The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on the Long-Term Consequences of Trump 2.0
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Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, and I interviewed him live on stage at the WBUR Festival in Boston. Goldberg was the reporter behind Signalgate, and despite Mike Waltz's assurances that he didn't know him and couldn't pick him out of the lineup,

It's not the first time Goldberg has published a story that embarrassed President Trump. In 2020, he broke the story that Trump had called American troops who died in war suckers and losers. And The Atlantic has been warning about Trump's authoritarian tendencies since at least 2017.

I think he's done a lot as editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in making it incredibly relevant in Washington today and holding people's feet to the fire and demanding accountability. It's really tough to do if you're a huge publication. It is not a huge publication, and it's really punching well above its weight.

Our expert question comes from Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who recently had his security clearance stripped by the Trump administration in what seems like a clear case of retribution. So stick around.

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Hi, everybody. Thank you and welcome.

I'm very excited to be here with you. You have been in the news a little bit as a newsmaker. Yeah. Not a great place to be. Oh, you love it. Stop it. We're going to talk about the media business, the Democrats, and of course, President Trump. So let's start with him, someone you know a little bit.

You famously got added to the wrong group chat. Maybe it was the right group chat. Indeed, it was the right group chat. Fair point. When you reported the story, Trump attacked you and said there was no secret information in the text. The strategy failed because you published the text, which I knew you were going to do. But Mike Walz got demoted mostly because he was coordinating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over plans to bomb Iran. Plus, he pissed Laura Loomer off.

Nobody else got fired. What's your takeaway from Signalgate in general? I mean, I think Waltz was already on thin ice. He and Susie Wiles weren't getting on very well. Waltz, from what I understand from inside, forgot that he was staff. National Security Advisor is staff, and you're not a principal, even though you have a

Big title. Sure. There are a lot of things going on there. I mean, the signal thing didn't help, obviously, his career development. Thank you for laughing at that. I actually thought that was slightly witty. Slightly. Just slightly. So it's interesting because after all of this,

I had two reporters going in or trying to go in to see him for a cover story we ran on Trump, Ashley Parker and Michael Shearer. And we got word from the White House, they said, bring Jeff with you. So I got to go to talk to him about it. To the Trump interview, yeah. Yeah, and right before the interview, we were set to meet him at 3, at 11, he posted on Truth Social a big attack on me, which I thought was hysterical.

That's the way you welcome somebody to the White House these days. Well, that's a technique, right? No, no. And I said when we walked into the Oval Office, he was like, and he was very friendly. I could explain the dynamic there if you want. But he was very friendly. And I said, hey, thanks for that.

Thanks for that truth. Social posts really helped a lot. And he said, I was just trying to up the pressure on you a little bit. And then he said, anyway, you'll sell five times more magazines this way. And he's correct because he understands how things work. But here's what's so interesting about the actual problem of signal. The issue is national security. The issue is operational security. It's like what...

Who's listening? How do you know making it as hard as possible the Chinese the Russians the Iranians etc to hear what you're talking about the serious stuff I Asked him because in that truth social post he said Goldberg was somewhat successful with signal I asked him what does that mean? Somewhat successful and his answer was because this is the this is the track his mind goes down his answer is you got a lot of attention, right and

And I said, well, was it successful because I inadvertently discovered a gap in our operational security that... And he's like, no, no, no, you got a lot of attention. Right. Like, in other words... So he's unconcerned with national security. No, no, no. I mean, he was... Finally, I said, did you learn anything about...

operational security. And he said in that kind of Catskills delivery that he sometimes has, he says, don't use Signal maybe? You know, he just kind of like, you know, he was just sort of...

joking it it didn't concern him what concerned him was that somehow I rested the news cycle away from him for a period of time right and that's kind of like that that's that that's the language coin of the round as the point around was a language he understands and he has to contend with that the issues

raised by journalism are not as interesting as the fact of who's getting the attention at any given moment. So in that regard, the fallout from Signalgate is not an improvement in our national security in any way, or there's a lack of concern. And this is someone who keeps the classified documents in a bathroom. So...

Talk about that. Has there, from what you understand, been any worries about improving security? Not that I can see. Not that you can see. If we weren't through the looking glass, what would have happened in an ordinary presidential administration is...

There would have been an investigation, an IG investigation, maybe a Justice Department investigation. Certainly, people would have either been fired or admonished. New systems would have been put in place. You would have had an outside expert come in and talk about this. They would have immediately banned people from using Signal. They're still using Signal, obviously. But that's not the way it works here. So, I mean, the assumption has to be, and I think the...

US intelligence apparatus assumes that the Russians and the Chinese in particular Know what's going on in his phone right and know what he's saying on his phone knows what he's typing and that's just the

That's just the reality. So no, I don't, there's no reason to believe that things have gotten better. Listen, the Democrats have been messy with national security. A lot of people, the way we do our national security is really porous. And we have an enormous landscape in that regard. Is there any way to solve that problem? Because what typically happens is there are these investigations. These are very serious crimes.

crimes, really? Is there a way you could just say from tomorrow forward, if you have signal on your phone, you will be prosecuted for everybody? Yeah. I mean, the problem is, is that two competing...

demands. One, these people have to talk to each other in order to know what, I mean, the best possible circumstance. They're talking about plans and operations and intelligence that they're getting. The challenge is that you do that most securely from a SCIF, a secure facility. It could be like almost even a tent within a room that presumably is blocking people's collection activities. But

That means you have to go to your SCIF every time you want to call the defense secretary. It means you have to, it's not reasonable to ask busy people. I mean, obviously within the White House complex and the Defense Department and the State Department, there's rooms next to your office that you can go to, but it's really difficult. And by the way, we don't even know for sure. You always find out later that, oh, the

Four years ago, the Chinese figured out a way to listen to the skiff in the State Department. I don't know. But so there are technical issues here. You know, there's the high side and the low side. The high side is the government

language for closed systems. They are not connected to the internet. They are just communication devices talking only to each other and they're monitored directly by the... And the low side is regular communication. Signal is good. The problem is signal works and you have it on your phone. I mean, signal is better than WhatsApp. It's better than whatever you're using to text. And so there are challenges. But I'll tell you that the actual issue to me or an important issue, Pete Hegseth,

Okay, so Pete Hexeth on the Signal Chat starts...

telling the members of the signal chat, which include the vice president, the CIA director, the national intelligence director, and me. - And one of their cousins, but go ahead. - Yeah, and when they're going, when the-- - Is happening, right. - When the attack is happening in two hours, like the bombs will, literally, like the bombs will start dropping in two hours, so I'm looking at this, and see, this is a human frailty, this is not a technical issue.

Pete Hegseth did not have any good reason to put that information into signal. The vice president doesn't need to know when the tomahawks are being fired from what ship. Correct. He was showing off. He's cosplaying Secretary of Defense. Yes, I'm aware. This is what I realized. And I thought to myself, but he doesn't have to cosplay Secretary of Defense because he is Secretary of Defense. Right. You need to just chill.

And just understand that we all know you're Secretary of Defense. You're cool already. You've got like an armored limousine and you've got guys with guns protecting you and you get your own plane. The plane, the Secretary of Defense plane is literally called the doomsday plane. What's cooler than that? Right. And so this is the problem of inexperienced, unserious people taking on very, very grave jobs. Right. I do understand that. You can't account for that. No, you can't. There's no technical fix for that.

for that kind of unseriousness. - Unseriousness and insecurity and possibly three bourbons in. - I'm not saying that, you are. - I am saying that. - I know, I heard you. - We'll be talking about the New York Times story on Elon's drug use in a second. Please read it while we're waiting here.

It is serious, but it is serious. These are national security issues. Military people could be in harm's way very easily. Literally, they're sending pilots to a place, Yemen, that has anti-aircraft capabilities, and I'm sitting on my phone reading about it. And you know this. And would you be in touch with the people who want to attack those people? It would be a real problem.

For them. An indefinitely one. It's not a situation you want. So this is a quote from Adrienne LaFrance, the executive editor of The Atlantic, which you run. She wrote, unless Trump's power is checked and soon things will get much worse very quickly when people lose their freedoms, it can take a generation or more to claw them back. That is, if you're lucky.

What should Americans do to check this power? In this case, it's President Trump. He happens to be there. But any executive's president's power, when there's this much sloppiness and lack of care, and how much time... Writing something like that in Atlantic is a pretty tough sentence to write. I don't like to get overly prescriptive, because our job is to tell people what's going on and try to analyze what it means. But I...

Think that's a good piece of analysis of what's happening. I mean, I've been focused lately, you know, it's it's after four or five months of this it's good to sort of

Take a long walk. Think about the enormity of what's going on. Because we can't... I don't think cognitively we can get our... This is too big to get your mind around all of the changes. Just talk about... Spend the entire hour talking about corruption. That's my next question, but go ahead. Okay, well then we'll do five minutes on corruption. But...

Any one of these subjects is enormous. It's like we're having a Watergate-sized crisis every day, or maybe three times a day, depending on how many planes Cutter is giving to the president on that day. Nothing is... Look, the courts are obviously still active.

Republican appointed judges are still active in checking power here to some degree. I mean, you know, there's 20 different things going on, whether it's immigration or Harvard or this or that. And much of the press is engaged in a

muscular way. Much of the press, because of bad ownership, is not engaged in as muscular a way, or fear, as it should be. But there's still a very, very active press. We know about most of the things that we know about are because reporters found them out. But if you don't have Congress in there, there's no... The system only works when you have three co-equal branches of government. And Congress, under the control of the Republican Party...

which is not the Republican Party anymore. It's the party of whatever Trump decides.

It doesn't the whole thing doesn't work. It will eventually grind to a halt if you don't have congressional oversight real Honest to goodness congressional oversight of what people are doing so that the judges are straining The press is under attack constantly But the most important component in any of this the congressional check on presidential power That doesn't exist in in the current state because the Republicans are

too frightened of him, or many of them just go along with it because they like it. So I, you know, it's like, you got to focus on Congress in the next year. And that's what you'll be focused in on. I'm focused on a lot of things. But I mean, I think, I think, again, one of those stories that's too big to be believed in a kind of way is the abdication of individual responsibility. A lot of people were sympathetic to Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska, when she said, it's very scary, and I don't like to do it. And people...

I'm sympathetic in an abstract sense, but leadership is not supposed to be easy. It's like your job. And by the way, she's obviously an outlying Republican on these questions, right? She's not marching in lockstep. But having an American leader, an elected member of the Senate, tell the American people that she's scared. Come on. Your job is not to be scared. Right. OK, fine. And you're in your in your night sweats.

in the darkness in the pit of night in your bed. You can acknowledge to yourself that you're scared, but that was... Disturbing, to say the least. It's disturbing because... And in some cases, they're not scared. They're actually going along. It's not just scared. There is a level of fear. No, no, no. There's people who love it. Right. And then there are people who...

know that he has authoritarian instincts and they they just are like I'm not gonna Withstand not crossing. Yeah. Well, I'm not gonna like subject myself to social media pressure or actual violence So we we've never seen speaking of corruption a president monetized the White House Like Trump and Scott and I talk a lot about this on pivot is ignore all the distractions even Harvard

Look at the money. Look at what's happening here in terms of giving money to the very rich or taking money for himself. The crypto grift is particularly blatant. But crypto is popular in a way it burnishes his credentials as an outsider. And crypto money helped swing this election. There was a great amount of money in Ohio and other places. So talk about what brazen, explicit corruption does. Now, we've always had corruption in our government at some level. But although...

The lack of trust in other stock markets, like the Russian stock market and others, has created a tiny stock market. Ours is roaring because people do have trust in the idea of it. So how do you think this brazen sort of corruption is going to play out? Well, deeply corrupt governments and societies...

Don't work very well and sometimes they bring themselves to a crisis point at which point the people say enough and something Good happens out of that. So I mean, I think that's ultimately where we're heading unless unless The American people who are supplied with cheap calories abundant video entertainment and actual drugs just have given up on the idea of standing up for

American, traditional American principles. I mean, we have to consider that as long as you, as long as you feed people enough food and give them enough diversion. Um, I mean, it sounds very Roman cause it is, um, bread and circuses, bread and circuses. Um, maybe it won't, but you know, there's this, you know, generally speaking, um, corruption means that, um,

things don't get done that the people want to have done. They're building roads to good schools, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe that leads it. In the meantime, I think it's very interesting. I think that many of the people around Trump believe that it's not corruption because it's transparent. Right. They've said that to me. It's really interesting theory. It's like, what,

We're not hiding anything. We're just taking the plane. And he was asked the other day, I forgot which foreign leader said, if I had a plane, I would give it to you. This was last week. South African. It was a South African president. And Trump said, I would take it. Right. I mean, it's a very, I don't think Abraham Lincoln would have the same reaction.

Right, right. To that kind of transactional cynicism. So explicit corruption. Or Richard Nixon, by the way. I don't think Richard Nixon would have the same reaction to that kind of transactional cynicism. I like my money under the table, would be his policy. Hypocrisy is actually useful in some way. At least it's a recognition that I'm doing something wrong. I think that he literally doesn't, Donald Trump doesn't think there's anything wrong with enriching his family

openly by using the White House as a kind of As a kind of money-making. Yeah, I've called him a coin operated president. Right? That's funny. But thank you Yeah, good with those phrases. Do you know what tech bro stands for technically broken? I have a lot of them Thank you. Thank you. Feel free to use them. But what is that? What does that do? How do you then? investigate that when they're doing the criming in plain sight and

You know, it's hard because... And by the way, they're pretty competent at it. I wish they were as competent at governing as they are at criming. Building bridges would be cool too, right? It's interesting because a lot of the energy in investigative journalism comes from exposing the cover-up, not the crime. I mean, there's cliches around this, right? So...

they don't give you any room for your big revelation it's like imagine how much power there would be in the headline trump secretly takes 747 from cutter dictator right

There's no, there's none of that power and none of that energy because he just says, yeah, I took it. He says, yeah, I took it. I mean, by the way, that's one of his, that's one, one manifestation of his political genius. It's like he doubles down on the thing that ordinary people would be embarrassed about or have to explain, right? That this is why he's,

This is why he is successful. He has figured out something in the shamelessness and in the sort of, again, the cynical transactionalism that is his actual ideology to the extent that he has an ideology. So again, like Signalgate, is there any accountability then in the end? Or is at some point it gets to be too much or just voted out of office? Well, if you don't fix these problems and they don't take that problem seriously, then

Eventually something bad happens. There's a non-zero chance that something bad happens because they're sloppy, unserious, incompetent, blase, whatever you want to call it. Somebody, God forbid, will get hurt or killed because they have no control over their information flow, just used in the narrow signal gate sense of the question.

There are real-world consequences to incompetence and this kind of cynicism. And on the one hand, we know that Donald Trump is, above all else, lucky. He's the luckiest man in America, right? But on the other hand, eventually, you know, you come to a situation in which real lives are affected. On the other hand, I have to say, serious studies have shown that

had Trump's reaction to the pandemic been different early on and throughout the pandemic, and if the Republican Party or elements of their own party hadn't convinced large numbers of their own followers that vaccines are something to be wildly distrusted, many more Americans, and by the way, Republican voters would be alive today. Right, so there isn't a price. There doesn't seem to be a consequence for, I mean, I've never seen a political party

Hurt so many people. Of their own followers. It doesn't make any... Nothing... Makes sense. Here's the thing. When you just accept the fact that nothing makes sense, it becomes easier to understand. Okay. Got it. Okay. So we're living in a simulation. So speaking of that... Through the looking glass. Right. Like, it's just... It's read Alice in Wonderland. Right. So speaking of incompetence, Elon announced he's leaving Doge and the administration. He bad-mouthed the president's deficit-busting bill on the way out. He hasn't deposited...

The $100 million he pledged to Trump, it's not surprising. I did notice that they were eventually bound to leave each other. That said, they are declaring it a victory, of which it is not. It probably has cost the American people more money than it's saved. I think the White House is sending a $9 billion rescission package to Congress, which is how much we spend on...

probably paperclips. Talk a little bit about Doge and Elon's effect. And I will note that today in the New York Times, something else we've talked about a lot on Pivot, according to the reporting, Elon is taking recreational drugs like ecstasy and psilocybin mushrooms on the campaign trail. He was also using so much ketamine that he told people it was causing him bladder issues.

How do you look at this Elon period in the Trump administration, which is supposedly ending, but definitely began with his $280 million he spent on getting President Trump elected? I did not know that ketamine has bladder side effects, by the way, until this morning. Well, now you do. Yeah. It's good knowledge to have. In theory. Yeah.

Have you taken ketamine? I'm just curious. I have never taken ketamine. I have. What's it like? Not good. Not good? No. Disassociates yourself? Yes, indeed. Why do you want to be disassociated? I was doing it for a TV series, and I wanted to understand what Elon's going through, honestly. I didn't like it. I'm not going to ask about bladder problems. Okay. I only did it once, so I'm fine. Okay. Well, good. I'm glad.

I think Doge is a sideshow. Yeah. I honestly think. Look, one of the tricks of populism is to conduct these performances of prestidigitation. Like, look over here. Look at the bird over here. Meanwhile, over there, like Elon's doing all this crazy, like we're invading VOA. Right. And we're going to throw all the journalists out the window and say, okay, fine. In the meantime, you have a serious person named Russell Vogt

who runs the OMB, that's management and budget, who is one of the primary authors of Project 2025, which is being systematically carried out. And he has, and others associated with that project, have a view that government should be radically smaller

the executive should be primary, right? The executive is not a co-equal brand. They have a philosophy here. - The unitary executive. - The unitary executive and that they're very happy that Congress is acquiescing and they wanna keep that. Russell Vogt is a serious man who doesn't take ketamine and cocaine and all the rest and has a vision and has staying power and has patience and focus.

and is going to carry out that vision. I'm not judging it, I'm just saying that this is what's actually happening. - Right, and so Elon is-- - Roosevelt is as boring as Elon Musk is exciting. - Right, with the chainsaw and the distraction. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, Roosevelt just goes to work every day and works. One of the things that you find is that, and this is true of the Hegseths and the Dan Bunginos and the Elon Musks, government is actually hard.

Right. Running things is hard. Bureaucratic complication is hard. Dealing with the law is hard. They're not equipped for that. Dan Bongino was almost crying yesterday on TV about how hard it is to be the deputy director of the FBI. It's so much harder than being a Fox host. And I'm like...

Really? Deputy Director of FBI is a hard job. Who would have thunk? Yeah. Right? So Elon Musk is the same thing. This is boring. This is annoying. People are actually not letting me do what I want to do all the time. Right, which he's allowed to do at his own company. The Treasury Secretary is cursing me out in the White House. I'm the world's richest man. I have my bag of drugs, and I have my electric cars and rocket ships, and I'm just going to go have fun. Watch OMB. Don't watch Doge. That's the show. I mean, I'm not saying that they didn't do...

They didn't have an effect in various departments. Damaging, right. Yeah, yeah. But the interesting thing is that, and I don't know the percentage to which the vision of Project 2025 has already been...

Maybe they're at 15%, maybe they're at 20%, I don't know. But they're moving. And they're going to create conditions in which, over time, the government is not capable of doing what the government was once capable of doing. I'm not saying that government was perfect, far from it, etc., etc., etc. But their project is to unravel the New Deal,

their project is to unravel the idea of a civil service and they're moving. So pay attention. How do you stop the distraction? Because again, this is something we talk about a lot because there's a distraction a day, whether it's Greenland or Canada as a 51st state or the plane, all of which are serious issues. How do you stop the distraction?

do you get away from the distraction then? Well, Russell Voughton, I think you're absolutely right. It's about making government smaller and rewarding wealthy people with tax breaks that will sit very heavy on future generations. It's about the money and the getting rid of government. Yeah, and ideology. And I have to be honest, I don't really understand the impetus for the ideology. Better government, sure. No government,

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me and doesn't make a lot of sense even from a red state perspective most of the things of the government do a purely a political meat safety Tornado prediction, you know and on and on and on and on and on so I don't I don't understand it The question is how did how do you how do you ignore the distraction given the distractions are so pretty from a media perspective? Donald Trump again is a genius

a genius of attention grabbing. And so good and natural at it. I mean, he's like, you know, what a leopard is to hunting prey on the savanna, he is to grabbing attention, right? So, like, you're dealing with a guy who's better at this than anyone. And he's trained up a bunch of people who understand, oh, it turns out you can get away with this. It turns out you can get away with that, you know? I don't know the answer. I do...

Here's one challenge, just from an editor perspective. When the Greenland thing started, I thought it was hysterical. Yeah. Right? What are we talking about? But he's serious. He keeps bringing it up. He can move 50,000 soldiers into Greenland tomorrow and say, it's ours. I mean, that'll destroy NATO. Right?

Denmark's a member of NATO. We're a member of NATO. He's invading another NATO country. Not something that you had on your bingo card either, right? The unserious thing becomes the serious thing. So it's very, very hard to know. I didn't think in December that the executive branch was going to go to war against Harvard University. That was not something that we could have predicted. And then when he starts complaining about things, it's amazing because he puts so many words out.

Into the universe. It's very hard to pick what to do. I actually don't know the I don't know the answer from a citizen perspective I know from a journalism perspective it means that we have to do triage all the time we do sit around and say what's actually important and what's entertainment entertainment and that's why

We covered Doge. Obviously, we wrote about it. But I think that Russell Vogt is a more interesting, consequential person in the government. We'll be back in a minute.

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We get an expert to send us a question for our guest, so let's hear yours. Hi, I'm Chris Grabs, first director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The big question I would ask is in the context of the current state of technology in the U.S. federal executive branch. From the Trump administration to the Biden administration, the U.S. government has encouraged the use of encrypted messaging apps like Signal, particularly in the wake of the Chinese spy service's compromise of government networks and telecommunications providers.

The most recent episode with this app creates an opening to have a serious discussion about how to safely and securely use technology to communicate even at the highest levels of government.

So what is your sense of the U.S. government's current efforts to adopt new technologies to ensure our civil servants, our leaders, our government employees have the connectivity they need to communicate in a secure way? Thanks a lot. So this is Chris Krebs, who was fired for saying the election was secure. He worked for Trump. And now there was an executive order which forced Chris out of his job. By the way, the Chris Krebs story.

episode is among the most serious. So I'm ranking what represents an actual threat to the American way of life, the American system of

accountability and governance. It's the attack on Chris Krebs. Very kind of Hungarian vibe here. And the craziest part of that is in the actual order, it said, in enumerating his alleged sins, it said, Chris Krebs denied that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Come back to Alice in Wonderland, right? You know, listening to, and I don't have a specific

I have a general answer, which is like, obviously, even if you had serious people in government, I mean, we know that we know that communication systems because of the acquisition process, because of all of the problems of enormous bureaucracies and the lobbying power of, let's say, larger traditional firms in Washington, like by the time

Many agencies adopt systems. The systems are outmoded and they can't talk to other systems. We know all that. But what his question reminds me of is one of my favorite quotes from E.O. Wilson, who said that the, mostly paraphrasing, but the central challenge facing Americans is

or facing all humans is that we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. So the connective tissue between our own lizard brain and the technology that somehow we've created are these institutions that are not capable of mediating between the two. And again, I come back to the human failure that we see in Signal, which is

not taking it seriously, not taking what they're doing seriously. And again, what are the eventual real world consequences of that? We don't know, but there will be real world consequences.

Let's talk about the Democrats for a minute. You recently interviewed Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson about their book Original Sin, whether or not you agree that Biden's team engaged in a cover up. Democrats clear of a problem with voters and their handling of Biden's decline as part of it. You interviewed Trump in the White House when you did. He said, I don't think they know what they're doing. I think they have no leader. And he told you he didn't see anyone on the horizon. You suggested governors Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear.

talk about where they are right now. Actually, that was a very interesting conversation with, you know, there's two Donald Trumps. There's Donald Trumps with the cameras on and then it's professional wrestling. And then when the camera is off, people don't

don't understand this, those who haven't met him, but he, in a strange way, is smaller than life. When you go in, he's like, oh, hi, hi, nice to see you. Oh, yeah, what's... And we had this conversation about the Democrats. It wasn't like the Democrats are scumbags or the Democrats are this. He was doing political analysis, and it wasn't bad. And one of the things he said, by the way, and he was asking this with what I took to be almost genuine...

I don't understand the answer to this question. He said 80, 90% of Americans are opposed to trans girls in girls' sports. So why do the Democrats keep pushing that? It's killing them. I mean, he's just asking as a political question. I think that gives you an insight into what he thinks are important issues that could break the Democrats. I think

writ large, the Democrats aren't really good at politics, which is probably a problem because that's their business. They're at risk of becoming basically a regional party. Coastal California, New England, New York City and environs, some, you know, Austin, Texas and whatever. They've learned nothing, it seems to me. I'm just trying to be analytical about it. They don't seem to have learned how to figure this out. Any party without power, which is what they are, they don't have any branch of government, um,

is going to have a bunch of, and we'll see this in the upcoming primaries. I mean, the 27, we'll see it. You know, everybody will use these derogatory terms for all these governors who are like, come out and try to convince you. There's a lot of talent on the bench. The question is, who breaks out and how they break out? They have, there's almost this, there's a sort of funny thing going on now where it's like they have study groups to figure out how to talk to men. Mm-hmm.

You know, I mean it's how it sounds like a joke. It's like maybe I just talk Yeah, you know use regular Andy Beshear is very interesting Obviously one of the very successful Democrat in a red state right wrong or Laura Kelly from Kansas, you know He will say things like you know, they want me to they want me to use the term I've heard him say this they want me to use the term justice involved individual and I said, what is that and I said

someone in prison. And I said, why can't we just say, you know, inmate? I mean, I've heard this from a lot of politicians. It's like the imposition of academic language or specialized occult sensitive language on things turns people off. I don't think they've gone through a process yet where they're figuring out how to be effective. How does that happen? Because there's a war of ideas happening. Ezra Klein and Atlantic writer Derek Thompson are championing abundance.

agenda. Jonathan Chait points out in the magazine a lot of progressives are less vehemently opposed. If Trump is this existential threat that you've just discussed, why is the argument so academic? And where do you see anyone breaking out? And how far does he have to go before the Democrats actually mobilize? Or does that just play into his hands? I'm just surprised by everything.

I mean, it is obviously a democratic crisis, a smelty democratic crisis we're in. The country's never seen anything like Trump or Trumpism. I mean, maybe Andrew Jackson, but very few people in this room remember Andrew Jackson. Huey Long, had he lived. Huey Long, yeah, but that was a local variant. I mean, he had a national following, but he didn't become president. There's a larger question, which these are questions I would ask you. Mm-hmm.

but I'm not because it's your podcast. I don't know if we can have a democracy the way we understand democracy in an age of social media. I don't know.

you know one of the things i always say this to it's funny i always say this to younger journalists um you know it's okay to say i don't know when you're being interviewed like i you know and then when i'm being interviewed i i'm always hesitant to say i don't know but i can't explain which is an answer in and of itself i can't explain to you why the democrats aren't in the street i don't mean in a violent way but i mean i just assumed

i just assumed that lafayette square would be filled every day with people protesting on behalf of academic freedom or immigration or rule of law or against corruption

I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of people are still paralyzed and in shock. They don't have organizing principle. They don't have people who are organizing them. And I don't necessarily... Is there anything you see at all? It could happen all of a sudden. You know, these things sometimes happen. Something breaks. I mean, you know, you would have...

Nobody understood that the George Floyd moment was coming until George Floyd happened. And then all of a sudden the dam broke. I mean, obviously, people who study it carefully know that there was a welling up of frustration and various factors that led led to that break. So maybe something will maybe something will occur. I don't I don't know. That's a very good answer, actually. We'll be back in a minute.

That was so sus.

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I want to talk about the news media business. The Atlantic is doing great. This has been actually a good time for you. In fact, for people who don't know, David Frum wrote a piece for The Atlantic in 2017 called How to Build an Autocracy, which was very prescient, actually. And you've been unequivocal about the danger. You keep bringing up the dangers that are posed

Having a strong editorial voice has certainly worked for you guys. You're profitable. You have over 1.1 million subscribers. 1.3. What? 1.3. Okay, sorry. Excuse me. It's okay. I have that fixed. I check my phone. I check my phone every 10 minutes to see how many new people have come on. Talk about the lessons you learned. Not too late for all of you, by the way, those who don't have it.

You've learned as a media operator. Now, you have an owner who's been willing to endure the lean years in Lorraine Powell jobs, someone who is actually not...

a fucking asshole, I would say, like certain people who own the Washington Post. So can you talk about that and then maybe look just very briefly about how you think that will change with AI affecting the news? I know you've seen this recent Google VO. I know you have partnerships with OpenAI, so does Vox Media. So talk

Talk a little bit about how you've done this here. Very quick. I'll give you a chance to celebrate yourself. I don't need to...

Especially when Trump is threatening news organizations. You know, the truth is, I mean, this is the thing, and we have to acknowledge it's true. Trump is my circulation manager in some ways. I mean, after Signalgate... Look, going back five years ago, six years ago, whatever it was, when I wrote a piece about how he referred to American soldiers as suckers and losers, they went ballistic and whatever, and all it did was generate...

interest in subscribers for the so so I you know He calls me scumbag and sleazebag and this and that any other thing Then we also have a nice time talking in the Oval Office. It's a very strange thing right now, obviously But he calls me these names and all it does to serve is is is to build up the Atlantic I mean, it's not the only reason look I mean so when I became editor nine years ago I was told that

Buzzfeed, Vox, Vice, HuffPo, Insider, Business Insider, Mike, they were all going to eat our lunch and we were going to die. We're a 168-year-old magazine founded right here in the great city of Boston. And they were all going to eat our lunch and...

And I went to so many presentations and so many PowerPoints and slide decks and theories of the case, and my theory is always make the best... This is not the baker praising his own bread, but my theory was the only thing I actually wanted to do, make the best possible quality, highest quality stories.

as many of them as you can make by writers who are known and appreciated by literate audiences, and then convince those literate audiences to pay for the privilege of reading them, just like any other business. Making a good product by using reporting. Make a high-quality product. I thought the other places, all those web operations, were doing mass plays. We'll get 100 million readers, and we'll get all this programmatic advertising revenue. That works until it doesn't work, but I want to have...

I much prefer to have a direct relationship with 1.3 million smart people who subscribe to the Atlantic and the number just goes up and up and up. Knock on wood. I hope it keeps going. But like, I,

It's like make a good product and then have a smooth system for bringing that product to audiences that will pay you for it is like the business plan. Is the basic business plan. Is the basic business plan. Is there something to make this good reporting more relevant to larger audiences?

I hate all this sort of new agey storytelling. Snackable content? No. We're not a snack. Yeah. I mean, we have shorter stories. Oh, come on. There's good Atlantic and bad Atlantic. You have snack. No, we have shorter stories. You do? But they're delicious snacks. They're delicious snacks. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Not just like kind bars, but like, you know, ho-hos and ringdings. Right. You do have ringdings. No, we have delicious snacks.

This is going down a weird path. We don't have a choice except to keep going and going and going. And I wish more journalism organizations would join us. You're right. We have an owner who is smart and tough, unlike the owner of the Washington Post or the people who run CBS or the people who think that they can make side deals with Trump. Trump and get away with it. Yeah. Yeah. That's just...

Silly and it's not good thinking but I think we just have to get better and better and better and one of the things I tell this is a little bit of you know Goldberg J school which would take six minutes to run. This is my you know my understanding of journalism and and people don't seem to understand as much as I should is that if the story isn't actually interesting to read people aren't going to read it if they're if your podcast isn't interesting and

isn't entertaining. People aren't going to go to the second paragraph. You know, I mean, there's this expression in journalism after the lead, it's just typing. And that originally meant work on your lead so that people read the story and then just put the rest of the stuff in. I interpret that a different way now, which is like, if you're, if you don't have an excellent lead that gets you to the second paragraph and the second paragraph doesn't interest you enough to go to the third paragraph, it's all just typing. It's meaningless. So we have to do, we have to do a better job of, of

telling our stories and presenting this information in compelling and interesting ways. But that's a craft issue as much as anything else. There's a lot of thriving media now, actually. So we're going to finish up with this quote, something someone named Jeff Goldberg wrote. The leaders of the Republican Party, the soul-blighted Donald Trump and the satraps and lackeys who abet his nefarious behavior are attempting to destroy the foundations of American democracy. He wrote that in 2021. Let's assume a Democrat wins the White House in 2028. Maybe they win in 2026.

and Donald Trump and the Republicans haven't managed to destroy the foundations of democracy. What is the first step people do, or do you think we are really in a situation of civic catastrophe and authoritarian? I mean, we're heading towards civic catastrophe for really quotidian reasons.

I haven't gone there to talk to people yet, but I want to. But let's take the Kennedy School at Harvard. It used to be that people would want to go into civil service and go into government work because they're idealistic. They know they're not going to make a lot of money and they want to do things. And many of them are good. Some of them are bad, but many of them are great at their jobs. I think we are rotting out the core of what government does because it's going to be harder and harder and harder to convince people to apply policy.

to go into this work and personnel is policy and personnel is destiny. And so that's actually the thing that I kind of worry about the most right now is that we're going to have, we're going back to the 1880s before there was a civil service. And that's not a great thing. And I don't think you just fix that by having the Democrats win elections.

I don't know how long the half-life of this is. Here's the thing, and I've said this in talks in Europe. People, you know, they're obsessed. Can I just finish with one quick thing? I don't know if we're having, as we approach our 250th birthday, I don't know if we're having a midlife crisis, a nervous breakdown, or experiencing a terminal illness. I just don't know. It's too early to say.

But you can change the course of these things. That terminal illness is not hospice ready. It just might be a very serious illness. But I just don't know which one we're doing yet. And I think it's too early to say. All right, we'll leave it at that. Jeffrey Goldberg, everywhere. Thank you. Thank you.

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