The Oh everyone, watching in listening today, I'm speaking with arthur and journalist matt tybee, We just give us his early career in journalism and professional basketball, his time in the? U s: s our learning, russian and publishing a successful, gonzo inspired newspaper and is break coverage of the sub prime mortgage bubble. We also examine the state of the world today with russia and the eu military industrial complex the upcoming pray? general election and the dire necessity for alternative new sources. Matt. I have to know what was it like playing for these back national baseball team.

That was great. Actually, at the time I was trying to be a freelance requiring uzbekistan. I was really young in my twenty is, and I walked by a university field and saw a bunch of cubans playing baseball. So they were, I think, cuban refrigeration stewed and I was the only american on the team we had a fund I'm playing against other central asian teams and done with One funny story, a ground rules. If you hit a cheap one field, it was a triple. If you had a cow is a double and have you not? count raw or was it a consequence of the degree of damage? I don't think we ever got that far so europe your plan, was to be an independent journalist in uzbekistan and that didn't work out to turn to pro baseball well time. I was more interested in being a writer just general,

and being a reporter. I thought I had living in saint petersburg, which was filled at the time with freelance journalists than I thought. Getting a lot of work. I moved to a place where there are no reporters, so to the middle of. Nowhere basically waited for something to happen so that I could get a byline unknown a wire service, or something like that. I figured while I was there. Maybe I could do something like write a book about playing baseball for the uzbeks and I ended up doing that kind of thing. A lot. A move to mongolia later play basketball on the mongolian basketballs us and when I was at my next question: ok, because that obviously the logical career progression move for someone who's, a journalist news pakistan and then playing baseball is to go to mongolian play pro basketball. So tell me that the other because I was working in moscow for

an expert paper called the Moscow times which still exists, and I played a lot of street basketball back in those days at the moscow state university you've probably seen pictures. It's got that beautiful gigantic sort of wedding cake, skyscraper building in the background used to go to in the afternoons and play hoops? And there was a kid therefore, mongolia, told me they had a league. Mongolia called the nba, which was the only basketball, unique in the world that played by nba rules for the twenty four second clock and everything. So I quit my job the next day gotten the train and govern the trend, siberian, railroad, and once mongolia. How to try out played for a season The mongolian basketball association sober You were you beg among the mongolian fan girls You know who is actually. There is actually quite an experience monk

at the time was very basketball, crazy, and there is a long story about why, but, but Every mongolian kid was playing basketball in the early nineties and my and what were big celebrities in the country, there is one I deem it was considered the mongolian jordan so everywhere I went there were lots of people following us around. It was pretty cool. Well, that's! That's all completely unex. Didn't crazy? No, you also went to the leningrad polytechnic. Was it the saint petersburg polytechnic by then or, and why you end up, why did you end up in the domiciles, The former soviet union, what what? How did then about. Why did you decide to stay there for a while a number of years, one I was a kid I was. Verily lonely in depressed in introverted and the thing

I found the became my escape in life is that I fell in love with a comic fiction and my favorite writers for all russian writers like Google, bogart of and my decision as a very young man was to move to the events union and learn russian so that I could read those books in the original language so one I studied. Originally, it was actually still leningrad polytech, I'm old enough to have gone to school soviet union and I went there buddy russian, even though it was a pie technical school day, they had a russian language faculty for all the new students, nuts. That's what I did there Did you read the master and margarita in the original russian? I did. I did that's a tough. I'm not gonna lie. Is it? Is it tough book man, yes, something

I of the russian writers are easier than others to read for a foreigner, I would say: tolstoy is easier. He is very clear, but there's a there's: a tradition of the ricotta writer. Unfortunately, like my fate, google does they ascii. is another one boy, gaga for use, very, very convoluted long sentences, and but they're, beautiful and russians. Beautiful yeah. Well the mastered margarita. That's I don't know, Maybe is at the most complex dream novel ever written? every three times you know it's like a crazy book community. It's got five or six things going on at the same time, all of which are preposterous and surreal, and it's very, very sufficient, It'd multi, layered work- I mean it's, it's really. It's really quite the piece of fiction,

yeah. I can understand why you would be motivated to learn russian, although that that's a hell of a motivation to to read it, and so now you also worked newspaper in Moscow. He was not the exile was that what it was called. Originally I worked at the Moscow times which was sort of the straight news and newspaper for the big burgeoning ex pat community, which was quite large in the nineties in in moscow, and then I I left that and ended up on the coast, starting my own newspaper called the exile, which was kind of christ. of time out and screw gesine it's hard to explain, but it was thirty satirical nightlife guide. Let's put it that way. It's gotten me in some trouble in a net and may later years. but it is an experiment in in extreme free speech

doing everything. The way a normal newspaper would do it but backwards. We had corrections for things that had never appeared in nepal, burma, we tried to make it an absolute joke of the of the whole newspaper format how to go over and moscow I mean exactly known as a bastion of free speech, so that work out it actually dad brilliantly believe it or not. They are the people who are in moscow and, though in the nineties, and especially the late nineties, the crazy city. It was a lot like the wild west org. The cargo in the nineteen thirty's, this was a place where A superpower had just dissolved the law. Had not yet been built back up, people were making fortunes overnight. There was gunfire in the streets. People were being do mistreated, left and right, it is not uncommon to see dead bodies, so

super like ours, actually fit right in with the tenor of that whole community. We were quite popular just for you actually made, money were profitable, it was a normal small business that made money and it worked. Quite well for a while, but you know Surely there there came a time when Putin came to power where the paperwork does not tolerate it, what what happened when it when it became are tolerated. We're turn around. I have left by that time I already left in two thousand and two, but shortly after that, the paper got a visit from the tax police and do you know, whereas before we could always pay a bribe and make them go away this time they weren't satisfied with that in the paper ultimately got close but yeah. Well, you know a stages corrupt when you can't even bribe it right, yeah man, that's what,

an honest person to do and in russia that point so right exactly well at least when you're dealing with someone with whom you share a common language of greed. You can understand what they're up to once you're out in the moral hinterlands where that doesnt work go only knows. What's up their sleeves, so real effect if the guns of journalists like contrasts, thompson he's probably the canonical example I was I over. I was a fan of hundred thompson. I read him actually later in life than some other journalists probably more van earlier of actual mencken, but I loved hundred thomson infected one point: I got hired publishing company to try to put together an anthology gonzo journalism and that projects and ended up. going when I realized mid project that gonzo was a terminal no meaning other than hunter thompson.

well unless we were going to put together just a whole book full of hunters articles that wasn't going to actually work so, but I was definitely a fan of his. Is he was he he was definitely a singular creature. I mean fear and loathing in LAS vegas is quite a piece of work and he what he wrote, one on the hell's angels and one about the campaign trail they're, all great books, write, really iconic sixties works and I I also really like Tom wolf, especially on the electric coup laid Oh no! No! No! Really! The it acid test test, yes, exactly and and and candy colored tangerine, flake baby. That's also a great collection of this is he wasn't as much of a gonzo journalist is thomson, but man at ny for the times and he could sure right man, those those are. Those articles are so brilliantly plotted in books, yet he really nailed it so, and thompson is just a course: a complete, bloody scream Some absolutely in it's interesting up until friday?

the way you are. There was always a very strong tradition in american journalism of the narrative lee interesting journalists and that's kind of driven out of honor and journalism. Unfortunately, I would say yes now we just have the pathologically uninteresting many. The ogre boring line, journalists type mostly in the legacy media yeah, so put it so pathetic nepal in the new york times today reported on underground climate change. I mean it's It's not a good sign when you're right. in the old boring format of the new york times, but it doesn't even have the upside of being re. My reliable, like the new york times, that's that's kind of a double whammy lasher, that's for sure, yeah! That's right. I mean that at least when enterprises were, let's say, more conservative in the traditional sense

You could vaguely assume that some of what they reporting bore some relationship to the facts, and so that that was quite a relief and is really quite a catastrophe. See these places fall apart. Actually you know, I mean there's a. I satirical part of me. I suppose, in a somewhat cynical part that celebrates the demise of institutions like the canadian broadcasting corporation, because for all its a bit more canadian centralists niceness. It was he's a reliable purveyor of information and, to some degree culture for thirty years something like that and you know it in many ways job and I think you could say the same thing, although the new times you know had some pretty bloody, egregious since, on its conscience at least some of the time what it was producing bore some resemblance to news instead of whatever the hell, it is their doing now, which is almost impossible to comprehend, neither conceptually or or

metaphysically, it's it's true yeah, it's funny when I interviewed Noam Chomsky at one point, because I wanted to write a book gonna, be a rethink of manufacturing consent, which is his famous book of media criticism, and that book is actually is full criticism of the new york times, but when I asked him other times. He said you know people get the wrong idea about my book. You know the new york times it's full of facts. It's got. Lots problems you have to learn to read it and fight through the biases that are in it and do you know so I I think unfortunately the lack of attention paid to the factual aspects is taken away. Some important value from those institutions show when, were you d point technic what why were that that would have been. I was in russia studying in eighty nine and ninety primarily,

then a unity over there during the wild times and in russia yeah and then I stayed in russia, I went back after school, stayed from ninety ninety one till about two thousand and two? There were some travelling between money is it. So what do you think so? You you have a real personal connection with that country, obviously in a pretty detailed knowledge of it. What are you- I have to say if anything and what are your thoughts on what's happening, honor it with to the russia, ukraine conflict off. First of all, The situation is extraordinarily complicated. It's been frustrating for me to watch the coverage of the russia ukraine conflict

I know people not understanding the history of places like crimea or how far back some. Some of these are conflicts in places like lupines can donbass go I don don't at all agree with the invasion by Vladimir Putin. In effect, we were very heavy critics of pollutants from the start when he came to power, but in others, along back story here with the united states support of ukraine some pretty questionable what kind of far right elements in equal in ukraine as away, two there on your ready questionable exactly as though this goes back decades before even the collapse of the soviet union and the background is left out of all this. It's kind of in question. In my mind whether we ever

really entertained a situation where nato, wasn't going to expand all away to russia's borders. I think you know the reason why a lot of academics and nineteen ninety seven pretty conservative ones for signing. An open letter urging the american authorities not to keep pushing nato towards russia, boris Johnson announced today that the mansion of nato into ukraine should be of no concern to the russians yeah, I don't understand that a minute I I keep seeing I think, he's trying to I think, he's drawing to top his net zero idiocy. Personally, maybe that's that's possible, but think of the legends and the united states, where we are movies, like thirteen days where you know with the arrival

of one miss or a couple of missiles in cuba is grounds to start this awesome confrontation, risking nuclear annihilation for the entire planet, But we think the russian shouldn object if their surrounded on all sides by military bases should there be restored by invading another country, I don't agree with that, but I certainly understand knowing this is from talking to russians. While I was there what their feelings are. meda nato there very nervous They have always been since the early ninetys its situation. They ve been conscious of the whole time and I think americans don't understand that. starting a business can be tough, especially knowing how to run your online storefront thanks to show

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No, I think we have a real opportunity to bring permanent peace to put to put in place a permanent peace with the rush, in and that could have happened during the nineties and we pretty much follow that up as badly as we possibly could have been now we're paying the price, and god only knows how that part brewing and in Sure in ukraine is gonna what the consequences of its of it continued bubbling way in the background are going to be its very distressing and the fact that my Attention is paid to it and the fact that seems to be no real attempts. to bring about anything that looks like a serious attempt to have peace. Talks is really quite the staggering miracle to me, so what the hell we think we're playing out exactly, and I can't understand for the life of me what the endgame is. You know I've talked to a lot of hawks in

She turned, and these are people whose views I generally respect- and you know there are sense- was that if the if the west had to spend several times, billions of dollars, although its docketed beyond that now too, weaken russia's conventional military, that that might not be set such about investment. You know- and I have comes about that theory, because It isn't obvious to me that a week nuke your armed country is low dangerous than a strong nuclear armed country- and I think you can have an intelligent discussion about that- but also don't think weakening germany after the first world war turned out to be such brilliant idea either, and so am I. guess. I also think that be better, all things considered is Russia and the west were alive. say and presented a stable unitary front in relationships to the chinese, mean just throw them out there, and I think we could have had that end It seems to me that it's a lot of less go

the cold war era thinking in some ways and I suppose real self interest on the part of the military industrial complex. That's kept this war brewing, and I don't know it. Seems to me that the primary beneficiaries of the current situation in ukraine are arms manufacturers and and and the the self same military. You are complex and they don't have afghanistan anymore. Keep things, keep them could hopping, but they certainly gonna work. That could go on forever or expand quite nicely in russia, the ukraine I mean. Do you think I'm something that analysis. Undoubtedly right. Guess it's a complex situation, but I think that's that's pray that's right and if we had an opportunity to genuinely bring in the russians, at least as a strategic partner.

And there was always going to be some friction there. The two countries both see themselves as superpowers and there's some resentment, some cultural resentment. That's true in both places- and you were you know- neither of them wants to concede that the other is more powerful. So there's Gonna be some difficulty between those two countries, but they did agree on things like facing islamic too tourism together right. I think of I think, demonstrated that kind of cooperation was possible, but the people, your reference to the kind of hawkish. Contingent within the foreign policy elite in Washington I think, if you ask them deep down what the endgame to all this the answer they would come up with regime change in russia. I think there were. I think there We believe that yeah. So what

that's gonna, be what's that going be a man, we're gonna, get someone better than put norway. Given russia's history. And then maybe we can have instead of fractured state, and so then what would we have? We'd have the control of nuclear weapons in the hands of essentially warlords. If the state collapsed, like what the hell would be, the positive regime change here. Exactly we get some. Real democratic russia. So I don't think so. That seems to me to be precise. Austria, sleep naive because wherein russia hissed in his wherein russian history, Could you find one example of that that you could point to that's even vaguely credible and if you want russian leaders worse than potan. That's very very long list, so I just We understand that at all and the danger of the break up of the country, especially given our dependence on I mean the world's two. And so on, russia for certain necessities, energies. example for the europeans or ammonia for food production or Annabelle we'd there'd be another one. You know it's like for all

we're strategically aligned in many ways with russia and the idea that- Can it be some magical transformation of regime? That's going to make them easier to get along with is like what why would you think that I mean damn seriously. I dont understand how anybody could possibly imagine out human error vision that we are going into a rag were we imagine that we could roll tat since the baghdad and established switzerland. The very word that waiters, story and along old tradition that you to take into account, but you know that war was launched by people who didn't, even though there is a difference, in sunni and cheer? muslims and swore I think, is being prosecuted by people We have no conception of russian is far eastern history, they know

inability of democracy to really ever take hold in that part of the world. If you sincere hoping that somebody better than Putin is going to come along. If you propose that person you're. Not looking honestly, I think that country's past yeah well that that, certainly how it seems to me. So I don't know the hell we're playing out, and I think that I really think that what's happening. Is that I've been trying to account for the absolute idiocy of western foreign policy in relationship to russia for the last thirty years criminally negligent, to say the least- and I think Really what likely happened is that clueless people gave the foreign policy situation kind of it back. eat, and so it was never a pressing concern like it might have been in the aftermath of the cold war. And then there is constant pressure from the munitions manufactures etc to key

a warlike hawklike stands at hand. And I can understand that you know we're like if your munitions manufacture, obviously you're, going to be someone paranoid with regard to the stability of foreign affairs in your public profile it's unlikely your beliefs and since you have a picture, very interesting outcome. The your ability, to continually foster crow hawk pro paranoid and russian view. Well, that's always gonna, be there because why wouldn't it be, and if there isn't something to offset that that's continual like a real, to make peace. For example. Then that's not gonna happen. You know, and you think well, he's with russia's impossible. I would say: yeah, that's what people say: both the Middle east to and then some relatively radical non profession. Diplomats decided they were going to do something about it and how together the abraham accords and basically no time flat and so the

at the end they just walked around the state department. To do that, and they did that with tremendous degree of success, and if the Biden administration hadn't been so juvenile and and resentful, they would have padded trump. On the back for having accomplished out, I we start, you know. Say what a given from the bloody nobel prize or maybe a metal at the white house for his work on Abraham accords. He might just written off into the sunset happy instead of hanging around absolutely absolutely and then the saudis, would have signed abraham accords because they were met basically chomping. It's a bit to do so. And then you, americans, good access to saudi oil instead of having Biden go cap in hand to them after insult them terribly and now noting what they did, for example, behind the scenes for the abraham accords and working away empty handed. You know like Jesus, you can't make this stuff up. You know what I've talked to democratic, This is why the hell- don't you celebrate trumpet,

least for the bloody abraham accords in their response to me as always? Well, you know they're not as good as they look. It's like well yeah, compared to what anything you guys managed for like seventy years. There damn good? As a first step, I mean, there's real, does actually peace break Out between Israel and the variety of arab states like who they would have ever predicted that the idea we couldn't do that with russia, especially given. Mutual apprehension lead if the chinese and well warranted apprehension, I think that's are utterly preposterous. So I asked No from behind the scenes that you know there were peace talks in the offing in my twenty twenty two and they were startled by the. U S, administration, and so you know. that's pretty damn unforgivable. As far as I am concerned, and we wave and hop up and down morally about supporting the Democrats, you know that in this desire for democracy in ukraine

all the while you know conveniently ignoring the fact that ukraine has just asked, deleterious history as the rest of the former the union and are hardly pair bones of moral virtue, by any stretch of the imagination, are unlikely to overnight to turn overnight into switzerland, as was precisely the case in Iraq. So, like I dont understand, then, see what's going on at all and it's a bloody dangerous game that were play and even more disappointing from my point of view, is least during your were there was an anti war movement that was visible in the united states, There was an incredible episode early in this whole situation, where I A handful of members of the house put together what they called the peace letter which very generically suggested that may be opening peace. Talks might be a good idea at some point them.

War in suggesting that ukraine surrender stop fighting or anything along those lines, but even within that coalition, the idea collapse and then that kind of snitching on each other in the media, and there was no effort along those lines, others no longer an anti war coalition of any kind anywhere in american politics. You know that even even does symbolic politics. yeah left or right. You know it's really. It's really quite something. It's quite the miracle to see its very it's really incomprehensible. In many ways. I I can't I can't read and round it all right. So you are in the former soviet union during the saint nineties, when did you come back to the states like, and I dont want? No one Aren't you say between say about the eu Two thousand and two thousand and four you started to work for role stone in two thousand and four. So what did you do after you had

pleaded whatever it was. Europe do in these multiple adventures in the former soviet union, We know you're, not a russian spy by well they then run would never higher somebody'll, admittedly aspire the guy on the wrong type for them. I see so it's in it's in its on the basis of yourself perceived in competence that we should trust. You exactly I be unable to keep quiet about it. I think this is the problem. Brady, I'm right, noisy journalists don't make the best spies exactly actually, I had been in a while. I was at the exiled rolling stone and actually done a story about our newspaper in the late nineties. Oh, I had some contact with the magazine before I came back to the states. I came back in two thousand and two a brief tried to start in his paper and buffalo called the beasts which was model

on the exile, but pretty quickly got a call from rolling stone. The editor there who remembered me had been keeping an eye on me and suggested that I go out and start covering the campaign. That is just starting into them. in three so really almost as soon as I came back to the united states are working for rolling stone, essentially as a campaign reporter to start and eventually, as, moreover, and shawl slashed investigative reporter. So what did you learn? We we're talking hundred thomson earlier in famously he wrote a book called feared loathing on the campaign trail- if I remember correctly, which is quite the riotous, What did you learn about an airline yang? Absolutely absolutely in any it's a book. I mean it interesting piece of cultural history now, but it's certainly a book that stands on its own merits, as well as being an interesting journalistic account, what

you learn about the american political system that that that you didn't know- and that was surprising serving as a campaign reporter well by force complex, in covering american politics cut, having come from the former soviet union that in post communist Russia. Everything was visible. You could see which mafia entrust for supporting, which politician you could see the real financial interests behind every contract that was given by the government. The corruption was, as clear as it would have been if you were taking one of those torres with a glass bottom boat. Looking at the bottom of the ocean in united states, you know. I know I went on the campaign. Try going up campaign listening to these people, give once after another, where they said absolutely nothing. For a law, time. I was really possible by it.

Thought there had to be another layer of something to american politics. That was more interesting than this and for a long time, I was really very frustrated by the predictability of the american political system. The way there was kind of a conspiracy interest. I would between the donors, the campaign, journalists and political power. Is to really very strictly control, who got to be centred a legitimate and serious candidate and who didn't- and they did this through a variety of means they use of code words. You know somebody like dennis percentage would be dismissed as french or else in the end, our dean would be called pointed It's an angry but John Kerry was nuanced and warm re in this. This is how we signalled audiences,

This was the need for the climate change making and warm by the way the separate exactly other, otherwise he wasn't terribly warmer, we would say, but thank you, and this is all a preview to the trump experience, because I think what happened was the journalists, the donors and the parties got so used to being able to almost completely control. Who got to be the nominee that when someone, came along and disrupted the whole pattern They didn't know how to respond to it accept with tee. Little rage and incomprehension they thought. Something must be totally amiss. Somebody must be cheating. somehow and they didn't realize the trump was just being smart running against the system. Goodnight this pretty early and twenty. Sixteen, which was he was running against, journalists, he was running against the donors who is running against the fake to party system, which was

really a one party system and it was scoring heather. With people all over the place across the political spectrum. but nobody really wanted to admit that they just wanted to make him out to be this very scary villain, and even though some of those things said about. Him were true. There were kind of missing the point of what what that campaign was about and wide succeeded last month the g20 announced supplant to impose digital currencies and digital ideas on their populations. Central bank. it'll currencies essentially allow the government detract every purchase you make. Officials can even prohibit you from purchasing certain products or easily freeze or sees part for all of your money concern a marrow, hence our diversifying their assets into physical gold with the help of birch gold. If you want to, physical assets held any tat. Sheltered retirement account. You should call birch gold texture,

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when someone aims of power that egregiously for, like six decades, you're, really gotta wonder what the hell's going on it's like is it. Why is it that important to you, you know, and you might, Well, of course, being president would be that important, but you know it's not that obvious, because if you, if you socio with people who are highly accomplished. Many of them would have to set aside the concern there are already engaged in which are often more gale- concerns to consider something like a political career, and so, if you're, someone who has the choice, to be president, which should mean that you're good at a lot of things. It isn't obvious that political power per se would angle as the greatest possible opportunity right. Maybe you could be coerced or enticed into run. for leadership, because a lot of people come to you and say you know. We really need someone like you, which is the best way to become by the way, but other than

You know you're sort of about your own business, whereas Clinton was she was making a bee line for the presidency, certainly even while her husband was president and so and then, of course, her in her foolish and treacherous vice use. I would say decided that it was perfectly good thing to sacrifice the american working class. on the altar of their purported moral virtue and she sunk her. of doing that- and it was, it was an act of true hubris and foolishness right, because clip trump didn't so much win that election has Clinton lost it because it was hers for the taking had she not been. She was, I would say fundamentally, and especially, had she not stabbed the american works. ass in the back and, of course, they turn to trump. For all reasons, you know because it isn't obvious that this sort of brash flashy billionaire would

least, multi millionaire would appeal to working class people, not of the same economic class. Obviously, but you know I had a wise working class guy. I once worked for back in nineteen seventies. He was a conservative not a socialist- and I was at that time, I was about fourteen. I was pretty entranced by socialist ideas and the south party now berta by province. had a pretty good small business platform. Then I said why the hell. Don't you vote for the socialists. They have a lot better platform for your endeavour than that conservatives who are a party of big business, and he said, business owners don't want to be small business owners. They want to be big, Business owners and people vote their dreams. their reality, and I thought, oh, my god, that's so smart and you know, and then I thought too, with regards to trump even though his wealth was unimaginably out of reach. For that

the goal working class person. I think people could look at trump and think. Other are conceivable universes, in which I could be donald trump. Further. North This is what I would do with that money, yeah right right, right right and then he also had this capacity to speak off the cuff and directly to people when I heard from people who around trump, especially when he was talking to military personnel that here actually very good at that and the same people who made that comment had been around other politicians who are often flummoxed and intimidated when they were talking to real servicemen. You know, because of first there is a cultural gap between them and, second, you know they felt morally intimidated in the face of people who actually put them on the line but trump seem to have our ability to talk directly to working class people- and you know you have to be kind of person to do that. What one kind of person you have to be as someone who actually regards

working class and what their capable of doing which is working with the degree of, spect, it's actually appropriate. In own mean I've worked with lots of working class people, contractors and self Can I have a hard working class jobs and you're an absolute before, if you don't have respect for you, know, electricians and plumbers and carpenters, and and be keep everything going, who are truly competent because now requires a high level of honesty and expertise, communicative ability in planning, and and real knowledge, and so I'm seem to be able to deal with people like that, maybe because he had so much experience on the on the construction yeah. The irony of that is is that Hillary Clinton tried to run. Actually she quite successfully ran a similar campaign the end of her dual with bronco bomber in the past and your primary she ran

as the avatar of the white working class. You might remember she had all these speeches about being the grand daughter of you know, a worker in allays factory, and she seemed to really enjoy that role and end up in all the different person owners that I've seen her try to play on the stump and she has many of them. That was the one I thought she did best at but she reverted in two thousand and sixteen to trying to sell herself as the most experienced insider, which was a cattle, I strategic error? In a year where there was president level of distrust towards washington the degree to which they were blind to that was kind of amazed. To me, and you know it did you pick you brought a lot of time. and before he actually had a metaphor that really describe how that happens. He talked about how, go hunting

in normal times, he can't get within a thousand yards of a bull l like its sensitive to the smallest, in the far as that will never let you get near it, but when it seemed he you you can drive right past it, and you know it won't even know that you're there so focused on its you know it's gone, of mating right and that's exactly what politicians who see the presidency are like they become blind, just about everything but power and they don't think strategically anymore, and I think that happened to the Democrats in two thousand and sixteen eight. They just work not paying attention to all the different signs that were so obvious to everybody, you'd think with all their polling and all their hypothetical reliance on their idiot consultants that they would have been clued in to some degree and, of course, Clinton. Normally, so allied herself with the progressive front of the Democrats and that certainly

and something in keeping with the basic sentiments of the working class that she also stuck a shift in. So she certainly serve to lose and whether we served have trump, as president in consequence, will not a whole different question, but at least he a bull in a china shop. Speaking of whom, what do I? think Robert Kennedy is the same sort of force on the Democrats side I mean. What do you see kennedy. I like and his campaign manager genesis. I just somebody who whom I have known for a long time going back to the first campaign I ever covered use somebody I always respected as a region, thinker or real until intellectual somebody who read two books a day and hand, really thought about the future of this country and what possible solutions you know might work my work you, you think, he's an impressive character. A coup carcinogen do

Thank you, my good podcast guest. I think he would be yes good. That genesis is brilliant. you guys is politics are controversial, but he's got an incredibly interesting history. He was you know me: Please cleveland out a ridiculously young age. He was homeless when he was a kid he lived in a car with his fat. We, he won his first elections better literally going door to door with no financial backing, And- and so this is, the kind of person who's behind rfk his campaign. I mean, obviously I don't know Robert Kennedy as well. As you know, I did some of his shows years ago, but I think he recognizes, as trump did and as Bernie sanders also did in two thousand and sixteen to elect to a lesser degree,

that there was this groundswell of frustration. Building in america toured, I guess you could call it sort of mainstream political thought which was increasingly elitists and indifferent. to the fate of ordinary americans on both the left and the right kennedy, I think, is going to succeed. Just because he's not Joe Biden just because MSNBC doesn't like him and cnn doesn't like him. Those things are actually advertisements in the current dan age. Trump understood this very carefully and in two thousand and sixteen he embraced it, and that was one of the reasons why he did so well and Kennedy.

It also understands this, unlike Bernie sanders, who, I think in you know deep within his heart. Had a lot of affection for the democratic party didn't want to see something bad happen to it. I rfk, I, I think, is running a campaign where he's willing to go to the mattresses with the people within the democratic party structure, and that's going to be very appealing to lot voters and a lot of independence as well yeah. This is going to be some ridiculously serenely, interesting presidential campaign, man. I don't, I don't think we'll have ever seen the likes of it, so it'll be something to watch so so on. What was it like? Workin for rolling stone, When you went them, it was when I worked rolling stone, rolling stone had a cobbler hades, I would say in the late, sixties and and seventys. Obviously the magazine did.

Both great music journalism and some groundbreaking journalism of other types, including hunter thomson, but they also publish you know: people like Carl Bernstein they eventually brought in fiji are rourke may make pioneered this this formula of vienna reporting. That was serious, but it was also witty and and readable, well, then you know they they regressed a little bit the nineties. But when I came in in the early two thousands they had just brought in some new editors, then do it and they were fantastic. They let me do work that I know a lot of the senior people didn't agree with, but they were really encouraging. And they let me get into some areas that were really weird and unusual for romania. American, is it mister shimerda magazine, and that was great

There was a great time for a long time and then I got a little strange. The end was the most interesting area you delved into when you work for rolling stone law. After that, without aid election in I covered obama's win, and that was when the financial collapse happen. And they assigned me to do one story basically about what happened I age, they wanted me to explain in ordinary terms what what that was and we had one story that was call- I think the big take over, and it just attempted to ex translate for ordinary people, a lot of the verbiage that people used on wall street and the past that was so overwhelming, demanded of doing that three years, and so I got to cover all kinds of crazy things. He would never expect the man music magazine to take on leg

the ratings agencies? Is, you know, bidding for municipal barn, rigging of foreclosure fraud. All kinds of stuff like that- and I got seven eight thousand words a shot to do this at last. The time those suffer an investigative reporter. At the time there were maybe ten jobs like that knowledge journalism- men, it was. It was a great period to do and the a good deal now, there was a great deal, but unfortunately the market has changed quite a lot in the last three or four euro, five or six years no did the great derangement come out of that your book it's? Arrangement came out of the my earlier and sort of campaign, trail stuff for rolling stone and some other places. I I did some writing for the nation to

at that time. Where did you write in book form about the financial collapse? oh wow. One of these. They say it's the thought that counts, but current shopping iq vc, because here it's much more than just a thought. It's a pleasant, deep diamond The inspiration stories and possibilities behind every product shared by real life hosts with expert demos. On everything, from food to fashion, to the core and more gifts won't be I game I be in oh, my gosh. This is so perfect for me. Shop cuvier see dot com and use coda q, vc twenty podcast for twenty dollars or forty dollars for new customers. This is shopping, ah to life. So I wrote a book called griffin. Here we ve toby, ok, yeah, another one thousand right right. So so let me recap for a second or two

part of what happened in the run up to the two thousand and eight financial crisis. Tell me if you think I've got this right and add anything you feel, would be useful. So my sense was that there was at least in part of a technological. It was a constant, of a rapid technological revolution means so the idea far as I can tell was that if you show there's you can you can assign mortgages, are different risk of default, and that seems mathematically probable. You can look at the income and credit history of the people who have the mortgages and you can calculate our the probability of default. Then you can come up with a risk estimate, and then you offset the risk estimate by either not lending to the people who are at high risk or increasing interest rate. Ok, so that's pretty straightforward and strikes me as highly probable that that can be And then the idea was well if you lumped enough more just together of a certain risk cat

ray let's say relatively high risk that you could average the risk across all the mortgages then you could calculate exactly what that risk was statistically and then you could. Define and offset bowed, so that a large enough tranche aggregate of mortgages would now become a defined. An asset of definable security right, which makes it a secure asset, and you know It really is brilliant. That's really really smart. Now. What happened, though, was that. What often happens when there's a financial revolution of that sort is that the act of producing the instrument produced unexpected changes in the market. So now that you could sell clumps of of high risk mortgages too, like pension funds, because the risk was specified. You pay in almost indefinite market for I risk mortgages, and so the consequence of that was that finance. Institutions went out and sold.

Increasingly high risk mortgages at a mad rate forever and now abetted by policies coming from the democrats and the republicans alike, design. foster homeownership among low income, americans, which you know, sounds like a fine idea, but I suppose selling people houses can't actually pay for, is not a good idea, and so the consequence of that was a housing boom. A mortgage boom increased malfeasance on mortgage risk rating front and then the eventual construction correlated housing prices across the entire economy, which is something that never happened before, because these things at all now been linked together behind the scenes, and so then, when housing prices started to collapse in one district that spread very rapidly and collapsed everywhere and not just took the whole game out, but to me

if the initial the initiator, that was actually a technological revolution on the financial front and not something corrupt in and of itself like it led to a form of corruption. It led to a form of corruption, but it wasn't crooked right from the from get the get go back I understood it- I mean you ve, looked into this deeply, that other that's exactly right, it started life as actually quite a brilliant idea, and you know what you are describing with mortgage backed securities. This process called trashing right and where you could pull a whole group of mortgages, let's say a thousand two thousand of them and you could take a gigantic group of essentially junk rated mortgages but people off a portion of it and sell it is aaa. So it was a simple stop. Those can story. It was here you take it. a bunch of straw

can get a little bit a gold out of it right, and you can see gold, as you said, to pension funds because they have requirements for yeah, they need to have at least a certain amount of triple area. The staff in the portfolio- and this was earning a higher rate of return than traditional aaa investments. So now had this booming exploding market for essentially junk rated mortgages and that started off as an idea that produced and off lot of cash and capital that initially to a boom in the economy, but it cannot bandit housing ownership, which seem to be a good thing exactly like the people who otherwise would not be able to get houses, got houses, but very quickly. You started to develop all kinds of fraud scheme that abetted this, where the mortgage companies, which for once incentivize to prevent you from-

having a mortgage if they didn't think you can make your payments now all the sudden knew that as soon as you got into the cool that they were going to be selling your mortgage, the next person, so they overlooked all kinds of things that you have idea. Did you have a job to do now? What were you? A citizen all that stuff. What kind of the little details like down little details like that? They would forget, forget to put that stuff in or check it and you know you would have His big banks would would be representing to their customers like pension funds. That oh yeah, we checked all these mortgages that are in this pool their all great and their everything that we say they are in next thing. You know people started to them all that a high rate and couldn't make their payments anymore, and there the whole house of cards fell. So it's like a lot of other financial booms and history. It's just the particular form of this was that

it all happened within the confines of this system of mortgage backed securities, and there was an additional complicating factor which was that this case law sighed the invention of another financial instrument, type, a financial instrument that credit default swaps that allowed financial companies to bet on the success of these instruments, so you might have a mortgage and if it failed, you might have a cascading series of law is that resulted from that, because people were essentially trading on whether or not that that mortgage was going to succeed so It was aware basely punching a black hole into the economy. You know beyond the limits of much money there actually wasn't circulation. There was rough. It was fascinating to learn about that each attractive, to be cynical

about what happened in two thousand and eight and its also attractive to be considered. Israel, and to note that in the room, There is almost no criminal prosecution in the aftermath of the two thousand and eight financial collapse, but you know I'm not unwilling to assume the utility of punishment where its do. But it is never really been obvious to me that the ec, except in relatively small number of egregious cases that the that the criminal case for case for criminal conduct could easily made given the complexity of the financial innovation Is that also part parcel of this? Now you have focused on in all the

all boys club so to speak, that governs political conduct in the united states across both parties and the entrenchment of the power elite. Let's say that keeps that system going you could say the same thing on the financial side and you look deeper into financial corruption, and the collapse in two thousand and eight. What was yours about what have been done in the aftermath of that catastrophe. What I think just as there were, a series of basically symbolic prosecutions after the accounting control scandals of the early two. Thousands, like you, know, enron and adelphia rite aid. You know that sort of thing that were designed to send a message to the markets like, You can't do this. There were some obvious cases they could have taken up. That would have similarly sent a message that

it's not a good idea to you know, sell gigantic pools of mortgages that you know have problems with them. That you know are in triple a that, you know are likely to fall, as soon as you sell em, and they could have done that. Didn't do that and I that engendered a lot of problems and, frankly, that was something that trumped up on again in two thousand and sixteen that there is an or in the population. There were an awful lot of people that got thrown out of their homes after two thousand and eight, you know you're talking, like five million people yeah. There were a lot ordinary people who suffered and alone. Extraordinary people who didn't and then there was an awful lot of corporate bail out and socialization of risk and privatisation of profit. That was really. That was really a dismal outcome. Now you know

I think it is hard to keep enterprises on the hook financially because with a big company, partly because the I leadership, and even the ownership of the can company can switch quite dramatically. Its like, you can hold a company to the same standards of risk. Instability ability. You can hold an individual to its slippery and tricky and it isn't obviously the case. do that you should be to punitive with regard to your business class if they engage adventures that don't work out well, because then you suppress innovation and risk taking mean that's one of the advantages of having bankruptcy laws. Riotous means you get fail without dying and really useful, given that you have to fail quite a bit often before you can succeed, but it still did seem to me that you know, chickens, didn't come home to roost,

Thirdly, as they might have in the aftermath of the two thousand and eight financial crisis, I also wonder to tell me what you think about this. You know We ve seen the rise of woke capitalism to a great degree in the last well, let's say since two thousand and eight it seems to me, you know there's a fair bit of unrequited and maybe dessert in guilt on the part of high flying cap. lists who made their money and manners that might be a little bit more crooked than necessary one of the ways they can pay the piper hypothetically with actually having to go through any serious moral revaluation is to beat the gee drum, for example, on the climate side or two, tend to be in accordance with that. What what when it with whatever the newest won't delusion is on the civil rights front, and so it's a false contrition and I think that's emerged in the aftermath of

unpunished, malfeasance, let's say on the corporate front with regard to the financial crisis of two thousand and eight. So I don't know what you think about that. That's interesting yeah I mean so. I often get you get people who are confused about my take on all this, because they think that, because I wrote very critically about companies like goldman sachs and jp morgan, chase and bank of america, that, I'm you know a communist or anti capitalist. Actually, nearly all of my sources during that time period were people who worked on wall street. There were, you know, other rich people basically and their complaint about these companies was not that they were being too arch capitalist but that rather there were subverting capitalism. by cheating, relying on bailouts

and you manipulating markets in ways that were unfair to you know some of the smaller size competitor, and I think that was a consistency theme of what happened. There were case they could have made that would have been united, important to the markets would have sent a message. no matter how big your you're, not outside the reach of law and eta would have would have restored faith in this idea. That you know that the government is basically a silent partner of his gigantic bags. Yet I will clearly. Yes, there will always backstop vermin. I'm so trouble and won't look into you. No money laundering. Other problems and that's why we're having this crisis with smaller regional banks now, among other things,

because the markets know that it's cheaper for big banks. To Borrow money because everybody knows the lowest get bail out gets an inherent in. is that they should have, I don't think capitalism? So all of that is a hangover of two thousand and eight the is. She thing is, I think, just another version of the same rating agency, scam that we saw with more. It's just that there is they're playing around with different. Terminology and insider. I was sort of rigging of the oh wow, one of these they say it's the thought that counts, but Current shopping, iq VC, because here it's much more than just a thought. It's a pleasant, deep diamond the inspiration stories and possibilities behind every product shared by real life hosts with expert demos on everything from food to fashion, to the core and more gifts, won't be

nothing game, they'll be an oh, my gosh. This is so perfect for me: shop q, VC, dot com and use coda q, vc twenty podcast for twenty dollars or forty dollars for new customers. This is shopping. or to life this time it's more programmes? We will be working out so well for disney right exactly yeah, I I I think, these schemes, always when, whenever they try to get you know game the system too much that way. It always ends up seeming to backfire. I think he will that do It does backfire. If the market if a well regulated market actually retains its dominance and because, as you point Do you know the people you're playing the capitalist game. Honestly, The majority of people who are conducting in the? U s, because otherwise the u S would not be as filthy, rich as it is, and so unbelievably stable and productive right cause things actually done and they work, and that means people who actually get things done.

And work are doing those things now. there's a handful about actors on the capital aside and it's definitely not in the interest of honest capitalists to let the din dishonest crooks gay. the whole system and get away with it on the regulatory capture, side, etc? You know that's really place where the left and the right could come together? You know within totally resistance that yeah. Ok, ok, so let's talk about your last three books briefly and then I want to cover the If you had with Douglas murray michelle Goldberg and malcolm Gladwell, he was you and douglas on the same team and a little bit on the twitter files. But let's go through and clown president, I can't breathe and hate in if you could just say a little bit about each of those books. I think that would be very interesting. Let's start with insane clown, president of franklin prisoners is basically just the compilation of all the stuff that I wrote in two thousand and sixteen

leave for rolling stone about the trump campaign there. We do so and after a trump one that there was probably enough but appetite out there for reading about what happened during the campaign that people would buy that book in you're not to be true maturer wasn't it was the best seller, but the thing that I like about that. But when I go back and look at it- and I don't like all my books, but I think that one early on you know. I think I called a lot of what happened with the trunk campaign correctly You know my early impressions of his campaign was that he was onto something isn't that, if sort stream american pundits didn't wake up. There are going too far very quickly, that you know they were making him stronger by. Miss miss reporting things about him and

and then you know that there is a second that book were. I was convinced by upholsterer that he had absolutely no it's winning, and so I I kind of got the wrong impression that his campaign, was really going to result historically just in the destruction of the republican party, but I think there a of things about their book, that that capture two thousand and sixteen correctly it's it's a funny book to read too, because there are a lot of it was a lot of odd stuff that happened on the campaign trail, so yeah. So what did you what, did you come to make of trump both enter that is like strengths and weaknesses. What's your assessment of donald trump? Well, one of the first them that's? Our trump in person was in new Hampshire. I think it is lemme, new Hampshire, always at plymouth state university. I think we must locale and the press is always on a riser area? We always look ridiculous,

standing in the middle of a political event and from start to talk about us he feels the crowds out like a chameleon. He looked at us and he said he's sitting people over here cities, blood, suckers, eleven they ve never come so far for an event there. They hate me. They want me to lose so bad. They want all you to lose and my wife does the crowd kind of turned toward us and start hissing. There were three bits of paper at us and everything and immediately recognise this is gonna work. and the reason I knew I was gonna workers, because who doesn't he journal a slight? just look at us. You know. and- and there were a lot of know- you and your wrong goalie in basketball, career? Well, yeah, they don't know the average person probably doesn't know about that, but the the ordinance a journalist, you know, political journalist who covers presidential campaigns is very specific type of care

after that person, is always work and gingham shirt, a tie and khakis and you one question that he already knows the answer that he wants and then goes by to an writes, a story there already pre written people hate person. You know- and I recognise and violent reason right- an end so trump picked up on that, and then he started to move not just from the press but to other institutions. You know NATO, the fed You know congress, obviously, but what he was doing well. He know he was feeling in his crowds that there was this enormous resentment out there about all kinds of issues and he was feeding it. I think, in many cases with very sensible and real criticisms, some of the things he said. I totally disagree with it. Thought were outlandish and crazy and unnecessary, but he

She was sure to one degree or to what degree do you think? That's the thing that concerns me. Let's say about figures, so its trump or even though he singular in many ways. Is that when you return, to redress populous concerns You can go in two directions right. You can listen to the concerns and you can honestly try to formulate responses and policies that would deal with those concerns or can capitalize on that resentment and foster it and that very, very dangerous road to walk down. Now, I'm not making a categorical judgment. Trump did one or the other of those. I'm curious about what you thought, because, of course, his populist front was what, in principle, terrified his. Though But who became an incredibly paranoid about him, but what was, Since you watched him and you watched his handling of the crowd, you said that he would do things like love to journalists and turn the crowd again.

Them. You know for better or for worse, was yours, and that he was was manipulating the crowds was he manipulating the crowds and himself. same time was playing a relatively straight game. You know what what what What do you think he was up? Do when you you kind of you also compared HU a comedian right, the could read the crowd and a leader can do that. But you can be led astray by the darkest impulses of the crowd too. I saw it was interesting that was covering trump and bernie sanders. At the same time and said there's was picking up on a lot of the same things, but his answer to those even says yet a long list of policy solutions that he was. really really anxious to implement. On the other hand, I think at heart the trumpets assails person like that's, who is he always selling something right and it was funny to watch through. What is there were all carrying around? You know books about

ashes man you know like in other eighteen thirty- is where They should have been reading books about sales culture, because that was the key to understanding donald trump, and I thought trump basically was, selling wait. She was selling, he was selling the eggs, Periods of feeling but our city with other people had been screwed over and he was so. He was fostering those feelings and people. I think, to advance your question here. Yet again, did you detect a danger in that? Did you get it? Did you detect a danger that a mean because nothing, times being frustrated rated in wanting justice. Those too Learn tat easy to distinguish right, and being resentful in wanting justice. Those two things aren't always that easy to distinguish either right, I mean it's a tricky business, because you know you say why you should forgiven, forget and people think that's the highest possible dictum, but justice has its place,

and if you have been screwed over and I think the american working class has been screwed over in many ways other, whether that planned or just incidental, is a different question. They had it reasons to be outraged. Now trump obvious We appealed to that outrage. You you're intimating that you believe that he capitalize on it as well, though, in a way that you didn't see characteristic of Bernie sanders now, of course, Birdy also didn't wasn't burden two delusion that he was likely to win. No in and Bernie didn't. Really. He didn't have the same ability to connect with people the trumpet rightly right, rents, yeah yeah. You know that it's a difficult question right because it still the question of motivation union. I would say never got the sense that donald trump was honestly, reformer that that was really his motivation was, do you know, changed the sis, and that he was up at night reading policy proposals. That wasn't my impression I think donald trump

over the over time. I got the idea basically- and this is in part from talking to people who knew him, which was that the EU is in secure but mostly just wanted to be light. I didn't find the other the core, of him was terribly scary. Maybe I was wrong in perceiving it that way, but I do what I don't think. The evidence is clear that you were wrong. I mean look hundred trump. We had no wars in all tat was such a bad thing and we did get the abraham accords and the economy did quite nicely and I dont The culture wars were raging as intently under trump, even though they raged away quite madly as they are now. So you know for all of trump. Purported dangers. He was much less of a threat. certainly on the international stage than he might have been in, that everybody had been afraid he would be and

Do you think also that he generated a certain degree of respect and apprehension from you know the more authoritarian types around the world and I certainly don't think that's the case with Biden at all, because I think Biden like tat, Oh, I think, is beneath contempt in relationship to people like the president of china so and I dont know, That was true for trump, because at least he was unpredictable or had that appearance short. I don't think you were out of line and your failure to see anything truly malevolent in trump there, I don't I don't know I mean I I impression of him was that he he was as for a lot of reasons that it was complicated here he has a mischievous stricken em it where it was we're watching his family early campaign they wanted no part of any idea that he might win new book. I wasn't exactly sure that he wanted to win

but I thought it was an exercise in brand awareness, expansion, at least in quite a brilliant one in some ways, if, if you're thinking purely from the perspective of sales right He was selling himself the entire time and he was doing a great job at it. I mean you know the with the tools that were available to him. Is a pioneer in many respects, but by passing the median going straight to a people, twitter and that sort of thing I'm all that was very interesting, and I think that was something that if people had looked honestly a situation that would have found, really compelling study instead, the establishment press, just settled on a narrative about him by half way through the campaign and from there it was just attack, attack attack and it became, I would say, on it a sort of ongoing uninteresting diatribe forward? He able

We have been a lot more compelling had there been real journalists covering the trump phenomena. trying to figure out what the hell is going on, because men but was insanely, interesting and not predictable in the least and and mistakes listen. It would have been good to get to the bottom of it, like I said I think, victor Davis hands and get a nice job in his book. The case for drop it's a very even handed treatment of without the kind crazy, gonzo journalism style that you know we have added something quite compelling to the to the overall analysis of drum. What did you do with thumb I can't breathe and hate in the other two books, two thousand seven Do those nineteen your I lived, there close to where Eric garner was killed in staten island. I was in new jersey. Does the short drive away, so I decided to do a book about what happened there:

and I just on a lark I went to the neighborhood hung out in the street for a little bit talked to some of his friends and found that he was, I thought, a very interesting person, so I thought it might be cool to write a book about The sky- and you know so I spent a couple years really just talking to drink- dollars and hang out in the street and ended up with a portrait of what, Ben to garner all the different forces that converge to cause. You know that incident and Did I left with an understanding of police brutality that was a lot more okay, then people mailed out after the george George florida incident, which I think is was unfortunate. woke up complicated in and in what ways? What did you learn still getting chocolate from woke companies get german. chocolate instead available,

He him with knots and she heard not least because what it's halloween or not jeremy. Will it knows not? Everyone can be a mummy. Get your in full size or our cheryl micro aggression, size and stock of four hollowing. Without supporting woke companies go to germany, talk, dot com today. I think a lot of what happened with cops in cities like new york, especially after the implementation of programmes like broken winded was that they were force these new stats base, policing regimes, to create especially engender contacts with the population when they weren't necessary universe, the court case, ohio v terry, which is from nineteen. Sixty eight in the united states, allowed police to randomly stoppin search people on the street.

And police departments clued into the idea that if they did enough of those stops, they would fine people who were who had warrants on them that they would probably grab lot of guns that people working ring end or stop people from carrying them in the first place, so they did. Huh The thousands of these stops and on the surface I sound like a good idea, but what ended up happening was a lot of people got frustrated, being stopped and searched and a lot of those incidents went wrong and that's how a lot of these police brutality cases happened where they happen, because they begin with some really stupid reason per stopping somebody on the street, somebody gets mad and ends up in a malay and somebody dies, and that's that, unfortunately, is is the backdrop for a lot of these cases right ok, ok! Well, I read recently that-

There is no real evidence that the police are more usual likely to use deadly force, for example on black people compared white people. In fact, I think the stout show slightly were the reverse, but that's not true at all when it comes to argue, well more minor in some ways: acts of of harassment- let's say our or of continual investigation and stopping, and so you know I've been. If we can have a sensible discussion about our national get to the bottom of, what's going on, do you think, that those more frequent hopping programmes. Promoted by that say, broken window hypothesis and now hypothesis is by the way for those of you who are watching and listening is that you have. Do would intend to minor infractions of the law to sip tenor that stops more major infractions of the law, which is the reverse. For example, of what they seem to be doing now in places like california, do you think that any credibility to the claim that the imf,

intention of those policies did in fact lead to the radical reductions in crime rate, for example in places like new york city. What was your sense that when you looked into it well, there's a cup the problems that the way they implemented broken windows in new york wine is that day, overtly in many cases, told the off sir to do more of those stops and certain neighborhoods than than in others One of the reasons stop in first was overturned in new york is because they had one of the captain's on tape. Basically telling a whole bunch of patrol cops You know I'm looking for blackmail is aged eighteen twenty one, he says that openly right so there was a mass. I think- and this goes to your point earlier- there may not be a discrepancy about deadly forest, but there is a huge task. And see in terms of the more minor stops right and especially about,

things like drug arrests are are you really going to get fewer drug arrests? If you stop everybody on wall street, look through their stuff and then you might, if you you know, stop everybody in Bushwick or brownsville or someplace, that I think, would be closer than most people would think, so that an genders hostility. They use that as a way to kind of keep property use high in some places by a biscuit using police, the clear out undesirable, looking people that was the narrative with garner garner was kind of a slovenly dressed obese guy who sat in a corner selling illegal cigarettes? and there was a candle complex across the street that didn't like it in and so he kept getting moved off the corner and got tired of it, and you know some Those things that you mentioned: the broken windows theory, it wasn't just a minor things or against the law. It's what they called,

maintenance. So it's things that were the things that were maybe not against the you're right that there are also cleaning and well, there's gonna be a tremendous dispute about exactly where to draw the line in situations like that mean which is why you need a variety of different approaches. I guess to try to find out what actually works, because it seems to me that places port london, vancouver in canada, increasingly toronto and san francisco have gone far too far in the opposite direction, and you have just you know, absolute ass, reining in in places where that shouldn't be happening but I do think, the oak and you you can't just decay just stop enforcing the law either remain that doesn't work is right. I right no penalty for shoplifting under a thousand dollars. Just doesn't seem like a very good solution, for example a right, and so turned to the last book that you that you finished, I believe it's the last one hating nine, two thousand and nineteen,

yeah a few words about that. Then we'll talk about the debate you have recently with Douglas murray and and sure so hiddink and I had always loved when I was a kid. The the book, as I mentioned before, manufacturing can I grew up in a family of journalists. My father was a television reporter and that book it's very eye opening to me, even though I've been around the media, my whole life, because it was about the unspoken pressures that go into editorial decisions before they get to the reporter. Why are some stories where find, and not others right. Why? Why? Why do people at a or cbs are they freak out about the assassination of a catholic priests in poland, but not an el salvador yeah. It's that kind of thing So that book was interesting. So I wanted to do basically a a new version of that

for the internet age and see we think it changed, and I I talked to charm scheme before starting. in the book. I said: are you ok with me doing this project and he sort of said okay and I, and the premise of the book that I came up with- is that the internet had changed the game significantly. That really for financial reasons, the media business had evolved in this new direction, where o instead of trying to go for the whole audience, which is how ABC Cbs Nbc, made their money and they all day, Now there were using the new model, which was what you might call audience. immigration. Were you pick a demographic and try to dominate it and that's how we get this basically stratified? Fracture media landscape, where you have some companies that selling only too

blue leaning, audiences and then some that are only sign to the right and that's a very successful commercial formula. But as news, it's really bad, because what is happening is that you're just giving your audience what they want to hear most of the time usually about the people on the other side, and that's that formula that that commercial formula of doing news, I think, has been a major driver of a lot of kind of culture, war division in this country. You think how much of that these aims inevitable consequence of again of technology- transformation, because we navies Easy bs NBC they dominated win tell Isn't bandwidth was almost infinitely expensive in every sense? that you were speaking on video. Was unbelievably naturally demanding and the differences were huge, and in some ways largeness now spent.

With youtube videos, basically free, and so and that means an infinite number of channels because of course there is a virtually infinite number of channels on youtube, and it isn't obvious to me at all that in a landscape like that can have anything other than fracturing, and I think the primary driver of the disintegration of the lake, see media isn't so much their transformation into won't giddy alongside, although that hasn't helped, and it's been abetted by the idiot universities, but the fact that there's just no blood way, they can compete You know I mean you have your own sub stock and I, I believe, that's doing quite well, and people Tell him to journalists like bonn and very wise is a good example. There's just no reason for him not to go out on our own and starter all newspaper for, for all intents and purposes so mean did I dont see I don't see any way back from now, essentially you're absolutely right. In fact, you

EL, the main thing about it number. I interviewed the former publisher of them a newspaper in Dallas. and he said that up until the it is the news. Business was a scarcity business There were only their only so many slots in the newspaper to sell want. As there were there. We only so many hours on tv. There are only so many where's on radio and those slots, basically limitless value because There is no other way to reach audiences for advertising. You put the inner, and into the into the mix. Suddenly it goes from scarcity to infinity there. All those things that you that we're immensely valuable before now essentially worthless,

to find a new commercial strategy for making money the its evolved to put this place were selling subscriptions is the only way to go, but the problem with that is that it doesn't pay for things like investigative journalism as well, and it doesn't pay for foreign bureaus and you know, Jakarta and moscow- it doesn't pay for an awful lot of things so get the the news business has suffered. I think it's lost its way. try to navigate this new terms where money is so scarce, not knowing whether the chase after click they or whether to stick to journalistic principles or or what to do exactly and so this has said all those brands and irrevocably damaged. I think, and nothing is stepped up to, replace it yet well. I'm speaking, if you are just in toronto, not so long ago, active increasing

the famous monk debates they apparent. seem to be doing something right, and you and douglas Murray faced off against me I'll Goldberg and are gladwell the gladwell milk gladwell, and I believe that you and douglas The debate by the biggest margin that had ever occurred at the monk debates and actually speaking to an audience that in principle I wouldn't have been particularly favourable to your clients right. Does the monk debate audiences torone oh ottawa, montreal glitterati, such as you know, such as well. produce in canada are equivalent of people who think they're celebrities. Let's say That might be a good way of thinking about it and the probability that they would be back Behold into and fundamental supporters of the legacy media was extremely high and yet by all You mock the floor with Tom both Michel and melcombe. So

I walk through that little bit tell everybody what the debate was about first in and tell me your impressions of the whole of the whole enterprise forthwith had an amazing time. It was it's a great event. I think anybody who has the opportunity to attend the monk debates should definitely do it. The verb, a solution was being resolved, do not trust the mainstream media and so michel on Malcolm arguing the nay portion in Dublin Our agreeing the aid portion said that we mark the floor with them. Really Douglas marked the floor where the man I was kind of there, but the use of these very impressive- as an orator and as a stage performer, and he was very as a fighter, as am enjoys it and so yeah you, you, you messed with douglas at your peril, exactly exactly but another thing. I think that

the that really turn the tide with that debate was the kind the superior attitude, I would say, of a couple of the participants, Malcolm in particular, don't have anything in particular against him, but I made it observation at one point that Walter Cronkite had twice been voted the most trusted person in america in the seventies and eighties, and malcolm, when let them go, he kept implying that by saying that I was longing for the days of Jim crow. in america and that I had forgotten that when those votes were taken by It was wrong about this when those votes are taken, that Lots of people didn't have it so Britain, america, and you know implying that this was the fifties or the forties. When you know women, gays and african america,

had a tough time in the states, again, clarity, but we're doing a hell of a lot better on the marital front. Back then than they are now by a large margin in the world fewer children who were fatherless. So you know son. things have improved, but there's lots of things that haven't improved. So we might not want to be to smuggle superior about how well we're doing on the moral front compared to forty years ago. Been lots of things have changed for the better, but by no means a universal panacea. Let's say in, and that's especially true for poor people who are nonetheless, on average richer, but I would put that at the feet of capitalism in a rather than of any. You know, well meaning government programmes or ideology, so anyways heeded. You said he adopted, are men of superiority. On what basis will you He was going near raises for making that answer observation. So any went back. five times and by the Time directly is that of audible gas in the end they hit. So I think that

add something to do with what happened with with the debate. Well, that sort actually doesn't play very well in canada. You know Here then lead the people who are debated at the monk debates. They played the same mistake to they played the racial racial card and race. It's hard, canadian audiences. They don't like that much because that hasn't really been part of our parlance to that part of the tenor of our public discussions, not we as much as in the u s, I mean we're trying hard to get there and we might be successful in this country. But generally it's not a good strategy, so so did you learn did. Did you think that gilbert and andor, gladwell made any points in relationship to why the legacy media still be worthy of support and trust? What the their basic argument was that the poorest

The of the legacy media are still good procedures, in fact, checking that sort of thing and and we countered with ass, those are good things. Unfortunately, there are mostly on from legacy media organisations and that's one of the reasons that you have problems like the refugee case. Were you know, one story after the other go sideways and you guys don't catch it and that's, I think, there's still a failure of vision. I still know a lot of people who work in in legacy media and there's a slow MR recognise that audience there's no longer, I think really believe what their reading in the lot of you organisations in the new york times washington post. They see it as politicize, not turn reliable, factually and

I think that's a shame even as an independent. I think the mainstream media needs to be good right. I guess I figured everybody, everybody benefits when it is, but but they haven't figured out, that an order in order to have that respect that they think they deserve that they just can't get this many things wrong. And that's been that's been How do I get to be the legacy media without maintain? in a genuine respectability right, exactly yeah yeah, so Oh, let me let me closer with the question about. winter file revelation. So you know, since you were instrumental in the process that lead led to the release of the so called twitter files, the first response I'm the legacy media was theirs. What would you there's nothing to be seen there and the secondary. once was

It was something to be seen, but we knew it all along that's really where the story has settled now. You know I was reading your wikipedia of age, for example, while preparing for this interview and some of the criticisms, Twitter files were well. You know nothing that Didn't know already was revealed in so there's nothing to see here folks, and so what are you? What do you think about? That was your sense of of. Tell us about participating in the release of the twitter files in what you think. The cultural consequence really was a first loi. Interesting what's interesting about it. Is that time why's that happened, I learned that I was gonna be doing that right before the monk debate, we actually got asked the question about about elon musk, maybe opening up the twitter files during the day I had to pretend that I didn't know the answer to that question, so I flew to san francisco right from toronto, and these are the first bachelor twitter files, which was about the suppression of a hunter button story.

Was interesting, but I wouldn't say that it was groundbreaking there was there were stuff in their, though that was worth publishing, but wasn't until we start to see this organised system of communication between, the fbi, the department of homeland security, the off to the director of national intelligence. and all these platforms that there was this sort of highway of content, moderation, request that was flowing to all these companies I don't know that anybody knew that that was happening. I said, we didn't know that was happening and near the twitter. Was denying that it even engaged in shadow banning before the full files and when we got rid of that the first day. And real, what happened was

The argument eventually became well, this is going on, but it's not illegal. It's not technically a first amendment violation because they're not quartering nowhere for justice, just behind the scenes, luncheon between government and big media, hidden from the public and to see here you know and with whether not something is technically illegal damn shaky moral argument, It's not a bad legal argument and its. Because I got a lot of criticism about that and my response was always. or why it is that you know: that's that's a matter for judges to decide or juries. That aside, I not not gonna what I'm not gonna worry about that, but I can tell you that showing us the audiences what it looks like in practice, that not only americans but a lot of people all over the world thought this was crazy and they really like it and they end it scared them, and I think we can see that with lawsuits like the missouri, We ve biden lawsuit now where a judges.

At all the stop! You know this is a big you in america and around the world? Frankly, because really can't have a free culture without free speech and This is a very organised assault on the entire concept and I think we need to have a big debate about how we're gonna go or on the internet and not do it in secret We were trying to do it: yeah, yeah, it looks to look to me in a watch not from outside that I found the recommendation revelatory in the exposure of what I think fascist pollution at the highest levels of government and media, calling beyond the bleak by believe, especially when, allied with the fact that

it was really put in the hands of a very tiny number of extremely radical people at twitter, who are making these wide scale decisions with absolutely no right. What's so or training or or competence or moral guidance to be doing and so I thought you guys, did a great service and think it was a good bang off beginning to Ellen mosques. Revolutionary takeover of twitter and know how least reinstated me pretty quickly after he purchased the company was happy about that because happy and unhappy because then I was back on twitter and you know it's a tab ethnic pit, but about an inch active one so anyways. I certainly found that it was useful and that the fact that you are exposing this level collusion designed to take out free speech in a manner that was extraordinarily dangerous. Obviously, you know way we communicated about everything during the pandemic

down which was an outbreak authoritarianism, far greater than the dean with a foreign the danger than any danger posed by the bloody virus. I think the fact that the all came to light was absolutely necessary. So much so. Thank you for that far as I'm concerned and I'm glad you're coming up awesome for coming up to canada, and you know blogger trouncing to the boy yeah yeah yeah, any used to counter to toronto. I loaded one of my favorite cities in the world. So am I what yeah we'll work it out we're going to do something about that real soon? Now that we ve elected a very far left mayor, so I'm gonna continue talking, on the daily, where plus side of these interviews, he said something interesting to me during the youtube conversation that I want to follow up on He said that as a kid he was very introverted and he's obviously dealt without problem to a large degree and

to delve into exactly how and why, that transformational kurd and to attract the development of mass interest in his career, which are obviously multi dimensional cross to spend. His life, so we're gonna do that on the daily, where a plus side join us there, if your inclined to otherwise. Thank you all for washing listening your attention much appreciated and to the film crew here in northern ontario to the daily, where plus people for facilitating these conversations. And professionalizing them on the production side and demand If you want very much for talk me today, I appreciate everything you said that thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. So I'm glad to finally meet you The