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Fast Politics w/ Molly Jong-Fast on YouTube
Fast Politics w/ Molly Jong-Fast
Speaker 1: Welcome, Tina.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's great to be with you, Molly, in this mad, mad world.
Speaker 2: So it is a very mad, mad world. And right now, as we're talking, Donald Trump is in Davos.
Speaker 2: What is your takeaway from the last five hours?
Speaker 1: Well, actually, for the first time, I used to go to Davos every year for 10 years. I used to do this
Speaker 1: kind of big woman's dinner when I noticed that there were more private planes on the tarmac than
Speaker 1: there were actually women present. This is the one year I just wish I was there because it is
Speaker 1: epic. I mean, he's on such a rampage. At least we now know what Susie Wiles meant when she said that
Speaker 1: he has an alcoholics personality, right? Because he is like on a massive bender right now. And it
Speaker 1: feels like someone has to do an intervention. Maybe he's like his sponsor in the AA group,
Speaker 1: you know, has to do some kind of intervention because it's like, because he's so unfettered,
Speaker 1: because there is nobody stopping him, he is now let loose on the world in a way that is truly,
Speaker 1: truly alarming. And I think part of it is because he thinks the midterms are coming. He's got like
Speaker 1: six months to just be the dinosaur who can be unchecked. I mean, I love what Gavin Newsom said
Speaker 1: today when he said that he's a T-Rex, right? He said, you mate with him or he devours you,
Speaker 1: one or the other. He's absolutely right. It was a great quote, actually. I think Newsom is doing
Speaker 1: extremely well with the pushback because it has to be done. Fire has to meet with fire. And unless
Speaker 1: somebody comes on like Newsom against him, we're sunk. We saw a bipartisan group go to Denmark and
Speaker 2: talk to them about the Greenland stuff, try to make them feel better. All of that was sort of
Speaker 2: erased by Trump admitting that he no longer has to focus on peace. Were you surprised that he said
Speaker 1: the quiet part out loud? It was quite stunning. I mean, in a way, it was oddly self-reflective
Speaker 1: when the New York Times said to him, is this important to America or psychologically important
Speaker 1: to you? He said, psychologically to me. So he was actually admitting that he has this kind of
Speaker 1: yearning, infantile sort of neediness to prove that he's Zeus, that he's the biggest power in
Speaker 1: the world. And that is a pathology, unfortunately, for which we're all paying, right? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like we're all paying the price for his personal pathology. But he actually admitted it,
Speaker 1: which was quite interesting, I thought. And yeah, it did surprise me, actually, that he said that.
Speaker 2: In the world when magazines ruled, really, you covered all of this and you knew all of this and
Speaker 2: you talked to all these people. Are you surprised at the cowardice that really has sort of taken over
Speaker 1: the establishment when it comes to Trump? It's really been shocking, actually. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of unfathomable. I almost feel that sort of cowardice is a virus in some strange way, just as
Speaker 1: it has been amazing to see the amoeba-like sort of falling of so many people who you'd think
Speaker 1: wouldn't. And I mean, it's tough for journalists, as we know, because he's going after them all the
Speaker 1: time. But in the end, journalists can only be as brave as the owners of their publication allow
Speaker 1: them to be. I mean, clearly, you can get on a sub stack and write what you like. But we also know
Speaker 1: that without the institutional backing of a strong organization and a major audience,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have the same kind of impact.
Speaker 1: And when we saw, as we did, ABC folding and paying off Trump in the George Stephanopoulos
Speaker 1: lawsuit, and we've seen the same thing happening with CBS, we've seen Jeff Bezos utterly having
Speaker 1: a head transplant in his ownership of the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: I mean, these things have been shocking enough and have unfortunately been a really big element
Speaker 1: in this new sort of climate of timidity.
Speaker 1: But I also kind of look at some of these Republicans who have been, of course, the very worst
Speaker 1: and stunningly pathetic.
Speaker 1: It's like you look at Mike Johnson sort of sitting behind Trump and he's got this kind
Speaker 1: of pathetic little schoolboy sort of smile on his face.
Speaker 1: And then there was a wonderful moment that was a great photograph.
Speaker 1: I wish it had been a still picture of Lindsey Graham on Air Force One sort of standing at
Speaker 1: the door while Trump's standing there at the door of Air Force One.
Speaker 1: I can't even remember which of his tirades it was about Venezuela or whatever.
Speaker 1: And he's wagging his little tail like a puppy.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's looking at big old masterful Trump, the big master of the universe, and
Speaker 1: there's little Lindsey Graham with his little wagging tail.
Speaker 1: It is so pathetic.
Speaker 1: It shows just how authoritarianism takes root, that there are so many people with holes in
Speaker 1: their souls, essentially, who are looking to be nominated.
Speaker 1: I was just reading a very interesting piece in The Atlantic about Pam Bondi, about how
Speaker 1: she was known as Bambi because she was this kind of really nice, cooperative, not threatening,
Speaker 1: Not particularly a list prosecutor, but she had certain communications gifts and so on.
Speaker 1: No one can understand how, rather like Tucker Carlson, she's turned into this utterly different person.
Speaker 1: And of course now she's willing to do...
Speaker 1: There are no red lines for Pam Bondi.
Speaker 1: She will do anything.
Speaker 1: It's really terrifying.
Speaker 1: And we all read about the 30s and keep asking ourselves, how could this happen?
Speaker 1: How could that happen?
Speaker 1: We now see how it can happen.
Speaker 1: It's a complete virus, this fear. And it's very, very alarming indeed.
Speaker 2: I wonder when we talk about tariffs, like the whole point of the tariffs would be to onshore manufacturing.
Speaker
2: That's not happening because Donald Trump is so, you know, he's
using tariffs in a way that is willy nilly and not organized.
Speaker 2: So people don't want to build factories based on what a mad king tweets one day and not another.
Speaker
2: So the central premise of it is faulty. Do you think a place like
Davos, where you have someone come in and try to sell an idea that's
faulty, are you surprised that there's not anyone in Davos explaining to
him that his entire economic principle is not possible?
Speaker 1: Well, of course, it's always been absolute madness because it takes five years to build
Speaker 1: a factory.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is that people don't want to go back to that kind of economy.
Speaker 1: It's like he wants to put the clock back, not sort of onshore jobs, actually.
Speaker 1: He just wants it to be the world of sort of the 1960s.
Speaker 1: And again, it's part of his pathology.
Speaker 1: What I'm really told about these captains of the universe who are all there, they just
Speaker 1: want to get through the Trump period.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're willing to kind of sit there thinking, you know, why do I put my head over
Speaker 1: the parapet, have my head shot off, my business damaged?
Speaker 1: I'm going to wait this out.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try not to upset him.
Speaker 1: I'll give him whatever money he needs for his, you know, for his whatever corrupt thing
Speaker 1: he's asking for.
Speaker 1: And we'll get through this.
Speaker 1: I think that they're mistaken.
Speaker 1: I think that every single time it happens, they enable him.
Speaker 1: And this thing recently about the Board of Peace has been particularly, you know, disgusting
Speaker 1: in my view.
Speaker 1: The idea that Trump is supposed to be going to Davos, that was one of the things to discuss
Speaker 1: like the border peace in Gaza.
Speaker 1: Well, he's offered a seat to Putin, a mass butcher in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I think it was excellent that Macron, I think it was today, said, "I don't want to be on
Speaker 1: the border peace."
Speaker 1: And I thought, "That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Now let's see everybody else say no."
Speaker 1: Then I was crushed to see that Mark Carney had agreed to be on it, a leader of Canada.
Speaker 1: I think that's a big mistake.
Speaker 1: I mean, who wants to be on a board with Putin and Viktor Orban?
Speaker 1: And, you know, I think that the only thing for this is there has to be strength in numbers.
Speaker 1: That is the only thing that works.
Speaker 1: I mean, if every world leader said, I am not going to join your board of peace, his board
Speaker 1: of peace becomes a sham, an absurdity, a ridiculous thing.
Speaker 1: Let's have Kim Jong-un on the board of peace.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And I think the same has been true of the media.
Speaker 1: I think that they should have stood together, not, you know, individually making these humiliating
Speaker 1: settlements.
Speaker 1: Unless, you know, people stand together against Trump, there is no fighting him off.
Speaker 1: And, you know, he picks people off individually as he has, you know, with the Republicans.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker
2: No, and I think I want to mention that the Board of Peace, there's a
billion dollar entry fee, right, for the Board of Peace.
Speaker
1: Yeah, I mean, he's treating it like some kind of absurd, obscene
sort of golden tier of golf club members at Mar-a-Lago.
Speaker 1: It's just another shakedown like everything else.
Speaker 1: Unless there is an outcry and a united outcry, this stuff is going to continue.
Speaker
1: Of course, one of the things one must always remember in power, as
it were in life, is that just when your hubris is at its maximum, that
is when you make the biggest mistakes and you fall.
Speaker 1: Clearly, Trump was so engorged by the kinetic warfare stuff he's been doing, the kinetic
Speaker 1: raids, the bombing of Fodor, which was widely acclaimed, the Venezuela snatching of Maduro.
Speaker 1: He now thinks that he's invincible.
Speaker 1: Usually, exactly at that moment is when you make your biggest mistake.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, he's making, at the moment, we see them as biggest mistakes.
Speaker
1: He doesn't see them as mistakes, but he's going to have some huge
setback very soon that will, you know, reverse, I think, the entire
rampage.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny because his public polling is is as bad as it's ever been.
Speaker 2: And people don't like the ice stuff and nobody trusts him.
Speaker 2: You know, he's back to where he was at the worst moments of his first term, probably a little bit lower.
Speaker 2: But I do think you're right that to him, he doesn't see it that way.
Speaker 2: And that is, in a way, almost the scariest part.
Speaker 1: He doesn't see it that way, but he has reason not to see it that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've been through these polls before, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, we've always been hearing about how people don't like this or don't like that.
Speaker 1: I was quite fascinated.
Speaker 1: There was rather a good CNN segment with John King last night with him interviewing people
Speaker 1: who had voted for Trump a year ago.
Speaker 1: What do they feel about him now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was one woman who really doesn't like what's been happening very much.
Speaker 1: But, you know, there was a lot who, you know, several who did, who do like it.
Speaker 1: And when we say everybody hates what he's doing in the eyes, I don't think that's true that everyone hates it.
Speaker
1: I mean, I think that there was a very interesting piece in The Times
actually over the weekend, which went, you know, went into this bar in,
you know, a more rural area of Minnesota.
Speaker 1: And they were all basically seeing it very differently from the towns.
Speaker
1: So you do, again, have this real divide between what everybody,
quote, thinks, you know, in the urban setting versus what, quote,
everybody thinks in the rural settings.
Speaker 1: And they do not see it the same way.
Speaker 2: I do think that you can only live like that for so long.
Speaker
2: And what I'm thinking about is this reporting in The Times about
this clean water project in Colorado where Donald Trump rejected the
money they needed to finish the pipeline.
Speaker 2: And his voters are all being affected by that. And they said something to the effect of, like, we trust our guy.
Speaker
2: Like he obviously, you know, like the way people talk about God,
right, that we trust that he has what's best for us in store.
Speaker 2: But don't people eventually lose faith?
Speaker 1: Well, the question is when is eventually, right?
Speaker
1: You know, in this segment where they were interviewing Trump voters,
there was one of them who said, yes, I'm a Trump guy.
Speaker 1: look, he hasn't been like everything that Trump had done, but he said, I'm more worried about,
Speaker 1: you know, the Democrats getting in and we have to get Trump back because we have to keep Congress
Speaker 1: because otherwise they might impeach him. So he has such a kind of long rope for forgiveness,
Speaker 1: it seems, from a lot of voters. And I think that we underestimate that, you know, in our kind of
Speaker 1: more urban outlook tremendously. So the question of what is eventually, I mean, eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, Maduro gets captured and he's put in prison after, you know, everything that he did
Speaker 1: his people in Venezuela. The question is how long can Trump go on? Will he do anything to disrupt
Speaker 1: the midterms, for instance? Because at this point, you can hardly imagine that Trump will brook any
Speaker 1: restraint. The prospect of having to somehow give up that restraint, it's hard at the moment to
Speaker 1: imagine that he will accept it. In which case, what is he going to do? Will he disrupt those
Speaker 1: midterms. And then of course, the biggest question is always, will he go? And I think we're all now
Speaker 1: feeling, well, yes, he is going to go. I actually think that for Trump, the whole of his second term
Speaker 1: has been devoted to enriching himself. I actually think he thought, in my second term, I'm going to
Speaker 1: leverage the hell out of this thing. I am going to fill my coffers, my kids are going to fill their
Speaker 1: coffers, and it's all about the big fat shakedown. And that's actually the way he's been working.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that he'll just feel, look, I've now got X billion.
Speaker 1: Before I was a minnow of a billionaire.
Speaker 1: Now I'm a massive billionaire.
Speaker 1: I've got what I want.
Speaker 1: And then he'll continue to sort of leverage that beyond the presidency.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to know.
Speaker 1: I mean, he seems so kind of incredibly intoxicated and drunk on power, isn't he, at the moment?
Speaker 1: I mean, he just is engorged with the power.
Speaker
1: And while people continue to fall on their faces before him, I mean,
it's hard to see that he's going to give up that buzz.
Speaker
2: I want you to talk about CBS News because of all the people I know, I
think of you as one of the you've just seen it all.
Speaker 2: So, right. And you've written about it and you've talked about it.
Speaker 2: So David Ellison gets to take over.
Speaker 2: The dad gives him CBS.
Speaker 2: He puts in Barry.
Speaker 2: What is your take on what's happening right now there?
Speaker 1: Well, the whole kind of Ellison-Trump sort of dynamic is revolting.
Speaker
1: When it comes to CBS News, David Ellison has installed Barry Weiss
to run the editorial side of it. I actually think that Barry is a really
talented editor and I think Free Press is an incredibly vibrant news
platform, actually.
Speaker
1: I thought she made a big mistake going into CBS because it would
have been better for her to be the kind of Ellison guru on the outside
than it is for her to be in the actual sort of line of fire of these
editorial decisions.
Speaker
1: I think that the project is ultimately doomed in the sense that I
think CBS is such a lumbering retro asset at this point that I don't see
how any amount of editorial vim can somehow turn this thing around at a
point when it's actually long past its moment of relevance in the big
picture terms, in the long term.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, it's a very valuable and important asset at the moment.
Speaker 1: But we know that the trajectory cannot be one that in the end certainly survives in anything like this current form.
Speaker 1: But I think that the Ellisers don't understand news, don't respect news.
Speaker
1: And this is what my major beef is with these digital Silicon Valley
billionaires, essentially, is that their arrogance is so complete.
Speaker 1: They have absolutely no understanding or actually even respect, whatever, for journalism.
Speaker 1: None.
Speaker 1: They do not think it counts.
Speaker 1: They don't think it matters.
Speaker 1: They think it's there to be plundered.
Speaker 1: I think that they think it's there to be scraped for their AI projects.
Speaker 1: They just don't seem to have any moral understanding of what journalism brings to democracy, how
Speaker 1: important it is.
Speaker 1: Nor do they want that, particularly.
Speaker 1: I mean, journalists are a hindrance.
Speaker 1: Journalists investigate them.
Speaker 1: Journalists are a pain in the neck.
Speaker 1: They stop them getting their deals, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So they don't like journalists either.
Speaker 1: And I find that a very alarming thing.
Speaker 1: It makes you think, well, okay, so who should own these media assets?
Speaker 1: Because again, it's a question of who can afford to have them.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, these are the people right now with the money, but they are absolutely unfit
Speaker 1: as owners of something as important as news platforms.
Speaker 2: Like news is clearly in a crisis. And I mean, I work in this business and everything is just shrinking and shrinking.
Speaker 2: It's like shocking. So we need reporting. It's nice to have opinion writing.
Speaker 2: I do opinion writing. But at the end of the day, the reporting is the stuff that's going to hold power accountable.
Speaker
2: In my mind, it feels like a failure to legislate, you know, a
failure to make the kind of tax incentives that make this lucrative.
Speaker
2: Just like why you weren't having filming in the United States of
movies and television, because they weren't giving the tax breaks to
make it worthwhile.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you think that's what it is?
Speaker 2: Or do you think it's a deeper something at the core of American values right now?
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I think it's exactly what you say, a combination of things.
Speaker 1: I think in the early 2000s, the enormous mistake that journalism made, media made, was to allow
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and co. to basically come in and steal all the content free and say they just took it.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, legacy media sat there being all naive. They were utterly rolled. They went,
Speaker 1: "Oh, it's so exciting to have all this traffic, et cetera, et cetera. Look at all these great
Speaker 1: eyeballs we've got looking at our stuff." Yes, but it was them, Silicon Valley, that was
Speaker 1: monetizing those eyeballs. And so the business model was essentially blown up in a giant heist.
Speaker 1: And then as if it wasn't bad enough, like now, 25 years later with AI, they're going to do it again.
Speaker 1: And the same women going, they are doing it again. They're doing it and the same people too. So
Speaker 1: they're saying, "Okay, now we're going to scrape all your content. Copyright is really like we're
Speaker 1: We're in a race with China, so there's no time for these discussions about whose it
Speaker 1: is.
Speaker 1: If you don't say yes, I know we'll pay you something, but it won't.
Speaker 1: Even a couple of hundred million dollars for scraping a major news outlet's content is
Speaker 1: peanuts for them.
Speaker 1: It's peanuts for the news outlet when you consider all the brainpower that's going to
Speaker 1: be sucked into these AI tools.
Speaker 1: So they're once again going to essentially rape the media business.
Speaker 1: And all the media business does is, or the news business does, is sit there kind of knowing,
Speaker 1: trying to fight back with what?
Speaker 1: What tools do they have?
Speaker 1: I mean, thank God we have some strong, serious outlets that have the wealth to do the great
Speaker 1: work, whether it's the New York Times or Reuters, which does amazing investigations, actually,
Speaker 1: is often not talked about enough, I think, because the Reuters actually does, thanks to David Thompson,
Speaker 1: who is the chairman of Reuters and whose company it is, he actually believes in journalism.
Speaker 1: He's one of these quiet billionaires who simply actually does believe in the moral point of
Speaker 1: journalism. But they're very, very few and far between. And so it is an enormous crisis. And yet,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, what is encouraging, perhaps, is that some of the biggest stories in the last
Speaker 1: some of the most newsmaking stories in the last few months have actually come out of
Speaker 1: those maligned legacy media outlets. I mean, whether it's, you know, Vanity Fair suddenly
Speaker 1: having a comeback with their great, you know, Susie Wiles piece, or whether it's Emma Tucker,
Speaker 1: who is doing the most amazing work, I think, at the Wall Street Journal, you know,
Speaker 1: publishing the Epstein birthday book or, you know, they're actually doing great stuff is the truth.
Speaker 1: And, you know, it's very irritating to the, you know, the powers who don't want them to report.
Speaker 1: But we have a lot of very brave journalists around and some very good editors around.
Speaker 1: So, you know, I do think there is a way to keep on being relevant, but it just shouldn't be this hard.
Speaker 1: And nor should journalists be so financially sort of punished.
Speaker 1: I mean, it blows my mind, you know, that incredible talents are willing to work for so little, frankly.
Speaker
1: And I've got to say, I admire journalists hugely, you know, who are
willing to sort of, you know, they're not well paid.
Speaker
1: It's very, very hard trying to kind of dig out information, you
know, with bootstrapping, you know, door knocking, you know, the old
fashioned inquiry.
Speaker 1: It's really, really hard, but we need them.
Speaker 1: They're the soldiers of democracy who stop the monsters from taking over.
Speaker 2: Tina, thank you so much for coming on.
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