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Chapter 1: What are the main examples of self-dealing discussed in this episode?
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With yesterday's pod and today's, frankly, they're both like a little off of the, you know, never Trump porn that I usually give you guys. And I was delighted by the guests yesterday, Arash and Jody. And I do think it's an opportunity to...
If you've got somebody in your life that maybe isn't looking for the Never Trump outrage of the day, but is in the market for podcasts and wants to learn more, wants to learn about what Iran wants and why, wants to get some advice for the college grad in their life or hear about the latest from SCOTUS or the Me Too movement, I'd appreciate if you'd take yesterday's pod and send it to somebody because that's how we grow and expand the audience here.
It's how new people learn about us. I'm excited to report to you guys that we had more audio downloads last month in April than we've ever had in the history of the podcast. I think Donald Trump fucking up the economy probably gets a little bit of assist on that, but I think it's mostly y'all for spreading the word. And so I'm just super grateful for that.
And I don't know, I'm always looking for opportunities to kind of bring in new people. And I think that, uh, Yesterday's pod might do that for a certain type of listener. That's for today's show, Isaac Saul. I think especially the most hyper engaged and aware and news watching obsessives among the listeners, his outlet Tangled News is probably not for you. And that's fine. That's cool.
But what he's offering, I think, is something really valuable to people who are maybe reachable in the Donald Trump orbit, not the red hat people. But the people that maybe went along with him for whatever, because they were upset with inflation. And I get this question sometimes, which is like, hey, I've got a MAGA person in my life. Which of your things should I send them, Tim?
And it's like, my hair is so on fire. And I'm bulging with outrage over Donald Trump that I'm not sure that that is... the service that I'm providing on this podcast. That's why I go on Piers Morgan. That's why I'm upping my schedule going on other MAGA outlets because I know how to make the pitch to those people, but I don't think this podcast is that pitch. But Isaac's newsletter might be.
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Chapter 2: How does Trump's corruption impact public perception?
So whatever you're comfortable with, man.
All right. Maybe I'll earn Ike by the end of the show. We'll see how it goes. I got to tell you, I was first exposed to you. I'd seen your stuff on social media, but I got first really kind of locked in on what you were doing at Tangle News when there's that This American Life episode. Yeah.
And it was like there was this family, a couple, it's like an older couple, and one was anti-Trump, one was pro-Trump, and they both were reading your newsletter, and it was kind of helping them come together and bridge, get outside of their various bubbles where they're getting news. And I remember listening to this on a plane and thinking, I should have that guy on the podcast.
And then when your corruption story came out this week, I was like, why didn't I ever have them on? And then I went back and looked at it and I was like, this American Life episode aired November 1st, 2024. Yeah, it's almost a year and a half. Some other shit came out about that week that I think distracted me from having these big picture convos.
So for folks who haven't listened to it, why don't you just give them a little backstory on what you're trying to do with the newsletter?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, the quick genesis story for me is that I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which people who are political obsessives know. Purple County in a swing state. Whichever way Bucks goes, Pennsylvania usually goes. Whichever way Pennsylvania goes, the election goes, the presidential election. So
i just grew up around a lot of political diversity and when i got into the media space i realized that there wasn't great representation in the mainstream press something a lot of people obviously know now i mean it's changed it's more balanced now than it used to be and also that people were just in information silos and republicans read news that affirmed their views liberals read news that affirmed their views
And I tried to create this kind of big tent media organization as a political moderate myself where I could bring Republicans and Democrats under one roof and kind of have a shared space for them to dialogue, consume media they trust, have a news organization they can go to that they believe is fair and honest and transparent regardless of what their political views are.
And so we have a format where we wade into really big divisive topics, and then we share the best arguments we can find from the right, share the best arguments we can find from the left. And then someone from our team, typically me, pens, our own little mini editorial, we do some of our own independent analysis about the story. And the format's been a hit. We got some traction on Substack.
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Chapter 3: What is the role of Tangle News in covering political corruption?
That's been my experience doing the work.
The people that you're talking about that make intellectually defensible arguments for what's something that Trump is doing and like the narrow set. Like my issue with it oftentimes is it's like they make these arguments that are very blinkered. That they're like, you know, within like this narrow confine of things. Like this is a good point. But that like ignores the broader picture about it.
Like whether the fact that like... you know, Trump was lying about it or like Trump doesn't actually, or there's the corrupt element to it where to get to your corruption article is the main point of the show. But like, that is, I think the tough part to like, sometimes this pun is not intended disentangle, right. Which is like, are they, are we arguing just about, um,
like the impact of this tariff or on the beef industry or like, OK, I'm sure there are pro and con arguments to that. But like if the tariffs are illegal and if they're if he's doing them to corrupt ends, it's kind of like who cares if the if they're like the narrow policy makes sense. Like, how do you how do you deal with that kind of situation?
I think that's the biggest issue I see with Trump pro Trump defenses.
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the really nice things about our format and something that distinguishes us from a lot of other people who try and do this work, the sort of nonpartisan, we're gonna elevate different arguments, is we give ourselves space to call those kinds of logical fallacies out in this little editorial that we write every day.
So you'll see in my take, when I write that in every day's newsletter or do it on the podcast, I'm often addressing the arguments that we're publishing and trying to call some balls and strikes about what I find reasonable and what I find unreasonable.
And I think my experience, which has been really interesting, was during the Biden administration, our newsletter was super popular with a lot of conservatives because I think it's the press's job to be adversarial. And I was writing a lot of adversarial things.
I was one of the first politic writers and opinion columnists who was coming out saying that Biden did not seem fit for the job in 2021, 2022. And I got skewered by my liberal readers, many of whom canceled subscriptions and left. I think I ultimately was sort of justified in that perspective. The administration switch, Trump came in, he started doing a bunch of crazy stuff.
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Chapter 4: How does the podcast address the issue of information silos?
But the last thing, my last glaze of what you're doing, I just think it's important to say, because people here, I think, might hear this and be like, Well, that just sounds like the both sides journalism that I got away from to get into independent journalism. And to me, the fact that you have the editorial take at the end is a key difference.
My main complaint with the both sides journalism that we get from a lot of the DC publications is it's like... They know that something is a scandal or whatever. And so like, I'm going to write this story about the scandal, but, but in order to be fair, I have to quote like some bad faith asshole explaining why it's not a scandal. And I, and sometimes I have to do it.
They won't even put their name on it. And I'll be like an anonymous Republican source, you know, said, this is actually, you know, this shit smells great actually. And you, you can eat it. It's nutritious. And like, they put it in the thing and it's like, that is anti-truth.
actually right like that is an assault on truth to do that right and and i think that like trying to find the best arguments the other side but then explaining hey you know here's where i don't think i think that misses the mark i do think that's a a different animal indeed oh y'all i've been telling you about how we turned to three-day blinds when we got here to louisiana and needed to
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Trump's business dealings with foreign countries?
I'm not going to, you know, we're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. Thank you, Secretary Hexeth. Last 24 hours or so, Iran's fired at us. We fired at Iran. I'm just going to ask you more directly. Is the ceasefire over? No, the ceasefire is not over. Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project. And we expected there would be some churn.
Some churn.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is – I said this on X yesterday. I think that might be the first time I ever called it X and not Twitter. The use of the word Orwellian has been so overused that it now has lost all of its meaning. And when there are moments like this where it's so applicable, where they're just –
I mean, Hegseth is answering a direct question about the fact that we are currently exchanging fire with Iranian forces and just says the ceasefire is on. This is a separate project. I mean, like we have to be discerning enough here to just say, come on, this is bullshit. And and that's what I would say to my audience and my readers is just they can't.
just declare that a conflict is done while we're actively engaged in the conflict. And one of the core things that we need to happen now, because we're all experiencing this here in the States, is this oil shock, is we need to free up the Strait of Hormuz, which again was open before the war started. And there's simply no way Trump is walking away from the table without that.
Whatever you think of Trump, he is politically shrewd enough to know that if he goes into November with gas prices at $5 a gallon, he's going to get obliterated. And they have to do something about that. So I don't think we're close to being done with this. I think my fear, the way that I sort of –
Talked about it early on was my fear was that we would have an ambient war, this kind of conflict that was background noise, where every few weeks there'd be some huge flare up, some news story. Meanwhile, we're pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into it every month. And then it goes on for two years with the occasional troop death and lots of money spent and not much progress.
And we seem to be heading that way right now. Like they are trying to make it this thing that's not the center story that's happening in the background. And I hope Americans are keen to it because to me, the ambient war is really the big threat.
Between the Rubio and Hegseth clips, if you combine them, we were like so close from somebody in the administration doing the, to walk the road of peace. Sometimes we need to be ready to climb the mountain of conflict line from in the loop. Like we're there right there. Like they're like literally right there.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of the Trump Mobile and its controversies?
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And you got rid of the paywall so everybody can go read the whole thing if they want. It's basically a comprehensive breakdown of all the corruption we've seen from the administration. And I just want to go through it a little bit. But the framing of it, I think, is important. You start by saying this.
For some reason, the real story we're living through now, the one where Trump's kids are funneling money directly to their family fortune while the U.S. government hands out favors in return, just doesn't seem to get any traction with the public.
After reviewing the evidence of the first 15 months of Trump's second term, I believe POTUS is profiting off the office and making foreign policy decisions based on business interests to a level we've never seen or even conceived before. This is just obviously true, and we'll go through the examples, but I'm wondering what your takeaway was for why...
why that isn't getting the attention that maybe it might have in the past, why an article like this did get so much traction because of the dearth of coverage from the mainstream outlets.
My working thesis, I think, is that opponents of the president who want to make this a story are literally overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that's happening on a daily basis, which honestly, I don't blame them for because it's hard to pick one thing and make that the focus of the critique of the administration. I was trying to write a whole comprehensive roundup of this story.
And I had a guide and a Google Doc I'd been building out for over a year and tracking all these stories really closely. And even with that kind of focus, somebody asked me, which is the story that kind of blows your mind the most or that you feel like is most emblematic of this? And it's like my brain malfunctions because I don't know which one to pick. So many of them are so astonishing.
And I think if you are a critic of the president, that's a challenge in terms of just the really baseline political messaging question. And then if you're a supporter of the president, I think the reality is you don't hear about a lot of these stories. I mean, they show up in the New York Times. Maybe the Wall Street Journal does some reporting.
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Chapter 7: How does the discussion relate to the broader political landscape?
I mean, I also think in this current political environment, the reverse was almost true, you know, in the middle of Obama's term. But I think liberals are much more skeptical about, of their own party than Republicans are of their own. Like the Democratic infighting hasn't come to a head in a big way because they're the minority party and they don't have any power right now, but it is going to.
And there is a lot of disagreement there. And I think Republicans are kind of on the other side of that intraparty war and trump won and he has sort of gotten everybody to bend the knee and so there's just way less skepticism and internal criticism toward him or toward the administration
What criticism are MAGA voters seeing of Trump? Well, it's Epstein files and Iran war. And that's because like Tucker, Candace, right? Like, right. They're right. Big right wing outlets that have broken with him on those things. Right.
So they they are seeing now some critiques of him, but just like not this stuff, you know, because because that hasn't really broken through yet in those places or maybe it never will.
Yeah, which is interesting to me. I mean, I do think, you know, somebody like Steve Bannon comes to mind, the kind of war room mentality who he – I mean, I don't know. I literally don't know what to make of him. I mean, I know reporters who have talked, and I've never interviewed him. I've never sat down with him.
I've talked to Steve a lot, so fire him.
Okay, well, I'd be curious what you think. I mean, like someone like Steve Bannon – built his career on being this incredibly salient critic of the swampiness of DC. And now, the most corrupt, slimy, conservative politicians are getting free passes for fraud, defrauding their donors, all these kinds of things. Trump is pardoning these people.
They're making all these very, to me, overt quid pro quo deals. And he doesn't seem to give a shit, and I don't understand that. So I'd be curious, what do you think his frame for this is? Because he's somebody I would expect to be talking about this on his show.
I can feel this one. This is my area of expertise. I got you on this one. Bannon has a worldview that is coherent, and it's global. He likes right-wing populism. He wants to go after the... whatever, bipartisan, elite establishment that he believes to be corrupt.
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Chapter 8: What are the final thoughts on Trump's administration and future implications?
Or maybe never did. Just come all the way to the dark side of the forefront. Let's run through the corruption that you mentioned. A lot of the stuff our listeners are going to be familiar with. It's a useful document people can go read because it's a lot of just 101 Trump corruption stuff. I think that we can kind of gloss over. We just did a full episode on crypto.
So from the crypto corruption, knowing our audience kind of gets the gist of what Trump is doing, what was the thing that you discovered that shocked you the most?
I would say one of the things was that Melania Trump was also in it on the crypto, the meme coin, the shit coin, which I actually didn't know until... Or I didn't remember and really process until I went back through my notes. And I just linked out to some article about that, that there was kind of this...
I mean, a genuine all in from the family of like, we have this window leading up to the inauguration and around the hype of Trump coming back to office to just make as much money as possible. That it wasn't just sort of Trump doing this, but it sort of had this much more organized and focused feel. That was one thing.
I would say the second was what's happened with the world liberty financial stuff since Trump went out and pardoned Justin's son, who is now suing the Trump family, which I didn't know until I went to go look up what the latest on the story was. Because he's saying that they, A, tried to force him into investing in their stable coin that he didn't want to invest in.
And B, they weren't letting him sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of this token that he had basically bought in an effort to get the SEC to back off the investigation, which in my opinion, they transparently did. And I'm like, oh my God, I literally don't know who the bad guy is here. Like, I don't, it's like, it's a- Yeah, it's a competition of slime that I'm not sure.
That's great. I mean, it's very it's a classic story about like dealing with the devil. It's just like Justin Sun. And it was and a classic quid pro quo. But Justin Sun was under investigation for his crypto criming. He puts money into the Trump coin. The Trump administration stops investigating him. Then he tries to cash out. And the Trump people running the Trump coin are like, no, sorry.
Like you're locked in here with us. Actually, we're not with you.
I'll just add the other one to that sort of related to the world liberty financial stuff that just paints a perfect picture of what you just said. The dealing with the devil is that I didn't know this, but the Trump administration had sanctioned a month before this.
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