Michael Barbaro

And audiences are eating it up.

And that makes me think back to

a conversation I had back in 2019 with our colleague Wesley Morris when Leaving Neverland came out.

And that movie asked all of us to reckon with the artist and the art and the scandal.

And something that Wesley said back then is still ringing in my ears right now.

He concluded that it was on all of us to live with the messiness of what Michael Jackson represents.

And he said, literally, the work is on us, and it's really hard work.

We don't want to do that work.

And is that the not-so-huge revelation of this movie, that when presented with the opportunity to not do that work and celebrate this man, to think about the allegations and the people who suffered and the lives that were derailed, the youth that will never be reclaimable—

Right.

And perhaps somewhere out there, there are people who want to do this hard work of reckoning with the fullness of Michael Jackson, but for the moment, there's a clear playbook that the estate has established for reaching that much larger audience that does not want to do that work.

Without him, there's no brand to reinvent.

Well...

Mark, thank you very much.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

And the Times reports that the United States has reached a bleak milestone.

The size of its debt, $31.3 trillion, now surpasses the nation's total economic output.

The source of the problem is well known.

The United States is spending far more money than it's earning through taxes.