and I take it seriously, is the four of us on Pod Save America, we agree a lot. We're really good friends. We've been around each other forever. So it's like it's hard to disagree. But sometimes we try to like have debates or sometimes we try to bring people.

57:26We often try to bring people on that we don't agree with because I do think, and we're trying to do that more, because I do think that for the audience, you want to hear our perspective, but you also want to hear perspective challenging us because otherwise it's just a whole bunch of people agreeing with each other and you. And I don't know that anyone gets anything out of that. I also think, I think that you have to think what kind of dinner party do you want to host? Yeah. We don't want a dinner party where everyone is. I'm bored with that. I'm bored to tears. Like I'm meditating with my eyes up and I gotta be honest.

57:53No, I want some different, I need some different color. I want some different opinions. I want a little fight. Maybe it's Thanksgiving. Aunt Bertha says something weird. I need like a lot of different energy you're dramatic no i love like i want different opinions i am at the democratic convention last time in chicago um we were in our little area and got a knock on the door and these these two young kids and they were like oh we're from jesse waters show um he would love to have you on the show would you like come upstairs to the fox studio right now at the convention and go on jesse waters and some of my staff was like you're crazy you can't go you're going into the lion's den you're not prepared and i was like why not who cares what's gonna happen and it was funny because i like i walk up there and it's like being in the in the mothership and it's like there's laura ingram and they're all walking around and i went on jesse's show and he gave me shit and i gave him shit back and it we like gave as good as we got and it was fun my prediction is that that kind of content what you just said that's off the cuff and not so planned out and methodical and is going to go viral i think you're going to see all that's what people want to watch they want to watch different people he's done very well with it i mean again like whether he's done very well building his show independently with this kind of conversation and just having different people i mean i think he you know he it's it's an eclectic group that he has on that's a hard one too because i've seen here's the show and it's like when you have a bunch of people who are all remote and they're all in the boxes.

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1:05:44You can shop our collaboration at the link in the show notes or on shopskinnyconfidential.com. And if you're at the Eden Rock St. Bart's property, you can also shop at the Eden Rock St. Bart's boutique and the spa. Eden Rock, St. Barts, wherever you are. So the way I look at it is we're all entrepreneurs, business people. And I look at it through the lens of like, if I'm trying to do a deal with someone or if I'm trying to build someone and I start by just personally attacking them and screaming at them and telling them how shitty their ideas are, it's going to be hard for me to do anything with anyone.

1:06:16And what I worry about in American politics, and I guess now world politics in general is that if that's how every conversation is starting and every kind of um negotiation is starting like how do you ever solve anything for anyone because if if the idea is that you're a terrible person and all your ideas are shit and then right back same thing like you can you could never in the business world get a deal done that way well in politics the analogy is the people i think who understand how to persuade the best are people who've knocked on doors like the organizers because if you've been on a campaign and you have to go knock on a bunch of random doors first of all you're not sometimes you're knocking on doors and just reminding people who are already going to vote for your candidate like get out and vote but a lot of times you're going into neighborhoods where um people either might not vote or they might vote for the other candidate and you get all kinds of people on the doors and it's not even like you get like hardcore right-wing people with all right-wing views you get people with like everyone in the country such complicated views.

1:07:19And so they could be very liberal on one issue and very conservative on the other. And sometimes they could give you a crazy conspiracy theory that's not true at all. And sometimes they could be nice and sometimes they could shut the door in your face. And so I always find that people who have been on campaigns, who have organized door to door, um, and have talked to actual voters usually, um, are better at persuasion, more practical, more pragmatic, wherever you stand on the ideological perspective, you could be far left and pragmatic because you've knocked on doors and far right and pragmatic.

1:07:47They are more pragmatic and persuasive than people who only argue about politics on the internet. What makes someone persuasive? I think empathy to me is like the probably the most important value there is, and I think about this all the time as a former speechwriter. And now in what I do is put myself in the shoes of someone listening to this who may not agree uh put myself in the shoes of the audience um that i'm speaking to or that the person i'm right thank you the person that i'm writing a speech for is speaking to and um what are they thinking what are their hopes what are their fears what are their based on their backgrounds based on their demographics like what might they be thinking about politics and um and then also once you've thought about that what do we have in common because the whole thing falls apart if we cannot find in this country the thread that connects us all.

1:08:44Because if we don't have that, and look, that doesn't mean that we're always going to agree on everything. We are divided, and we're probably going to be divided for a long time. I think the hope is, can we live together even with these divisions and these disagreements? That's the test now, right? Because otherwise the whole thing falls apart. and I think you need to have politicians who and this is why I always think of like there's this thing now when you know a Trump voter has someone in their family who's deported they're like oh well good you voted for that you know and it's like anyone who experiences a harm like that or who's thinking twice about the political decision they made I want to be open to that person and like welcome them over and say like come on over to our side and I think we I think the Democratic Party you don't want to kick them while they're down No, I think Trump did that well in 2024.

1:09:38And now I think a lot of the people that came over to Trump in 2024 are probably now the first ones to leave because he hasn't quite delivered what they thought. But I think in the campaign, they were very skilled. And RFK Jr. is an example of that. Like people who hadn't been in the tent, they were like, welcome. You can be part of our crew. And I think Democrats need to do that as well. what do you think needs to happen for in the country and again if you could wave a magic wand for us to get to a place where we're not so divided i i do think that um we uh we put too much um emphasis on the actions of politicians and political leaders I think that if we only see politics as a transactional enterprise which is every couple years politicians campaign they ask for our votes we say okay this one seems better than the other one I'm going to give you my vote and then I'm going to go back to my life and then you're going to go fix my problems and if you don't then I'm going to be pissed off and then I'm going to throw you out and then I'm going to elect someone else we will continue to be disappointed and divided I think more people need to be involved in the act of governing.

1:10:55And when something doesn't happen between elections, reach out to your member of Congress, run for office yourself, get involved in your local community. I do think that because politics has become so nationalized because of the media environment and like everything's about politics, everything's not about local politics or state politics. Everything's about national politics. I think that real change happens on a local level. And so I would love to see like more, I think if more Americans got involved in their community, in their neighborhood, first of all, you would encounter more people who don't agree with you necessarily, even if you're living in a blue area or red area, there's still people with different views.

1:11:29And so you would learn more to work with other people and get things done with other people who you don't necessarily agree with. And that would filter up as opposed to us hoping that we are going to elect the perfect person to then filter the good feelings and the unity down right like i think that we we just see politics too much as transactional right now because look like you get the you get the politics that you that you fight for that you deserve and um if we don't have good people running for office then the way to change that is for other people to run for office and it's for other people to get involved in politics and so i do think that like political participation and more political participation, not just political hobbyism, which I think is just watching politics unfold, getting nervous about politics, commenting on politics, yelling online.

1:12:15I think treating it as a sport. I think less of that and more of the actual work of getting stuff done and changing things on a local level. I think that's going to help a lot. Is this where I announced my run? There it is. If I win an Oscar, will you help me write my speech? Wait, you got to be an actress. You never know. I'm multifaceted. I might win an Oscar. I'm going to put it out there will you help me write my speech or if you have to give any speech the number of especially since i moved out to la the number of potential award winners who like through their agents or other people have been like hey will you write so and i'm like i'm out of that business but i will i usually say i'm like i'm happy to look at a draft and and have a conversation with the person um but i can't do anything from scratch because i don't have the time to do that so i've done that a few times i feel like you've already been to like the speechwriters version of a super bowl okay i want to switch just a little bit of gear one more time with you and talk about your business sure uh we have tremendous respect for for you and what you've built because we know ourselves firsthand how hard it is one to build a show but then to build a media company beyond the show create other shows work with other people have that be successful when did you decide you wanted to start crooked with your partners and what was the motivation behind it We, the podcast that is now Pod Save America started as a podcast called Keep In at 1600.

1:13:35And we did it during the 2016 campaign. And we did it with The Ringer, which is Bill Simmons Media Company. And I had known Bill previously. We both went to the same college. We got to know each other when he came to the White House to interview Obama. And he said, you know, we do sports and entertainment and culture. But like, I'd love to do politics. It's an election year. Would you be, you've moved out to LA. would you be interested in like doing a doing a podcast so uh me dan pfeiffer tommy vitor john lovett we all started this podcast and then we all had our other jobs and we thought hillary clinton would win and then we would be done and we would go back to our lives and be retired from politics and then donald trump wins you didn't know that one yeah and we and then donald trump wins and we were like oh maybe we maybe we're not retired from politics and maybe you know we had talked before about when we were in the white house oh the media is failing because of this or we don't like it because of that and wouldn't it be we should have more progressive media companies and wouldn't it be cool to start one and it was always sort of a you know a conversation you'd have intermittently and then once trump won we were like we should continue doing this podcast but we should build the media company that we've talked about and just started from scratch and started Pod Save America and we so there was Lovett and Tommy and I sitting at my kitchen table in West Hollywood at the time and we hired a woman named Tanya Sominator as our chief content officer and she had worked at the Obama White House we got introduced to her through my now wife and we had her we hired uh sarah wick who was our chief uh our coo uh again through a friend and she had like worked on some startups and then we hired an assistant and it was literally the six of us sitting around my kitchen table we went to the bank of america in west hollywood and we're like we'd like to open an account for our media company and the woman's like great do you have money and we're like uh no do we need money she's like yeah we're like uh do you have 10 bucks here let's open I mean, it was just so, like, we had no idea what we were doing.

1:15:42Did you even form a company at the time? We formed a company. We, like, talked to some lawyers. But, like, I would say hiring, I mean, you guys know this, like, hiring people to do that, to, like, build the business is the most important thing you can do. When I started this, I tried to find a CEO that would, I was like, okay, now I got to get a CEO to do it. And nobody, like, I had this woman and she, at the last one, was like, I don't want the job. Well, who the hell, I was doing something else. I'm like, well, who's going to do, who's going to do that? And then I was like, well, I guess, like, I have.

1:16:08Well, and you realize at the beginning, you do everything. Everything. And you're in every meeting, and your mind is pulled, and your time is pulled in a million different directions. And now, we mostly, the founders, we mostly do just hosting. And, you know, we're on the board, and so we have board meetings, and we do big strategic directions and have meetings. But we have a CEO who's like a very experienced CEO and an adult, Lucinda Treat, who's been at the company for a while. and thank God for her because now most things happen the company and we don't even know. But you know, at the time when you guys did it similar to this, I think people like now everyone knows, like I used to explain to people like we used to create social videos that we would put on her Instagram story showing people where to find the podcast application because at the time people were like, what the hell is that?

1:16:58And now everybody, and now I just call them shows at this point, right? Because they're audio video. I mean, there was that weird period like is it going to be video and audio? And like that was a big thing. now we've all just recreated television exactly but people forget there was also like much fewer ways to monetize so it was hard there was very few people taking the medium seriously it was like the it was like the weird stepchild of media it's like oh you're doing a podcast it was other it was like i'm sorry you do that like you know and so i the reason i have so much respect for you is because i think for the early people that were able to like slug through it and kind of form the market.

1:17:34Now, if you want to do something like this, yes, it's more competitive, but the market's very well established and there's some huge tailwinds and you can make real living doing this. But at the time, it was like, is this going to work or not? Yeah. Well, look, we had a theory and it wasn't a business theory. At least it wasn't thought of like that. It was like, okay, what is missing in political media right now? What is missing in political media is we all just worked in politics for the last 10 years and the conversations we would have even in the most heated serious moments in politics were still accessible to people they were we had gallows humor when things were bad we joked around when things were good we approached the job with joy we were like you know made friends that are our friends for life in this and like what if we could bring that to the public because i think right now most people think of politics as what they see on cable news or what they see when a politician gives a speech which is stilted boring self-serious um not it was basically the people who were in political media were were too self-serious and they weren't treating the topics with the seriousness they deserve and we wanted to flip that and say like let's treat these issues like they are life and death serious issues but let's do it with humor about ourselves and not take ourselves too seriously and joke around and just be who we are you know well and clearly it resonated like so no i just thought i wanted to hear the story because obviously from afar we've we've viewed a lot of what you've done but um what i find interesting about early adopters in this medium if you'll it it kind of just a lot of people that that became successful it just started as like a passion or as like a need to fill a gap that they weren't like for us same thing like we just weren't finding what we were looking for to service our own show we're like okay well we'll like do this for fun and maybe if it works it works i'll never forget like it was maybe a month into the company and um we were invited to the upfront summit here and um kara swisher was going to interview us on on stage and she sits and she's like okay so what is the what is the business plan like what is the revenue plan and john love it just goes he's like honestly we just turn the microphones on and then the money just starts coming like that's just been how it's working so far she's like what and we're like but that is like and it was a joke but it was also like we had not we did not have this like detailed business plan the whole time it's pretty cool yeah it's really cool democracy or else how to save america in 10 easy steps go check out the book pod save america what else where can everyone say hi to you uh yeah you can find i'm unfortunately always on twitter all day long at john favs and instagram okay and um and i also host offline with Jon Favreau.

1:20:22You can catch that all the time and Pod Save America and our YouTube channel. Now we're always just churning out content on the YouTube channel. You're busy, man. Very busy. Congratulations, Jon. Thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. This was fun.