Raging Moderates: Trump’s Desperate Epstein Distractions

25:18We're not going to talk about redistricting in fucking Texas. Jess, I'm calling an audible. Let's talk about Colbert. What do you think happened with the Colbert show? Well, that's just what we're supposed to talk about after this. So we can switch the order. Yeah. David did his job. I mean, it's an important thing, right? If they're going to get four or five new seats in Texas. And it could be about spineless Democrats. You love that. Well, what do you think? Do you think that there's a risk that Democrats redistricting push backfires? No. No? Literally, no. Like, I don't even want to play that game.

25:48OK. Of like, oh, what would happen, you know, to decorum and the norms? Like we do that all the time. And then we get our butts kicked. Like you have to fight in the same mud with the Republicans on this. I think Governor Newsom is absolutely correct, saying I will do whatever it takes. If Abbott can add four or five seats, then I'm going to try to add four or five seats here in California. I saw originally that the New York Dems didn't have a big appetite for this. Well, find the hunger and figure out a way to do this. Apparently now New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington State, I think, are also considering what they can do.

26:28I had never heard the term dummy mander, though. Have you heard it? I haven't heard that. I just, you know, you got to wonder what kind of precedent this sets for future midterms, especially if both parties abandon any pretense of fair. I mean, it's terrible. It really is gone. There is no more decorum and the gerrymandering is just gone. Totally crazy. It is. I mean, it's the boring stuff that's important, though, right? Because essentially what's happening with gerrymandering is that the general election no longer matters. and we have crazies on the left and right winning the election because they all agree to redraw their districts to keep themselves in office, which creates these hard red and hard blue.

27:08And the primary is the general now and it's become a race to who's the craziest. And we end up with the squad and Ted Cruz. Do you think this is gonna go anywhere? I think so. The special session in Texas is ongoing. And like I said, the Democrats have vowed to respond in kind. You know, this would be usually you have every decade, right, that you look at the census and then you redraw the line. So if we're now doing this every five years, what's to stop it from happening every two years? And what courts will we have that'll uphold fair districtling laws? That remains a question, especially since the Supreme Court has not really been a friend on this topic.

27:54to say the least, but I was at the Smurfs movie last night. And that's a flex. Thank you. It is to Florida and take them to the beach. Well, we still I think in Florida they go to the movies, too. But there's a reason that I bring up the Smurfs movie, which I did not love as much as I expected to. My toddler did. But there was this line that I think Papa Smurf said, don't mistake kindness for weakness. And I feel like the Democrats usually mess that up. And you You can mistake kindness for weakness because we care about the norms and we care about doing the right thing. And I don't think that we should lose track of that.

28:32But when it translates into weakness and when Mitch McConnell has eaten your lunch for several decades and maybe Senator Thune will be able to do the same thing, you have to learn to change your behaviors. years, or at least until we have enough political control that we can effectuate our own agendas and have the Republicans on the back foot, because they have been able to achieve big success, like with this reconciliation bill, with razor-thin margins, which, to your point from a few weeks ago, you know, we helped them with having such old representatives that passed away in office. but I'm smurfed out on the don't mistake my kindness for weakness and I want to see backbone and you know the approval rating the democratic approval rating down to 19 percent and my colleagues are rubbing it in my face like everybody hates you that's not what the data says actually they hate the fact that democrats aren't fighting pushing your back it's not about the policies it's not about the agenda it's about how you're actually doing the business of politics Yeah, this could be Newsom's floated the idea.

29:42California has 52 House seats, 43 held by Democrats. And Newsom has said his efforts could add another two or three seats. I really do think people underestimate Governor Newsom. If I had to bet on anyone right now to be president and people get their hair on fire and California cities do have an issue. But do not underestimate Governor Newsom. I think he is very good on his feet. I think he has actually been aggressive. I think he's pissed off people on the left by pivoting a little bit to the middle to become more centrist, which I think is politically very astute and obviously has a lot of attributes.

30:17That he's very good looking. Is that what you're trying to find? Basically, by the way, I interviewed Governor Whitmer on Prop G. Oh, yeah. How was it? She's great. So what I do is I do these interviews and then I do a no mercy, no malice take on them after. And we're going to interview between the two of us. We're going to interview every presidential candidate. I hope so. And so my take on her is that it's heartening that such impressive good people go into public service. She just reeks of integrity and competence. She's just clearly, it would be, it's very difficult to imagine that she isn't a good person and it's clear her heart is in the right place.

30:56Michigan balances the budget. She has really good things to run on. The quality of life scoring in Michigan is really high relative to affordability. The economy is not robust, but it's growing. They've done a good job trying to support manufacturing. The University of Michigan have a great state school system. So she has a lot to run on. She's likable. She reeks of integrity. My criticism is that she's sort of infected with the same kind of rhetorical flourish. and I had a tough time sometimes getting her to articulate specific policies. I think we've moved from, in my opinion, my advice to Democrats is, okay, you can try to be Obama, but you're not.

31:32So stop trying. And it's time for specific programs. She did say that she would consider means testing, social security, which I appreciate because that's been a third rail for some people. But it was a lot of like, you know, good, hardworking Americans, terms like affordability rather, OK, let's let's talk about specific programs. I think there there's still going to be a candidate that gets a huge amount of press by coming out with a specific, bold, aggressive proposals and programs. I think we've moved to that part of the program that I did think I did think she was very good. And I'm curious, you know, if the governor continues to get traction.

32:11I imagine that she will. She has a successful track record. I do think that there is going to be a lot of anxiety in the Democratic electorate about having another female nominee. Not going to happen. No one under 5 '10 is going to be the Democratic nominee. It's going to be a straight white guy over six feet. And I'm not saying this is the way the world should be, but the way the world is, the Democrats are going to— So no Josh Shapiro either? I think he's under 5 '10. No Josh Shapiro, no Rahm Emanuel, no woman. Democrats are so freaked out, they're going to take no chances, and they're going to recognize that America's highly luxist.

32:42I hope that changes. But I think it's going to be a straight white guy over six feet. I just think they're going to say we just can't take any risks around anything. Are you Andy Beshear pilled right now? I think everybody's desperate to find someone they know, but they don't know. So they've heard his name, but they don't really know him. Everyone's looking for the Obama, the Clinton. Like, where did this guy come from? Right. We're all hoping that someone emerges at the moment. And the Democratic primary, when it's let it run its course, does mature, you know, incredibly strong battle tested people.

33:11But we don't need to relitigate that. OK, Jess, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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36:32All right, before we go, first off, I should apologize to our producer. Here it is. This story that I wanted, Stephen Colbert. He's out, Jess, or will be come 2026. CBS says the Late Show is ending for financial reasons, but the timing is raising eyebrows. Just days earlier, Colbert mocked his parent company's$16 million settlement with Trump, a deal that was meant to grease the wheels for a big merger. Now, Trump's cheering the cancellation and press freedom advocates are sounding the alarm. What do you think happened here, Jess? What's your take? I don't want to say that it's boring, but my take is I really do believe it was a financial decision.

37:09You know, we all got outraged at first and said, you know, this is because two nights before he had gone after the parent company for capitulating to Trump on the$16 million settlement over 60 minutes, which I do think was a complete capitulation. But the show costs like$100 million a year and was losing$40 million. I think advertising had been cut in half and he's earning about$15 million a year, which is a lot. I understand, you know, what it takes to put on a cable news show is dramatically different than a late night program. But I can't believe how much it costs to produce that thing. Were you shocked by$100 million?

37:51So, you know, this is the takeaway of the lesson, and I always try to be pedantic and pretend that I can articulate a lesson to younger people, I'm very guilty of, I think, okay, I can assess the situation quicker than your average bear and that I know what's going on in a situation. It's done in Kruger, it's arrogance, and I'm guilty of it. And with this situation, I thought, okay, here we go. This is another example of our slow descent into fascism, where the president puts pressure on the FTC of the DOJ not to approve the merger unless they agree, wink, wink, to silence one of their critics, Stephen Colbert, the show gets canceled.

38:24And then I actually did the work and I've come 180 exactly to where you are. I think this was a financial decision. So late night TV, this isn't the end of the Colbert show. This is the end of late night television. Late night television in 2018 was garnering$400 million in advertising. It's now below 200. Colbert's show has been cut in half. In addition, you brought up the most amazing stat. His show's come from 120 million to 60 million in revenue, cost$100 million. The stat that blew my mind, 200 people working on Colbert. So let's talk about the numbers. It's gone from 4 million viewership to 2.4.

39:01And what's worse, those numbers are always somewhat illusory because the key is who's in a core demographic. The core demo is 18 to 49. That's who advertisers care about because 18 to 49 is in your mating years. You make stupid decisions. You buy expensive coffee, watches, clothes, high margin products. Old people are smart, and so advertisers hate them because they spend nothing but money on pharmaceuticals and their grandkids. They're smart. They're not trying to find mates. So they're not irrational, which translates to margin. So advertisers hate them. Only 10%, actually 9 % of his viewership, around 200 ,000 people, were in the core demo.

39:36In addition, the show had been sliced and diced. It's no longer a monoculture where we tune in for late night. And you see the best two minutes of Colbert on TikTok or on YouTube for which they get pennies on the dollar. So 200 people, let's do the math. And I never miss an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back. If you look at The Colbert Show,$60 million in revenues, 200 people. That's$300 ,000 per employee, right? In addition, they have all sorts of overhead costs. That theater is expensive. The studios, the makeup, the wardrobe, the unions, that shit is expensive. Losing$40 million a year.

40:12Let's talk about our universe, the PropG universe. And that includes PropG markets, conversations, office hours, raging moderates. It'll do between$15 and$20 million next year. Total of generously 15 people. We're doing a million dollars in revenue per employee here. And we're going 20 % a year. They're doing$300 ,000 per employee. And it's declining. And this is, I think, what happened. And this happens a lot. They have the terms of the acquisition drawn up, but they have to meet certain terms to close. Basically, Paramount has said, we will deliver to you a company on closing that's doing X top line and X in EBITDA.

40:52And one of the ways they're going to get to that EBITDA guarantee and ensure they close is they're going to cancel a number of shows or expenditures that increase the EBITDA. And this is a$40 million increase in EBITDA when they cancel this thing. And also, when you acquire a company, part of the conditions are closing are that you have to do all the dirty work before you close. And they look at this thing and it's weeping or it's hemorrhaging 40 million. I mean, it's losing a million bucks a week, practically. And what Skydance and Ellison have said to Paramount is, I don't want my first all hands to be me announcing that I'm canceling the Colbert show.

41:31So you have to do this. You have to do the dirty work and clean this thing up and deliver to us a company that is profitable and delivers on the numbers that you have said you have presented to us during diligence. So this is, in my view, I don't doubt that politics may have tipped it over, may have made it happen sooner, or that part of the reason of the decline in their advertising, which has been steeper than Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel, is because he's increasingly political. And there are a lot of advertisers who decide they are not going to advertise on a show that is political. Our CPMs are lower than the other podcasts in the Prop G universe because there is a smaller universe of advertisers.

42:12There's a lot of big advertisers that just say we don't advertise on politics. And when there's an absence or a smaller number of potential advertisers, your CPMs go down because there's fewer people competing for your ad revenue or your ad time. So this was what I think is being reported. I think this was a financial decision. And Skydown saying, you got to handle this before we close. David Elson doesn't want to show up and go, hi, my first act is to cancel the Colbert show. They're like, get your house in order, deliver to us a clean company. Now, I apologize for ranting, but I've thought a lot about this.

42:46This is what's going to happen moving forward. Stephen Colbert, and this is kind of what's happening in the ecosystem. Stephen Colbert makes between$10 and$20 million a year. In two to three years, he's still going to be making$10 to$20 million because you know what he's going to do, Jess? Podcast. 100. Substack. 100%. 100%. He's going to take the best dozen or two dozen people from The Colbert Show, and he'll wink, wink to his producer, say, and make sure they're not union. And for a fraction of the cost of the means of production, he'll put out a podcast. Instead of it being a$60 million business, it'll be right out of the gates, a$20 million business, because that guy is remarkably talented, and he has a huge audience.

43:28Just add water. All you need is two turntables and a microphone, own and a producer like David and a few other people, sound engineers, some people recruiting guests, maybe he needs a dozen people and he'll have no trouble finding 12 amazing people right out of the gates. He'll have a top 50 podcast, maybe a top 20 podcast, and he'll make the same amount of money. And those 12 people will be producing a million and a half or$2 million. The people who lose here are not Stephen Colbert. The people who lose here are the 180 people who lost their jobs a few years ago when the world started moving away from ad-supported television and the means of production no longer justified the melting ice cube that is their revenues.

44:08And he'll attract a younger audience. This is what happened with Megyn Kelly, with Tucker Carlson. Conan O 'Brien lost his late night TV show. And by the way, I bet he's making as much money as he was with 10 to 15 people, not 100 to 200. This is a shift in the media ecosystem where basically these are becoming TV shows. You watch within 24 months, half of our listens will be on a TV because people will be streaming it off of YouTube. In sum, what we're going through is an arbitrage where we're going from one TV show to another TV show, but the means of production, where it starts as an audio production called a podcast that then moves to kind of lower production quality, but acceptable minimum viable product production quality that people then watch Sean, we're getting 100 ,000 people watching our YouTube videos.

44:59I bet 40 to 60 percent in the core demographic. We're getting kind of half the core demo right now of probably the Colbert show at a fraction of the cost. So this is essentially an arbitrage around the means of production. And essentially, podcasts are the new TV show just reinvented with a much lower cost of production. What does that mean? The talent maintains their salary. the people behind right behind the camera like holding it hold on to their jobs the top three or five percent the 95 percent that were involved in producing a typical tv show are out of business and shit out of luck that's going to be ugly we're going to hear a lot of tiktoks of people who are the associate producer on jimmy kimmel tonight like really upset that they can't find word the talent maintains the same amount of money you know who also loses is the shareholders There's been very few shareholders of podcast companies that have been able to capture revenue.

45:51Comcast and, you know, Paramount have been able to capture a lot of the value in terms of EBITDA. All of the margin here is being starched out by the talent because the means of production are super easy to spin up with a small amount of money. Anyways, that's my TED Talk. That's a good one. You should package that up neatly and go and do it and can take this stat with you. YouTube reports that there are 400 million hours of podcasts watched per month. So people are consuming us this way. Just the other day with Zane and Brian, we were walking around our neighborhood and someone stopped me. Say, oh, my God, I love you so much.

46:28Usually you expect that it's a Fox thing. Your husband was saying that to you? It must be very early in the marriage. Yeah, we're only four years in. Oh, no, it was a stranger. It was a stranger. A strange man that loves raging moderates. And that's nice. He clearly watches it, though. Yeah. And I'm increasingly running into people that are consuming it that way. I mean, I'm sure social clips are flying around. I think we should have a split screen that's 90 you, 10 me. No, people love you. I know. People love my voice. They hear my voice. I'm telling you. That's why you're a White Lotus star.

47:01Yeah, voice only. I have a voice for a whole other podcast about how you can survive with vocal fry. No, a face for podcasting. So I tuned in for Jon Stewart last night live to the point about, you know, is there any appointment TV anymore? And it felt like I was desperate to see what he was going to say about it. And he said a lot of things that I agreed with. And one of them that stuck out in particular was that he mentioned that this$8 billion valuation is rooted in the fact that 60 Minutes is as fantastic and important and groundbreaking as it is. and late night, that the late night show matters and that Stephen Colbert, who he has the highest ratings between him, Fallon and Kimmel.

47:48There's a whole other discussion. Greg Gutfeld on Fox was beating them when he was in that hour. Now he's at the 10 o 'clock hour, still beating them. And in many less households, 61 million households versus 300 million households. But I thought that that was a really important point that Stewart was making. is say people are not interested in buying you without 60 Minutes being what it is. And you're chipping away at that by doing things like capitulating to Trump. And that is where the creeping authoritarianism argument has a place in it. There's also something that I think about a lot, which is like the variety factor.

48:29People want to hear something different. And if you are watching TV at 1130 and you're either watching Fallon, Kimmel or Colbert, you're basically getting the same thing and that that has contributed to the downfall of late night. I find all of them to be individually funny. You can throw Seth Meyers in there as well, that it's a similar line. You know, nobody likes Trump. Everyone makes similar jokes. I feel like Fallon tries to be the most apolitical of them, but it creeps into it. And I think that that's a really bad thing. And it's not representative of where the country is either. You know, a bunch of people who voted the same way as me for their whole lives showed up and voted for Donald Trump in 2024.

49:15And also, they're probably sick of seeing the same joke retooled in a different way. And I found that increasingly. And I really like Colbert. But anytime that I was sent a Colbert clip, it was basically the same thing it was just finding another angle to shit on trump and i'm all for that but when you look at those operating costs and then you look at the kind of content and the fact that enormous stars they would still come on the show but the success of their movie or whatever they were you know their book whatever it was is not dependent on making sure that you are the number one guest on colbert that night it's what viral clip can happen or frankly can you get on like with Rogan?

49:58Can you go sit down with Amy Poehler? Can you go on with a food influencer? Can you get, you know, subway takes, hot ones? There are all these different routes to being a big success right now. And the model just is unsustainable then coupled with the fact that many nights sounded the same. And we're looking for something different on a daily basis these days. Late night TV is over. It's fewer people and older people watching it. Advertisers don't like either of those things. But it's all being reinvented as a TV show. To a certain extent, it's Twitter. And that is, Elon Musk, to his credit, said, I can give you a reasonable facsimile of the old Twitter with 20 % of the people.

50:45And that's what's happening here. Trevor Noah, he's back on podcasting. Conan O 'Brien, all of these folks, Seth Meyers, They're going to reinvent themselves as a podcast with 10 percent of the cost and 30 percent of the revenue, which is an accretive arbitrage. And that's what's that's what's going on here. Just as we wrap up, Jess, we really need to juice the downloads here. So you and I are going to go to the U.S. Open and get on the Kiss Cam. Oh, yeah. What do you what are your feelings about the Coldplay couple? I feel like people that I know are on opposite sides of the spectrum, even on what they should have done.

51:23A lot of the, well, if you just acted normal, my friend was like, why didn't he just act like he was giving her the Heimlich? That's natural. Totally natural. Distinct of all the jokes, Jess, I think it's, let's just be serious for a moment. This is a woman who raised this guy's kids and thought she'd found the love of her life. And to find out this way that her husband, in fact, is a Coldplay fan is really devastating. That's good. Why is Coldplay so embarrassing to people? Doesn't everyone actually like Coldplay? I actually do like Coldplay. Yeah. Coldplay is amazing. But the more meta or serious observation is that shaming is a key component of our species.

52:03And it's something that feels terrible. And it's part of the reason that young people are more depressed is that shaming has been scaled and industrialized with technology online. But shaming plays an important role in society. You are not supposed to, you know, beat up your friend's children. You're not supposed to lie with your neighbor's wife. And the community shames people for a good reason. It creates a certain level of guardrails and a certain level of civility and mends or holds together the fabric. Shaming has played an important part in society. Unfortunately, I think technology has scaled shaming to an entertainment or to a sport.

52:40And the algorithms love shaming. And also, I think this is a part of a larger trend, and that is I reverse engineer everything to income inequality, and that is the CEOs are now making 300 times what the ordinary worker is versus 30 times. And I find that the algorithms and society are much more up for shaming rich white people because they're fed up with how much money and disproportionate opportunity have been granted via income inequality. So if this had been two middle class non-whites, this just wouldn't have gone viral. People have had it and are looking for reasons to shame famous people and especially rich people.

53:18And I find the industrialization of shaming and the economic incentives around this a little. I think what used to be a means of keeping society more cohesive is tearing it apart now. So anyways, I find it interesting, but more people know about these two people right now than they know about the would-be assassin who was murdered of Trump. So what does that say about our society? And also for the rest of their lives, no matter where they are, no matter what they do, the moment they're introduced to anybody, the moment before they show up, come up, or leave, that's what people are going to say about them.

53:53Yeah. These people are infamous. What are your thoughts? I largely agree. his daughter posted a tiktok of her kind of standing in front of a fire and the caption was like you know working it out when your father's affair you know goes viral like that and i can't even imagine what it's like to be their families both of them married and she was married to the ceo of a or is married to the ceo of a different company i don't like the shame aspect whatsoever i think life is complicated and you never know what's going on behind closed doors But the head of HR, the amount of trainings that I have sat in and had to go through these ridiculous scenarios and check the right box that I shouldn't be calling my colleagues, you know, honey pie and I shouldn't touch anyone.

54:43And what do you do if someone, you know, for her to go out and do that is such rank hypocrisy. And I hate that I expect more of the woman in this scenario, especially the woman who is the head of HR, but I do. it does always feel nice when there's a break from what the algorithm is usually pumping into my veins and you can see a bunch of very creative memes I like the Van Gogh one I don't know have you seen that where they're like the scream they've been turned into the screen it's really good by the way I it's very encouraging I think all that training at Fox has really paid off my understanding is that firm has had no trouble with this type of situation so So it's good to hear that.

55:29What is wrong with you? What's going on? What is wrong with me? I don't know. Let me talk a little bit about this situation. First is I've immunized myself from this type of problem because the first thing I do at an all hands is I say to everybody, and I've run small and medium-sized companies, I say, listen, I'm going to share something with you because I think vulnerability is the key to masculinity. I've been in a terrible accident and my inhibition sensors were severely damaged. And there's going to be some locker room talk and some inappropriate touching, but I hope you are patient with me on my journey back.

56:02Boom! That's how you inoculate yourself from a situation like this. But seriously, folks, let's talk a little bit about sex in the workplace, because having been on a bunch of public company and private company boards, this happens all the time. And what you said reminded me of something, our dynamic and our species. And that is, and I love what you just said, don't mistake kindness for weakness. I love that. I think that is really powerful. As a matter of fact, and I'm really going off script here, when I coach these young men, they eventually, they always say, I would really like a girlfriend.

56:32I'm like, okay, women are attracted to men for three reasons. They need to signal resources. It's easy to signal resources when you have a Range Rover and a Panerai, but you don't necessarily need to have resources right now. You need to have a plan and you need to have your act together and show that you're disciplined. that you can get up, you leave parties early, you're not that idiot ordering a bottle of Grey Goose at 3 a.m., and women are attracted to someone who looks like they're going to have resources in the future too. Intelligence, easiest way to communicate intelligence, be well-read, thoughtful, listen, and also humor is a fantastic way to show that you're intelligent.

57:03But the most under-leveraged thing is kindness. Women instinctively know they're going to be vulnerable during certain periods of their lives, specifically during gestation, and they want to see a guy who genuinely is good to people without a reciprocal expectation, or good to people that can't be, can't do anything for him. I mean, that's the most under leveraged lever for men. And it's like, well, you can't force kindness. I do think it's a practice. I think every day, if you make an effort to go out of your way to be kind to people, it becomes muscle memory and you start becoming, becoming kinder.

57:32But, and I'll bring this back to this, in a work setting, and people get very uncomfortable when you talk about this. Anytime you say men are different than women, it's like, oh, you're a sexist. I'm a sexist. Men are different than women. I'm holding to that. And that doesn't mean we can't have respect for the 5%. They're not on binary. Just let me throw out my woke disclaimer. Men, what I have found, and this is true and there's evidence here, will mistake, especially in a corporate setting, will mistake kindness for sexual interest. And women will mistake sexual interest for kindness. And the general policy I find is most effective at an organization or a corporation is the following.

58:06Below the executive level, 95 % of the cohort, our policy has always been use your common sense. You do need, if you develop a relationship, disclose it to HR. But you can't expect young people to work 60 hours a week and then not assume that in situations where they get to demonstrate excellence to each other or spend a lot of time together, that they're not going to fall in love or fall in lust, have sex, then fall in love and get married. I've had eight marriages at my companies. And it's always like, literally, it's always the same thing. I found out they're engaged. I'm like, what? They were fucking, I didn't know that.

58:39And I think it's a wonderful thing. And 99 % of relationships at work are consensual. Young people need to mate. I think it's a blessing. I think it's a mitzvah. Above a certain level, and you need to identify that level and educate people. Once you hit a certain, quote unquote, the executive washroom, it's great to be you. You're making millions of dollars, probably. You're powerful. You have a lot of game. Your fly is up and locked. You cannot date people at the company. The moment we find out a CEO is using the corporation like Tinder because people are going to be unnaturally nice to you because you have power over them, you are guilty.

59:17I think that's the way to approach that. So this guy, both of them is C-level executives. Consensual or not, they're guilty. They immediately get fired. And he was fired the next day. I don't know what happened to her. He resigned. I don't think we've heard. She should be fired. She will be fired. If she's a C-level executive, she should have known better, much less been the head of HR. But I think that's the right policy. Do most of these companies have morality clauses also for infidelity? No. Because that's different. I mean, it's different if you're just like dating without being married to someone else versus that you're having an affair.

59:48Does it matter? None of my companies. I don't want to be in a position of being someone's rabbi or the priest. They're consenting adults. But you're putting other people at risk and the power dynamic gets strange once one person is an executive and very powerful. And you're also putting the company at risk. So I do think there's a difference between two 25-year-olds out of college who decide to date and the CEO misinterpreting signals or leveraging his. And it's almost always the dude, let's be honest, leveraging his power to unfortunately sometimes put people in awkward situations or to start a relationship with someone who is impressed by this person because, quite frankly, women are impressed by power.

1:00:28And then putting the company at risk and creating an uncomfortable power dynamic that may put the person in a very uncomfortable situation that they don't know how to get out of. But again, News Corp, I don't think that's happened there. I don't think that's ever happened at your organization. Oh, my God. That's good. You're really feeling yourself today. I'm glad you said that, though, about dating within the workplace because it's such a loss for just growing up to think that you're going to go and dedicate majority of your time to something and that you're not going to be able to fraternize in that way with people at all.

1:01:05I mean, you see this with Gen Z is that they don't do happy hours, for instance, or some of the most fun things that I ever participated in. right, where everyone gets together after work and, you know, you have a shared experience that you all work at the same company and you meet some really great people. And it's about experimentation and trying things. I mean, this is absolutely the safest way possible. But if you tell someone, yeah, you've got to be here 60 hours a week. Also, what would happen to doctors? All of my friends who are doctors are married to other doctors because they did residency together, you know, medical school fellowship, residency, whatever it is, you're trapped in.

1:01:40I mean, Grey's Anatomy, going to be the longest running show. They have no time to date anyone else. Well, right. And then you all sleep in the on-call room and inevitably you end up on top of each other. That's just what ends up happening. But in related news, I don't know if you heard this, but Bill O 'Reilly, News Corp had to pay someone$25 million. It was so nice to see you this week, Scott. Just in unrelated news. In unrelated news. That's fresh. Like 2016 election interference. You're the Tulsi Gabbard of this podcast. Little kiss cam on steroids there. All right, Jess. I'm going to stop giving you a hard time here.

1:02:13Really? That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are the excellent and smart and fantastic scripting. Amazing writer. David Toledo and Eric Jenicus. Our technical directors, Drew Burrows. Going forward, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds. This week, Jess is speaking to Florida gubernatorial candidate David Jolly. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Jess, have a great rest of the week.

1:02:43You too.

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