Ben Smith

Well, I actually think that, I mean, if you look at the sort of new media charts, you're starting to see left-wing voices dominate more.

I mean, like Midas is, I think, often the biggest channel on YouTube.

And it follows to some degree where is the most engagement, where is the most energy.

And, you know, I think a lot of these, particularly a lot of the really kind of independent podcast sphere is really built around this like profound suspicion of engagement.

but also of government and of truth and of anything.

And you saw with the Epstein stuff that there's just this like intense tendency to eat their own.

But no, I think there's a real kind of like conservative control of the mainstream media now.

And it's not exactly MAGA conservatives.

I think people like David Ellison and Jeff Bezos are kind of... I don't really know what their politics are.

Kind of like center... I guess it's what you'd call center-right.

And probably...

But, you know, I don't really know.

But I think that, like, the thing that is, actually, I think there are two things.

One is that you have people with right of center views owning and running some of these media properties.

But I think the much more important thing is you have people who are scared of the government and of Trump making decisions.

Yeah, we had the new CEO of Versant, which owns MSNBC, and he spent the whole time talking about how he wants to buy Crooked.

So watch out, everybody.

Come on in.

I'll be your Barry, sir.

Yeah, he is so tiresome. Just as a human being, he's unbelievably tiresome. And I will acknowledge here that his wife, Amal Clooney, literally was complicit in some of the worst propaganda of the last several years. She was involved in the International Court of Justice's attempts to actually prosecute the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes. She was a deep part of that.