Tucker Carlson, GOP Candidate?
This week we take a look at the slate for 2024, including recently declared candidate President Biden, career criminal seditionist Donald Trump, Marianne Williamson, Robert Kennedy Jr, and possibly two more Republicans – the faltering Ron DeSantis, and the demonic Tucker Carlson, who recently was set free from his Fox News hellscape to possibly run for office. We contemplate a Carlson run, examine the Fox News lawsuit, and discuss the gutting of investigative reporting and the demise of cable news in general. At the end of the show, we debate about how Biden is doing and what he should be doing – not to win, but to fulfill his campaign promises and serve the American people, which is his job!
We also discuss the Kremlin’s latest moves into Sudan and the operations of the Wagner Group: the brutal band of professional mercenaries that has been active in Ukraine, Syria, and other regions the Kremlin seeks to drag into their sphere of influence. We discuss the history of Russia’s efforts in Africa and how Obama official Susan Rice helped paved the road for the current disaster. We also discuss what it means that Rice is finally leaving the Biden administration.
Every week we do a bonus episode for our Patreon subscribers. We’ve decided to start releasing them later in the week because we often have extra topics we don’t get to in the main show. So this week, stay tuned for some extra Gaslit Nation as well as the answers to our listener Q&A! To submit a question, join at the Democracy Defender level or higher. To listen to the bonus episode, join at the Truth-Teller level or higher.
Gaslit Nation is one of few podcasts that is free to all and that keeps all of our episodes archived online in transcript form. This is important as news websites continue to go under or paywall their content. We are under no corporate control and are funded entirely by our listeners. Help keep Gaslit Nation going by joining us on Patreon!
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[intro music up and under - ‘Building on Mistakes’ by GreyMarket]
Sarah Kendzior (00:00.843)
I'm Sarah Kendzior, the author of The View from FlyOver Country and Hiding in Plain Sight, and of the book They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent.
Andrea Chalupa (00:09.786)
I'm Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine: the film the Kremlin doesn't want you to see, so be sure to watch it.
Sarah Kendzior (00:24.135)
And this is Gaslit Nation, a podcast covering corruption in the United States and rising autocracy around the world.
Andrea Chalupa (00:31.850)
And we have announcements. You can join us for a live taping of Gaslit Nation on Tuesday, May 23rd at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. We are going to be talking about whatever is exciting in the news that week and also share some behind the scenes stories of the making of our upcoming graphic novel, Gaslit Nation Presents… Dictatorship: It's Easier Than You Think. Starting this month of April, 2023, we are giving away—as a thank you to our community of listeners—a copy of Dictatorship: It's Easier Than You Think to subscribers/listeners at our Patreon community. And if you want to qualify for that thank-you present, make sure that you're subscribed to the show. Help us keep going as a show on Patreon. You can subscribe at the Truth-teller level or higher.
And you could also get access to—I forgot to mention—the live taping on May 23rd by making sure that you're subscribed to Gaslit Nation at the Truth-teller level or higher on Patreon. And this month's winner is... Lorelei A. The first name is Lorelei and the last name begins with A, just in case there's more than one Lorelei who subscribes to the show on Patreon. Congratulations, Lorelei A.
This book belongs to you as a token of our appreciation. It's a big old thank you to you and we look forward to giving away more books as the year goes on to our community of listeners. And one other thing important to mention: we have a song this month submitted by a Gaslit Nation listener and we're very excited to share that with you.
Andrea Chalupa (02:24.242)
And the song that you just heard at the top of the show was ‘Building on Mistakes’ by GreyMarket. “GreyMarket is an independent rock band hailing from Tampa, Florida. Influenced early on by the likes of Radiohead, Muse and Led Zeppelin and drawing equally from their mutual love of science fiction drummer Michael Gargiulo and guitarist/vocalist Cave McCoy set about creating their own band of modern rock music, later joined by Mark Allen on bass and Madison Keels on violin. The band is currently nearing completion of their most ambitious record to date; a space opera entitled The Echo Relay. A grand concept years in the making, the record compiles a range of tight distinct songs that together form a coherent story arc of a record. After all, every great song should tell a great story and inspired artists ought to create inspiring art.”
Mike's statement about the song was: “It’s one of our oldest songs and apropos for Gaslit Nation and, sadly, I think about it more often these days. We create to bring people together through cathartic exhilaration and hopefully have a positive influence in the world.”
Andrea Chalupa (03:45.846)
We’ll post a link to ‘Building on Mistakes’ on our Twitter page and in the show notes for this episode on our Patreon page. You can find more of GreyMarket's music on Bandcamp at greymarket.bandcamp.com. Thank you so much, Mike, and to the rest of the band for creating wonderful music. We always, always enjoy hearing from you, and we appreciate all the art that you're making. Art creates a space of joy for all of us and a space to think and process everything that we're being hit with, especially now.
And if you want to submit your song for Gaslit Nation, you can sign up and do that. Look for the link in the show notes for this week's episode available as always on the Patreon page for this week's episode.
So we have a segment here. We're going to get to everything. Tucker Carlson, is he running for president? As we warned on the show quite some time ago.
Sarah Kendzior (04:36.899)
Two years ago, two years ago.
Andrea Chalupa:
Mmhmm [affirmative]. Keep an eye on that. So we're going to get to the big old Tucker Carlson news; how the Kremlin is both mourning that and also in a way celebrating by trying to lure him to Moscow, full-on issuing statements of support across their social media channels and offering him jobs and so on. All true. But first, we need to pay attention to Sudan and what's going on there now because it's a human rights crisis, it's a big old tragedy that's unfolding, and it also has warnings—recent history reminders for all of us—about our current ongoing global war against the Kremlin and this fight of fascism versus democracy.
But first, I want to just catch you all up on this news by playing a brief news clip on CNN, which shows that the movement by the Kremlin essentially incited what is teetering on a civil war in Sudan right now. So we'll play that now:
[CNN clip]
Nima Elbagir:
The Sudanese and the Lebanese army celebrated a successful joint operation Wednesday, April 19th near the remote desert border between Libya and Sudan, having captured the Chevrolet garrison belonging to the rival Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). But why is this garrison important, given how far it is from the existential fight in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum? Because, CNN can reveal that the fight in Khartoum is influenced by what was happening at that garrison: A Russian resupply campaign backed by a key regional player aimed at turning the tide of Sudan’s war in favor of the RSF, who have been a key recipient of Russian training and military aid.
Nima Elbagir:
In collaboration with All Eyes on Wagner, a research group focusing on Russian proxy Wagner, CNN investigated the group’s current presence in Libya. You can see here on April 16th, one day after the fighting began in Khartoum, a Russian Iylushion 76 transport plane at the Al Jufra base in Libya, previously identified by American intelligence as a Wagner base. Three days later, this same plane is spotted by flight tracker/aviation expert, Gerjon, coming back from the Russian air base in Latakia, Syria before returning to the Libyan airbase in Khadim. Images of that same plane began circulating online April 17th heading in the direction of Sudan.
Nima Elbagir:
What does it all mean for the ongoing misery and conflict in Sudan? In means that both a regional (Libyan General Haftar) and a global player (Russia) are putting their thumbs on the scale, which raises the stakes for the region, for the global balance of power, and for the people of Sudan caught in the crossfire.
[end clip]
Andrea Chalupa:
So the reason why this human rights crisis is so important, the terrifying lawlessness in Khartoum that includes killing of civilians, rape; it's a Russian-backed tragedy that's unfolding in Sudan, undoing the work of the 2018-2019 pro-democracy uprising in Sudan that was led by women. The warlord driving the violence came from the ousted dictator, Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power since 1989.
Andrea Chalupa (06:16.814)
That's obviously a great Taylor Swift album and inspired some key moments in my film, Mr. Jones. I will share that story sometime later. But now, in Sudan the 2018 pro-democracy uprising was successful in part obviously because al-Bashir's top guy/top warlord, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, forced him to step down along with Sudan's military. A transitional government followed, but the head of Sudan's military wanted to fold Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s military forces/militia into the formal Sudan army. The military would then fall under civilian control as Sudan moved closer to democracy through this transitional government. Instead, talks broke down and the head of the military and Dagalo's forces—backed by Russia, as you heard in that CNN clip—are now at war, with civilians paying the price. It's important to understand the larger significance here. It's a warning for us today, especially when it comes to the Russian disinformation spouted by the Kremlin wing of the Republican Party. So back in the day, recent history, under Obama and his disastrous National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who has taken a lead on domestic policy for President Biden where she ignored warnings about child labor laws being broken, where immigrant children were working long hours in dangerous factories, leading to—no surprise to anyone—serious injuries, endangering their lives in this Charles Dickens dystopian story. Susan Rice ignored those warnings, shrugged this off, and coincidentally, she'll be leaving the Biden administration, which I think is a good thing.
Andrea Chalupa:
During the Obama years, when she was national security advisor, during an extraordinarily world-shattering time, kicked off with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, during that period, I organized a panel at the Ukrainian Museum in New York City that was promoted as, “How do we get through to Susan Rice?” because it was understood then that she was blocking much-needed defensive aid to Ukraine and was underestimating Kremlin aggression; Kremlin aggression that would go on to bring a Kremlin asset to power. Obviously, we've documented many times on the show how then-FBI director James Comey was so disastrous in his role in allowing the Kremlin to bring Trump to power. Go back to the first three episodes of Gaslit Nation for a start to see Comey's role in all that and how history should always remember him as the guy that helped the Kremlin bring Trump to power. But Susan Rice played her role as well, because Susan Rice was driving a policy that had the Obama administration sleeping on the Kremlin and the Kremlin just snuck up on them in plain sight and did what they did, and the rest is history. Now we've lost abortion rights and there's been all this havoc, and our nuclear secrets are out by the pool at Mar-a-Lago and so on and so on. And so we're going to be living with the repercussions of the Kremlin's successful coup in the United States for many years to come. So back to Sudan. Well, if you listen closely to that CNN clip, Russian forces are using Syria—their military base on the Mediterranean Sea—as a staging area to wage its mercenary influence campaigns across Africa.
Andrea Chalupa:
Syria fell into Russia's hands because the Obama administration didn't enforce its red line in Syria. Obama said if Russian-backed dictator Assad of Syria used chemical weapons, the US would hold him accountable, that there would be force. Instead, nothing was done. There are also idiots on the left, the far left and the far right—including on Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC—repeating Kremlin talking points and claiming any meaningful assistance to the Syrian revolution to oust Assad would lead to World War III, that kind of stuff. There are a ton of dehumanizing disinformation campaigns driven by the far left and the far right muddling the facts on the ground in Syria. And all of this manufactured confusion allowed Russia to seize power in Syria, propping up Assad as they do to this day. And now the Russians for the first time have a military base right on the Mediterranean and they're using it to help militarily back their proxies in several African countries where Russian forces are pillaging the local resources like gold—like in Sudan, the gold—steal wealth.
Andrea Chalupa:
And this is how they're circumventing Western sanctions. These Russian efforts to really double down on colonizing Africa through corrupt local proxies started with Russia's invasion. I mean, there's a whole history that goes back to the Cold War. We had hot warfare going on with Soviet forces and the CIA and other European security forces over parts of Africa throughout the Cold War in the seventies and so on. So there's a whole history to this, but it's really escalated since Russia invaded Ukraine, now nine years ago. And as those Western sanctions have been, you know, the screws have been tightening, and especially in the last year, Russia has really doubled down on its exploitive, colonization, corruption, mass murdering, crimes against humanity efforts in African countries like CAR, Mali, and of course, Sudan.
Andrea Chalupa:
And the forces are doing this through are of course Wagner, that militia group funded by the Kremlin that it was named after Hitler's favorite composer. And Wagner, of course, committed atrocities not just in several African countries, including in Carr, the Central African Republic, where Wagner mercenaries broke into a maternity hospital.and raped women that had just given birth, Wagner also has committed atrocities in Syria and Ukraine. They're extremely active in Ukraine and as we've mentioned on the show, there are Wagner soldiers that were given orders to completely liquidate entire towns and villages, just shoot all the living on site, including children, like shooting children point blank in the head. That's what Wagner does in Ukraine and they're committing the same atrocities in Africa. And they're fueling this uptick of conflict/civil war now in Sudan. So if you've seen all the news, like why is Sudan suddenly in the news? It's because Russia is making a power grab in Sudan to try to steal as many resources as they can because that's who they are. They're a mafia state. They're crooks. They're bandits. Instead of doing the hard work of democracy and governing and actually building a functioning society, they're thieves. They steal. They just steal. They like it. They're trying to steal Ukraine and they're trying to steal power in these African countries.
Sarah Kendzior (13:15.903)
I just have a little thing I want to bring up regarding Russia and Sudan and also the Trump administration, which has continued and exacerbated the terrible policies from the Obama era. Back in 2017, Omar al-Bashir made deals with the Russian government that were basically run through Wagner. According to an article in Yahoo News, it says this included an agreement for Russia to set up a naval base at Port Sudan in the Red Sea, as well as “concession agreements on gold mining between Russian company M-Invest and the Sudanese Ministry of Minerals.” They go on to say that, “the US Treasury alleges that M-Invest and a subsidiary group, Meroe Gold, are fronts for the activities of the Wagner Group in Sudan.” And then we get to the part that I think is very interesting, which is we have a quote where it says, “Yevgeny Prigozhin and his network are exploiting Sudan's natural resources for personal gain and spreading malign influence around the globe.”
Sarah Kendzior (14:24.259)
Very true. Who is the source of this quote? Oh, it's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who, while he was treasurer, was at one point under investigation for his own relationship with oligarch Oleg Deripaska; Steve Mnuchin, who was making backhanded deals with Netanyahu's government, with members of Mossad, with a variety of Russian oligarchs, with the Kremlin. And he was doing nothing to protect U.S. interests and nothing in response to the reports from BuzzFeed News and other outlets that the US Treasury had been infiltrated by Russia in 2015. Mnuchin was installed to shepherd this process through and he was one of the few Trump administration members in this carnival of horrors that stayed there for the entire four-year period. He was even one of the people put in charge of COVID and COVID policy despite having no public health background. And a lot of folks have forgotten about him. He's kind of fallen off the radar, given the Capitol attack and, you know, just the array of more vocal criminals.
Sarah Kendzior (15:58.507)
But I think it's worth going back and looking at the sort of bullshit PR statements that Mnuchin was putting out where he seems to be condemning Wagner or condemning the Kremlin or so forth while at the same time working for their affiliates and of course working under the direction of Trump and his advisors, which included Manafort, Flynn, and Stone and others who are more directly tied. This is another sort of windfall story. I really wish folks would go back and investigate these forgotten figures of the Trump administration. I previously suggested somebody could do an entire podcast series examining the pardons; examining who got pardoned by Trump and why. You could even put them in various categories. That will give you a perspective on what they were trying to achieve with that bulldozer of an administration. And then also follow up on what people like Mnuchin did quietly after leaving office. We've had a lot of loud-mouthed folks. We have Steve Bannon with his podcast and so forth. We've had others that just sort of, you know, slink away or they try for reputational rehab—people like Kushner or Bill Barr—and then others that just seem to really vanish. And you need to follow the trail that they left behind because I think the trail between Mnuchin and an outlet like Wagner and people like Erik Prince… I mean, it's just one circle. It's the same trail, it's the same picture. So anyway, go on.
Andrea Chalupa (17:22.366)
Yeah, and another figure to remember is Rex Tillerson, the longtime CEO of Exxon who, in a very shocking move, was made Secretary of State. He was backed by Robert Gates and Condoleezza Rice, who were architects of the invasion of Iraq, which was a big old Halliburton oil industry power grab; basically what Russia is doing in Ukraine. So if you were against the Iraq war, you should be against what Russia is doing in Africa. If you are against colonial exploitation by any superpower, you should be against what Russia is doing in Africa. But I want to point out—because we're bringing up blasts from the past like Mnuchin—Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State, former Exxon CEO, becomes Secretary of State as Congresswoman Maxine Waters, said in an interview with Joy Reid on MSNBC, “became Secretary of State so that he could get the sanctions dropped against Russia and Exxon and Russia could drill together in the Arctic.” This is Tillerson who had a Friendship medal from Putin and he became Secretary of State. One of the things he did was he pulled the US out of Africa and that created a vacuum of power where Russia was able to rush in along with their competitive partner, China, who was also trying to wield influence and build infrastructure there and create dependency and, in a word, colonize alongside Russia. There's been tension between Russia and China and Africa, including Wagner mercenaries shooting Chinese nationals in… I believe it was CAR.
So it hasn't been an easy relationship with China and Russia as they try to divvy up Africa together. But the point is that Russia is deepening its influence across several African nations. There's even, in this big leak that came out by Discord Traitor Bro Jack Teixeira, which the New York Times just reported that leak was happening far longer than initially made known.
Andrea Chalupa (19:38.230)
It turns out that in February, as Ukraine faced annihilation by Russia, the Discord Traitor Bro was getting busy, leaking secrets to a bunch of people on a Discord server; secrets that could have seriously compromised the war effort, and that the leak was going on for well of a year as Russia's genocide was ramping up against Ukraine. And in that leak, it was revealed that an African nation (Egypt) was considering selling ammunition to Russia against its war in Ukraine. So all of this is significant because Russia is going to be stealing what they can across Africa and also driving a wedge against any Western influence, including any votes that might be needed to take in the UN and so on. And on top of that, you have the dystopian military presence by Russia in these countries is also backed by a sweeping bot campaign driven by Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner and others. Prigozhin doesn't just do Blackwater-type mercenaries. He also is known for the troll factories that like to pose as Christian Ohio moms on Twitter and so on and try to hack brains.
Andrea Chalupa (21:03.198)
But he's also doing that targeting Africans and driving them against Europe, really exploiting their whole painful history, their legitimate trauma, clearly, against France, against the UK, against the US, and so on, and really showing Russia as the savior; showing that Russia's coming in to serve justice for the colonial powers of previous centuries, and Russia's the great savior. But what they're really doing is trading in one imperialist power for an even worse one, as all these horrific stories of women that just gave birth being raped and so on. These are just one of countless stories of horror that are coming out of Africa because of Wagner. The reminder to us all today is when you get Ukraine war fatigue, when you get the Kremlin wing of the Republican Party—as they recently did in a letter they sent to the Biden administration saying, ‘Turn off aid for Ukraine, stop this unchecked aid to Ukraine”, framing it all, you know, the typical Russian disinformation; calling for, you know, the US has no interest in Ukraine. Clearly, if Ukraine goes the way of Syria, where Western forces, the global democratic alliance, allowed Syria to come over under Russian control and now Syria is a giant military base that's allowing Russia to go further across Africa, if you allow Ukraine to fall, Ukraine is clearly going to be a staging ground for Russian imperialist smash-and-grabs to go even further. So you really have to pay attention to the Kremlin wing of the Republican Party. The people that signed this letter; JD Vance, Senator of Ohio. No surprise here, Senator Rand Paul. Representatives Eli Crane of Arizona, Mary Miller of Illinois.
Andrea Chalupa (22:56.670)
Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Dan Bishop, Barry Moore, Andy Biggs, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Lauren Boebert, Tim Burchet of Tennessee, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Matt Rosendale of Montana, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Brecheen of Texas, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, and Mike Collins of Georgia. So many of these names are, of course, insurrectionists that shouldn't even be in the Congress. I mean, Matt Gaetz was accused of human trafficking, of sex trafficking; why are our tax dollars still paying for him to have a job? So that's my point is we lost Syria thanks to the success of Russian disinformation campaigns and thanks to the failures of Obama's foreign policy, driven in large part by Susan Rice when she was National Security Advisor. We cannot afford to go that way now with Ukraine because it's only going to be an escalation of Kremlin power that is going to create and further future conflicts, as we are currently seeing in Sudan. And to finish this off—good on President Biden for giving yet another big old military package to keep Ukraine going, including long range missiles. Those are all good things and it is very clear that, for the most part, the Biden administration is learning from the mistakes made under Obama when it came to leaving Ukraine out to dry.
Sarah Kendzior (24:23.971)
Alright. So I think… Should we turn to the 2024 election, which got much more interesting this week? We could start with the fact that Tucker Carlson, as has been announced, is no longer with Fox News. And this, of course, is causing a variety of speculation. Andrea and I have been speculating about this for a couple of years, trying to figure out if Trump is not going to run again—and of course Trump is now running again—who is the person most likely to fill those demagogue shoes? Who is the individual that could actually take that base and carry it along? We wondered about the possibility of a posh Trump with DeSantis. I think that possibility has been sinking rapidly in these months. So I'm a little wary of the jubilation over Carlson leaving Fox News because I do wonder if it is a setup for him running in 2024. He was operating not as somebody who was financially beneficial to Fox. There are actually a large number of advertisers who pulled their content because he is a white supremacist. He is somebody who is widely loathed, even though he has this intense cult following. He's a propagandist. He's a liar. And he was there really just to use Fox News for his own personal platform while he was building relationships worldwide with right-wing extremists and dictators and proto-dictators; among them Viktor Orbán from Hungary. He's obviously deeply involved with the Trump crime cult, with a number of figures in it, like Bannon, people tied to the Kremlin. So he would seem the natural person to step into this role. As always, I felt like whoever the Republicans choose for their presidential candidate is not the main story. The main story is the erosion of voting rights, of civil rights, of accountability for a violent coup, a Capitol attack.
Sarah Kendzior (27:06.051)
We do not have the basic infrastructure of democracy and there has been almost no attempt by the Biden administration or Congress to remedy that. You could go back to Joe Biden's campaign from 2020; all of these promises that of course people believed because they're very simple promises, like “We will hold the coup plotters accountable. We're not going to let an attack on our Capitol go unpunished.” I mean, that's a very basic promise. In every other country that has had this happen to them—you can look at recent examples of Germany or Brazil—of course the coup plotters are punished! Of course they're not going on to serve in Congress and be able to rewrite the laws to protect themselves and to make further coups easier! Of course they're not just left in play to jeopardize our national security and by extension the national security of any country that dares to have a close relationship with the United States. If you do have that, you're in trouble. They also of course championed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The fact that that hasn't passed I think is a real, you know, spit in the eye of John Lewis, of his legacy, of the legacy of the civil rights movement; that they kind of shrugged and said, “Oh, but Manchin and Sinema” and left it at that, as if voting rights are not the most fundamental right, as if it's not something that we should take seriously and relentlessly fight for. They left Louis DeJoy in place, which has jeopardized voting by mail… Anyway, add onto this pre existing problems of gerrymandering, dark money, propaganda networks, and so forth, and you have a structural advantage for the Republican Party that is not earned. It is not based at all on people's opinion of the Republican Party because, generally speaking, Americans hate the Republican Party. They do not win by winning over hearts and minds; they win through stealing and manipulation and structural rigging. And that is what they've been working very hard at. They also were doing this in the courts. For a while, you did see some pushback from the Biden administration; Biden was trying to fill a lot of court seats. That has now been stopped because of Dianne Feinstein who is holding up that process. And then you have Dick Durbin and other Democrats acting as enablers there. My point is that the structural advantage goes to the Republicans: who the candidate actually is doesn't quite matter that much in terms of their odds of winning.
Sarah Kendzior:
That said, I think Tucker Carlson is a uniquely dangerous personality because he's transferable. He can move between different mediums. He can move between the corporate and the political sphere. In this sense, he's similar to Trump in Trump's more lucid days. You should really watch out for anything that's going to attempt some kind of reputational rehab for him, things that try to distance him from Fox, because Fox seems to be going down. I mean, Andrea, I'm really curious what your thoughts are on this, but, you know, the Dominion lawsuit, while basically being like the kind of change you find in the back of a couch for Fox, you know, it is still the most significant financial hit they've had. A number of anchors have been let go. Cable news in general is tanking. Young people don't watch cable news. This is also why we've seen high profile people on other networks like Don Lemon getting let go. I think a lot of people just see the end of an era, but I think that unfortunately someone like Tucker Carlson has this ability to remain viable in a digital sphere in a modern world, and certainly has a lot of money and support behind him. But last thing is, as I said, just do not fall for any kind of like, “Oh, Carlson had to distance himself from the corrupt machinations of Fox.” Both can be bad. Fox and Tucker Carlson: both very, very bad in tandem. So if they stage some sort of WWE media politics feud, don't fall for that.
Andrea Chalupa (31:04.882)
Yeah, and it has to be noted just how effective Tucker Carlson was. When we all were united as a country—left, right, and center—when Putin went for it with his total genocidal invasion of Ukraine and as the months progressed, the polling was showing that there was a dip in support for Ukraine. But that was on the Republican side. And the talking points of the dip from the Republican side were coming from Tucker Carlson's show. Republican leaders that support Ukraine were having a hard time, even with their own constituents, in making the case for why supporting Ukraine is clearly in our own national interests, because of Tucker Carlson. And as I told Sarah, Easter weekend, when I went to a Polish deli to pick up a lot of traditional Eastern European foods for Easter, I got into it with a Polish woman at this deli who was repeating Tucker Carlson's talking points. A Polish woman in America, Poland being one of the most steadfast supporters of Ukraine, housing millions of Ukrainian refugees, being locked arms with Ukraine and its struggle against the Kremlin, and here you have a Polish woman in America whose mind is completely jacked and she's just this zombie saying, “Why are we giving billions to Zelensky?” So I'm gonna play a clip of the type of stuff that Tucker Carlson was pumping the conservative base with. We're gonna play that now.
[Tucker Carlson clip, gross]:
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
So there’s the military question that no one seems to have answered, but there’s also the economic question: Where’s all the money going? So we’ve spent more than Russia’s typical annual military budget in Ukraine, and yet the Ukrainian military is out of ammunition again? [laughs grossly] Okay. That might be a question for Zelensky! Where’s all the money going? You’re on the phone with Blackrock all day—where’s all the money going! [said in a strange, gross baby voice]. People are getting very rich. You can’t have an audit because if you want an audit of where your money is going into the most corrupt country in Europe, you’re a tool of Putin! The media, by the way, isn’t mad about the fact our money appears to be disappearing into this sinkhole of corruption called Ukraine, or being used to close Christian churches, no. They’re mad because House Speaker McCarthy hasn’t rushed to kiss the ring of Zelensky.
Andrea Chalupa:
And that is what this Polish woman at the Polish deli was saying to me. Needless to say, I followed her out to her car. It was a whole thing. And that's where the dip in support came from is being driven by Tucker Carlson. And then also, of course, he's just a terrible person. When you think about authoritarianism and why it's so easy to predict; Tucker Carlson going to Hungary and having a sit down interview with Orbán who has consolidated power in Hungary to the point where it's nearly impossible even with the coalition and opposition groups united trying to vote out, it’s impossible to do it now. Orbán, staunch Kremlin ally who's talked a lot of shit against Ukraine, including when Trump was president, he's ensconced. He's like Dictator Lite there in Hungary.
Andrea Chalupa (33:29.586)
The whole end game of authoritarianism is just letting your pettiness be unleashed and taking your petty as far as it can go. A lot of journalists today are on Twitter sharing their stories of how petty Tucker Carlson was to them because that's ultimately what Tucker Carlson wants. He doesn't want to have empathy. He doesn't want to have to think. He just wants to bash things because it feels good. And he attracts a lot of people who just want to bash things without any responsibility to anyone else, including the law. And that's why you're getting this uptick of political violence and an uptick in saying, “Yeah, let Ukraine burn. Why should we help Ukraine? Fuck that genocide” and people rolling their eyes at that genocide. That's what you're getting now. That's the Tucker Carlson effect. And here's a little sample of it. We have Media Matters sharing a clip where Tucker Carlson is even defending child rape. This clip was taken by MediaMatters.org from Tucker Carlson's appearance on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show. So we'll play that now
[clip of Tucker Carlson on Bubba the Love Sponge Show lol]
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
Well actually he’s not in prison for that. Warren Jeffs didn’t marry underaged girls, actually.
Host:
He’s in prison for facilitation of child rape.
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
Whatever the hell that means!
Host:
That means—
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
He’s in prison because he’s weird and unpopular and lived a different lifestyle that other people find creepy.
Host:
No. He’s an accessory to the rape of children. That is a felony and a serious one at that.
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
What do you mean an accessory? He’s got some weird religious cult where he thinks it’s okay to marry underaged girls, but he didn’t do it. Why wouldn’t the guy who actually did it, who had sex with the underaged girl… He should be the one who’s doing life. The rapist, in this case, has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person, so it is a little different. I mean, let’s just be honest about it.
Exasperated Host:
Let’s—
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
[interrupting per usual] He’s not accused of touching anybody! He’s accused of facilitating marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man. That’s the accusation. That’s what they’re calling felony rape.
Exasperated Host:
[trying to get a word in]
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
That’s bullshit! [in whiny nasal voice] I’m sorry. I mean this guy may be—
Exasperated Host:
[laughs] But Tuck—
Asshole Tucker Carlson:
I mean, maybe it’s not right but I’m just telling you that arranging a marriage between a 16 and a 27-year-old is not the same as pulling a stranger off the street and raping her. That’s bullshit! [hysterical upward inflection of voice]
[end clip]
Andrea Chalupa (34:32.726)
And then meanwhile, you have this weird, weird consolidation, this conservative consolidation in corporate media, where you have guys like CNN CEO Chris Licht, who is trying to move CNN to the right. And obviously the new owner of CNN is conservative. These are people that think human rights and demanding human rights and demanding equality is “woke culture” and they want to bash it because bashing things feels good. Chris Licht, the CEO of CNN, recently met with a republican candidate for president who's the author of the book Woke, Inc. which, as you can imagine, basically tries to discredit Black Lives Matter and all those things. And the Republican Party candidate is Vivek Ramaswamy, who was recently on Don Lemon's show trying to claim that the 2nd Amendment, the right to bear arms, the one that is responsible for being taken a little too far by the NRA and its gun culture, leading to mass shootings pretty much everywhere, including in kindergarten, and here he is defending and claiming that it helped freed the slaves. And according to the New York Times, it was this interview where Don Lemon is doing the right thing and pushing back that led to his firing.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
With due respect, I find your explanation reductive and actually insulting, including to Black Americans, to say that today, compared to 1964-1965, haven’t made progress in part because of the freedoms we secured and the 2nd Amendment was part of—
Don Lemon:
Hang on, please. I cannot keep a thought if you guys are talking in my ear. Hang on one second. So to say that Black people… Say what you said again.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Black people secured their freedoms after the Civil War—it is a historical fact, Don, just study it—only after their 2nd Amendment rights were secured. That’s a fact.
Don Lemon:
Black people were not secured their freedoms after the Civil War. That is not… You are discounting Reconstruction, you’re discounting a whole host of things that happened after the Civil War when it comes to African Americans, including the whole reason that the civil rights movement happened is that Black people did not secure their rights after the Civil War and that things turned around, people tried to change the freedoms that were supposed to happen after the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
And you know how they got it? They got their 2nd Amendment rights and they actually got… The NRA played a big role in that.
Don Lemon:
The NRA did not play a big role in that. That is a lie. That’s a lie.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Absolutely. They trained Black Americans to use firearms.
Don Lemon:
That’s a lie. The NRA did not play a big role in that.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
It’s a historical fact.
Don Lemon:
It’s not a historical fact. Just because you say it’s a historical fact, it’s not a historical fact.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
The part that I find insulting is when you say today Black Americans don’t have those rights after we have gone through civil rights revolution in this country.
Don Lemon:
The fact that I find insulting is that you are sitting here telling an African American about their rights and what you find insulting about the way I live, the skin I live in every day—
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Here’s where you and I have different point of view—
Don Lemon:
And I know the difference that a Black and white… that Black people don’t have in this country and that Black people do have.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Well, here’s where you and I have a different point of view. We should be able to express our views regardless of the color of our skin. We should have this debate—
Don Lemon:
I’m not saying we can’t express our views—
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Without me regarding you as a Black man but me regarding you as a fellow citizen. That’s what I think we should see.
Don Lemon:
I think it’s insulting that you’re sitting here, whatever ethnicity you are, explaining to me about what it is like to be Black in America. I’m sorry.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Whatever ethnicity I am? I’ll tell you what I am. I’m an Indian American. I’m proud of it. But I think we should have this debate Black, white, doesn’t matter, on the content of the ideas.
Don Lemon:
I think we should have this debate but I think if you’re going to do it it should be in an honest way. And what you’re doing is not an honest and fair way, okay? But we appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Vivek.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
With due respect, Don. I look forward to continuing that conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Don.
Don Lemon:
We’ll continue the conversation. Thank you so much.
Poppy Harlow:
We’ll talk about China next time you come back.
Vivek Ramaswamy:
Oh, thank you. Much to say on declaring independence from China. Thank you.
Don Lemon:
Okay, can we move on now please? Thank you.
Andrea Chalupa (36:08.334)
And so I'm not here to defend Don Lemon or say that he was perfect, you know, he did make what was seen as a sexist comment against Nikki Haley saying that Nikki Haley shouldn't go after Biden for his age because Nikki Haley is “past her prime” according to how women are seen. They start aging out in their 50s and that's obviously—
Sarah Kendzior (36:27.811)
Oh no, it's worse than that. His quote was, “a woman is in their prime in their 20s and 30s, maybe 40s.”
Andrea Chalupa (36:33.870)
Maybe the 40s, maybe the 40s.
Sarah Kendzior:
So she was way past that.
Andrea Chlaupa:
That's how men think. I'm going to tell you, that's how… you know, Don Lemon is saying how men think. So, if you think that, and I know some men who do, I've heard men casually make this comment. I call them out for it when I hear it, so I'm glad that he was taken to task for that and I'm glad that his sudden firing is connected to that. But I think the darker… You know, what Tucker Carlson did to ultimately get fired, it seems to be that it was, as part of the Dominion case during the discovery all these texts and emails were found showing that he likely did create this hostile work environment that led to credible sexual harassment claims. And Fox has been down this road before, of course, with Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes, who both got the boot and Fox had to cash out.
Andrea Chalupa:
And yes, it's a slap on the wrist as money goes, even the $787 million they had to pay to Dominion—money that they could also write off in their taxes. They're still raking it in as like the supercharged Marvel villain cable news show. These are slaps on the wrist, even the latest payout. But they are still cleaning house. There's reports that Rupert Murdoch didn't like the way Tucker Carlson kept pushing the martyrdom Marjorie Taylor Greene talking points on January 6th and continuing that whole thread of conspiracy land. And so they wanted him out. And again, we're keeping an eye on this because we do see that the Republican playing field is wide open. Ron DeSantis is too insecure to run for president, which is why he hasn't even announced yet. He's the man that when he was dating women, if they corrected him when he said the word Thai food as “thigh” food, he didn't want to be with them. He'd rather make an ass out of himself. He doesn't want a woman that would, you know, would bother to tell him he had spinach in his teeth or his fly was down. That's how thin-skinned Ron DeSantis is. He is comfortable in his little Florida bubble and he doesn't want to come out. And so he's probably going to fizzle out. And so who's next? Nikki Haley? Maybe, if Jared and Ivanka and Murdoch get together and anoint her the candidate, that could happen. And Trump, tired as hell, would rather just eat McDonald's on the golf course. Tucker Carlson could start his YouTube channel with Kremlin dark money and go for it that way and pull a Trump: be the Trump of 2024. So that's what we have our eye on. But I do think what happened to him, how extreme it had to get for him to finally be fired… This guy is actively hurting US national security interests out in the open and raking in money for it, whereas with Don Lemon, yeah, absolutely call him out for that misogynist comment and turn it into a learning opportunity for everyone so men can untangle their brains from thinking that way. But at the same time, I worry about CNN's far-right turn and the consolidation of media generally in the hands of conservative oligarchs.
Sarah Kendzior (39:48.451)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one thing I'm worried about is that I think what they're trying to create is a media landscape that is indecipherable; indecipherable even to people who study it for a living, who've worked in it. I think that they see the future of the media as TikTok videos and AI and other articles that are just, you know… Bannon used to talk about flooding the zone with shit, but the shit usually contained a byline. The shit usually contained some sort of traceable entity that you could figure out what propaganda agency directed this and for what reason and at what target. And you can kind of dig through it. You had an algorithm that was a lot more transparent than the kind of algorithms you're seeing on Twitter under Musk or with Google and its search results, which now bring you nothing. I'm more afraid of a world in which we have anonymous lies, anonymous propaganda and a constant stream of it than one where, you know, if you watch something on Fox News and you know the background of the anchor and you know who they're connected to and what history of lies they have, you can basically translate them, the same way that we translate Trump.
Sarah Kendzior (41:02.819)
You know when something is projection and it's really a confession. You know when they're working on behalf of a particular operative to try to clear their name. This is the environment that we grew up in and we're able to understand it. And another reason we were able to decipher it is because there were outlets that were doing real investigative reporting. And in the last week, one of them has downsized considerably and one has completely closed out. The one that completely closed was Buzzfeed News. I brought them up a few minutes ago for their investigative reporting that Russia had hacked into the US Treasury in 2015 under the Obama administration. A whistleblower had come forward and then the only person who was punished in this whole scenario or faced any consequences was the whistleblower. Janet Yellen has done nothing about it. Of course Steve Mnuchin didn't.
Sarah Kendzior:
They did reports about that. They did reports about all the various Russians who magically fell out of windows while possessing valuable information. They released the Steele dossier, whatever you wanna think about that. My contention is that the basics of it are correct. The fact that Trump has been linked to Russian oligarchs and mafiosos into the Kremlin for forty years is not in contestation. You don’t need that dossier to find out that information. The little scandalous details that were thrown in I think are questionable and were possibly added so that people threw the rest away. Anyway, my point is that in addition to this Buzzfeed News did all sorts of reports from war torn regions, financial corruption reports, white-collar crime reports. And another outlet that was doing this more and more was Business Insider. They were doing a lot of investigations into illegal stock trading in Congress, into corruption on both sides of the aisle. You know, they were following the money. Suddenly, BuzzFeed News is dead. It is gone. And Business Insider has downsized. And in both of the memos that they released announcing these layoffs, they mentioned that they're going to be using AI more and more. They keep saying, “Oh, don't overreact. We're not replacing all humans with robots.”
Sarah Kendzior:
But I think the dream of the modern CEO, of course, is to replace all humans—especially reporters, especially investigative reporters—with robots. You don't have to pay robots. Robots will literally say whatever it is you program them to say. They'll use a lot of, you know, SAT words to make it seem profound and important, and the general audience won't know because they won't have any context to put this in place. And so that makes me worried because when we're heading into an election season, the news gets terrible anyway. You know, the news often becomes indistinguishable from propaganda and AI because people are writing these sort of advertorial pieces, you know, praising Biden, defending Trump, whatever it is they want to do.
Sarah Kendzior (44:06.051)
It's not analysis, it's not reporting. It often ignores major crimes committed by people in campaigns. We obviously saw this to an incredible degree with Trump in 2016, where his entire background history of white-collar and organized crime was omitted from most coverage. Jeffrey Epstein was admitted from all coverage of either Trump or of Bill Clinton or of others in their circle. I think they would like a system in which no humans are available to do this reporting, and if they do it, it gets buried by algorithms or behind a paywall. That's the other great difference between the past and now. So then I look into the future at this nightmarish election—where I truly can't stand anyone that's running—and I'm hoping that along these lines the Democrats actually do a primary debate. It doesn't matter who you intend to vote for in the election. If you want to vote for Biden, then you should still welcome a primary debate in which Biden expresses his policy positions and can react to some of the statements. In particular, I think Marianne Williamson—who I do not particularly want to be president, but I do think she's a good debater—would be a good kind of individual for Biden to interact with and have a discussion. If they're going to throw RFK Jr. in there, I don't quite know what to think of that, but it'll certainly be interesting. My point is that these moments of spontaneity, of real conversation, of conversation between people that we know are real, live human beings having real, live, unscripted exchanges; those are becoming more fleeting and I think they're going to become even more so in the future so we should welcome every opportunity because those are some of the few opportunities that we have to hold our officials accountable or at least hope that someone else on that stage holds people accountable.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm just gonna add one more thing about this 2024 slate shaping up, which is I would keep an eye on this RFK, Jr. campaign because I think that there is a small but significant segment of the population; people who may be are those same people who might have voted for Obama and then Trump or Trump and then Biden that are gonna flock to his campaign. And some of this is because there is merited institutional distrust. We’ve seen our institutions fail us—especially in the last couple decades—but really what a lot of people pinpoint as the time where this all began is the assassination of JFK.
Sarah Kendzior (46:58.947)
There are a lot of folks who have been waiting in a kind of religious way for a member of the Kennedy family to emerge and save America from this hellish fate, to the point that there are people of course in QAnon who believe that JFK, Jr. has risen from the dead or never really died and that he was going to come back. With RFK, Jr., I think that they already have that figure. There's already been kind of a cult around him. What he says about vaccines is wrong, especially when he’s speaking out about basic childhood vaccines. What he says about the CDC being corrupt and so forth—you can't argue with it. The CDC blew it. And so I think that his audience is going to increase proportionally with the levels to which our institutions have betrayed us, which doesn't make any of his lies magically true; which doesn't make him any more of an appealing candidate in my eyes; but I am watching this to see if a movement around him grows and then what happens with it not just in terms of his campaign, but generally speaking. Because when I go out, when I meet people like on book tours or just out in the world, people are full of so much pain and so much betrayal. And a lot of it has to do with covid and the reaction afterwards; the complete lack of empathy from our government officials, the complete lack of direction. Nobody knows exactly what to do. They’re withholding statistics. They're not fixing infrastructure. They're doing all the things that, when we see them in a dictatorship, we of course call them out. But they're happening here and folks don't know how to cope with it. And I think of course people just desperately want to believe that this is over. They also want to believe that our government isn't leaving us to die, isn't committing basically a culling, which is what I think they are doing. And unfortunately one of the people who is the voice of this is RFK, Jr., who I do not think is trustworthy due to his decades-long tirades about vaccines and autism and so forth, but because he's a Kennedy and because we are in a time of institutional collapse and people are going to notice that, he's going to gain some traction. So just keep an eye on that.
Andrea Chalupa (49:17.006)
I think if Biden were to be on a debate stage in a primary against RFK, Jr. and Marianne Williamson, I think it would be a big boost for Biden. In our age of disinformation and bots and so on, there's enough people that would be, you know, have already drunk Kool-Aid that I think people on the fringes exploit with disinformation. But I think Biden being on a stage with those two would just be good for Biden. He would just look like the stable, boring force that a lot of people are attracted to right now in a time of chaos. I was recently at a dinner. At the dinner, there was a hardcore Bernie supporter and a hardcore Hillary supporter that used to famously get into it back in the day and the two of them were bonding over how much they like Biden. I think Biden, for all of his faults that we've documented on this show, you know, he is somebody that has Bernie Sanders' ear. He just passed an executive order for federal agencies, I believe it was, to center environmental policies, environmental protections. The Infrastructure Act has allowed buildings like mine in New York to get resources, really extraordinary resources to try to limit our carbon footprint to move away from our dependency on natural gas and to green our building. And this is a resource that is available to all New Yorkers now in the infrastructure… It's state/local policies, but the Infrastructure Act has really boosted this nationwide. Everybody should look into the Infrastructure Act to see how they can qualify in getting heat pumps, getting whatever they need for their home to move away from gas and so on but… So I think It's not perfect. The overall system, it's a far-right country. We've never had a more, you know, our Congress has become increasingly progressive despite the Insurrectionists. It's sort of like this weird feeling of in terms of the overall evolution of America right now, it's like the best of times and the worst of times. We have been coming to terms with much-needed environmental policy and mass marketing a lot of things like electric vehicles and so on and having a lot of conversations that we're being forced to have. I mean, for the love of God, you have fast food industries that are serving up vegan options. So what I'm telling you is the culture is changing in America and that's not without agitation, that's not without organizers, and a lot of the organizers that I know that are rolling up their sleeves and doing the damn work and helping recruit more progressives, especially young people, to run for office, like Amanda Litman's Run for Something, she supports Biden.
Andrea Chalupa:
So I think, you know, it's not just a lesser evil, it's not just a pragmatic approach; it's just this idea that if you look at the overall track record, it's not perfect, but the deck he was handed was a very difficult one. And I've called him out, certainly. We've all called him out on the show. But I'm happy to vote for him. I'm happy to fight for him. And I have said there should be a primary to force conversations that are long overdue and to force accountability and to ensure that there is a more progressive agenda that he's going to be focused on in his second term. And I think Bernie Sanders is really outspoken in that in the press. But I think having Marianne Williamson and RFK on that stage is just going to help Biden because in comparison, I think those two have gone off the deep end.
Sarah Kendzior (52:58.275)
Well, I think RFK Jr. has. Marianne Williamson, she was in the previous debate and she was very balanced, straightforward. And on certain things, Biden is drilling in Alaska. Biden has incurred the wrath of environmental advocates. Biden has incurred the wrath of public health officials, epidemiologists. People who worked having to deal with the Reagan administration in the 1980s are saying that Biden and the CDC and Walensky’s policies on COVID are even more horrifying than dealing with Ronald Reagan with AIDS. You know, Gregg Gonsalves was saying this. He would not say things like that lightly. Court advocates, people concerned with the Roe v. Wade repeal, people concerned with the inability of the lower courts to be filled, anybody who is concerned about the DOJ, about Merrick Garland, about the refusal to hold all of these Kremlin operatives and white supremacists and criminal elites accountable, everybody who worked on the George Floyd Act, trying to get justice in our police department to then have Biden put in more police than any president in American history, more military, you know, a greatly militarized surveillance society.
Sarah Kendzior:
There's all these things that we can kind of remember, like, Oh, right, build back better, that didn't happen. His campaign was great. You know, his platform was very good. It was a very popular platform and there were ideas that were inspired along with that, like DC statehood or expanding the Supreme Court that had become mainstream ideas by 2020. And I think folks forget, you know, the momentum of hope in that era, because that was a time in 2020 when I think Americans could look and say, “Anything is possible. The Capitol can be stormed by seditionist maniacs. The president can be a Kremlin asset. Anything is possible.” And then they look at the flip side and they're like, “DC could become a state, the Supreme Court could be expanded, and we could actually have justice. We could actually have a real green energy program that will preserve the safety and freedom of generations to come. Anything is possible.”
Sarah Kendzior:
And I think the end result of the last few years has been less is possible, little is possible, and for some, nothing is possible. That is a sentiment I encounter frequently, when I'm talking to people who went out in the midst of a pandemic, risking their lives, and they voted for Biden out of fear of the GOP and Trump, and out of hope that finally things had hit such a rock bottom that there was nowhere to go but up. And instead they're seeing the continuation of a lot of the worst policies, you know, child migrant abuse, the separation of children from their parents, like...I don't know how anyone can vote with enthusiasm unless they feel nothing for those poor families. Like, it's the same problem, it's the same one.
Andrea Chalupa (56:06.094)
I feel something for those poor families clearly, Sarah
Sarah Kendzior:
But it’s his administration—
Andrea Chalupa:
And I have poor families in Ukraine that need me to vote for Biden because they need the support to continue—
Sarah Kendzior (56:17.827)
It's not about voting for him or not voting. It's about how you feel when you vote.
Andrea Chalupa:
—who couldn't even go to church on Easter because they were afraid that the church was going to be bombed.
Sarah Kendzior:
So, what? Little Mexican kids should just die?
Andrea Chalupa (56:29.678)
Why are you putting words in my mouth?
Sarah Kendzior:
I mean, you can vote for him out of pragmatism. I'm saying you can vote for someone out of pragmatism and say, “Yes, this is obviously the better option. This is obviously much better than voting for a Republican.” But to feel good about somebody who's committing to child torture, like I just, I can't do that.
Andrea Chalupa (56:44.494)
First of all, that was Susan Rice who's on her way out. He's not the guy that does everything. He needs to delegate. And yes, he has some shitty people around him who we've called out on the show, including Susan Rice. And she's on her way out, thank God. That was done on her watch. She was warned about that, warned about it. And she was like, ho hum.
Sarah Kendzior (57:04.771)
She shouldn't have been in there to begin with because she had this horrible record so you have to ask, why is he hiring people with proven horrific track records when he could hire people who could improve our country, who could make that platform that he ran on in 2020 a real thing? You do need a team. You do need a full administration. It isn't just on one man, but he's the man who picks the other men or women.
Andrea Chalupa (57:29.198)
I don't know, man. He needs to clean house certainly have some people. We've name-checked those people on the show. People can go see our transcripts at gaslitnationpod.com to see who needs to go. I think overall, given the hand that he was dealt, he's done a remarkable job. Obviously he could do a lot better across some very life-urgent areas, including as you pointed out the border and he needs to focus on that now and clean house where he needs to clean the house. And I hope to God that he has Bernie by his side in helping him with this campaign and really holding him accountable to a second term. I would have liked Elizabeth Warren.
Sarah Kendzior (58:17.923)
Mmhmm [affirmative]
Andrea Chalupa:
If Elizabeth Warren were running, I would have my entire soul on fire, knocking on a million doors for Elizabeth Warren. I think if you see, for instance, the ProPublica reporting into Justice Thomas and how the Supreme Court is just plain old corruption, that was part of her plans. She had a plan on her campaign website on how to fix that.
Sarah Kendzior (58:42.211)
Exactly.
Andrea Chalupa (58:52.910):
So yeah, my heart was in Elizabeth Warren. I was overstretched, overworked, and I still found time to make calls for Elizabeth Warren. And I think Biden needs to lean on people like that and we need to do more to clean house. I don't believe in complacency. I believe that we only get progress when we speak up and speak out and we work for it. And I think if anyone's frustrated with the way things are going, go to the Gaslit Nation Action Guide and roll up your sleeves and have these conversations, fight for the kind of country you want to live in, in the primaries, locally, where you live, run for office, recruit people to run for office. People need to stay engaged. People need to continue paying attention because what we need is when we're all like old ass ladies [laughs]—
Sarah Kendzior (59:32.419)
By the Don Lemon standard.
Andrea Chalupa (59:47.886):
Exactly, which we already are, let's be real. But when we're like old ass toothless women sitting around our ice fishing hole, like drinking a whiskey bottle, I hope to God that whoever is president then, however they identify, is super progressive, is having their feet held to the fire that they're not progressive enough and that video resurface that when they were a teenager, they used a plastic bag at the grocery store and how dare they? That's the kind of world I wanna live in. And we're not gonna get there by checking out. We have to stay engaged and we have to be strategic in our voting. And yeah, it is a bit pragmatic because my love is Elizabeth Warren. She has my heart forever unless she does something really stupid [laughs]. But for the most part she hasn't. So we encourage people, if you're frustrated, if you're angry, whichever side you fall on in this debate that Sarah and I just had, which was a rare debate, by the way, I have to point out. But yeah, go check out Gaslit Nation's Action Guide on gaslitnationpod.com and get in where you fit in because we need you.
[outro music features ‘Building on Mistakes’ by GreyMarket]
[outro - theme music, roll credits]
Andrea Chalupa:
Our discussion continues and you can get access to that by signing up on our Patreon at the Truth-teller level or higher.
Sarah Kendzior:
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Sarah Kendzior:
Our production manager is Nicholas Torres and our associate producer is Karlyn Daigle. Our episodes are edited by Nicholas Torres and our Patreon exclusive content is edited by Karlyn Daigle.
Andrea Chalupa:
Original music in Gaslit Nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Vissenberg, Nik Farr, Demien Arriaga, and Karlyn Daigle.
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