>> today at 7:00 p.m. eastern the live discussion with pulitzer prize winning off authorize been wood wear on this new book, rage, which looks at president trump's national and foreign policy decisions. watch booktv on c-span2. >> welcome to another virtual live talks los angeles event with welcome brian stelter to our series and welcome back judd apatow. all those videos are in our youtube channel. today we discuss brian's book, "hoax, donald trump, fox news and the dangerous distortion of truth. "i'll let you take it from here, judd. >> duvery much. i'm so excited to talk to you, brian. i've read the book.

>> you have actually read the book. >> unlike all those other miami who interviewed you, i read the book and not only that, i highlighted it. i made notes. i -- come on. >> this doesn't happen in movies where the movie critics don't watch the movies but i happens in books. people talk about books without reading them so grateful to you. >> people say i'm work off your wiki page. and i just want to be a better journalist than everybody else. i feel like i can do better than rachel maddow right now. i would don't go deeper. >> we have more time, congratulations on the book. i thought it was really great and helped organize a lot of

ideas pout what is happening at fox news that we all wonder but which is how this happened, how destructive is it, and is it ever going to get better or just a part of our world at this point that's never going to change? i'll start out with other question how you got into journalism. i get the sense from the book and you didn't spend a lot of time on this, that you were a journal glimpse in the way i was a comedy nerd as a kid. went off and interviewed comedians when i was 15-16. i'd hunt down john candy or jerry seinfeld to interview them because i was obsessed with learning about and you did a version of the same thing. >> only two jobs i've ever wanted in my life. when i was five years old, and i wanted to be a trash man. because that trash truck showed up once a week, was a big event in my house. was so amazed by this huge trash

truck. and ever since then i wanted to be a journalist and i know that the trolls out there will say the two jobs are the same. but the truth is, think as early as seven years old i remember calling into the local tv station, reporting the amount of snow on the ground, and then hearing them say my name on the tv, brian in damascus says there's ten inches of snow and i thought it was so crazy. they didn't know i was a kid. but almost like i guess it could have been fake news even back then. but i always measured very carefully. my point is i was always addicted to tv, all interested in television and journallity. tears there's a lot of television that is not journalism and the is. i learned at a young age. >> you started writing a blog about the news?

describe the blog. >> this is the tv in the news version of like micky at her height doing deadline, like, this was in -- my inspiration was more matt -- this was my attempt to be the drudge of tv news, of this was in me mid-02000's. post iraq we're, prokatrina, in the bush years when fox bass going right and msnbc was going left and a lot of hoe stories i was telling was cnn struggling to to the what to do in this news war. but back then i have to be honest, compared to fox now the network was lot more ground, lot more reality-based. when fox news started, they had shows about your pets and travel and medicine. it wasn't all politics all the time the way it seems like our whole world is now. >> a lot of the book is about is the evolution of how fox news

changed, and i kept think bought the movie "network" when i was reading the book, because it talked but corporations buying the networks and basically buying the news and suddenly they were servicing the needses of these thao giant global mega corporations and famous scene where he list all of the giant corporations in the world and it was truly terrifying and that really seems to be what has happened, which is the these companies own the news and on some level seem to affect their choice about what to present on the news, in subtle and not so subtle forms, and what i found interesting was just the slow creep at fox news, which you discussed, which is there's a 9/11, and then moves a little

more to the right, the iraq war, moves more to the right, and then with president obama, it moveds more right and almost like this organic adjustment to the desires of their owners and the audience to suddenly just present this point of view and not even challenge the audience in any way anymore. >> i like to say every turn fox takes is a turn to the right and that was definitely true in the mid-2000s. very true when obama took office. you think but the rise of the tea party. a black president and a female speaker of the house and all of a sudden there's these right wing groups, take my money. fox is promoting that in 2009. that was one of to the turns to the right and all pale in comparison to what happened in

20 a when trump entered the x-rays fox hitched on to the trump train. that was the ultimate turn and the owners versus the audience is so complicated and don't know exactly what the right answer to that is. it is partly on the owners, the murdochs and partly upon he audience and what we have seen at fox is the g.o.p. and all across at the right wing media. has public more extreme. the rhetoric is more stream -- extreme over time. 15 years sean hadn't any was on fox. he wasn't talking in that extreme way, that journalism is dead, until the obama years and then especially in the trump years. >> reminds me of entertainment because with movies and television they chase concepts which they think will bring them the most money so in the 70s you might have jiggle tv, and

then in other eras every show is about really horrifying crime and you have csi and law and order and the shows will reflect the desires of the audience. we see that on stream and see they're a lot of shows with kids being murdered, right? in the algorithm, for some reason, people must want to he crime shows about women and children being victims of violence and so suddenly there's an enormous amount of these shows. of in the movies, the studios realize if we do big spectacles maybe we can make a billion dollars and now don't want to make small dramas anymore because you're not going to make a billion dollars off of a small drama. seems to be in the -- with fox news, they've decided the money is this turn to the right. that's where the money is and if anyone at fox who is in charge

of journalistick standards said to everybody, this is wrong, we are -- we created a situation that is making people unsafe. they're not taking the pandemic seriously. they're a rise of white nationalism, white supremacy, we need to make an adjustment here. that on some level they would lose money if they went on the air one day and said, trump's really lying about masks, for instance, or the vaccine safety, and so they don't do it for a financial reason. >> i think that what you're describe is that is a true but i don't know it's on me minds of the staffers they're doing this. i think a lot of these -- a lot of what happens on fox is almost by remote control, it's on cruise control. at one producer said to me, so i don't think -- this is basedman interview with the sources

there -- i don't think they're individually thinking of themselves this company will be less profitable if we fact check trump. but what you're saying is true. the audience does turn on the people at fox who challenge the president residents lies and lying. and the audience turns away. in remarkable form. for example, the show the five, the 5:00 p.m. eastern time talk show on fox news, hugely high rated. the next hour is a newscast called special report with brett bayer. more than a million viewers churn the channel win in the newscast comes on. other empoock the newscast is also right lining but at least it's a newscast. vier don't want to watch is as much as the want to watch the pro trump grads and that's truth on fox. >> what i thought was interesting when the pandemic started, a lot of the voices of

opinion on fox were saying things that this is like the flu, and 70,000 people die in many years from the flu, and we're not even going to get close to that so this is a giant overreaction. it's a democratic hoax to the concerned at this level and shut down cities. now that we are enclosesessing in on 200,000 people dying clearly the numbers are going to go way beyond that. there's no one on the opinion side of fox or on the news side that says, wow, we were really wrong and we were saying this one a big deal, but enough that it's about 200,000 pretty soon, we need to take this way more seriously. you never get that, and that's what -- i know that it's hard to imagine people in a boardroom or

in murdoch's office saying that we can't challenge these people because we'll lose money but i think the conversations happen. i think they have to make a conscious choice at some point to not say to people, the information coming out of this network we now know because there have been people doing the questioning about this, people who watch fox, take the public less seriously and they wear masks less often and they don't social distance and that means more people watching fox are dying than are watch ago news services. so as a result of our lack of interest in really educating people about the dangers of this, people are dying and it is a conscious choice to not make that an important part of whatty present on their network. >> the history of this from february and march is so

damning. obviously rewrote the beginning of the book because of what was happening with the pandemic in this spring and summer. originally this book -- wasn't go to be called hoax but when trump and hannity used the work hoax in connection with the virus, and said the democrats are making up a hoax, even that use of the word, even though they weren't calling the virus a hoax it was still dangerous because it suggested didn't have to take this seriously. gave permission to their fans to kind of tune out the warnings about the virus at the end of efficient and beginning of march and that's why we title this hoax is because of that dangerous rhetoric. when i was working on this i made the timeline of february, march, what were they saying on tv-washes what trump says the white house it and lines up unfortunately perfectly. both fox and trump started to real cpr change their tune on the same day, the same day in

march, maybe not a co distance dense, maybe trump took his cues from fox and friend as he often does help started to -- in the way he did, take the virus more seriously and so did fox. so it was too late. it was too late. the virus is already found its way across the country, and so many people have let their guard down. i want to say, though, not only blaming fox and trump, lots of people made lots of mistakes. it's worth being fair to some governorred made mistakes and mayors made mistake but trump bears more to blame because he he is the ultimate leader on the country, going on fox, downplaying the threat. it's like he left the back door open -- he left the front door open and closed the back door. he restricts travel from china but the front door was wide open and that was travel from europe and that's mostly howl the virus

entered the u.s. >> and an adjustment has not been made because at the time of this taping the republican conventions are on, and melania spoke last night a fairly large crowd of people, i didn't see almost anyone wearing a mask. certainly the present wasn't marrying a mask and they say we tested everybody but the signal to the country is, it's okay. every time you see people not wearing a marx you tell people maybe you don't have to wear a mask, and i guess the issue is that will get noticed on the other networks, and on fox, you will not have a person at fox go wow, if you cut to that crowd and they were all wearing masks that would signal to people to wear a mask. a powerful message or even if when everyone walked up to the podium they were wearing a mask and took it off to make their speech. and i think the idea that nobody

at fox news will even point that out is an ownership position. a rupert murdoch, decision to not create an environment where you're allowed to say that or you'll be punish. what i found most interesting in the book was the idea that if you work there, and say you're one of the dread pundits -- contracted pundits if one day you go against something trump say and say it was inaccurate, your bookings start disappearing. suddenly maybe hannity and turker karl sorry dent haveow on and if you challenge the president, you may lose your job and your presence will diminish and then maybe you'll lose your half a million a year to giving your opinion about things and i thought that was -- explained very well. i don't thing the audiences understand that. the disincentive to speak the

truth to power. >> the incentive structures are what matter most. hi incentive structure at cnn is to be accurate and if i'm not i'll be held ant credible. a standards and practices department and bosses will call me out and that's how it should work. i try my best but a i've made mistakes and been in dog house. a moment i will have a tough conversation with my boss and that's the way shy should -- wat should be and doesn't work often at fox. some people that have standard end but there's not a standards and practices department. hairs not the same kind of journalistic vetting and instead the incentive structure is the opposite. it is to lean into the propaganda, lean into the pro trump nonsense because it's what the audience want the management

seems to want. the problem is a lack of clear leadership at fox. people dope know what the murdochs want from them and they keep doing what they're doing, but clearly to your point if murdochs wanted things to be different on the air they would be different. that is the reality of how this world works, and clearly they are okay with what has been going on, partly because it brings money, $2 billion in profits. that's the path fox news is on. $2 billion in profits a year and an executive said to me said we print money in the basement as a joke but the best story about these incentives is judge andrew napolitano. he has known trump for decades but he is a lawyer and understood that trump was guilty of crimes relating to ukraine and understood that the obstruction of justice had been

puech by bob mueller and called it out on the air and for that he was shunned by trump, trump hate tweeted about him repeated napolitano lost his time slots and wasn't getting booked as much. had a produce are from one show say that maria would only book him -- talk but nontrump stories because if they booked him about trump, he would get angry and get upset and it wouldn't go well. that is the perverse structure that is in place there. >> host: and trump is calling the network constantly complaining about the coverage and that's one that this is interesting in the book. it's very specific about how often he is calling rupert murdoch, how often he is calling hannity and he has this constant dialogue with the network. so, the audience doesn't realize i think they do now because it's come out -- that according to

the book he has an almost constant communication with sean tanty and talked pit him calling before the somehow and after the show, and that at this point, it's difficult to know if certain ideas are coming from fox & friends or people like sean hannity or from the president. he's watching watching the nut k and talking about things and there's the sense they're both manipulating each other but it's also in a way that it don't think the audience understands and i thought the most troubling example of it was you talk about tucker carlson talking about how the united states should not attack iran last year. and that may have been an important reason why we didn't attack iran. >> that's right. >> would you talk but that

story. >> this is when iran struck an american drone. downed an american drone and there were questions how trump would respond. trump himself claimed that u.s. missiles were locked and loaded. he had an compression to that effect saying the retaliation was about to begin when he called it off. and what we now know about that is he called tucker carlson before hand. i'm not claiming tucker was the only person that influenced him because he was not, but carlson had been on the air very much as a dove, not a hawk. he wad advocating against john bolton. advocating against the striking iran. and what happened that day was trump needed to hear it again. trump needed to hear it again. wasn't enough to watch it on the d or live tv but needed to hear el from thumber again. carlson has a position about trump that goes like this.

he's not going to call the what but if the white house calls he religion answer. hannity is more pro-active, carlson takes the calls when they come. in the president called carlson and asked what shy do? and he says, exactly what the said on tv. crazy to bomb iran and went through the rains and carlson told friends, i think trump just needed to be reminded what he believes. remind if who he is. that's not why the voters elected you. i had a guy at fox say to me i'm glad tucker is running the country and not sean hannity which is a ludicrous thing to say but there's a grain of truth in that about who is in trump's ear at any given time and what the policy impacts are. the other person that influenced trump that day, one of the others was a general, one of this fox military analysts named general jack keen.

keen was on the air talking about time in the 80s when america accidently shot down on iranian plane, killing scores of innocent people. trump may have never heard the story before because when he heard it on fox it impacted him i'm thinking to myself, we're in a situation where the president doesn't know basic history. but he is at least hearing some of it on tv. he i guess the only the worse would be if he never heard it on tv. the gun of examples of the president getting information from fox could have filled an entire second book. i could -- i had to cut so many examples because there are literally towns of times when he has been influenced by fox. >> you would think the people who work at fox would be terrified this relationship has evolved like that. if was murdoch and knew -- he

doesn't want that time of relationship with the president that would be a position he wouldn't want to have. i would think at an owner of a network give ought information during a pandemic i would just for my soul would want to feel like i had saved lives, communicated properly. certain you you can understand how a network could be right-leaning and want the to deregulate or lower taxes but when you get into the place where your covering for a president who doesn't seem mentally equipped to handle a pandemic, and you are creating space for him to give bad information which you're supporting which leads to people dying, it really requires a level of greed or dissociation to not be horrified that tucker carlson apparently in the book went to mar-a-lago to talk to trump but a he was concerned trump wasn't take thing the pandemic seriously.

>> a white house aide asked him to go. aides felt like trump did not get it. didn't understand the gravity of the situation and carlson was the exception of the rule when it comes topacks. he was raising alarms bass he has the anti-china view and fit into this narrative against china but was raising alarms so he asked asked by white house aides to drive to mar-a-lago and try to talk sense into the president and that's what carlson did. he walked interest the middle of a birthday party for kimberly gill foil. and even that didn't work right away because a couple days litter trump is still out there engaging in ridiculous rhetoric, downplaying the threat of the virus. it wasn't until the end of,

like, march 13th the middle of march when begs fox news and trump started to change their tone and even that only had limited impact. fox and friends was told you have to have a doctor on the air every day so we're not going to spread medical misinformation. so i want to give them a little credit. they made some changes that improved the tone of the coverage. however, within two weeks you have a host saying we have to figure out how to open america. the cure cannot be worse then the disease and an hour later trump said the same thing. trump said we should re-open by easter, the pews should be full by easter which was crazy impossible but our spire -- entire country waists for daytona idea and it all came from fox. i write in the book that no one

can ever know for sure how many people died who otherwise wouldn't have died were it not for irresponsible news coverage, irresponsible presidential rhetoric. we will never know. here's what i do note. i know staffers at the network are embarred by it now and say what we did was hardous to our viewer. a very senior executive at fox said to me some of our coverage was outlandish, so there are people who see it and they recognize what went wrong. but i don't think there's been a lot of soul searching institutionally, meaning like at the corporate level, the murdoch level you're talking about. i don't think there's been that kind of reflection. >> what part of the book i thought was fascinating, large business deals the murdochs occasionally making and it affects the coverage on fox news. so, when they were working on the sky tv deal, that was the

moment when bill o'riley was getting in trouble for all these sexual harassment cases and that possibly one of motivations for getting rid of him it was a distraction to them getting this sky tv deal closed and then you talked about the deal to have the movie studio and other business acquired by disney and at that moment there was an adjustment in the news because they were trying to get federal approval for this merger. what wills the news story at that time that it seemed to affect? >> first, the sky deal was because rupert is over in the uk, where the sky deal is. wants to take over the rest of this british broadcasting empire and is worried that the american network he had was going to embarrass him, 0 source said

rupert watched to get arrived the stench of sexual harassment lawsuits and complained and that's part live while o'reilly was let go and the truth is the murdochs had just signed a new contract and knew about the excel tan but they were worried but their business interests and we saw this when i mentioned judge footprint went on the air and claimed that -- judge minnesota napolitano went on the air and slaying obama tapped trump's phone from the british. and they die need that. and at the time again the murdochs were concern about this and didn't want to piss off the british government because the sky deal. you have cases where your american network is making troublefor the rest of your global media and that is a wild

thing to see. for the disney deal, it's revealing that rupert decides to sell but keeps fox news. he keeps fox sports. really keeps the news division. ... it's a theory and it goes like this, try, murdoch they become friendly. they have an alliance of sorts. a mutually beneficial relationship. even though murdoch, they called crazy and things like that have a mutually beneficial relationship.

the theory goes like this. did trump and murdoch try to get at&t to sell cnn as a condition for the federal government approving at&t's takeover of the rest of time warner? that is a theory that folks do believe in corporate circles. at&t passed, they said no we're not selling cnn. be the timing of the group of murdoch's phone calls to at&t is very curious. i lay it out in the book. look at the timing and you wonder if murdoch was working with trump on this. >> he did try to block them from taking over time warner. maybe it was hard to do when they had instant approval to do the disney periods connected to the fox deal exactly. >> just would it make sense to stop the other. been in hollywood that's why and hearing your take on the

book. why do you think more people don't speak out against this media company? >> i think people are concerned about their own careers and their own money. in the same reasons why certain journalists won't speak out against trump. you know there are people on the progressive side that ultimately will still do business because that is paying for their rent. and that lack of courage to stand up and say i feel this is wrong exist on both sides of the political spectrum. hollywood is obviously shameless in their willingness to cozy up to people who they think are doing very unethical even criminal acts. we see this in saudi arabia with the prince and saudi arabia. with the murdoch's, or even when the president is caging

children and fox news is providing cover for that, not fighting hard against it. you will still see the murdoch said awe of the parties. and they are not shonda for any of this. even now with the pandemic and you could say fox news clearly caught a lot of people there live by not helping provide the best possible information in a vigorous way, you will still see them everywhere. when you look at people like colin capper nick are really made a choice to sacrifice his career. he thought it was worth it to make the statements he wanted to stand up for stand up for civil rights. i wish murdoch would come on with you, take you on and tell you that you are wrong and tell you why. i say that because you'd never really hear from these executives in public. they do show up on the

pre-pandemic party circuit and the awards circuit. but when has murdoch given a real interview? >> never. >> the ceo talked to the media. she's only given a handful of interviews ever and she's never talked about. strictly know it is indefensible. they know it is indefensible. i think for many of them they have made a choice which is to believe something very simple. if they did not sit on our network they would say it on another network. it's the ultimate rationalization for having awe of these opinions out there. you know they say on the radio, they say it elsewhere. people make a choice about what to put out into the world. we awe decide if you want to be a good person or a bad person. we decide if it went to sell out or not sell out. a lot of people are very comfortable just not caring.

you would help they are tortured at home, but they are not. though i gathered a lot of kooks out there, with them on our network will make a lot of money. if we don't put them on our network they're going to be on another network. >> is crazy on the other side two. >> absolutely prayed that may be the rationalization you can be okay with until the pandemic. until kids are in cages. >> guest: one of the themes throughout hoax is a journalist who do defy. and a lot of the stories have not been told before because of people leave fox news they don't usually say why. like shepherd left and got a lot of attention. didn't really talk about why. and a lot of journalist people who haven't even heard of have left. also commentators. abby huntsman is one that comes to mind. she was on the view more recently but she was on fox and friends weekend as the

trump presidency. her final straw was the family separation policy. when that story blew up in international news in june of 2018, she found it so heartbreaking to sit on that couch on that morning show in listen to her colleagues defendants. and have to tiptoe around the trump administration, she decided to leave. she been talking to abc about going to the view. that what tipped her over the fence. either that other stories in the book about journalists who just said i can't take it anymore. but it raises the question of why do other state? i think you're hitting over the reasons. you can justify it by saying is free speech it is your opinion. there are kooks everywhere. i find the other reasons include money, we talked about money and how much money people are makin making. power, he gets influence the president, but also lack of other options. of this is a legit answer or

not. people say i don't know if i would get hired anywhere else. >> think you said that the stench of work in there you're not going to get one of the other jobs if you were really seen as a face of fox news. to try to think about how many people have successfully gone from fox to another network. megyn kelly tried bread i argued in the book that she is the first example of someone in the trump age thing i can't set foxing and more, it is not going to work for me. i'm not able to produce the propaganda that they want. she went to nbc and that did not work out. there have been a few who have left successfully. catherine harris of the cbs reporter. she is one of the schema that withdrawn last year end said the bosses here are not strong leaders. and they don't really want news. it's called programming, that is their term for opinion shows, programming. it is really an entertainment word. so she said the boxes don't

want news they won't programming so i am out. so there are a lot of those folks. it's one of my themes. the other reason that people mostly gave me for why they don't leave is some of them say they want to make change on the inside. they think they can make a difference. they can make the concept paper at at the biggest reasons people brought up other than money and family and options is fox does feel like a family. they do take care of their people. when bret baier was injured in a skiing accident, they offered the empty plane right away. those sorts of things. is not just the private plane of the super bowl tickets is the fact they got to design their own offices and build in their own closets, and the sense of family you get from working with your colleagues. you think that's awe bs or is it real? that is a real emotion for people. spewing specially new give people a nice-looking office read the carpeting every once in awe people get sucked into thinking they are being

treated well. >> boost morale. cement a lot about what you talk about in the book is how well-paid the biggest stars there are. i thought what was interesting in there was the competition between the biggest stars. speech it yes and he talked about that that is interesting. we went you were about bill o'reilly and how popular he was when he disappeared, they moved hannity up. and suddenly there is this competition between tucker carlson and hannity and laura ingraham, knute space of those died at namic's? >> guest: also back to the o'reilly days he was always number one by far on fox news. hannity was always the second banana. that relationship is not a relationship and operate the two of them did not talk to each other, did not like each other, but they studied each other's ratings very carefully. interestingly though, when

o'reilly was thrown overboard into thousand 17, hannity felt sorry for him. and he even invited back on fox which really angered a lot of staffers. why are you allowing semi- with the history of set sexual harassment back into our building? the management is firing him where he letting them back inside? that dish is the lack of strong leadership. and the fact that hannity is the boss i guess. sometimes in people ask shaun hannity who is in charge of fox he says i am. and it's not entirely a joke. he's now not second banana he is now number one. he occasionally loses to tucker carlson and tucker and shaun because of the ratings rate but hannity came to power in the trump years and wielded that power. whether it's through conspiracy theories, feeding the president bad information, that program is a fox's identity now. i note some posts are known to

slip ratings reports to the president to say come on my show not there sheppard there is an internal competition to be the trump es because that goes to relevance in ratings. >> that seems to be one of the most disturbing details in the book. they would kiss the presidents asked to get access to interview for the interview would elevate them in stature in fox news, which becomes a distant scented to ever speak out against the president. >> will challenge them in the interviews even. asking hard questions. there are multiple staffers at fox. multiple friends of hannity is that he called the president crazy. that he describes these phone calls to the president, they are so stressful. here's the thing about hannity. a thought when he came number one at fox's on the top of the ratings list his biggest star. i thought this to be a huge, wonderful time in his life.

but now it has been a pretty stressful person that can you imagine having donald trump call you every other day to want to talk for extended through the time about the news, get your advice and then he actually takes her advice? that would be every person's worst nightmare. i was at a play and i was with a friend we bumped into robert kraft, the owning owner of the new england patriots spread my friend really confronted him about his friendship with the president. will make got out of this brief ten minutes talking to miss awe these very wealthy people are connected people, they awe basically are buying for phone time with the president. and they are very aware that the last thing they say may affect something that donald trump does that day. for the next day. he certainly surrounded by fans who have agendas. >> that is the problem which is if you are advising the president you need to help them and not hurt him. i think one of my arguments in

hopes is that when hannity tries to help trump, he also hurts trump. liberals might be watching this is in good, good, hannity keep doing it. but here's my perspective on this. hannity is trying to trump a service. but actually doing him a disservice by focusing on culture war stories. by feeding him disinformation. he actually hurts the trump presidency. i think it's a wonder. what if the president had been addicted to fox? what if he had come into office and been surrounded by people and turned off booktv sometimes. and tried to help him focus. would it have gone differently? and that's impossible it never would've happened. but this addiction to fox really hurt the president over and over and over again. for example with a pandemic in the beginning, in march, trump was calling hannity asking how

are my ratings? how are my ratings of the briefing? he wanted to know how he was rating. it was disgraceful that the president was focused on that metric. he was interested that metric. a good friend would've said to president trump, do not tweet about your ratings, do not ask about your ratings again. focus on saving lives. it is that kind of relationship that trump doesn't seem to have. he has these fox news fans who are vying for his attention try to book him on tv. but are actually hurting him, i think when they're to help them. >> host: i think were learned that the president certainly not is smart as we think but there's some sort of mental health issues. three to your not allowed to say that you are not allowed to talk about that. stuart which is fascinating. so clearly what we are learning from mary trump and mary and trump's sister is

that it is common knowledge in the family what is wrong with him as a person. and so they want to call out joe biden and say he is slipping. but clearly, when you get like the man, the television, but they are aware that is happening here. think we awe believe that the president doesn't really have the ability to read, to understand complex facts. so in something like the pandemic happens were he really needs understand science, he can't get there. there is no way for him to get there. so someone said him if everyone in the country could wear a mask you could probably open up the economy would do better. maybe we should give businesses some help opening up but with masks and with social distancing. so he could suppose opening up safely but he won't do it because somebody got to him about it doesn't look cool to work masks. or whatever that is.

we lose our freedom if aware and mask. so he can't even make the simple rational choices which help him. i was think about student debt, right? if you found a way to help people with their college debt , the amount of people who would vote for him would be ridiculou ridiculous. he could probably get reelected off it as an issue. but he will consider it due to some business interest in his ear about it. i think that it's we realize there something wrong with him because he will not do the easy things that would help him. sweetie i'm reporting in the book from 2017 or fox executives and other prominent figures of the network were saying to me, he is not well. especially in the wake of charlottesville was a national wake-up call about the president. these are folks who are in touch with trump. and they are saying to me, he is not well.

and they're saying that in the same concern the talk about grandpa. when a grandfather is sick or grandmother is sick, the whole family suffers and i do wonder for going to look back at the trump years and say is that what happened? is that what was going on? and again i am saying that taking it from conversations with those who are more in touch with him at cnn or the other network. he had so effectively merged his operation at the white house with foxy have the same interes interest. if you look at his acceptance speech on the south lawn, sean hannity has a special place to anchor the program, that is the kind of example of the special treatment we have seen constantly throughout the trump presidency. and you know, makes it difficult to imagine a scenario where fox would break with him in any mysterious

way. >> one of the issues you talk about is how this feedback loop between the president and fox news led to training the audience to not believe any fact that does not come from the president. and even if they don't believe the president, they also don't believe the other side. in awe situations you do not trust information. how did that evolve? select this is fundamentally what is broken better information ecosystem. is not just box it broke and it's not just trump that broke it. there've been decades of messaging for right-wing outlets and you cannot trust the bias. trump is that so many new levels. first the attack during the campaign then saying big news in jenner 2017 mincing enemies of people and saying hoax, he has gone to say hoax once a

month to once a day. like he's trying to shock us more like people become none to the shock of the anti- immediate lies. so he feels he has to shout louder and louder in order to get noticed and listened. unmissable don't listen. most people see through it. most people know that when he says hoax, it's just another hoax. subjects of what you're saying about the word hoax is when he said fake news, it could be interpreted as just a mistake when everything's is a hoax which meant there is a maliciousness to the choice to do something. >> guest: the word hoax means someone is trying to trick you. someone is trying to hurt you even. there is a nastiness to that word. it is notable that he uses at least once a day on average so far this year. and then fox then repeats it.

this is why the feedback loop is so loopy. the fox will run with it for days, never acknowledge it on fox where there is a dishonesty to that when they get a fact wrong and then trump gets a fact wrong. and then cnn points out that trump got the facts wrong. we also to point out that it started with fox. again he got misinformed from there. but what you're saying earlier being in anchor of the shows, and the responsibility and the pressure he would feel, if you are the owner or the anchor or the producer. to get it right, to be careful and to be precise. but instead what happens at fox and friends is they use trump's attention as a retention tool meeting ida couple tell me when they're thinking about leaving the show, that the boss said but you get to influence the president. he tweets what you say.

you don't want to leave here lose that power do you? >> one case of so scary was the story on fox and how they never took responsibility for it revealed a new level of cruelty and the attempt to make the president look good. so this story about this young man who was murdered, was being used as a way to somehow create a conspiracy theory can you discuss and explain how that happened. this is an attempt to say it wasn't russia, let trump off the hook about russia. stop focusing on the rush appropriate this is really what it is about. at the moment when james comey has been fired and trump has brought russians into the oval

office now there's awe this attention in the country about trump and his ties to trust her, what is going on. fox starts having this murder mystery programming for they say maybe rich's definition when night in washington maybe it's because he was the real wiki league are. maybe he broke into the dnc and leaked awe those e-mails. inside it wasn't russia. it's a way to say is it inside job, and thus move on from awe the trump russia stuff. that was the narrative on fox is based on a lie. there's a little bit of coordination with the white house because the know the folks who are behind this had a meeting with sean spicer "after words". this mystery narrative went on fox for a week.

we had hannity asked to stop talk about basically saying take my dead brother's name. day take my dead child name out your mouth sean and after a week he went on the air and said i'm not going to talk about for now but to keep investigating out of respect for the family l stop talking about it for now. that's an example of fox pushing a narrative. a conspiracy narrative that had no connection to the truth. i still pry the most shocking example of a lack of standards got to understand that it shows they lack of leadership >> and a level of cruelty the

president has read them into some nice places. that might've been the beginning of keyline and the idea of conspiracy theories could be used to distract from what is actually happening. >> guest: that's an important word distract. because this is without distraction. on fox the fun times is just about distracting trump's scandals, from his lies, from his crises. i actually thought it more anti- democrat than pro trump. when in doubt, they just attacked joe biden. out that they are always defending trump, there is trying to destroy the other guy. >> so what -- doesn't that lead to to violence? do we know these lead to violent sometimes a notice being mainstreamed. the president was asked about the other day. he treated it like it was any other political idea. he did not act like it was

something that was dangerous and the fbi said was being investigated because it is something that leads to people getting hurt. as in the past. >> the fox news show, this is fox's hey mom, joe, what about the democrat violence? what so goes every time. what about -ism on every story. what about -ism is a big soviet russia tactic where they tried it basically make it think everybody's bad everybody's wrong. that is a lot of what fox's programming has evolved into. what about -ism they offered and warned about that, we know that the mail bomber the guy who said the mail bombs to cnn and clinton and others, we

know he was a fox news addict as well as a huge trump fan. so we have seen examples of the extremism, the radicalization having real world consequences. >> host: and when there's not a strong push back by republican or republican politician is the dog whistle it is the wink like might be true, see get a couple of people to stand up. it's always shocking how few republicans stand up. basically other than mitch romney at this point, if they really aren't politicians who are willing to put their jobs at risk to stand up for their beliefs. >> guest: think about romney with the impeachment vote. he knew he was going to get hit by fox creek they have one tv interview, he gave it to fox to give it to chris wallace. he wanted it in part two have the fox audience here at his argument and his point of view. but sure enough on the night

trump was acquitted by the senate, which you think be a cause for celebration the right wing media. instead the program is awe about mitt romney. they were more interested in excommunicating romney than celebrating trump's acquittal. i guess there 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 awe of this. i will admit and there's an element to cable moves news and i engage in that as well but fox news is best editors québec i don't think the audience understands as an economic system with awe of these jobs. if you are accepted by the democratic community or in good standings. there are books and there are speaking engagements you are invited to awe of the parties and if i get these politicians

awe the connections awe the stuff around it. and trump has basically said, i'm ready hit she was hard as i can hit you and there's not been a moment when the republican have said we are more powerful than you actually. we saw that with fox when trump started running for president. they did not taken very seriously. and now there people who work for the president who are really hard on him. >> kaylee and kellyanne conway, they were anti- trump. the network was not reproach trump. and then slowly, they just gave over to it. is in the book were someday said from a hoax about trump is how one by one awe of the host decided to go on the trump train. they looked around, they saw the incentives, they saw the opportunity for even hannity for example, his show is

getting pretty stale pre-trump. their conversations about what should be dictated? maybe give him a liberal cohost again to make the show more interesting, and then trump comes along he is the most interesting thing in the world. if you think about it that way, hannity saud trump is a way to relevance to regain elements. that happens awe the way across right wing media. >> doesn't seem to be a space on the network for a real assessment of the ideas of the other party. you will never see something on msnbc about does the regulation actually help the economy? lower taxes help the economy? the de- exportation of conservative ideas on a progressive network and vice versa ever seem to happen.

you won't see on fox news, is there a way to deal the immigration problem without caging children? let's explore what else could be done. and is that the saddest part there is not enough time spent exploring dilutions. >> maybe you and i should have show together on cable news respect that's why we are here it's in addition i think i nailed it. we're going to take a question from ted. i think it i asked your question? >> we have some audience questions that were submitted. one comes from a lady who says do you feel that cnn on some of the criticism cnn gets as it is also opinionated or has gotten opinionated to you agree that how do you feel about cnn statement she make in response to fox i feel cnn she was gotten opinionated. speech i think the biggest change i have seen on cnn as a viewer as well as an anchor is

that a lot of the anchors are doing these monologues. these essays. usually the start of a show in at the end of the show. it still sometimes 45 the shows every day the anchors talking straight to the camera trying to explain what is going on. oftentimes about trump. and i know some viewers view those as opinionated. think they are away to break down the war on truth and try to win it basically cements the best way to fact check trump to rebut his laws is that straight in the camera monologues approach. actually bill reilly plan tears but fox news was doing this a long time ago. i get that there are a lot more of those these days. think it is the most effective way to respond to some of the attacks out there. i think what i would say is it is not hard to stand up for fax indecency and democracy. what i see a lot of on cnn and

msnbc is people trying to do that. in the context of trump claim there's a lot of fake news or whatever. it can come across as anti- trump it's really just trying to be pro- decency approach reuther pro-democracy. >> there's no way to seemed nonpartisan when the president lies 1,015,000 times pretty say he lied, people think you are partisan. >> the day where he says he put in the book on gender try forthcoming 20 for three he said days after taking office at three to 5 million people and voted illegally. if you don't speak out against that kind of crazy comments and i think were part of the proble problem. that is the dynamic we are in. it's a difficult dynamic for journalists because we are intrinsically, deep down in

our core not comfortable speaking out in our own voice. we are much more comfortable quoting one side and quoting the other side and having a debate and having an argument breed that is much more comfortable or for many writers. that's not the way to tell the truth in this time. >> our next question, both parties will have curated, produce their own shows and connections. and the next stage to present the candidates is going to be the debates. question is, what are taking place about who gets to be the moderator to the parties have the saying who the moderators are do they pick?

>> this is a bipartisan commission that has been around for decades. it's almost like a vestige of an earlier era in politics for republicans and democrats awe work together on something great that is what this commission does. up until now, most candidates follow along with it and agree to show up. listed trump and biden do. trump has committed to attending. the question is who will moderate? my understand is they will solve the networks, encourage the selection of certain individuals. i imagine tv agents and others will also be angling for certain individuals to be considered. i do think it is going to be more complicate than usual this year because there are so many objections about different tv anchors. the commission has said is that to the commission not up to trump. >> he also would not want someone like chris wallace. it seems like anybody who has

asked him a direct not even a difficult question but a real question. >> i don't know, chris wallace of the obvious option. her obvious candidate. i wonder if trump actually liked that question from chris wallac wallace. made him look like he could handle tough questions feels into the answers answers, the answers were quite troubling. sue and how is the xes interviewed he started taking out his grass, the grass had like three bars on them. it's like they made the graft for a 5-year-old. it was the least complicated bit of information. and what you think the aftermath of that is with the people around trump and trent trump when he doesn't issue the real journalists and follows up and calls him out on misinformation. if you think that window

closes for anybody else who doesn't work for fox news? >> and the interest between now and november he has these debates. i expect he's going to want to stoke and go on fox. think of awe the major networks between now and november's interesting question. he has his own 60 minutes he's been on abc's never given cnn interview since inauguration day if i were him, i wanted to show that i was bold and tough and willing to handle tough questions i would go on cnn. who would be a hell of a tv event. i would be surprised if it happens between now and november. >> the next question is a gentleman says i feel the immediate lost out and gave away too much with the daily pandemic press conferences. >> host: two by airing them with misinformation from the president? how do you feel about that and

how could those have been done better? >> this continues to be a tug-of-war sort of thing there's definitely discussion and debate within newsrooms about this not actual newsrooms because we are awe home now but virtual newsrooms for there's definitely a lot of different opinions about that. i think there's one side that said if the president is making an announcement should be broadcast. people should know what he's saying. and it should be analyzed in fact check. there's definitely another camp that says he has such a record of disinformation and misinforming that he should not have that ability to awe of a sudden get airtime. and cnn sometime threads the needle that takes it live for this is relatively new, fees giving a speech in the beginning we won't always show that light. but when he is taking questions we will short-lived because that wheatley's journalists are able to push

back. think that's an interesting middle ground when there's question and answer to be so involved. >> the scientist have disappeared though in those press conferences. a minute started out in trump was on the side and he would break in for a little bit, then slowly, fact she disappeared. and then it just becomes a campaign speech. >> i think it is worth keeping in mind, even if cnn, abc, cbs were awe to stop to carry it live, fox would run his events anyway. still that had that direct connection. that's an argument in favor of broadcasting live, interrupting when something truly outrageous happens, fact checking aggressively but to ignore his lies is also risky. >> don't you think on some level is gotten boring though? america loves to build people up and tear them down.

with any type of celebrities some point. we just get tired of this tip were exhausted from this thought is funny anymore the world has really suffered i get a real sense, at least whatever that margin of 10% that you need to turn on the president to elect joe biden, but people see awe of his moves. when you see kellyanne conway i knew understand how she evades questions, so someone will ask a question about the question about the pandemic and she will grab a word it's a speaking of pandemics what about the pandemic of violence across the country. what their approach to awe this bss. i've heard from a few leaders already and when i wrote in the book in the early chapters

that trump is not willing to be a ratings magnet anymore he doesn't booster rating until automatically. there's no denying and 2015, 2016, people were on the trump show. the ratings would spike when he was on air. doesn't really happen anymore. it happens when he's on fox sometimes. he's giving a press conference, cnn's ratings don't jump up dramatically when he's on the air. sometimes they decline. so it is true. think the data backs it up. there are many people are tired of it. and the biden campaign is leading into that. joe biden is running a make america boring again campaign. and it seems to be working. >> a question about journalism. brian when you think the future is of journalism? newspapers are severely

impacte impacted. their pages are reduced, their depth is not there. what is the future of journalis journalism? >> guest: awe of the above and more of everything. anything by that i think there is a future for prints. it is a diminished future. as always can be some segment of public philosophy currently up, just like with a book with a magazine or a newspaper print that is going to be a shrinking group. i think sprint will be a luxury product. it will still exist. but increasingly be taken over by digital like it has been. more of everything because were going to have more, more sources more devices more apps. 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'm a media company your immediate company will have twitter an instagram pages. in the environment that is so chaotic, i think were going to

see a return to old-school's brands, branson been around for a while. the other has been a rise of cold pink slime local news sites. they look like local news sites but they are really from part of an activist. they're from a political operation. but they are disguised to look like local news. i think when you're in an environment where there's not much trickery in chaos going on, it's important to go to the brand you know that is been there for 20 years. what that "new york times" is doing in los angeles times is doing as well. that is the direction that i se see. i think for young journalists, the incredible time to be able to have the ability to reach so many people virtually. that's what makes it helpful as it's easier than ever to start something new, start the new brand to gain trust with something new if you are not working in a place is old and

established. the future is more of everything awe of the above prospective final question is a two-part question from the same person who says in the event the president loses the election, what you think he will do? will he be a big talkshow host? speech on your judds answer first then i want to read a page of the book. judge what you think? i think a lot of times in our country people to want to prosecute someone like donald trump because they feel like it creates more division and is not worth it. i am certainly of the school that it certainly trains people that they can commit crimes if they want someone else to not be held accountable. we saw that happen with the big banks after 2008 were people were not held accountable. i think he is probably in for a life of legal problems. it seems like the issues having to do with him

inflating the values of properties and deflating them to make him more money in these situations is something that he clearly will get prosecuted for and found guilty of. because it is just in the paperwork. he has a property once alone he says it's worth $100 million. if it's for tax purposes it's worth $5 million. thinking it over and over again for decades. it is so clearly against the law that in addition to awe the other things we've talked about, i think for tax purposes unless the state of new york decides we don't want the trouble of this, he's going to spend the rest of his life in court. speech in that scenario we will still be talking a lot about donald trump rates for beckett unfortunately. >> guest: if that does happen and there is to be criminal action against him in post- presidency. we are going to need another court tv channel.

building mark channels a coverdell. >> host: is gonna come out eventually but every single person around them will write a book to a fair amount will write tell awe that will be surprise. i know there is a malan he a book coming out soon that someone wrote about her, who was on the inside. and the michael cohen book is coming out. you hear any tidbits from those books i'm glad the hoax came out before them. that's the way i will sit there respect my timing was good. he said what might happen next. comes from one of fox's stars i can't say who but one of fox's stars they said trump is like fox's frankenstein. they help make him and now he is out of control and no one knows what will happen once he is gone. i think that is true for fox. if trump loses the election,

will he launch his own television network? will he get his own show on some channel? i don't see him going to fox. think he would be thinking bigger than that. trump tv live for mar-a-lago might be the idea. there is some concern about that thought. more than that there is a view that the network is bigger than he is now. and it will be coming along with or without him it won't matter. that is going to be tested 2021 if indeed he is not reelected. but i think the one thing we know for sure is people will still be talking about trump, no matter what next year. >> our final question, we have not heard much about anonymous, the insider and the administration. you wrote that op-ed. any idea who that may be? [laughter] and who do you think it is? >> guest: i do not have a good guess.

i'm glad that that person, even though they were an anonymous and do not with the criticism. i'm so blood the person should but they shared. i agree there's going to be so much that comes out. this is a one term president. there's going to be so much that comes out so many books so many tell awe. will probably come away thinking that we did not know the half of it when he was still in office. so meka can imagine how many people took notes of every insane thing he said in the last four years. i mean can you imagine the private conversations on awe of these issues? on russia, the ukraine, the pandemic, at some point we are going to hear how he thanks in his inability to think clearly. in addition to his corruption the person that has explained covid to him. being frustrated that he doesn't understand how the spreads and where this can go. at some point awe this people are going to tell us how he resisted doing logical things which could have helped people.

>> guest: may be sean hannity will write a tell-all prayers for becky doesn't need to he owns a lot of rental properties. >> [laughter] likely sought michael koenig to clients, donald trump and sean hannity. and i tell people, this book was great i really in joy it. i can't seven able to read a lot during the endemic due to my anxiety. and they would do read? i read books like why smart people hurt? that's what i read. rewire your anxious brain, i'm not reading that much for pleasure. i am mainly to not lose my sanity. the book is good to everybody out there. i guess they bought it so they could watch this. tell people it's very helpful

to understand. >> which like to buy another copy you go to buy hoax.com. it's a book i felt like i had to write. sometimes you want to write a book and you just really want to do it. this is more of that meat thing this was i need to write this because awe the sources at fox are spilling their guts out to me. i've got to have a chance to do. >> think again gentleman thanks for joining us. brent spoke again his hoax, donald trump fox's in the dangerous distortion of news. and it's available wherever books are sold. thank you. >> you are watching book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. here are some programs to watch out for two nights, on our author interview program, "after words" democratic

senator chris murphy of connecticut looks at the origins of violence and firearms in america's history and the role they play in society today. we are live with pulitzer prize-winning journalist bob woodward on president trump's national policy decisions. and history professor martha jones explores the efforts by black women to win the right to vote. for more schedule information consult your cable guide or visit booktv.org. stu met good evening everyone. my name is max young that like to thank you on behalf of of the bookstore for tuning in tonight. tonight we are lucky to have with this jordan and christopher. authors of the book union, a democrat, a republican and a search for common ground. they'll be discussing tonight will be moderated by army veteran and former congressional congressman tony woods. thank you for joining us tonigh tonight. if you want to ask jordan and chris questions you can click the ask question button down