Ben Smith

But I do think, like, the question you asked before, like, what is – I think what this means, like, what is Barry's role at CBS News, like, very – I don't think it's decided.

I think it's very open to interpretation.

I think a lot depends, you know, in particular on how they decide to cover Donald Trump.

Because, I mean, I talked to somebody who was involved in the deal and who was –

They're very aware that they're just now dealing with this shadow of this sense that, well, they've made some secret corrupt deal with the president in exchange to get regulatory approval for their real business, which is the movie business, the entertainment business, in exchange for favorable coverage on this tiny little news thing that they have to own.

I asked them, well, how do you deal with that impression?

And they said, well, we're just going to have to cover Trump, really.

We're going to be really tough and adversarial and do great journalism that the White House doesn't like when that's fair.

And I think that is ultimately the test.

Yeah.

I mean, one thing about the White House, and you worked there and you know this, is that

Just inevitably, the president is a little bit a prisoner of the building, a prisoner of what kind of information he's getting, who's talking to him.

Like Eisenhower, Nixon's aides were referred to as the Berlin Wall because they were German, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and they wouldn't let anybody through.

But in any case, Trump in his first term, like almost uniquely among presidents, like totally busted out of that and was just on Twitter engaging everyone.

He was like –

reading like the rage bait from you.

He was like soaking up the adulation from his fans.

But he was just seeing the same stuff everybody else was on Twitter.

And now, I think actually sort of like everybody else, he's retreated into much more comfortable spaces, in his case, Truth Social, where he

Sometimes goes on these sprees of like re-truthing really weird memes and where he posts stuff and where he sees adulation.