>>host: another virtual live talk event welcoming brian seltzer and judge up a towel - - and soon also the videos are on the youtube channel. today we discussed brian's book of his book hoax. welcome and you can take it from here. >> thank you very much i'm excited to talk to you, brian. i read the book. >> you actually read it? >> unlike all the other people

i have read the book. not only that, i highlighted it. [laughter] i made notes. come on. >> that's a phenomenon with the movie but people talk about books without reading them. >> sometimes when they are promoting the movie im working off your page. i feel i could do better than rachel maddow right now the goal is to go even deeper than she did. >> that congratulations on the book and these ideas of what is happening that we wonder

about how did this happen? how destructive is it and will it ever get better. but a question of how you got into journalism i got a sense that you were a journalism nerd the way i was a comedy nerd as a kid. out often interviewed comedians i would hunt down john candy or jerry seinfeld because i was obsessed and you did a version of the same thing. >> the only job i ever wanted in my life when i was five i wanted to be a trash man that was a big event in my house. was so amazed. ever since then i wanted to be a journalist.

some people will say the two jobs are the same. [laughter] and then coming in with the snow on the ground and hearing them say my name on tv. brian in damascus says there is 10 inches of snow. it was almost like fake news back then. >> i was always interested in television and journalism there's a lot that isn't but a lot that is. >> so was it a blog? describe what that was. >> the tv news version of

doing deadlines this was my attempt to obsess over fox and cnn. post iraq war and pre- katrina in the bush years msnbc was going left and fox news going right but back then to be honest it's a lot more grounded and a lot more reality -based when fox news started they talked about travel and medicine it wasn't politics all the time. >> it's about the evolution of how fox news changed so with

the movie network talking about corporations and buying the networks and the news and then suddenly they were servicing the needs of the giant global megacorporations and it was truly terrifying these countries own to the news and it seems to affect their choice what to present on the news and subtle enough. and what i found interesting is the creek at fox news which is 9/11 with the iraq war moving to the right and then

with president obama it moves more right it is like this organic adjusted one - - adjustment to just present this point of view and not even challenge the audience in any way. >> any turn is a turn to the right. that was true when obama took office. there is a female speaker of the house and then they are promoting that. but that's all a comparison when trump entered the race and fox hitched on that is the ultimate turn with the owners

versus the audience it so complicated it is partly on the owners which is murdoch which is the audience but over time and what we saw with the media it has become more extreme the rhetoric is more extreme over time but then sean hannity was on fox journalism was dead. >> &-ampersand entertainment with movies and television they chase the concept which will bring them the most money maybe you had to go tv then it's about horrifying crimes

and csi and law and order that reflects the desires of the audience. then you can see there is a lot of shows like kids being murdered with that algorithm and people must want to see crime shows of women and children and being victims of violence. and then the studios realize we do big spectacles may be we make $1 billion with a small drama because you will not make a billion dollars off of a small drama and when fox news they decided and if anyone is in charge of journalistic standards this is

raw we create a situation they don't take the pandemic seriously and white nationalism and supremacy, we need to make an adjustment but on some level to lose money if they went on the air to say trump is really lying about masks or the vaccine safety. so they don't do it for financial reason. >> that's true but i don't know if it's on the mind and it's by remote control and cruise control. individually i don't think

this company will be less profitable to fact check trump but what you say they do turn on the people of fox so the 5:00 p.m. eastern time in the next hour is special report and then when the newscast comes on viewers don't want to watch it is much as the trump propaganda. >> one example i thought was interesting is when the pandemic started a lot of the voices of opinion would say things that like the flu and

70000 people died in many years and we will not even get close to that with that overreaction it's the democratic hoax and now we close in a 200,000 people dying clearly the numbers will go way beyond that. but on the news side to say it's not a big deal that was about 200,000 and pretty soon we need to take this way more seriously. you never get that but it's hard to imagine people in the board room to say we cannot challenge these people because he will lose money and then to

make a conscious choice to say the information coming out of this network people who watch fox and they wear a mask less often and they don't social distance so more people watching fox are dying versus other so our lack of interest to really educate people about the dangers, people are dying and it is a conscious choice not to make that an important part of what they present spent the history of this from february or march is so damning and with this pandemic

but when trump and hannity injection of the virus that the democrats are making up a hoax even that use of the word it is so dangerous it gave permission at the end of february and beginning of march. and then i made the timeline what were they saying february and march and trump at the white house. and it lines up unfortunately perfectly. both fox and trump started to change their tune on the same day of march.

and then wondering if they were taking it too seriously but then it's too late. and then so many people a lot of people make mistakes but american made mistakes but trump bears more of the blame because he is the ultimate leader of the country. and then to downplay the threat like he left the back or the front door open and close the back door and that's

how it entered the us. >> but it was made as a decision because at the time of this taping the republican conventions are on. i saw almost no one wearing a mask. the president wasn't in the middle of the crowd. i'm sure they say we tested everybody but the signal to the country is it is okay. and the issue is that will get noticed on other networks. if they were all wearing masks that is a signal for a powerful message when people walk up to the podium and that at fox news even points that

out it is a rupert murdoch decision to not create that in environment we are allowed to say that and that will be punished. because one thing you go against what trump said. but then the booking start to disappear now hannity doesn't have you honor tucker carlson and with that conditioning to challenge the president you may lose your job and your presence will diminish i thought that explained and with truth to power.

and that cnn i am to be as accurate as possible because if i am not i will be held accountable. and i have made a couple of my stakes at my on - - mistakes of my time and i have been in the doghouse. it just doesn't work that way. there is not a standards of practices or the same type of journalistic bidding. so to lean into the propaganda and pro trump nonsense. there was lack of clear leadership @-at-sign fox that

is the reality of how this world works and that's how it prints money. $2million in profit and then reprint money but the best story is about judge napolitano the top legal analyst in one of the most interesting characters. they are all friends that he is a lawyer and understood trump was guilty of crimes that obstruction of justice was proven and he called it out and was shunned by trump.

he tweeted about him repeatedly he wasn't getting booked on the shows the lost timeslots and maria would only book him on non- trump stories otherwise it would not go well. >>host: trump is calling the network constantly complaining about the coverage and that's what's interesting in the book. it's very specific how often he calls rupert murdoch or hannity and he has the constant dialogue with the networks. they do now because it has come out that according to the

book he has almost constant communication with sean hannity he calls him before and after the show. if certain ideas are coming from fox and friends are people like sean hannity or the president he's watching the network. and that they are both manipulating each other but it's also in a way i don't think the audience understands and the most troubling example is talk about tucker carlson how the united states should not attack iran last year and that may have been an important reason. talk about that story. >> when ayn rand struck the

american drone and how trump would respond he claimed missiles were locked and loaded and the retaliation is about to begin. and what we now know he called tucker carlson before hand. but he had been on the air he was advocating against john bolton and striking i ran. but trump needed to hear it again. and needed to hear from tucker again. he called him up. he will not call the white house but if they call him he will answer.

and it's much more proactive. so the president calls and says what should we do and he says exactly what you said on tv. and carlton later told friends trump needed reminded of who he is. that's not my they voted for you. so i'm glad tucker is running the country and not sean hannit hannity. that's a ludicrous thing to say but there is a degree of truth and with those policy impact on - - impact so there was a fox military analyst he was on the air talking about the time in the eighties when america actually shut down a

plane killing scores of innocent people. trump never heard that story before when he heard it live on fox it impacted him. so i'm thinking we are in a situation the president doesn't know basic history but he is hearing some of that on tv. but the number of examples of the president getting information from fox could have filled an entire second book. literally there are thousands of times. >> you would think the people that work at fox would be terrified. if i was murdoch and i was aware my host had a direct line to the president and says he does not want to have that type of relationship with the

presiden president, that would be a position you would not want to have. as an owner of the network giving out information during a pandemic from my soul i would want to file saved lives and communicated properly. certainly you can understand how a network could be right leaning and what lower taxes antiregulation but covering for president who doesn't seem mentally equipped to handle a pandemic and with that information you are supporting it requires a level of greed or disassociation not to be horrified that tucker carlson was concerned he wasn't taking it seriously. >> the white house asked him to go. he didn't understand the

gravity and tucker is the exception to the rule. he was raising alarms on his show. probably because he has the anti- china view but he was raising alarms. and was asked to drive tomorrow lago. and that's what he did walk straight into the middle of a birthday party with a fox news reunion. and that didn't work right away because a couple days later trump is out there to engage in ridiculous rhetoric. not until the end of march 13

when both fox news and trump started to change their tone. even then we had limited impact see you have to have a doctor on the air every day so we don't spread medical misinformation. i do want to give them credit. they made changes that improve the tone of the coverage. however, within two weeks they said we need to figure how to reopen america, the terror cannot be worse than the disease than one hour later trump said the cure cannot be worse than the problem. he said we should reopen by easter. that was crazy and impossible. the entire country wasted four days on that idea. it all came to fox. nobody can ever know for sure how many people died that

would not have if not for irresponsible news coverage or presidential rhetoric. we will never know they say what we were doing it is hazardous to our viewers some say the coverage was outlandish. people see it and recognize what went wrong but i don't think there has been soul-searching institutionally at the corporate level that you talk about. not that kind of reflection. >>host: you talk about the large business deals they are making and it affects the coverage on fox news. working on sky tv deal that is when bill o'reilly was getting in trouble for the sexual

harassment cases. and it was a distraction and then you talk about the deal to have the movie studio and others acquired by disney. at that moment there was an adjustment in the news because they were trying to get federal approval. what's the story at that time? >> it's interesting because rupert is in the uk and he is worried the american network word embarrass him and that he is getting rid of the stench.

that's partly why o'reilly was let go. he knew about so many ghost and skeletons but it was just too disgusting and they were worried about business interests. and with judge napolitano he went on the air and said they tapped trumps phones. but then trump said asked the judge. and at the time murdoch wasn't concerned because it was the british government so your american network makes trouble for the rest of your global media conglomerates and that is while to see.

and it is revealing that rupert decides to sell but keeps fox news and fox sports and keeps the news division because that's what he cares about the most. . . . . mutualll relationships. so the theory says david trump tried to get at&t to sell cnn as

a condition of the federal government approving at&t's takeover of the rest of time warner. there is a theory folks do believe in corporate circles. they said we are not selling cnn. but the timing of the phone calls is very curious. i lay it out in the book. you look at the timing and wonder if murdoch was working with trump. >> the government did try to prevent them from taking over time warner and maybe it was hard to do that. why do you think more people don't speak out against this media company?

>> people are concerned about their own careers and money into thandfor the same reasons certan journalists won't speak out against trump. there are people on the progress of side that ultimately will still do business because that is who is paying for their rent. that lack of courage to stand up and say i feel this is wrong exists on both sides of the political spectrum. hollywood is shameless in their willingness to cozy up to people who they think are doing very unethical or even criminal acts as we see this with saudi arabia and with murdoch where the president is teaching children at fox news is providing cover for the end of not fighting hard against it.

the besfor the best possible information in a vigorous way to he made a choice to sacrifice his career and felt that it was nervous to make the statements he wanted to make in the civil rights. >> i wish murdoch would come on with you and take you on it until you. i say that because you never hear from these executives in public. and if you do, they show up on the pre- pandemic circuit, but rarely has he given a real

interview. >> the ceo of fox news media has given a handful of interviews ever and has never fully addressed with what she knew. >> they know that it's indefensible because i think that for many of them they've made a choice which is to believe something very simple and if it is the same for having these opinions out there, they say it on the radio. they say it elsewhere. and i feel like people make a choice about what to put out into the world. we all decided we want to be a good person or that person and if we want to sell out or not sell out. and a lot of people were very comfortable just not caring so you would hope they are tortured at home but they are not. they are just thinking there is

a lot healthier if we put them on the network we will make a lot of money and then they will be on another network. >> they are on the left, too. >> i think that is a rationalization that you could be okay with untold pandemic, until kids are in cages. >> one of the themes is that journalists do decide to leave and why do they decided to leave, and a lot when people leave fox news they don't usually say why. didn't even really talk about why and there's a lot of journalists people haven't even heard of and also commentators, you know. abby huntsman is one that came to mind. she was on fox and friends and her final straw was the separation policy when that story blew up in the

international news she found it to be so heartbreaking to sit on that couch on that morning show and listened to the colleagues defend it and have to tiptoe around the trump administration that she decided to leave you are hitting on one of the reasons you can justify it but a lack of other options.

you are not going to get one of the other jobs if you were really the theme of the faith of fox. >> how many have gone from fox to another network. meghan kelly tried. i argued in the book that she is the first example of someone saying i can't stay with fox anymore. it's not going to work for me. i am not going to produce the propaganda they want. there have been a few that have left successfully. katherine harris is a cbs reporter and said the bosses here are not strong leaders. it is their programming so there's a lot of those folks. the other reason some of them

say they want to make a change on the inside. they think that they can make a difference but the biggest reason is fox does feel like a family. they take care of their people. when injured in a skiing accident, they offered the company claim right away. those sort of things it's not just the private plane or super bowl ticket or the fact they got to design their own offices, that is a real emotion for people. >> when you give people an nice looking office and redo the carpeting every once in a while, people get sucked into thinking they are being treated well. although that you talk about in the book is how well paid the

biggest stars there are. what was interesting is the competition between the biggest stars. >> yes that's interesting. >> you were talking about bill o'reilly and how popular he was but when he disappeared, they moved hannity up and there was a competition between tucker carlson and hannity and laura ingram. >> sean hannity, if we go back to o'reilly, he was always number one, by far. hannity was always second. and that relationship was not really a relationship at all. two men didn'the two men didn'th other, they didn't like each other, but they studied each other's ratings very carefully. interestingly though, when he goes overboard in 2017, hannity felt sorry for him and even invited him on fox ching there a

lot of staffers about why are you allowing someone with a history of sexual misconduct. or the fact that hannity is the boss. when they say who is in charge of fox, he says i am and it's not entirely true. he isn't the second coming is now number one. with tucker carlson and sean hannity there's tension because of the ratings but hannity came to power during trump and yielded that power whether it's through conspiracy theories, feeding the president of the information, that program i know some posts have split ratings in order to say come on my show, not their show. there's an internal competition

because that is the shortcut to relevance. >> a detailed debate could disturbing detail they would kiss his because the interview they been in stature and fox news which becomes a disincentive to ever speak out against the president. >> or challenge him in interviews even. there are multiple staffers at fox and friends of sean hannity that is a she called the president crazy. of crazy. he describes the phone calls to the president as so stressful. when he became number one at fox, he was the biggest star. i thought that this would be a huge wonderful time in his life. >> can you imagine having donald trump call every day wanting to

talk to get your advice and then he actually takes your advice? that's like every person's worst nightmare. i was at a play with a friend and we bumped into the owner of the patriots and my friend confronted him with his friendship with the president when we got out of this brief talk, all these wealthy people are basically buying the phone time with the president and they are aware the last thing they say may affect something donald trump does that day or the next day. he is surrounded by fans that have agendas. >> if you were advising the presidentpresident, you need tom and not hurt him. one of my arguments and folks is when hannity tries to help trump he also hurts him.

here's my perspective, he's tried to do a service that actually doing a disservice by focusing on cultural war stories and feeding disinformation. he actually heard the trump presidency. whabut if the president hadn't e it into fox. what if he had been surrounded by people that turn off the tv sometimes, who tried to help him focus, what they have gone differently. but this addiction to fox hurt the president over and over again. in march, trump was calling hannity asking how are the ratings, he wanted to know how he was raging. disgraceful but he was talking

about that metric. a good friend would have said do not talk about your ratings or ask about them again. focus on saving lives. and it seems he doesn't have that kind of relationship. he has these fans looking for his attention and get him on tv that they are hurting him instead of trying to help them. >> we are learning that certainly he had some sort of mental health issues that we will debate. >> you're not allowed to say that. not allowed to talk about that. >> so clearly what we are learning from mary trump, the common knowledge in the family what is wrong with him as a

person. he wants to call in to say he is slipping clearly camera, television, you are aware some is happening and the ability to understand kant's complex facts so you need to understand science he can't get there. there's nthere is no way to getf someone said to him if everyone in the country wears a mask, you could probably open up and do better and maybe we should use this as help opening up masks and social distancing so we both could support opening up, but really safely. but he won't do that because someone got to him about how it doesn't look cool to wear a mask or whatever that is. we lose our freedom if we wear a mask. so come he can't even make a simple rational choices which

help him. i always think about the student debt. if he found a way to help people with their college debt, the amount of people that would vote for him would be ridiculous. he could get reelected but he won't consider it due to some business interest about it, and i think that is what we realized that there's something wrong because he will not do the easy things that would help them. >> i have reporting in the book from 2017 where policy executives and other prominent figures of the network were saying to me he is not well and this was especially in the wake of charlottesville where there was a national wake-up call. these are that were in touch and they are saying that in the same concerned way that you talk about a grandfather went a

grandfather or grandmother is sick. i wonder if we will look back at the trump years and to say is that what happened, is that what was going on. and i'm saying this because they are the ones more in touch with him than anybody at cnn or any other network. they have the same interest. they are looking at his acceptance speech on the south lawn and they have a special place to anchor the program. that is the kind of example of the special treatment that we have seen throughout the trump presidency and it makes it difficult to imagine a scenario that they would break with him in any serious way.

>> how do they train the audience to believe any facts that doesn't come from a president and if they don't believe the president, they also don't believe the other side and that in all situations you don't trust information in a very orwellian way. how does that evolve? splenic this is fundamentally because broken about the information ecosystem and it isn't just fox or trump that broke it. there've been decades of messaging from the right-wing outlets and advocacy groups saying you cannot trust the biased media. but a new level first during the campaign then saying fake news in january, 2017, then saying enemy of the people and hope it's a hoax, to one today. it's like he's trying to shock us more. people have become numb and he

feels like he has to shout it out louder and louder to get us to notice and listen. the good news is most people don't listen. most people know that when he says it's a hoax, it's just another hoax. >> so when he says news, it could be interpreted as a mistake >> someone is trying to trick you or for you or hurt you. there is a nastiness to that word. this is why the feedback loop is still moving.

there is a dishonesty to plan they get the facts wrong and then trump gets the facts wrong in the cnn points out trump got the facts wrong but we also need to point out he was misinformed from their. so it goes back to what you were saying earlier and the responsibility and pressure that you would feel if you were the owner or the inker or the producer. to get it right and to be careful and to be precise. but instead would have been that fox and friends is the use of his attention as a retention tool meaning when they were thinking about leaving the show the boss said you get to influence the president. he tweet what you say. you don't want to lose power here.

>> the rich story on fox and how they never took responsibility for it. it revealed a new level of cruelty in the attempt to make the president look good. so, the story about a young man who was murdered was being used as a way to a crazy conspiracy theory which would be the reason for attacking incident. can you explain how that happens? >> it was an attempt to say it wasn't russia. by the trump off the hook about russia. at the moment james coney had been fired and trump proportions into the office of another so this attention that applies to russia and what is going on.

fox starts airing this murder mystery programming where they say maybe when he was shot to death one night in washington, maybe it's because he's the one that broke into the pnc and weeks all of those e-mails. it's a way to say this was an american thing. it's an inside job. don't blame russia. and to move on from all of that stuff. that was the narrative on fox. they saw it as a lie and had a little bit of coordination with the white house because we know the folks behind this had a meeting with sean spicer at the white house and this mystery narrative went on fox for a week. they basically said to take my

child's name out of your mouth and finally after week, he went on the air and said i'm not going to talk about it for now. i'm going to keep investigating but out of respect for the family i will stop talking about it now. it's an example of pushing the narrative, the conspiracy narrative that had no connection to the truth. but i have to say in all of the years, it is still the most single shocking example of the standards and betting as a network which is why i wrote a whole chapter on it because you have to understand it shows the lack of leadership. >> and a level of cruelty to data shows their interest in protecting the president has now led them into some dark places and one might say that that was the beginning of the idea of

conspiracy theories and people's interest in them being used to distract from them what's actually happening. >> such an important word, distract. so much of what goes on is about the trusting and distracting from the scandals in this wise. fox is more anti-democrat then it is pro-trump. when in doubt that they just attack joe biden. it's not that they are always defending trump, they are just trying to destroy the other guy. >> the doesn't that lead to the potential for violence, it leads to violence sometimes, and now it is the mainstream. thbeing mainstreamed. the president was asked about it the other day. he treated it like it was any other political idea. he didn't act to give us something dangerous or the fbi said it was being investigated.

>> i'm going to interrupt you. this is fox news. that's how it goes every time. it was about this on every story. it's a themed russian soviet tactic where they make you think everybody is bad, everybody is wrong. that's what a lot of it has evolved into. but you are correct we know that they've warned about them. we know that the guy that sent the bombs in the mail to cnn and clinton and others, we know he was a fox news addict as well as a huge trump fan so we have this extremism and radicalization

with real consequences. >> when there isn't a strong pushback by the president or republican politicians, it is that dog whistle, that link like it might be true. so you get a couple of people that stand up, but it's always shocking how few republicans stand up, other than mitt romney at this point that there really are not for positions that are willing to do their jobs at risk to stand up for their relief -- belief. >> with romney, he knew he was going to get savaged by fox. he gave one tv interview and he gave it to fox. i think that he did that in part because he wanted the audience to have to hear out his audience. but sure enough, on the night trump was acquitted by the senate which you think would be the cause for celebration by the right-wing media that instead of

programming was all about mitt romney. they were focused on trying to excommunicate romney than they were about celebrating trump's acquittal. i guess there is such a negativity it's like hitting the rage button over and over again trying to keep people angry is one of the most cynical aspects of this. there ithere's other governmentt engage in it as well but fox seems to be the best at it. >> i don't think the audience understands that there is an economic system with all of these jobs if so if you are accepted by the republican or the democratic community and you are in good standing, there is a look into speaking engagements in details like the politicians they like if the they released m that it's not just the main job they are going to get all the connections and all this stuff around it and trump is basically said i'm going to hit you as

hard as i can hit you and there hasn't been a moment where they've been mike we are more powerful than you actually. we saw that with fox when trump started running for president. they didn't take him very seriously and there were a lot of people that now work for the president that were really hard on him. kelly ann conway, they were very anti-trumanti-trump, and the nek wasn't very pro-trump and then slowly they gave over to it. >> there's a quote in the book from a host of saying the untold story of fox and trump is now one by one all the hosts decided to get on the train. they looked around and solve the incentives, the salty opportunity. even hannity for example, his show was getting pretty stale before trump because there were conversations back in the days of roger ailes bush agreed with hannity, should we give him a

liberal cohost again to make the show or interesting. then trump comes along and he's the most interesting thing in the world. if you think about it that way, he's on the way to regain relevance. that happens all across the right-wing media. trump is a way to succeed personally and professionally. >> there doesn't seem to be a space on any of the networks for a real assessment of the ideas of the other party. you know, you'll never see something on msnbc about does the regulation actually help the economy. it does lowered taxes help the economy. that's a deep exploration of conservative ideas on the progressive and vice versa, thus don't ever seem to have been. you won't see on fox news. is there a way to do with immigration problems without teaching children? let's explore what else could be

done. and isn't that the saddest part about it is there isn't enough time spent exploring for a solution. >> maybe you and i should have a show together on cable news. >> this is the audition and i think i nailed it. [laughter] we will take a question from ted. >> we have some questions that were submitted. if one comethis one comes from t says do you feel cnn, so many of the criticisms is that cnn has alsalso caused an opinionated, w do you feel about cnn, in response to fox i feel that they've got an opinionated. >> the biggest change i've seen as a viewer and an anchor is they are doing these monologues and usually at the start of the show by the end of the show

sometimes four or five of the shows every day will have these essays where they are is talking straight to the camera trying to explain what's going on and i know some viewers that are opinionated, i know that there are ways to break down of the war on truth and try to win basically. sometimes the best way to fact check and rebut his lies is that straight to camera monologue approach. fox was doing it a long time ago. so i get that there are a lot more of those peace days. it's the most effective way to respond to the attacks and the lies. i guess what i would say it's not partisan to stand up for fact and decency and democracy. and what i see a lot of on cnn and msnbc is people try to do that and in the context of trump planning a lot of fake news,

they come across as anti-trump when it is trying to be for peace or democracy. >> there's no way not to seem partisan when the president lies ten, 15,000 times if you say he lied, people think you are partisan. >> january 24, 25th, where he says after taking office people voted illegally and if you don't speak out against that kind of crazy comment, then i think you are part of the problem. that's the dynamic that we are in because they are intrinsically deep down in our core dot comfortable speaking out in our own language.

they are much more comfortable clothing one side more than the other side having and having ae and an argument and that is much more comfortable for many writers but that isn't the way to tell the truth in this time. >> our next question both parties will have produced their own connections and then the next stage to present the candidates in the debate. the question is what machinations are taking place about who gets to be the moderator. that is a question saying do the parties have a say in who the moderators are or does the debate commission? >> of the debate commission is in charge of this, it is a bipartisan commission that has been around for decades.

it's almost like a vestige of earlier politics where republicans and democrats would work together on something. that is what the commission does. up until now most candidates have gone along with it. trump is committed to attending so the question is who will moderate. i understand it happens with all of the networks. certainly i would imagine tv agents and others would be angling for certain individuals to be considered. i do think it's good t it is goe complicated than usual because trump had so many objections and the commission said it's up to the commission and not to trump. >> he also wouldn't want somebody like chris wallace. it seems like anybody that has asked him a direct, not even a difficult question but a real question.

>> chris wallace would be an obvious option, an obvious candidate for something like this. and i wonder if trump actually like that of questioning. if you look to the answers the answers were quite troubling. >> what about the axioms interview when he started taking out his graphs that have like three bars on it. it's like they made the graph for a 5-year-old. it was the least complicated bit of information. what do you think the aftermath of that is what he does an interview with a real journalist but follows up and calls out on misinformation, do you think that window closes for anybody else that doesn't work for fox news? >> if he does any of those other interviews between now and

november i would expect he will want to go on fox very frequently. he goes on the major networks he's been on with abc. he's never given a cnn interview. if i were him and i wanted to show that i was bold and tough and willing to handle tough questions, i would go on the cnn. it would be a hell of a tv event, but i would be surprised if it happened between now and november. >> next question, a gentleman says i feel the media lost out and gave away too much with the daily pandemic press conferenc conferences. >> die in some cases airing misinformation. >> how do you feel about that and how could those have been done better? hispanic continues to be a tug

of war kintug-of-war kind of the there is discussion and debate within the news rooms. there's definitely a lot of different opinions about it. i think that there's one side that says if the president is making an announcement issued the broadcast and then it should be analyzed to fact check. there's another camp that says he had such a record of disinformation and misinforming that he shouldn't have the ability to just all of a sudden get air time. he had to sometimes put his needle and take the press conference live. this is interesting and this is relatively new. if he's giving a speech at the beginning we won't always show that lives but he's taking questions we will show it live because that way at least journalists are involved in are able to push back a follow-up. he has an interesting middle ground where with question and answer it will be shown live.

>> [inaudible] disappeared in this press conferencconference is started h trump on the fl side and he wast in a little bit and then slowly disappeared and it's become a campaign speech. >> i think that it is worth keeping in mind even if cnn, nbc, cbs were to stop carrying him live, fox but almost always run his event anyway so you will still have those direct connections and that is in favor of broadcasting live, interrupting when something truly outrageous happens, fact checking aggressively but to ignore his life event is also risky. >> don't you think on some level he's gotten boring? america looks to build people up and tear them down with any kind of celebrity at some point we just get tired and it does feel like we are tired and exhausted

from it and it's also not as funny anymore. the world has suffered and i get a sense of it further that margin of 10% that you need to elect joe biden people see all his moves. it's like when you watch kelly ann conway and understand how she evades questions. someone will ask a question about the pandemic and then she will just grab a word and go like speaking of pandemics, what about the pandemic of violence across the country and then she doesn't answer the question. i feel like we have all learned with their approach to all of this is and we are kind of over it. >> i heard from a few already but said they were surprised when i wrote in the book in the early chapters trump isn't a big rating anymore he does not boost

automatically when he's speaking anymore. it's true that he is too. there's no denying in 2015 and 2016, people were hooked. ratings but spike when he was on air. it doesn't really have been anymore. it happened when he was on fox sometimes but if he's giving a press conference, cnn ratings don't jump dramatically when he's on the air, msnbc sometimes declines. the data backs it up many people are just tired of it. and then the biden campaign is leaning into the. joe biden is running a make america boring again campaign that seems to be working. >> a question about journalism. what do you think is the future of journalism? newspapers are being severely impacted. pages are reduced, the depth isn't fair. whathere. what is the future of

journalism? >> all of the above. more of everything. what i mean by that is i think there is a future for print. it is a diminished future, but there's always going to be some segment of the public that wants to grow up just like the book with a magazine or newspaper. not that it's going to be a striking group, but it will be a luxury that still exists but increasingly [inaudible] of everything as we thought more complex and more resources, more devices. it continues to get more confusing to know what to trust. and in that environment where everything is a source and everything is a media company. i am a media company, you are, in this environment that is so chaotic i think we will see this return to old-school brand that has been around for a while.

there's the pink slime local news where they look like local news sites but they are from partisan activists. they are disguised to look like local news and i think in an environment where there's that much trickery and chaos going on, to go to the grand that you know has been there for 20 years, that's what "the new york times" is doing and the "los angeles times" house while. that's the direction that i see but i think for young journalists, the incredible time to be able to have the ability to reach so many people virtually individually. that is what makes me hopeful it's easy for them to start something new and start a new brand and gain trust, try to gain trust with something new if you're not in a place already established. the future is more of everything. all of the above. >> final question is a two-part

question from the same person that says if the president loses the election what you think he will do? >> i want to hear the answer first because i have a page of the book. what do you think? >> i think that a lot of times in our country people don't want to prosecute someone like donald trump because they feel like it creates more division and isn't worth it. i am certainly of the school that trains people if they commit crimes, we saw what happened with the big banks after 2008 where people were not held accountable, and i think that he's probably in for a life of legal problems. it seems the issue has to do with inflating a value of property in the deflating them to make more money in these situations is something that he

clearly will get prosecuted for it found guilty of because it is just getting the paperwork. he has the property and says it is worth $100 million if it is for tax purposes he will say that it's for 5 million i think he did it over and over again for decades. it's so clearly against the wall with all these other things we talk about tax purposes unless the state of new york th besidee don't want the trouble with this. he's going to spend the rest of his life in court. >> in that scenariand that's anl still be talking a lot about donald trump. if there is to be a criminal action against him we won't need another court tv channel to cover it all. >> it all comes out eventually.

every person will write a book and a fair amount of the tell-all that will be surprised. i know that there is a book coming out soon someone wrote about her on the inside and defend the michael cohethenby mt in a few weeks. >> i'm glad they came back before that. >> your timing was good. >> now they know what will happen once he is gone but that's true for fox. i don't think that it's clear if he loses the election will he launch his own television network and to try to get a show on the channel then they would

think he's bigger than that. there is some concern about th that. but one thing that we know for sure is people will still be talking about trump no matter what next year. >> the final question we haven't heard much about anonymous insider and the administrative op-ed. any idea who that may be? >> i don't have a good guess but even though they were anonymous and there's been a lot of criticism they shared with a

shared and there is going to be so much that comes out of this is a one term president there's going to be so much that comes out. so many books have so many towels we will probably come away thinking we didn't know the half of it is still in office. >> taking notes of every insane thing he said for the last four years, can you imagine the private conversations on all of these issues on russia and ukraine and the pandemic? at some point we will hear how he thinks and his inability to think clearly in addition to the corruption. he doesn't understand where this can go and at some point they will tell us how he resisted doing logical things. >> baby sean hannity will write a tell-all. >> ketonehe owned the love of rl

properties. >> he had two clients, donald trump and sean hannity. this book was great. i learned a lot. i can't say that i've been able to read a lot during the pandemic due to my level of anxiety. i read books like rewire your anxious brain. i'm not reading that much for closure and namely beating did not lose my sanity. it's helpful to understand. >> you can find a book --

sometimes you want to write a book. this was more of a need. like i needed to write this because of all of the folks that were spilling their guts out to me. >> thanks again, gentlemen. donald trump, fox news and dangerous distortion of truth. it is available wherever books are sold. thank you.

good evening and welcome. i'm joined this evening by rick tyler the author data joined my friend and author john clark. good evening, gentlemen. welcome. >> think yothank you for having. it's an honor to be at one of