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June 6, 2023 - The Muckrake Political Podcast

51:32

Is This CNN's Downfall?

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the damning profile written in the Atlantic about CNN's CEO Chris Licht and how it has revealed the deep issues surrounding our media in the modern political era. They then shift to Chuck Todd's hilarious self pat on the back as he announces his departure as long time host Meet The Press before finishing on Mark Zuckerberg's public work out routines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	Hey everybody.
	Welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
	I'm Jared Yates Saxton.
	I'm here with Nick Halseman.
	I am not lying when I say that I have been champing at the bit for this show.
	The content, the segments on this show that we're going to get into.
	We're saying goodbye to friend of the pod, Chuck Todd.
	We're talking about Mark Zuckerberg in a story that I can't wait to tell everybody about.
	This giant blowout article about Mark Licht at At the Atlantic.
	We got to talk about this thing.
	I'm so excited.
	I called him Mark Licht.
	His name is Chris Licht.
	What in the hell am I doing?
	Nick, before we get going, can you confirm to our audience that you don't know what I'm getting ready to tell you in terms of breaking news?
	I will attest and infer, whatever that word is, aver, I think is the word I'm looking for, that I have no idea what this is.
	You mentioned something before we recorded, I don't know anything about anything.
	So, right before we started recording, we're recording on Monday, June 5th, Right before we got started.
	And of course, there's hubbub, Nick.
	There's scuttlebutt.
	That Trump's lawyers are meeting with the Department of Justice.
	There's the possibility that there might be charges filed.
	We're not sure.
	We have no idea what's going on.
	We take a wait-and-see approach at this show.
	CNN is now reporting that, Nick, there was a flood at Mar-a-Lago after the feds visited Mar-a-Lago looking for documents.
	And would you believe it?
	The flood, which came from the swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago, flooded where all of their surveillance equipment was, destroyed all of their records, destroyed all of their tapes.
	Can you believe how terrible our luck is?
	Wait, but they already got the surveillance footage, didn't they?
	No, it was before.
	So they, but they got, it's underminers saying that they got some of this stuff at some point when they subpoenaed it, but there was gaps.
	Is this sort of what this is the explanation for now?
	Is it gaps of that?
	It seems that it's going to cause, it's going to cause some problems.
	And now there's a little bit of an investigation about whether or not this flooding was intentional or not.
	Right, because how would there be surveillance equipment like the hard drive stuff?
	Here's the truth.
	You're a pool.
	Here's the thing, Nick.
	I'm a simple man.
	I like simple things.
	I like butter on my bread.
	I like a cold drink on a hot day.
	I like storing my electronics next to a giant body of water.
	Listen, it makes life spicy.
	It makes me wonder if something's going to go wrong somewhere somehow.
	Wow.
	Well, I mean, listen, I guess Nixon got away with it in the 18 minutes, so maybe Trump will too.
	But it's all obstruction at that point then, in theory.
	But I don't even know if that's going to get him off.
	But I guess the point being that clearly there was a lot of surveillance footage they couldn't show, which would have been like boxes that were in Trump's office, or he moved it out of the storage area into his office to go through it and then back.
	That's what we had reporting.
	Did you hear that a few days ago?
	Yes, yes.
	So that must be the evidence that they've been talking about that would disappear.
	This is already one of the dumbest criminal stories in real life.
	It's incredible how this whole thing is playing out.
	This is a watch-and-see situation, but I wanted to see your face.
	And I love, again, that your natural instinct was to say, why would you store electronics next to a pool?
	Great question!
	Excellent question!
	That is the question that we should be asking, and yet, here we are.
	Right.
	I mean, the answer is they didn't.
	But the answer is that they didn't.
	All right, everybody to the main story on this show.
	I got to tell you some days, Nick, I don't know how you feel about this.
	Some days an article will come out like it'll show up on on the websites.
	I'll click on it and I'll be like, I don't expect very much out of it.
	I'll read a couple of paragraphs and then I will close my laptop.
	And I will go get my cup of coffee and I will find my place to sit and be comfortable because I want to absorb it.
	I want it to just go over me like a sunny day.
	Do you have that feeling?
	Do you run across those things?
	You know, I wish I could describe it exactly the way you just did, but I can get the gist of it.
	Yes, there's the moments of that, so sure.
	Less and less these days, okay?
	This weekend, Tim Alberta over at The Atlantic had an article that was, it was titled Inside the Meltdown at CNN, and he had incredible access to the head of CNN, Chris Licht.
	And to say that this was a disastrous profile of Licht is an understatement.
	Of course, to go ahead and set the table for those who don't pay attention to these things, Chris Licht, who has his background being a producer for Joe Scarborough and then Steve Colbert, came over to take over CNN after Jeff Zucker was shown the door.
	CNN, of course, has been in decline for a while.
	There's Discord at the network.
	Brian Stelter, who we'll get into in just a second, was fired.
	Don Lemon fired.
	People let go left and right.
	There's been so many rumors about what's happening here.
	Everybody understands.
	I mean, we documented it a couple of weeks ago, Nick.
	Friday night of a week, CNN lost to Newsmax.
	It was the fourth highest rated cable news network behind Newsmax.
	And we're talking like a hundred or a half a million people watching this thing.
	It is in total and utter decline.
	We have absolutely covered this thing.
	But this profile, this article by Tim Alberta in the Atlantic, this is what I like to refer to as a spicy meatball.
	Please go ahead.
	So, to go ahead and get a start on this thing, it starts out like this.
	We're going to go through this.
	Quote, how are we going to cover Trump?
	That's not something I stay up at night thinking about, Chris, like told me.
	It's very simple.
	It was the fall of 2022.
	This was the first of many on-the-record interviews that Licted needed to give me.
	And I wanted to know how CNN's new leader planned to deal with another Donald Trump candidacy.
	Until recently, Licht had been producing a successful late-night comedy show.
	Now, just a few months into his job running one of the world's preeminent news organizations, he claimed to have a, quote, simple answer to the question that might very well come to define his legacy.
	The media, he said, has absolutely, I believe, learned its lesson.
	Sensing my surprise, he grinned.
	I really do, Licht said.
	I think they know that he's playing them, at least the people in my organization.
	We've had discussions about this.
	We know that we're getting played, so we're going to resist it.
	Nick, do you want to update people on what happens after that?
	They don't resist it, I think is the update.
	It ends up turning into everything he said it wasn't going to.
	It ends up being an absolute disaster.
	And of course, we talked about the Trump Town Hall, which now we're finding out from this story that not only was it a Trumpian crowd, Nick, but that in between segments, while it was on commercial, Trump is like playing the crowd like a professional wrestling villain.
	He's getting them all riled up.
	They're chanting Trump and four more years.
	This was an absolute debacle that not only shook what little remaining confidence there was in Chris Licht, but actually exposed how poorly he's running this place.
	We are now in a place where Licht, before this article was even written, was on thin ice running CNN.
	And now it appears, based on everything that everybody is saying, it appears that he is in definite, definite danger of losing his job.
	Without question.
	I mean, well, they're already brought to when you bring somebody else in to oversee and then that that's usually the first step and you sort of, you know, quietly letting him leave.
	But yeah, it's a, you know, really quickly, if you take over a job for somebody else, especially when you're the head of a business, it's really important that you don't like shit on the person you're taking over for and shit on the things they did beforehand.
	Because you're most likely going to have people that are still there that like the old boss, like the way things went.
	And if you don't want to, if you want to start out on a terrible foot right from the beginning, then yeah, then you're going to do those things like, you know, talking about how bad things were run or the mistakes everyone had made.
	Certainly firing a bunch of people too pretty quickly after that doesn't go over well.
	He made all those mistakes and you can read about that in any book that you want for, you know, management that, you know, the things you're not supposed to do.
	So, you know, this is all self-inflicted.
	You know, the Mookrake podcast is one of the preeminent podcasts for people who are looking for management advice.
	That is our legacy.
	That is what we have established.
	Let me go ahead and give you a piece of free advice.
	If you take over as manager or an administrator of a body, the absolute last thing you should do is go in there with a chip on your shoulder.
	You do not go in swinging your dick around, being an asshole, disparaging what's going on, telling everybody that you're gonna fix it, and that the people before were assholes who didn't know what they were doing.
	It doesn't work.
	People are automatically terrified whenever a new boss comes in.
	The best thing that boss can do is talk to people, listen to them, make them feel comfortable, and start believing, oh we're gonna, you know, we're gonna keep a lot of the things that have worked, we're gonna change a couple of things, but it's going to be based on how you talk to us.
	Chris Licht starts this job with a chip on his shoulder immediately.
	And one of the things, and this is the through line of this show, Nick, we are talking about a very insecure person.
	People don't get in these positions and throw their weight around like this and treat people like shit if they're secure.
	This is a person who got this job in order to make themselves feel better about who they were and then takes their insecurity out on everybody else.
	That not only is the reason he has his management style, but also his political ideology.
	Which is revealed throughout this, which is another problem here.
	There are these moments, Nick.
	Really damning stuff.
	This is from a workout.
	Oh, this is bad.
	He pumped his arms and legs on a machine inside a workout studio two blocks from the Hudson River.
	Joe Masonette, a former boxer who wore polka dot pajama pants, a green Oxford shirt, and a peach-colored beanie, stood with his arms crossed, chirping at his client.
	Did I say stop?
	No, I did not.
	Three years ago, Licht weighed 226 pounds.
	Worried that he was losing control of his lifestyle, he went all in.
	No more breakfast, no drinking during the week, no more carbs or sweets.
	I'm a fucking machine, Licht told me one day when I asked why he was skipping a meal.
	He also found Maya Sennett, whose gym, J-Train, caters to New York's elite.
	Licht jumped off the machine.
	At Maya Sennett's instruction, he squatted down to grab a long metal pole lying flat on the ground.
	Quote, Zucker couldn't do this shit.
	That's bad, Nick.
	That's tough, you know?
	Yeah, yeah, that's a chip on your shoulder, all right.
	By the way, it is a little impressive that he got in that kind of shape.
	That happens when you take a drug that is meant to, you know, treat other illnesses, but it became the in-vogue drug for wealthy people to lose weight.
	But also, none of these quotes are coming from a healthy person.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Like, you don't sit around doing that stuff and, like, suddenly, like, talking about this former boss.
	There are these details in here, Nick.
	Where he's obsessing over articles that are critical about him.
	He's calling people, messaging people who are critical of him.
	Who's that sound like, by the way?
	Trump?
	Yes, it sounds like Trump.
	And by the way, it's not that people are disparaging him, Nick.
	He believes that people are out to get him.
	Including Jeff Zucker, who's trying to get his job back from him.
	So not only is it insecurity, it's paranoia.
	So this shows, and by the way, people who do that, it's not that they're confident.
	It's actually that they're completely and utterly insecure.
	And that makes for a terrible, terrible boss and leader.
	Well, but let's not forget, like the mandate he had by taking over was to try and attract more of these right-wing watchers, which the damage that had been done by Trump on CNN for all those years, it doesn't get overturned in, that would take a long time, bottom line.
	And which is what he wanted to accelerate, I suppose, with the town hall.
	That was going to be his way.
	But we had seen all throughout this whole tenure that he was continually trying to make it hostile for the journalists that work at CNN or, quote, unquote, left or progressive to make it a hostile workplace.
	And they would leave a guy like John Harwood gets forced out.
	I mean, he is the guy that you would have loved to have had because he looks like the guys that are on Fox News, you know, that they would attract that.
	So it sounds crazy only because let's not forget, he oversaw the what's the show on CBS with the guy Colbert show, which, you know, turned its its fortunes around under him by going progressive.
	And really letting Colbert just let Trump have it.
	So it's a real interesting thing here where, you know, I don't even know if he necessarily even adheres to the ideology of the right, but he certainly felt like that was the key he needed to.
	And by the way, he even mentions getting MSNBC viewers back.
	You know, the damage that was done by bringing on Trumpites in the very beginning probably lost anybody on the left forever to watch CNN, me included.
	I stopped watching it when, oh my goodness, it always had that one guy on who was awful as a Trump guy, I'll tell you in a minute.
	And it was like, it was a joke.
	It was not worth watching any of this stuff anymore at that point and never to go back.
	Absolutely.
	And one of the things that is actually happening here is throughout this article, one of the things you keep seeing Lick talk about is being, quote, objective.
	He keeps saying, you know, the real problem was whenever our journalists started putting jerseys on and they started becoming a brand.
	And basically that was saying there's something more important than these people taking sides in a political debate.
	But the truth isn't the heart of all of it, Nick.
	And you're exactly right.
	It's not that he identifies with a fascist ideology.
	I'm sure that deep down he doesn't want to tell himself that.
	But you cannot stay neutral on a moving train.
	He keeps saying, oh, they treat everything that Trump does on a scale from 1 to 10, they treat it like it's an 11.
	Yeah!
	Because Trump is extreme.
	And the Republican Party is extreme.
	And politics in America right now, and authoritarianism, are extreme.
	And as a result, anybody who even pushes back and says, oh, we need to find the center, what you're actually doing is moving the center to the right.
	And all of these comments that he's saying on here, there's this moment, and it's really, really telling, going back to this trainer.
	It's so bizarre, by the way, that he did all this.
	He says, Licht called Mason at his, quote, therapist and coach and one-man focus group.
	He was among the few people Licht trusted.
	This gym was Licht's sanctuary.
	Nothing and no one was allowed to disrupt him here, except Sosloff, who's the head of the overall corporation, David Sosloff.
	To the annoyance of his trainer, Lick told me, Zaslav liked to call him at 6.30 a.m.
	Sometimes those calls came when Zaslav was on the West Coast, meaning it was 3.30 a.m.
	for him.
	When Lick told me this, he twisted his face into a pained expression.
	Assuming a side plank position, Lick told me that Maesnet is, quote, that's the trainer, super fucking liberal.
	and not sold on his plans for CNN.
	Masonette pressed his foot into Lick's shoulder.
	Quote, Rachel Maddow, now that's my chick.
	Lick rolled his eyes.
	Masonette kept goading him.
	Quote, by the way, you see my boy Jamie Raskin on MSNBC the other day, he asked, referring to the Democratic representative for Maryland.
	Masonette began shuffling his feet like a prizefighter, wiping the floor with your Republican boys.
	They're not my boys, Lick groaned, collapsing onto his back.
	What a revealing conversation about political beliefs.
	Yes, you're not a right winger, but the way that you feel about liberals or the left means that you're actually moving in one direction, almost as a contrarian, with his chip on his shoulder.
	It's, It reminds me of, you know, what the First Amendment argument is with the people who want to spew hate, right?
	They want to be able to spew hatred out in the public as much as they like without getting any retribution under the guise of either being allowed, First Amendment, you know, and it's fascistic to not let me say that, but then also that why do I, I don't deserve any blowback.
	You get to say things like, you like rainbows, or you accept people who are trans.
	I get to say, I don't want to accept people who are trans.
	Why are we not the same?
	You know, that is, I think, what it echoes to me, and it's truly a disconnect that is causing problems, I think, especially if you're trying to run a news company.
	It absolutely is, and everything is being given away here.
	He really is trying to move CNN to the right, but he believes he's trying to move CNN to the center.
	The center has moved.
	The right has moved the center so far over the course of our lifetimes that it's almost unrecognizable.
	And now to go ahead and say, oh, the woke people over here.
	And when you false equivocate these things, what you're actually doing is you're moving to the right.
	We even see in this article, Licht is talking about how we don't actually know how many people had COVID or how many people died from COVID and that the news networks used COVID as hysteria.
	Right?
	That they used it to gin up ratings.
	And he actually sits there and says, you know, all this stuff was unreliable and it's not objective truth.
	We then have this moment.
	This is, again, a really telling exchange.
	He wants to recruit reporters who are deeply religious and reporters who grew up on food stamps from reporters who own guns.
	Ligt recalled a recent dust-up with his own diversity, equity, and inclusion staff after making some spicy remarks at a conference.
	Quote, this is Ligt.
	I said a black person, a brown person, and an Asian woman that all graduated the same year from Harvard is not diversity.
	That's a lot.
	You know?
	Like, okay?
	But also, what are you saying here?
	Again, this is going to diners in Iowa, and yeah, we do need more people from middle America in the media, but to go ahead and say we need more religious people with guns and we need less diversity from higher institutions, that's some troubling equivocation, is it not?
	No, it is and it's revealing of a mindset, of a prism with which he is viewing life.
	The COVID stuff is really kind of troubling because it does start to dabble in the conspiracy stuff about the vaccine.
	And by the way, if your goal is to get ratings and they breathlessly talked about COVID to get ratings, which got ratings, then why are you upset about that at this point?
	That's also interesting.
	If it unless you are so deep seated in your views that COVID is not a serious thing.
	And the vaccines don't really do what they're supposed to do.
	And everyone's lying about it.
	Well, then, okay, you might say shit like that out loud, where a fucking reporter can hear you doing a piece on you.
	So that is all.
	All I can say is this is probably the biggest failure of the CNN PR department of all time, because they never should have let this guy say the kind of things that they got the Atlantic got from him on the record.
	Unless they didn't give a shit if he hurt himself.
	Oh, OK.
	That's a good point.
	Give the man a lot of rope.
	I mean, that's the thing.
	This article, this article is so bad.
	I mean, it is it is grotesquely awful.
	We've actually seen everybody within CNN now says that they think there's a real chance that he's going to be removed or at least sort of marginalized.
	On a call today, he said Brian Stelter, who, by the way, Brian Stelter, who got fired by this guy, is having the time of his life reporting on this.
	Like, that is a revenge dish served ice cold.
	He said, that licked on this call, said, quote, I know these past few days have been very hard for this group.
	I fully recognize that this news cycle and my role in it overshadowed the incredible week of reporting that we just had and distracted from the work of every single journalist in this organization.
	And for that, I am sorry.
	I bet you're sorry, pal.
	But guess what?
	What we have seen here is aggressive insecurity.
	I want to read one last thing, Nick.
	And again, I want people to hear this.
	And while they're listening to it, don't think about Chris Licht.
	Don't think about the guy who got this job at CNN.
	I want you to think about Donald John Trump.
	I want you to think about Elon Musk.
	I want you to think about the most insecure men in our culture, Nick.
	He's asked if people want to see him fail.
	I'm sure, he said nodding, visibly weighing what to say next.
	He opted to play it safe.
	But it's certainly a very small part, a very small pocket of the organization, so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it.
	Nick, by the way, is that where you end the quote?
	Is that where you stop talking?
	That's a good time.
	It's definitely a good place.
	Then his voice changed.
	Suddenly Licht was animated.
	Quote, but I would say that for anyone who does want me to fail, what are you going for?
	Who would you want in this seat?
	You want a journalist?
	You want someone who has a direct line to the corporation and can make a phone call and go, Hey, what the fuck?
	Do you want someone who's done the job?
	Who's done a lot of the jobs?
	Who understands exactly what it takes to do what I'm asking?
	Someone who believes that our future is based on executing great journalism?
	Maybe they don't like my style or whatever, but I'm not quite sure what you're going for if you want me to fail.
	Licks looked out the window, quote, so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, he repeated.
	You can't handle the truth!
	Don't tell the paper I was mad!
	Please!
	It honestly is the exact same thing.
	And on that same note, Nick...
	We have to go to Chuck Todd.
	For those who are not aware, the longtime host of Meet the Press, one of the worst journalists in the United States of America, one of the most consequentially bad journalists in the modern history of the United States of America, has announced that he is going to be leaving the show.
	He's going to hand over his seat to Kristen Welker.
	We're going to go over his announcement, Nick, but before we do, what are your takes of the legacy Of Chuck Todd.
	You know, he deserves slander, but I do, I think if I saw him, I'd give him a hug.
	I do feel like never.
	He was the Steve Kornacki of NBC, NBC News.
	He was the guy, the numbers guy, whatever.
	And like through a series of weird things throughout his career, he's been like sort of thrust into different things.
	You know, David Gregory taking over Meet the Press should have been a slander.
	I thought he'd been great at it and then he was he was out within like two weeks it was something so quick it was crazy um and then you know I think that maybe that's when he took over whatever it was it was like this was never really gonna be his thing uh but certainly his inability to ask even even not even tough questions but like even follow-up questions at all uh really just demeaned the position of meet the press host
	So it's time, and it's amazing he made it this long.
	So maybe we give him a little kudos that he made it this long, but certainly, and I don't know Welker is going to be any different, but you know, I just miss Tim Russert, I suppose.
	Everybody misses big Tim Russert.
	Welker, simply because of what Chuck Todd made that seat, is going to be better there one way or another.
	I don't know if it's going to last.
	I don't know if Meet the Press or Face the Nation or any of these shows are actually going to survive very much longer.
	Chuck Todd was exposed during the Trump era.
	His inability to ask tough questions, to follow up, to hold people accountable.
	And by the way, his absolute usefulness to these people, to muddy the national conversation, was incredible.
	Absolutely exposed.
	But yeah, Nick, let's make our way through this announcement because there's a lot of meat on that bone.
	All right.
	Welcome back.
	I have a personal announcement.
	Well, today is not my final show.
	This is going to be my final summer here at Meet the Press.
	It's been an amazing, nearly decade-long run.
	I'm pretty, really proud of what this team and... Real fast, number one, I'm not going to say it's a coincidence that the summer of the muck rake is happening as Chuck Todd is leaving Meet the Press.
	It feels like a one-to-one thing.
	I just want to make that very clear.
	Very, very clear.
	I think the last decade and frankly, the last 15 plus years that I've been here at NBC, which also includes my time as political director.
	I've loved so much of this job, helping to explain America to Washington and explain Washington to America.
	When I took over Meet the Press, it was a Sunday show that had a lot of people questioning whether it could still have a place in the modern media space.
	Well, I think we've answered that question and then some.
	We've taken Meet the Press from a single Sunday show to a distinct and important political franchise.
	From our daily show, Meet the Press Now, our magazine show, Meet the Press Reports, to our newsletters and podcasts, we've successfully expanded what makes Meet the Press special on Sundays to make it special no matter the topic or where it airs or when it airs.
	Who gives a shit?
	Nobody gives a shit.
	In fact, the one thing that you're hanging your hat on, water down your brand.
	Do you watch Meet the Press daily?
	Do you listen to the Meet the Press podcast?
	Does anybody?
	Nope.
	Nope.
	Not at all.
	By the way, one of the things, do you remember?
	We get more listens than Meet the Press podcast.
	Yeah, right.
	That's right.
	We ranked higher than them and Apple.
	So yeah, you're right.
	And I would have.
	If Tim Russert was a podcast available when he was there, I would listen to it as soon as it was done or if I missed the show, whatever.
	Yeah, it wasn't worth listening to him anymore.
	You're right.
	It wasn't worth a listen.
	There was nothing that he gave anybody that actually amounted to much of anything.
	If it made news, if it went viral, it was because he absolutely let someone off the hook and he allowed them to muddy the water.
	That's it.
	Great point.
	The only time that he would become relevant was when somebody said, oh my God, can you believe he didn't follow up with a question from whoever he was talking to?
	Uncanny how often that would happen.
	That was it.
	That was his entire political brand.
	And I would say the vast majority of the impressions and watches and everything that they had, particularly on social media, was because Chuck Tug got absolutely destroyed by somebody.
	That includes our annual Meet the Press Film Festival as well, which has somehow become one of the most important festivals for Oscar buzz and nominations for new documentaries.
	Have you ever heard of a Meet the Press Film Festival?
	Did you hear?
	That's the first moment of joy that he had.
	It's become part of the Oscar buzz!
	Like, oh, congrats, dude!
	How about the effect you've had on American politics?
	Because you're non-existent.
	But the key to survival of any of these incredible media entities, including here at Meet the Press, is for leaders not to overstay their welcome.
	I'd rather leave a little bit too soon than stay a tad bit too long.
	Okay.
	It's nice.
	It's a nice thought.
	I agree with it.
	I think it's the right sentiment.
	I think it's the way you should handle yourself.
	But what are we doing here?
	Right, I think 2014 is calling and it wants its announcement back, right?
	No kidding!
	I've got two amazing professional chapters and I already have plans for my next chapter, including some projects right here at NBC News that I've been very focused on.
	Among them, docuseries and some docudramas focused on trying to educate the public better, bridge our divides, and pierce our political bubbles.
	What are we going to do to bridge that divide?
	We get back to the point here.
	They truly believe it's just a general misunderstanding.
	You know what I mean?
	That people just aren't watching.
	Not enough people are watching Meet the Press.
	They think that's the problem.
	They think if people would just watch their show, politics would be better.
	They also think that, you know, there's someone out there that can explain it in some way that will get everybody all on the same page again.
	You know, I didn't ask this before the Chris Licht segment.
	Does CNN really have any hope of getting their ratings back at this point?
	I don't know.
	I really don't know.
	But if you hear Licht or Todd or any of these people talk, Nick, it's like, oh, the dum-dums have stopped taking their medicine.
	You know, like that's what it is.
	They've stopped watching us.
	And it goes ahead and they tell a story, which is the reason why our numbers are down, the reason why our influence is waning, is the reason why America's in trouble.
	Because they're not listening to the elites anymore.
	They're not listening to the old gatekeepers.
	And it's not an understanding that they have done anything wrong in any of this.
	And you're right.
	What is CNN going to do to get its numbers back?
	What's Meet the Press going to do to get its numbers back?
	What are any of these people going to do to get their numbers back because these institutions have lost the faith of people to believe that they mean anything?
	Right, like at some point you might live in Chernobyl again.
	But the well is pretty poisoned pretty deeply and it could very well just be a matter of time and no matter what it's almost like when these when an NBA team is tanking and they hire a coach and you know for the next four years you're gonna lose every game because almost like on purpose right and you don't get a chance to you know this was a sacrificial lamb like Chuck Todd rode this out and knowing that like he's not gonna be the guy that's gonna get him back to the promised land Chris Lick was never that guy either.
	So this is a problem that I was thinking about in terms of, I don't know if, like CNN in theory, there have been cable channels that fail, right?
	They ultimately just disappear, they go away.
	It would be hard to imagine, but then again, we've seen hard to imagine things happen all the time, especially with corporate interests.
	I want to point out, and this might sound weird, but I think it helps explain it.
	One of the reasons that you don't go to Blockbuster anymore or that you don't hear the name Blockbuster anymore is because they didn't get into streaming.
	They stuck with what they had and they didn't innovate and they didn't change.
	And one of the problems with CNN is CNN got caught right in the middle of a political divide.
	And now they're making the wrong choice on that and still saying that they are in the middle.
	They're not.
	They're moving towards the right, which is not what people want.
	Even Fox News right now is hemorrhaging viewers.
	They're going elsewhere.
	They're looking for somewhere else.
	They've made the wrong choice.
	And in this case, I'm sorry, when's the last time you watched Meet the Press, Nick?
	I can't even tell you.
	It's brutal.
	And I used to watch it all the time.
	And eventually I just watched it and I was like, first of all, you're not having actual conversations.
	You're having people on, and which makes what Todd is about to say just absolutely more asinine than anything else.
	You're not actually having conversations.
	You're not actually like illuminating ideas.
	You're just letting people go on and spread disinformation.
	That's it.
	It's just talking points.
	It's basically a glorified cocktail party.
	And by the way, like, I'm not sure there was a solution.
	Like, what would CNN do?
	Like, continue having Jeffrey Lord on?
	That was the guy I forgot his name was.
	That was the guy, Jeffrey Lord, yeah.
	Yeah, it's like, you know, that was not good because you alienate a lot of the people that were already watching in some weird effort to maybe get on some other people who are already soaking.
	At that point, we're already committed to Fox News.
	There's no room.
	Because remember, like, if you go into any hospital room or an old folks home, like the TV's just on all day to probably either CNN or Fox News and probably Fox News more than anything else.
	So it's like, that's how this is, you know, consumed by a lot of people in America in a way that, like, the channel doesn't get changed, you know?
	Someone, you know, needs to unlock the TV set up above whatever and change it.
	It's not so easy.
	No, CNN is the airport channel now.
	That's what it is.
	It's on all of the airport terminal, you know, TVs.
	Meet the Press does not drive a conversation.
	There's nothing that happens on Meet the Press that changes the discourse now.
	It's all social media or it's some sort of an independent sort of a thing.
	Anyway, let the man talk.
	While I may be leaving this chair, I'm still going to help NBC navigate and coach colleagues in this 2024 campaign season and beyond.
	But this is also an important time for me personally.
	I've let work consume me for nearly 30 years.
	I can't remember the last time I didn't wake up before 5 or 6 a.m.
	And as I've watched too many friends and family let work consume them before it was too late, I promised my family I wouldn't do that.
	And just as important, and this is what really makes me happy, I'm also ready to take a step back because I have so much confidence in the person whom I'm going to pass the baton to.
	She's somebody who's been ready for this for a long time.
	Kristen Welk.
	I've had the privilege of working with her from essentially her first day here in Washington.
	And let me just say, she's the right person in the right moment.
	Yep.
	Real fast.
	Actually, and I criticize Chuck Todd constantly.
	His reason for leaving?
	Great reason.
	Good for him.
	Spend time with your family.
	Don't let this thing consume you.
	It probably has, like you said, for 30 years.
	Absolutely laudatory for you to say that.
	Best of luck to you and your family.
	Enjoy yourself.
	Second of all, really classy thing to set up Kristen Welker like this.
	That is exactly how you're supposed to do it.
	That's what we call the anti-Jay Leno.
	Okay, good.
	Yeah.
	Keep going?
	Alright.
	And for what it's worth, this is always how I hoped this would end for me.
	That I'd be passing the baton to her.
	And I'll officially do that in September.
	I'll be honest though, I leave feeling concerned about this moment in history, but reassured by the standards we've set here.
	We didn't tolerate propagandists, and this network and program never will.
	But it doesn't mean sticking your head in the sand either.
	If you ignore reality, you'll miss the big story.
	Being a real political journalist isn't about building a brand.
	It's about exploring what's happening and explaining why it's happening, and letting the public absorb the fact.
	You can probably hear the higher-ups saying, like, what is your brand, Chuck?
	You're not building that, we don't have anything, you're not getting the radio, all that kind of stuff.
	So I'm sure it's a little jab at the marketing department.
	I couldn't agree more, and I'll tell you, This speech that he's giving, I want to set this because, you know, there's so much noise and hubbub and all this stuff.
	Nick, this is one of the defining moments of his career.
	You know, it's like when you first get on the air, some of your biggest moments on the air, when you're saying goodbye, when you're announcing your goodbye.
	This is one of the biggest moments.
	I want to point out how much of what we're listening to right now and getting ready to listen to, there is so much venom and resentment in it.
	This is a person who has been deeply bothered by the criticism of him.
	He doesn't like where journalism's going.
	He thinks the journalists are making themselves a brand.
	And by the way, he doesn't like that because he is dragged all the time on social media.
	Everybody is constantly saying, and by the way, what does he say?
	We never tolerated propagandist.
	Are you kidding me?
	Really?
	You were the tough hitting person?
	And just wait for what he says about partisans.
	This is a person who is so resentful of how he has been perceived over the past couple of years.
	If you do this job seeking popularity, you are doing this job incorrectly.
	I take the attacks from partisans as compliments.
	And I take the compliments from partisans with a grain of salt.
	All of this and every Meet the Press episode is to do all of the following in one informative hour.
	Make you mad?
	Make you think?
	Shake your head in disapproval?
	Well, you know, hey, the first one is make me mad.
	He certainly would do that.
	Good for you.
	He's done great.
	He's done great.
	Gold chaser right there.
	Do you think that anybody has ever sat down and been like, the first goal of Meet the Press is to make you mad?
	Like, what kind of a twisted logic is that?
	Really?
	Maybe he meant mad like crazy.
	Maybe it's like, we're gonna have a mad old time.
	Yeah, I don't know, man.
	But should we keep going here?
	Yeah, keep going.
	In approval.
	If you do all of that in one hour of this show, we've done our job.
	So again, this isn't goodbye, but know this.
	No matter who sits in this chair, if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
	Oh, and he had people sitting there around him while he was getting so emotional doing that?
	That's hilarious.
	It's sad.
	I just, I cannot believe, and again this is the through line I think of this episode, like the delusion and chips on the shoulder that people have based on the stories that they tell themselves.
	He literally is leaving Meet the Press, one of the most prestigious jobs in the history of news media by the way, Believing that he was a champion, he was like a gunslinger at the OK Corral, you know, and everybody else has lost their way and he gave it its best and everybody else is like screwing it.
	And he literally walks away with his last message talking about, oh, I'm not mad.
	You didn't upset me.
	I don't think about this very much.
	It just so happens this is going to be the lion's share of my announcement that I'm leaving.
	Yeah, I think that when you leave and you get fired and all these different things, there just needs to be somebody around you who can help you shut up, basically, right?
	Because it's easy, listen, you're in an emotional state where you're hurt, right?
	And everyone would feel that, but you have to be careful with what you say publicly, and these guys completely, and certainly Licht has really screwed the pooch on this one.
	Chuck Todd and this was as polished and as rewritten as a thing you're gonna see.
	I still can't get over the fact that he's doing it and it seemed very intimate.
	I thought I was getting choked up for a second talking about the family but then you pull out it's like they're literally right to the side of him staring at him doing it like I don't know.
	Like Jamal Bowie's sitting there you know it's like what are we doing here?
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't either.
	Best of luck to Chuck Todd.
	I can't wait to see where this whole story takes us.
	Last thing, and again, we're talking a lot about these delusions.
	Nick?
	Our friend Mark Zuckerberg, friend of the pod, is doing some really interesting things.
	This article in the New York Times by Joseph Bernstein, the title is Mark Zuckerberg would like you to know about his workouts.
	That's catnip for me.
	If I see an article called Mark Zuckerberg would like you to know about his workouts, my question is, yes, how soon can you tell me about them?
	I'm going to go ahead and start this.
	There's a couple of juicy bits in here and we'll get to them in a second.
	Close your eyes.
	Picture Mark Zuckerberg.
	What do you see?
	What do you see, Nick, when you close your eyes and think Mark Zuckerberg?
	I see sort of a bookish, you know, person who isn't very physical.
	There you go.
	I think that's as good as anything.
	Perhaps you envision the Meta boss and Facebook founder in a gray t-shirt spotlighted on a Silicon Valley stage.
	No, I think about him paragliding or whatever's on that weird surfboard.
	Maybe his cartoonish metaverse avatar hovers before you with legs or without them.
	Possibly Jesse Eisenberg, the bony actor who played the fledgling tycoon in The Social Network.
	But it's unlikely you conjure anything like the image Mr. Zuckerberg posted to Instagram and Facebook on Monday.
	The mirror selfie shows the social media billionaire wearing a camouflage flak jacket while glistening faintly with sweat.
	His neck swells wider than his jaw.
	His shoulders are capped with muscle.
	His forearms bulge.
	He looks, to use a scientific term, completely shredded.
	He also looks completely focused, like a guy in a Michael Bay movie who just finished a dangerous mission, or at least the right profile picture of an actor who plays that guy.
	Nick, how do you feel right now having that read to you?
	Hearing that Mark Zuckerberg is shredded now.
	I mean, I feel confused and interested to find out a little bit more.
	What you might have heard for a second there is I had to kind of call up a little bit of video.
	I needed to see Zuckerberg doing active things.
	Needless to say, it matched kind of what I already thought, which was not so impressive.
	I would go so far as to say that my feelings on this entire situation that we're getting ready to delve into it comes down to this.
	He doth protest too much.
	This is obviously a person who is not only insecure about themselves in their public image, but much like a I don't know, a Jeff Bezos, who suddenly emerged out of a rocket one day with big, giant arms that looked like they'd been filled up with a tire pump.
	Like, it seems like these wealthy oligarchs and these people like Zuckerberg, it seems like at some point or another, they feel like they have to rebuild themselves.
	They have to, like, change their bodies and the way that they're represented in the world, almost like they don't like themselves very much.
	Almost like they have to turn themselves into something other than themselves.
	And that's okay, right?
	You have a lot of money, probably a lot of time.
	You might as well, you know, work out and do some stuff.
	It's just like... I don't know.
	I mean, it's like when Hannity was... What was he doing?
	Was he boxing?
	What was this whole thing?
	I love... Okay, so the Hannity story is great.
	So, if you remember, for the longest time, Hannity would have a football on the set, and when he'd go to commercial, he'd, like, throw it to somebody.
	Then, all of a sudden, he started talking about his mixed martial arts training, and there was, like, a statement where he is with White, Dana White, the owner of the UFC, or former owner of the UFC, and he's, like, he's, like, scrapping with somebody, and he's, like, what do you think, Dana?
	What do you, am I doing okay?
	Am I doing okay, pal?
	And it's, like, oh, this is rough.
	Yeah, there's some questions you just shouldn't ask, I guess, really.
	But how does he not see it, right?
	That's the only thing.
	It's like, you should be able to see that.
	Like, I can see now, like, I refuse to film myself doing anything athletic because I remember how I used to be, I know what it looks like now, and I'm like, but then to then show it and then be like, yeah, isn't that great?
	Like, that is the delusion, I suppose, of someone who's got too much time on their hands.
	They're trying really hard.
	And I think we all know people like this.
	Who are trying just a little too hard.
	Like, there's nothing wrong with trying.
	Don't get me wrong.
	As a person who, like, I appreciate some physical activity every now and then.
	You can find happiness with that.
	But there is a certain level, Nick, where you reach where all of a sudden you're like, what are you doing?
	You know, there's obviously something happening.
	And you want to talk about a person who is like tiptoeing up on a midlife crisis.
	Nick, quote.
	In an August 2022 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Mr. Zuckerberg said that he had taken up martial arts, in particular Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, during the pandemic, training with Dave Camarillo, a well-known coach in the Bay Area.
	Quote, this is Zuckerberg, the crazy thing is, it really is the best sport.
	There's something that's just so primal about it.
	How do you feel about Zuckerberg going on the Joe Rogan Show and talking about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?
	Doesn't that seem like a Mad Libs that has kind of lost its way?
	No, I mean, it makes perfect sense.
	Of course, that's what they're going to talk about, that's what they're going to do and stuff, you know?
	Again, I don't know, listen, I don't want to, you know, denigrate people for doing something that they like, holidays and whatever.
	You know, unfortunately, someone like him is on a much bigger stage and is going to be scrutinized like this anyway, so.
	There was actually something else that happened with him, some sort of water skiing thing he had footage of from a year ago.
	That's what I was talking about!
	He's on like some sort of a jet propelled, like, surfboard.
	of the flag maybe on it too like american flag anyway so you know he's just an interesting weird guy who probably lacks a lot of self-awareness either way so um this is the you know the evidence of this i suppose well we're about to take this thing up a notch nick this uh we're about to go on a journey from the article on may 6th mark
	mr zuckerberg competed in his first brazilian jujitsu event in woodside california where he defeated an uber engineer and won two medals and lost consciousness - What?
	I'm sorry.
	I wasn't ready for that.
	Jose Lucas Costa da Silva, a veteran Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter who refereed one of Mr. Zuckerberg's matches, said that he halted the bout after he heard Mr. Zuckerberg start to snore, a sign of someone who has passed out in a chokehold.
	Quote, This is something we are trained to know, said Mr. Costa da Silva, who added that Mr. Zuckerberg was a good sport who was, quote, enjoying the moment.
	Before we go forward, Nick, I gotta tell you, a good sport who's enjoying the moment reminds me of a grad school intramural softball game that I was playing in where one of the student athletes that me and the other TAs and grad students were playing against talked to me at first base and said, it's great that y'all are out here trying to stay fit.
	Right.
	I mean, it's bad that he was having a good time.
	So Zuckerberg got choked out with snoring and the match got ended.
	But Nick, that's not where the story ends.
	Quote, after this article was published Friday afternoon, this article we're reading, both Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Camarillo reached out and said that the meta boss had not lost consciousness.
	Quote, that never happened, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an email.
	According to Mr. Camarillo, Mr. Costa De Silva mistook his students' effortful grunting for snores.
	So this is a multi-billionaire, one of the most wealthy and powerful men in the world, who has to email the New York Times to say, I didn't get tapped out.
	I didn't get choked out.
	How dare you put that in the paper?
	Yeah.
	It's weird because it didn't happen.
	He got disqualified, right?
	Or he called the match.
	That happened, right?
	For some reason.
	So I guess they want to at least cut out the part where he loses.
	Oh, it was a total mistake.
	It's a lot like when Donald Trump tells you that he could have been a professional baseball player, one of the greatest of all time.
	Like, there is just an inability for these powerful men, Chris Licht, Chuck Todd, Mark Zuckerberg, it is impossible for them to look at the reality of their situations.
	Sorry, the trainers themselves are going to grift that because they want the client.
	They don't want to say anything bad.
	They don't want to lose them as a client.
	They're going to pump them up, too.
	And whatever you say, boss, you know.
	Again, and that doesn't hurt anybody.
	You know, it's just Zuckerberg's, you know, ego, I suppose, being fragile.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Is there more to this story?
	No, I don't.
	That's all I need.
	I just need to imagine Mark Zuckerberg getting choked out at a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament and then getting mad that the newspaper talked about it.
	That, to me, that's a good icing on the cake.
	Right, right.
	I mean, you know, there is this interesting, you know, personality trait of Zuckerberg, which he probably has this like crazy focus, you know, it's just, you know, he's sort of that he comes off that we kind of talks like a computer, right?
	Like he sort of seems that way.
	So he describes what he does, you know, in terms of the crunches and all that different thing.
	It's and it sounds crazy, like someone who's just way too overboard with this and it taken it to a way too crazy and extreme.
	He's got his daughters doing it now and doing stuff like that seems extreme as well.
	So I don't know.
	I suppose it could be good habits that he's establishing and it's not only for his kids and stuff.
	But yeah, I just hope I'm never in a situation where someone's watching my Jiu Jitsu matches.
	I'm going to stay away from Brazilian jujitsu.
	I'm not going to be entering any tournaments.
	I'm all right.
	But it just goes back to the point, man, just like yourself.
	Just, just, just appreciate who you are.
	If you're out there, the self-hatred, it's not worth it.
	You don't have to change yourself.
	You don't have to change your entire body.
	And like Jeff Bezos come out looking like Popeye, the sailor man, like in a, in a, in like a space suit.
	That's five sizes too small.
	You know, like these, and it shows again, none of these people are particularly happy.
	Power and wealth doesn't serve everyone to fix what's wrong with them.
	Eventually at some point or another, you got to look in the mirror.
	And then if you wanted to take the self-reflection or lack thereof, and then you can tie that into a lot of the other failings of people who are cult members of MAGA or whatever, there is a similarity across that as well, which leads to bad decisions, right?
	That are in your best interest and can cause a lot of harm to other people.
	So there is a through line there and certainly, you know, having a healthy mental aspect to your life is, you know, what you've been talking about as far as One of the biggest issues, and we can't get together and come to an agreement on things when there's a lot of fundamentally broken psyches out there.
	I know, and it goes up to the very, very top.
	I mean, everything from TV to politics to technology, it doesn't matter if you have billions of dollars, if you're one of the most famous people in the world, or you're one of the most powerful people in the world.
	If you don't like yourself, it's not going to work out.
	You gotta work on that stuff.
	It's really, really hard.
	On that note, everybody, thank you again for listening to the Muckrake Podcast.
	We will be back on Friday.
	A reminder, you need to go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast to become a patron to not only unlock the full weekend or episodes on Fridays, also support the show.
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	Recommend this podcast to just one of your friends.
	That's all we're going to ask.
	Just one of your friends you have, just recommend it.
	Tell them that they should listen.
	You know, I'm glad you brought that up.
	Let's make that the mission of the Summer of the Muckrake.
	Like, we're going to do a ton of stuff.
	I mean, like, listen, this election is going to heat up this summer.
	It's going to get weird and it's going to get wild.
	And you know that we're going to give you one of a kind coverage.
	Of the 2024 election and everything around it.
	It's going to be absolutely bonkers.
	If you can, please find one friend who is interested either in politics or any of the stuff that we talk about.
	Tell the friend you have to listen to the Muckrake podcast.
	Let's grow this thing.
	Let's go ahead and keep this train rolling forward.
	All right, everybody.
	We'll be back on Friday with the Weekender episode.
	If you need Nick before then, you can find out.
	Can you hear me SMH?
	You can find me at JWestHexton.
	Hey, stay safe.

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