Here is the transcript of Part I, edited for flow and clarity. To watch the whole video, become a paid subscriber. The Nerds will not steer you wrong.]
PART II
MARY
Here is part two. We've got Brian joining us again, Jen Taub, Danielle Moody, and Jen Rubin. It is great to see you guys. As I mentioned in our last session, the Mets had a really bad season, even though they threw a ton of money at getting a whole bunch of new players. And it was very disappointing. So now that the Major League Baseball season is wrapping up, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to talk about what an unbearable fraud we have leading the Republican Party.
So, Danielle, at this point, I don't even know if the context matters. What we are trying to get at is will this latest—and I know bombshell has been overused, just like unprecedented, used to be overused, but this is huge. Now granted, it's telling us something most of us have known for decades. However, the consequences of this will be very far-reaching. I don't know how long it will take. But will it matter? Is there a tipping point? And given that the answer to that question is very possibly no, what is our strategy going forward? And I'm just also wondering what you think as a New Yorker, what are your thoughts?
DANIELLE
Well, I'll start with my thoughts as a New Yorker because my dad loved Donald Trump from the Art of the Deal, the gold toilets, the “he's the guy that gets every girl, mover and shaker.” He was like that guy and from The Apprentice and all of those things. And if my dad was not married to my mother and did not have me and my sister, I'm pretty sure he would be a Trump supporter because of the mystique and the awe that had always been around Donald Trump and his wealth. He's the one that's smart enough to not pay taxes and get away with things. And if I were just as smart, I would be doing the same thing. So, it was kind of that mistaken bravado and ego that Donald Trump had that made other white men in a certain era want to emulate that.
I think for those people who are not a part of the cult, but had always been endeared to the character that was built, I think that Donald Trump being found guilty or liable for fraud is like wow—everything about you has been a fantasy. Everything about you, Donald Trump, was built brick by brick out of fantasy. He's a character. To your earlier question, is there a tipping point for the cultist members who are never going to let go of their fantasy of Trump?
When I look at the fan paintings that are done, it's crazy what they see, what they are creating versus what we actually see in reality. It's this 1980s Rambo, Schwartzenegger character of strength and power. That was the 1980s and early 90s. And I think that this moment for Donald Trump, I think maybe for him it's the pin in the air balloon that he's been in, floating above the rest of us. I think because of that deflation for him, you are going to continue to watch his pushback become more violent, more erratic, more dangerous, because the facade and the image is becoming clearer.
Not to those folks that are like sign my breasts at his rallies--because Lincoln would do that. Not those people, but the ones that he always wanted to be in their circles to be considered great, to be considered the genius. They're the ones that are going to be looking at him like, “You are not a billionaire. You've been pretending and we've let you into these places. But you are a fraud, right? You are the biggest Santos fraud that there is over decades in the making.” So for that donor, elite, socialite, political class, I think that the rose colored glasses are off. And I think that that is his biggest fear. For the minions, they're never going to depart from that psychotic image that they have.
MARY
Jen Taub, to Danielle's point, it is sort of mind-blowing that we are re-litigating the fact that Donald's a fraud. I mean, most of us, who grew up in New York or in the family, for example, have known this since the 70s. And if I remember correctly, on October 2nd, 2018, The New York Times came out with something of a stunner in terms of its depth and grasp of how ridiculous it was that he claimed to be a self-made man.
I agree with Danielle, that there will be some people on the money end of things who might start taking a second look at this. I do worry though, that the real serious problem here is that Joe Biden's old.
I don't know that the media will significantly change its approach. On the one hand, he's the leading contender for the Republican nomination. On the other hand, he's been called by a judge, a rapist who's liable for sexual assault, an insurrectionist, a man who stole highly sensitive, classified documents, etc.And they only lead with, “He's a Republican candidate.”
The Republican Party will do nothing because they don't see an viable alternative to him. So, Jen Taub, what is your sense of how this plays out? And as a lawyer, what is your assessment of how quickly this might happen and just how potentially damning Judge Engoron’s statements and ruling were yesterday.
JEN T.
There's always been a divide between the sort of political perception or the public persona and his material reality. But right now, that material reality is going to change in a big way. And normally we are concerned with part of the question you're asking, which is how quickly could this ruling actually change his life in other words? How quickly will a receiver take over and start really looking at these limited liability companies: who actually owns them, who the real members of the company are, and looking toward liquidation of them and other assets.
To me, setting aside for one second, which is super important, the election, the reality is, it doesn't matter how slow this goes because it's waiting for the man. He doesn't want to die a pauper and he doesn't want to be embarrassed. There is no question that he is going to lose this case. And the other thing is, even if he were to be reelected, which is a flipping nightmare, this case can continue, unlike any of the criminal cases. The federal ones would be put on hold. And there's a real question about how long it would even take for Georgia to sort of move through that case and what could happen in terms of separation of powers, whatever there is, it's more likely that he's going to lose a lot of his property—and I'm putting it in quotes because he doesn't have a deep ownership in it any way—before he loses his liberty. And he is someone who I think is acutely aware of that.
And I just revel in that. I am just so happy about that. Yesterday was one of the best days for me because I am such a “follow the money” person and this is so painful for him. Now, how does that play into really important thing like the future of our democracy? I think because he's going to get so unhinged and I think because we're going to learn something more about actually who's backing him and so on, I think he's going to go off the flipping rails in a way that people are going to have to start denouncing him even within his party. Not tonight at the debate, but I just don't see him being able not to flip out about this.
As I said yesterday, when he put that crazy post—it was one of the weirdest, craziest, illiterate kind of posts that he put up on Truth Social, and that's why I said it read better in the original ketchup.
I wanted to see him flip out. I wish they had that on video, but I'm not any less worried today than I was earlier before this news came out yesterday that he is going to be the nominee. But he's going to suffer which makes me happy in and of itself because he made so many other people suffer. And then the last piece of this is, money is his currency. And even if the general hoo-ha is out there, MAGA people are going to support him. Even people who'd never respected him, but were like, “Well, we can trade off of his name. We can borrow against whatever his stuff is.” It ain't going to happen.
And he's going to feel the walls closing in. Just like, I don't know if anyone read the book, which I love, back when people used to read books by Tom Wolfe called A Man in Full about a real estate developer, and all of a suddenly he's bleeding money and his banker takes him in the room. He notices these subtle things like instead of this gorgeous spread of food, the cheese Danish was stale and the coffee was cold. And the blinds were open, the light was going in his eye. Donald's going to notice all those signs of disrespect from people because he ain't got the money. And so I'm just happy to watch this play out. This is fantastic.
MARY
There's so much there that I want to follow up on and I'll follow up with you Jen Rubin. But first Jen Taub, I have a quick question about the follow the money piece of this. Is this not the perfect case to show the inherent dangers of pretending that white collar crime isn't nearly as serious as other kinds of crimes? And if left unchecked leads to a lifetime criminal being in the position that Donald was in 2016? And another quick aside, literally in my family, money was the only currency.
JEN T.
Yes, Mary. In fact, I wrote a book about that called Big Dirty Money.
And your uncle is featured in the introduction to that chapter. But yes, this is what happens when you let someone get away with it, settle with them civilly, look the other way, say, “Oh, I'm sure they've learned their lesson.” And although it's not equivalent, it's similar. Same story with Robert Menendez. Ironically, both your uncle and Robert Menendez were on my white color crime final in the fall of 2017. And there they are in class again. I love my repeat offenders.
It's also troubling that Bill Barr chose to take a pass on pursuing this. When Michael Cohen in February of 2019, when Bill Barr was still the Attorney General, said what he said, what do they do? They made sure that he served his time for what he pleaded to. But when he got out, they also threw him back in when he refused to sign away his legal rights to tell his story. So, talk about weaponizing the Department of Justice.
Look, we got a lot to clean up around here, and if we don't want another Donald Trump oligarch-type person in power, then we've got to fix this. Because if he wins, he is going to suspend parts of the constitution. He is going to look at those oligarchs and take them down a peg. We are headed off the cliff right now., I just hope that people are paying attention. And at this point, the only people who have the real power to make a difference are the major news networks. And so far they're not getting it.
MARY
First of all, just as a quick aside, because this sort of drives me crazy, yes, Michael Cohen—credit work credit is due. He served his time. But let's be real. If Donald had given him a job in the White House, he would be a co-defendant in the RICO case in Georgia.
BRIAN
Amen.
MARY
Let's just be clear about this.
BRIAN
Amen.
Jen T.
And he would admit that, I think.
BRIAN
Yeah, he did. He did.
MARY
Okay. Anyway. He's a criminal. Jen Rubin.
JEN R.
Well, first of all, Jen Taub, and the rest of them, it's so good to see you. You have four indictments, you have fraud, you have a rape. But don't you know Joe Biden wears tennis shoes? So, everyone has their problems.
As far as the press goes, it has gotten infinitely worse as the stakes have gotten bigger. The more difficulty they have in maintaining this false equivalence in coming up with reasons why Biden is really weak or Biden has faults just like Trump has—the more they do that, the more bizarre they seem as if they're operating on some other planet.
And on one hand, I would hope that people literally turn off and just go read a book and go volunteer and go vote. Because I think that would be more productive. I don't think that they're even now inclined to reform, to self-reflect. There is zero self-recognition. There's zero sense of shame or consideration that what they're doing appears ridiculous. It's not just damaging to our democracy; they look like fools. But they will go on.
However, going back to something Jen Taub said, won't the bank stop giving him money if he doesn't have any property to secure those loans? Doesn't he run out of money at some point?
I would hope so. Or it at least impacts his life savings. And remember hanging out there is a potential criminal or civil case that all the money he has raised in that campaign has been fraudulent because it is based upon the big lie. So, imagine what that amount of money, and of course the campaign is what is funding all of his legal bills because he does not pay lawyers himself. So, consider that.
I think in terms of Donald Trump's image, you wonder if as his head hits the pillow, if he thinks, oh, would Fred think I'm a failure? Would Fred think I'm a loser?
And I'm kind of thinking, yeah.
MARY
You're in the right place as it turns out for that question to be answered.
I am going to give my take and then I want to follow up with something else because I think your point is really salient. Donald can't think any of that consciously because he would just cease to exist. But yes, unconsciously, he has lived his entire life in fear of that. And that explains a lot of his lashing out. He cannot allow any of that to break through, which explains the denial and the projection and the burn it all down mentality.
And the worst thing that could happen to Donald Trump, other than being put in a room with no interconnect connection and no mirror, is to be forced to face the reality about who he is, which he knows deep down and just cannot allow to break through to his consciousness.
But to your point about the media, Jen, and this is one of the reasons I agree, that nothing is going to change here, everything about Donald, according to them, is already baked in, so not worthy of discussion. Between them and the Republican Party, he continues to get away with things.
To something Danielle said earlier, this whole '80s redux stuff that seems to be finally getting punctured, his reaction to keeping those myths intact, we're seeing it playing out. I'm not saying he's increasingly unhinged, because let's be real. But in the context of what's going on, he's seriously being threatened for the first time in his life, from a financial, legal, and existential perspective. It's almost like it's echoing the threats of the white male, straight, rich guy, and their assumption that they deserve to be in power, no matter what.
JEN R.
He got owned by a woman of color. That's just the cherry on the ice cream sundae of humiliation.
MARY
Right, exactly, but what about that humiliation, though, Jen? And this is something that we've talked about before, but I think it's worth with mentioning again because out of that humiliation, which he can't allow himself to feel because it's too threatening and terrifying, we get the anger and we can't even get the press to pay attention to the fact that he called for the death of his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. We are at once again at this point where stochastic terrorism is something that is being used by Donald as a tool and nobody who could do anything about it is waking up to that reality. What is going on with that?
JEN R.
This is what fascists do. They enlist the media in a giant propaganda campaign. They create enough doubt that people either believe him or don't know what to believe or are willing to suspend belief. And for the vast majority of people who are experiencing Donald Trump, it is through something that somebody else said about Donald Trump. The number of people who actually see a rally, who actually see him speak, who actually read one of those screeds is relatively small. It's the media’s amplification and the cleanup job they do to make him sound much saner than he actually is.
"Trump struck back at his critics today." Like what? No, he had a hissy fit and blew up and was ranting and foaming at the mouth. That's what he has done. Let me just add one thing. When will the true believers finally fall away? I do have this fantasy image. When he's finally in the orange jumpsuit, they don't let him bring his bronzer to jail. They don't let him bring his hair products and he looks like a fat old slob and there is something that will un-man him, I think.
But we are so far from that point. I have that image in my mind. When Cassidy Hutchinson said he didn't want to wear a mask because it screwed up his makeup, I thought, imagine when it's all off. Imagine when he can't do the hair thing, he will be physically humiliated. And I do wonder, Mary, how is he physically going to sit in courtrooms? I mean, are they going to have to bound and gag him? How does he sit there and listen to the evidence without losing it? I don't know.
MARY
That's such a good question. I think it's not accurate to say that he's deteriorating any more than he has been because these screeds have been his staple for a very long time. I don't think his posts are getting more unhinged—they're as unhinged as they've ever been. It's just the context. However, he does in certain instances clearly have less impulse control. You can read a deposition of his from 20 years ago and it's incredibly boring because all he says is, "I don't know. I don't remember. I don't recall. You'd have to ask somebody else." Recent depositions, he literally can't help himself. He has to talk about how great he is. He brings in all this irrelevant information. And honestly, that's one of, it's not the most important reason, but it's a reason why we need cameras in the courtroom. People need to see how this guy's going to behave. We need to see his facial expressions.
I know it was only a couple of seconds, but in New York when he was indicted for election fraud, but everybody else refers to as the hush money case, the guard let the door slam in his face and he didn't react. And that to me was very telling. So, yeah, we need to see everything.
JEN R.
It's also deeply disturbing that not only did Bill Barr not go after all of this stuff, Merrick Garland didn't go after it. We have a southern district of New York, they never went off,
MARY
And Cy Vance. Remember Cy Vance?
JEN R.
Where have these people been?
BRIAN
We don't report on it either. Everything that you all have said, the most disturbing piece to me is that we have lost an edge. It was Edward R. Murrow who brought down Senator Joe McCarthy. It was increased reporting by the corporate media that did this. But corporate media has gone from 80% of it being owned and operated by a couple of dozen companies to 95% of it being run by five or six companies. And we continually hire people who do not have the gravitas to do the job that is needed to be done. And I can again point to Kristen Welker's interview of Donald Trump. Here's what really hacked me off about that, did NBC ask Joe Biden to do it first and Biden turn them down? No.
DANIELLE
No.
BRIAN
They went to Trump first and Trump did it for ratings and they did not push back adequately.
MARY
Brian, can I interrupt you for one second because that reminds me, I have this file of bad headlines and one of them, when Biden finally made his re-election official, as if anybody was surprised, the headline in the New York Times was (and I’m paraphrasing), "In Defiance of Trump, Biden Announces Re-election." Excuse me? Biden's the one who doesn't have the right? it's gob-smacking at this point.
BRIAN
Jen, you said it smacks a fascism. We allow fascism, not because we're complicit with it. It's not that I think that we get together with Donald Trump and go, "Okay, we're going to cover it this way." At least not at the reporter level and certainly at the higher levels where I know management, that's not necessarily it. Although I do question CNN and a couple other people about it. But we're complicit for ratings. It's because it boils down to the money. When I walk into the White House press briefing room, I really literally just want to vomit because it ends up being some of the most ridiculous questions, the most ridiculous narratives. And we pretend like Donald Trump has any kind of standing and that anything to do with Hunter Biden is equal to that occurred during the Trump era. Hunter Biden, fine, if he's guilty of something, he's guilty. He needs to be prosecuted. He needs to be prosecuted. Well, whatever happens, happens.
MARY
And it's not like any other children of people who've been in the Oval Office are guilty of crimes.
BRIAN
Right, but the point is, Jared and his wife were part of the administration. They took $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. And we don't take on any of that. We don't report on any of it. And there are people who give, and rightly so, the current administration grief for their comms department because I think they are not the best. But when it comes to the media, this is on us. We don't do what we're supposed to do and we're incapable of doing what we're supposed to do. And you hear the terms like mainstream media and that makes me want to vomit. It's corporate media. It's corporate media that plays that game.
MARY
Yeah, we talked about this in the first half, and Danielle, you've talked about this too. It is an incredibly important distinction. We are the mainstream media.
BRIAN
Absolutely.
MARY
Okay. All of us together and separately we are the mainstream media. And Danielle, I think one of the reasons is not, because we're not beholden to advertising dollars or what have you—although that makes it easier, I suppose—but it's because we actually do represent the concerns of most Americans; and we don't pull punches; and we don't treat people like they're idiots who can't understand nuance; who can't understand that sometimes one side is actually completely right, and the other side is completely wrong. We don't traffic in false equivalencies. And it seems ,though, Danielle, that we don't have the mechanisms in place to do what's necessary in these very precarious times.
I don't want to bring everybody down, although as we say often, "We need to face things," right? We can't pretend that it's not going on. But what do you think is a potential solution in terms of how we frame this going forward to try to make a dent?
DANIELLE
I will say this that I agree wholeheartedly with Brian, and since you brought it up to me when I used to say mainstream media and now have made the distinction of making sure to say corporate media instead of mainstream media, that those distinctions are important. What do I think is going to change things? Like one, the reality is that money is what is driving all of this. Why did Meet the Press and Kristen Welker, why did they decide to choose Donald Trump as opposed to Joe Biden? Because everyone wants to know what Donald Trump is going to say. Who is he going to accuse? What lies is he going to say? Who is he going to attack? It’s entertainment, right? And we have to understand that a part of corporate media, their value is to entertain. And once we allowed reality TV antics to enter into our journalism and our body politics, that was truly the beginning of the end.
And that happened ten-plus years ago when they talked about Barack Obama's tan suit and his daughter's hair as opposed to any merits of what policies are being put forward. It's when you decided that that unserious kind of version of journalism was going to be what got you the ad dollars and the sponsorships and made your shareholders and the CEOs happy. So, we have to understand that there isn't just this, "Oh, they don't know what to do." They don't want to fucking do it, right? They know exactly what to do. These people are competent. And I think a part of this too is this idea. I go back to Susan Collins saying, "Well, Donald Trump will learn," right? Being 70 something years old, it's akin to being a fucking toddler. You don't need to teach a 70-something year old man how to do a fucking job, right? By that point, you should have been known. That's why you were chosen in the first place. And the idea that we need to teach corporate media what's right from wrong, that's not the case.
They have no desire because right now their allegiance is to their bottom line. You have watched reputable newspapers and magazines fold over the last 20 years with the advent of social media and the internet because they haven't found a way to reconcile their information with the access to free information, right? Why are people going to pay for this? People pay because they want to be entertained. So, I think that the solution is exactly what you are doing, Mary. It's what I do. It's what a host of people do—we have shows that discuss the truth that people can follow. And sure, it's not going to be like the big five, right? It isn't. We've moved past that place. But I think that the more people that are willing and courageous enough to tell the truth and bring on people who are experts in shepherding us through this moment of time, that is going to be the only solution that we have. Because if we're relying on corporate media to do the right thing, we're going to pass out from having held our breath for so Goddamn long.
JEN R.
Boy, is that right. Boy, is that right. You know, Danielle, it didn't really hit me until Jay Rosen said something to me, (shameless plug on my podcast Jen Rubin's Green Room) and he said, "But the media's job is not to inform and make responsible citizens." It was like, "Duh. Of course, it's not. Their job is to cut and splice and dice and come up with a formula just like rom-coms, just like reality TV, just like the 18th iteration of Star Trek." That is what they do. They are there to dice and chop and put it in a little formula that will draw more eyebrows and eyeballs and, what's more, they are so risk averse that the temptation to do exactly what everyone else does is overwhelming. We have to cover it because, we have to lead with X, Y, and Z because no one wants to be out of step because the payoff from their perspective is so low. And if they're just doing what everyone else is doing, then who can criticize?
MARY:
I have a question though and whoever wants to answer can answer it. Brian, a quick follow up and then we're going to wrap up. Okay, so it's about eyeballs. Yeah, eyeballs and clicks. Is it not incredibly newsworthy and interesting and eyeball-grabbing that the leading candidate for the Republican nomination threatened his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs with execution?
BRIAN
Yes.
MARY
How does that not qualify?
BRIAN
Here's how it doesn't qualify. Real simple. It doesn't qualify because of the fear that Jen talked about already. The problem in the press is that managers are adherent to money and Donald Trump is money.
MARY
Not for long.
BRIAN
Correct. But it's the interest in the audience and the fear that you'll drive the audience away. The shortsightedness in this as a media executive, I will tell you that when I have reporters that come to me and they say, "No one else is reporting about this." I say, "Good. Break the story. Cover the story, and then cover it again on the second day and cover it again on the third day." "Well, what if somebody else doesn't cover it?" "Fine, keep covering it and keep doing it as long as you're presenting vetted factual information." That attitude in my way of making a living in my profession doesn't exist at the highest levels because the problem is they're too adherent to what is going to give them the fastest, quickest bottom line. And the government is complicit in making this happen by destroying the fairness doctrine, by getting rid of all the guide rails of ownership that allow media to buy itself up.
So, there's smaller and smaller number of people who own more and more of it. Independent thought like you have here, Mary, and that Danielle and Jennifer have, that is the currency. That's the currency. And we've lost it. We don't understand it and we're afraid to find it. And that's what I find most disheartening about my profession. We are moral cowards. And until we have our own, grow a set, we're going to continue to be manipulated and abused by those in power. And it's 40 years of this beginning with Ronald Reagan when he got rid of the fairness doctrine and allowed people to consolidate media. And it's not gotten better. It's gotten worse because the people with gravitas leave this industry because they can make more money elsewhere.
MARY
Excellently articulated.
BRIAN
I feel passionately about that one.
MARY
Yeah. Well, listen, the irony here is your industry is helping to bring about the conditions that will make it irrelevant. And last I checked, Donald said he's going to put ABC in Guantanamo or something. So that's where we are, which is why we need to find more hours in a day to work more than we already do. But we're not going to let this slide and we are going to continue. I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks, the Nerds are going to be on consistently. This is—you're going to get so sick of our saying this—the most important election of our lifetimes. And this is more true than it was in 2020, and it was more true in 2020 than it was in 2016. So, Jen Rubin, Brian, Danielle Moodie, thank you so, so much. Everybody, we will see you next time. Bye.
The Nerd Avengers Reunited, Part II