So You Think You Can Be a Trump Juror?

Carrie Lake tells her supporters to strap on a Glock as Arizona becomes a central battleground of the 2024 election. And later, I talked to Alex Garland, the writer and director of the hit movie Civil War, about why he chose to make a blockbuster, about American democracy coming to a violent end. What do you think, Dan?

I guess that's more of a rhetorical question. Does it seem like a good year for it?

You should see this movie. You will like this movie. You should see it. I'm excited to see it on an airplane when I see most of my movies. No, don't see it.

No, no. You got to see it in a theater. You got to do the full IMAX. I know. I know you're a parent of two, so you don't do that like me, but you should.

You should think about that. Okay.

Instead of a nice dinner, the two of us? Yeah, go for it. Okay. All right.

Dozens have been dismissed that way. If you make it past that round, you're asked all kinds of questions, many about your political views and social media posts, all of which journalists in the courtroom have been reporting. One of the jurors had posted in 2018, quote, Trump invites the Thai boys to the White House and the boys request to return to their cave.

That's pretty funny.

Another posted an AI-generated video of Trump saying, I'm dumb as fuck. Could have been more creative. And one juror, who I really identify with, called himself the repost king. We stan a repost king.

Right before we started recording, there was another juror who had a tweet where she said that Trump was racist and she was forced to stand up in court and and read her tweets. And her first, her first comment when she's had to read her tweets was, oh no, which is like all of us,

Standing up and reading our tweets. You know what, those are.

All right. Judge Gorka, mercy, please. All right, the jury of Sidney Powell only has rendered a verdict. All right, anyway. So all this became a lot less funny when Fox News host Jesse Watters started a conspiracy about the fact that liberal activists were supposedly infiltrating the jury, which Donald Trump then amplified on Truth Social in.

what the district attorney is now arguing is a clear violation of his gag order. Let's listen.

One, quote, I don't really have an opinion of Trump, and quote, no one is above the law. I'm not so sure about jury number two. They are trying to rig this jury. They are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge. They're saying, oh, have you ever seen anything on social media about Donald Trump?

No, I can't remember. Well, what about this post where you said he should be in prison? Oh, yeah, that one. Strike. And they keep throwing these.

They thought it was a First Amendment violation. I don't know if the need to know demographic information about jurors sort of outweighs the potential threats to their safety, but we'll see. And then the judge is going to decide next week whether to hold Trump in contempt for violating the gag order. There are now ten truths in question here that the judge will be deciding whether that violates the gag order. But the damage is already being done.

Trump and Magelworld are clearly trying to not only poison the jury pool, but public confidence in the trial. How worried are you about that? I'd say pretty worried. Do.

S. institutions and processes and norms? Yeah, I'd say I'm pretty concerned about that. Now, does that mean they can render a conviction, null and void, politically in the eyes of the public? That I'm not so sure about, right?

Yeah. Like, right now, who's paying attention to this? Who's really seeing it? Who are they really? mostly just firing up people who already think Donald Trump's being railroaded and blah, blah, blah, blah, and believe these conspiracies?

Probably. At the end of the day, he's either gonna be convicted or he's not, and that's what's gonna matter, a lot more than what Trump's saying. But what he is making, this process, which was already sort of messy, as the criminal justice system often is, seem messier, in that he's pushing on an open door with a very cynical public, a majority of whom we've seen in polls, including a ton of independents and even some Democrats, who think that the primary purpose of these trials, all of Trump's trials, is about stopping him from returning to the White House or his politically motive or something like that. So he has public opinion on his side. Yeah, and you know,

when, very impressively, ran through all the math of this on Tuesday about the number of votes that Donald Trump got. I mean, it's, you were already there, right? Once the trial was in Manhattan by a elected Democratic prosecutor, you were there, but every little bit is gonna matter, and people are, in an election like this, are looking for permission to do one thing or the other, to stick with Trump or get off the Trump train, and all of.

He basically posted, he's like, I thought that I get to do as many challenges as I want, I thought that I, basically, he just thought he could pick the jury. He just thought he could pick his jury, just keep rejecting jurors until he gets, you know, 12 people and MAGA hats.

Just the entire Waters family.

So, I feel like I was studying a poll or a focus group, trying to detect the jurors political leanings by reading about their demographic information and media diets.

Yeah, I'm fine with not knowing now that the judges said that, but I was interested when we did know. Do you think that the lawyers and jury specialists are also Polar Coaster listeners? I mean, how could they not be?

com slash friends? How about that? We just live for the organic plugs around here. I got a couple more coming, too, so beware. I mean, it's a fascinating process.

It is exactly what every campaign does, right? This secret sauce of campaigns and the age of data is, you take where someone lives, everything you know about them in terms of, are they a man or a woman? Do you know what, you know, what their demographics are? Do you know their age? And then you take in other data sources that campaigns get access to, which could include, you know, for off of social media, who do they follow, right?

Who, what, you know, in the old days, this is less relevant now, but like what magazines did you subscribe to, right? You could actually get that. You could buy that information and see if someone's a New Yorker subscriber or subscribed to the NRA magazine, and you, and the campaigns create a profile of every single voter and potential voter, and then rate them a scale of 1 to 10 as to how likely they are to vote for your candidate. And that's exactly what the jury consultants are doing here. It is, this is the probably the most political trial in history, and it's using the exact same modeling processes that, and strategies that are at the core of modern political campaigns.

Yeah, and, and the one thing.

They have their name. They have their name, but they're not allowed to ask them in court. Right, but you, they run the, same.

No one does that. Well, here's what I told Lovett when he did his fancy math about Manhattan. The biggest chunk of people in Manhattan are people who didn't vote. I mean, there's still like 600,000, he was doing the number of votes for Biden, the number of votes for Trump, which was very tiny, but then there's just, I think it was 85,000?. Yeah, 85,000 out of, you know, 8 million people in Manhattan, but the biggest chunk of people is people who did not vote, and, as we know, like low propensity voters or people who skipped one election or multiple elections, they tend to have like weird political views, they tend to have more diverse media diets, they are moderate on some issues, they're liberal on some issues, they're conservative on some issues, or they just don't pay attention much, and that's like.

Their answer to that would be TikTok, or Instagram, or ESPN, or the local news, right?

All right, meanwhile, Joe Biden has been mostly silent on the trial, and his staff is telling reporters that they think there will be more than enough coverage without them doing anything to stoke the fire. That said, Biden did make an oblique joke about the trial during his campaign swing in Pennsylvania. Here he is. Under my predecessor, who's busy right now,

Pennsylvania lost 275,000 jobs. I mean, let's just look at the facts. So he then got a direct question about the trial. afterwards. Let's listen.

His lack of ethic has nothing to do with me. I have nothing to, I have not once talked to anyone in my administration about Trump's legal problems. A lot of them occurred well before I became president, and so I have nothing to do with that. So what do you think about how Biden and his team are navigating this, and anything you think they or other Democrats should be saying? Yeah, I think the president is.

I thought that was all very good advice, right, about Donald Trump thinking the rules don't apply to him, fighting for himself, not fighting for you. Like, this, is background noise to the message that Biden is giving out on the snub, and so they have to be consistent. I think they will be. Politico reported this morning that the Biden folks are telling, and the DNC is like telling Democrats not to talk about this at all. And I obviously agree that this should not be our main message, right?

We shouldn't be out there every day talking about the hush money trial, or, you know, Donald Trump falsifying business records to hide an extramarital affair from the voters, or however, like, not, when Arizona is banning abortion without exceptions, and Donald Trump wants to give a $2 trillion tax cut. But I do think it's a mistake to cede the ground entirely, because there's this asymmetry here where the right is talking about all the time. They're shaping everything that comes out of it, raising these questions, spreading these conspiracy theories, and Democrats are saying nothing. And I don't know that, and I don't think you could have political conversations right now, like, with the people in your lives, where this trial does not come up. This is what is in the news.

This is the thing that's breaking through. Donald Trump falling asleep in the trial, when it's completely viral on social media. It's just, it is part of any political conversation, much more so than the expiration of the Trump tax cuts at the end of 2025, right? And so we have to talk about it, and if Biden's not gonna talk about it, someone else has to, right? Like I said, Biden shouldn't talk about it.

Just before this podcast, I was working on a post for MessageBox, where I was gonna lay out talking points and message guidance for all of us voters, you know, as we're talking about the voters in our lives, about how to best talk about the trial, and that's gonna come out in a couple days. If you want them, you should subscribe at substack.messagebox.com, absolutely. That's organic plug number two. But just a couple of quick points, a tease, if you will. One, we should always start all these conversations by making the point that the law should apply equally to everyone, including the rich and powerful, and including even former presidents.

By.

The actual indictment itself was already brought by a jury of his peers, right? These were career prosecutors who laid out the facts as they found them to a jury of Donald Trump's peers, who then made the decision that this should go to trial. And so it's going to trial. And then I think another point here is that we have to take a step back and talk about all of these trials as an example of the chaos that Donald Trump brings to the White House. And they will be distracting from him.

Because this is not over, right? Let's say there's a hung jury here, it's acquitted, or he gets convicted, and he's not in prison, but he still goes to the White House anyway. There's still the Fulton County trial. There are all these defamation trials. He is just in this legal morass.

Like, look at what he's doing right now. If he's dealing with this in the White House, how is he going to be able to help you? How's he gonna lower costs? How's he gonna make health care more affordable? We have to push this forward a little bit to explain how having someone who is always in legal chaos and trouble prevents them from actually helping your family.

So there's a lot more to say about it. It's coming. But those are, I think, some points where I think we should all just be talking about this in a way that explains to voters why they should care. Because I think that's a big.

Subtle stuff like that, I think, is really good. The campaign put out a memo after the first day that said, wake up, Donald. After stormy abortion ban coverage, Trump poll memo attempts to hush panic. Which is like, because I do think they're gonna have to get their message in this story, but this is the story that everyone's covering, even more than the press is gonna be, the political press, at least, is gonna be covering the abortion story, which is still much more important for the country and most voters. To get that message into these stories, you're gonna have to make the connection a little bit.

There was a new memo out today from the campaign that said, folks, it's bad for Donald Trump out there, and then in parentheses it says, or in there, wherever he is this week. Calls him a con man, accuses him of selling people out to enrich himself, saying that whatever he's doing won't help his personal life, saying that he's in this to fix his personal problems. So they're doing exactly what you're suggesting too, which is putting this trial in the context of the larger message about Trump, which is that he only cares about himself, he's only in this to, like, stay out of jail, and to make sure that he's not broke, and he really doesn't care about anything else.

Lots of action in Congress right now, Dan. That's something we say a lot around here. In the Senate, Democrats just killed the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, based on the fact that policy disagreements don't constitute impeachable offenses. No shit. Republicans are like, oh, terrible precedent, terrible precedent, not even doing the trial in the Senate.

It's like, well, you send over a ridiculous fucking impeachment. that's based on Mayorkas just carrying out Joe Biden's policy and nothing else, then yeah, we're not gonna have a trial. Idiots. Oh, now they care about due process. I know, it's ridiculous.

And over in the House, Mike Johnson seems like he's about to do the right thing and lose his job because of it. He's decided to hold a vote on four separate bills that will provide support for Ukraine, Israel, and the Palestinians, Taiwan, and, surprise, ban TikTok. So whatever passes from those four bills will get packaged together and then sent to the Senate for an up-or-down vote, which is how they would, that's why he's kind of snuck the TikTok ban in there, because the Senate has not moved on that. Biden said he's supportive. Most Democrats and Republicans in Congress seem at least somewhat supportive, though we'll see over these next couple days.

But the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world are furious with Johnson over the Ukraine funding. specifically. More hardliners are threatening to oust Johnson as Speaker. There was a debate whether Representative Van Orden called Johnson tubby.

Is he tubby? I don't think he was tubby, but the Freedom Caucus was saying that Van Orden called him tubby and and said that he was going to join the motion to vacate. and then Van Orden said, no, I'm actually defending Johnson and I would never call him tubby.

Ridiculous. That's what's going on in the House, Dan. Johnson, to his credit, does not seem phased. Here he is Wednesday night. Why are you willing to risk losing your?

I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important. I really do. I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we've gotten, that I believe Xi and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they're in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed.

I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with.

Well, we'll see what happens with that. I think we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens standing by his guy. That statement from Johnson, which was the like the most passionate he's been about supporting Ukraine, or really, I mean, he hasn't said much of anything about it. He has been like mildly for it, but also critical of the Ukraine assistance in the past.

But that was like a full-throated defense of NATO and helping Ukraine. It was, to me, it was like someone who has had their brain pickled by Fox News, like shut the TV off for 10 seconds and like read a real article.

Really? That's what you think? That's what I thought. I mean, I am willing to believe that, like Mike Johnson, has completely odious views on a whole bunch of issues, but was actually convinced by the intelligence that this is an important vote, and he's like.

I mean, but what do you have to gain by losing your job and doing Ukraine? Well, it looks like he's gonna lose either way, so... No, I think if he said no to Ukraine, he would, if he said absolutely not, I'm not moving these bills, fuck off. He would like, the Washington establishment, and mainly Democrats and a few random Republicans who are left, would be like, write, not beds about him, but what the fuck does he care? I mean,

He was fine with Ukraine before he became Speaker, and then changed his position to keep being Speaker. You know, I guess one way, less generous way to think about this, is he realizes he's going to lose his job at some point, and he's probably not willing to hand Ukraine to Russia for the initial three months of Speaker, so maybe there's that. Plenty of his colleagues. But, you know what? Good for him.

Like, all you would have had to do is, you don't even have to get intelligence briefings, you could just, like, read the news. There wasn't, like, whatever fucking Twitter rabbit hole. you've been down, and Fox.

Democrats would have to step in and save him. Do you think they should? I?

Right, like, the Republican Party is just, like, so fucked up, and incompetent, and at each other's throats, that it's being essentially led around by Marjorie Taylor Greene, that we actually have to do that, and the idea that Democrats are going to vote to keep someone with views as odious as Mike Johnson, as Speaker, just so the government can function, sucks. Like, that, really does suck, but it's ultimately, it's probably the responsible thing to do here, because there's not some, you know, Aaron Sorkin-esque, bipartisan, power-sharing agreement in the wings. It's Mike Johnson, and if he loses, you know, you've seen reporting about this, is that a lot of Republicans think there's, that's it, there's no one else who can get the votes, and just so the government will be unable to function in a time of.

And, and, will you weigh that against the political benefit we would get from the circus that would come from Mike Johnson being deposed and then another 50 votes till they find the next MAGA speaker? Like, I don't know that we got, the Democrats got much political benefit of, out of the McCarthy ouster, so, like, I don't know. I don't think it makes a huge difference.

Oh, congressional action.

I mean, just, I don't think that people would notice it enough that it would, it's worth the price to pay. Yeah. Like, I think that should be great, but no one has dialed it enough to know. Yeah, I feel the same way. All right, we're gonna.

Uh, in 2022, Lake only lost to now Governor Katie Hobbs by 0.

7%. She's currently trailing Gallego by anywhere from five to eight points, but there's only been a couple polls in the last couple months, so I wouldn't, you know, take that to the bank. Um, two potential reasons she's trailing. One, her previous support for the state's 1864 total abortion ban, which the state Supreme Court has allowed to go into effect, and Republicans in the legislature have so far refused to repeal. Uh, and two, comments like this from just the other day.

We need to strap on our, uh, let's see, what do we want to strap on? We're going to strap on our seatbelt.

We're going to put on our helmet or your.

Then maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us, just in case.

It's like she, she just left, she, she left it hanging there. She's like, what do we want to strap on? And you're like, oh, no, oh no. And I was like, uh, and then the answer is God and a Glock.

Oh, it just keeps getting better. Um, so not the most salacious thing she could have told him to strap on, but, uh, certainly the most dangerous. Um, so there you have it. One candidate wants more Arizonans to have guns. The other one wants them to have healthcare.

Seems like it should be a pretty clear choice now. You would hope that's not even the first time she has said something like this. Like she has, she has told her supporters to like. arm themselves and, and in the, not just like, I love the second amendment and you should have the right to bear arms, like arm yourself, because this is going to be a tough election. Arm yourself, like in the context of the election after we just saw January 6th in a couple of years ago.

and there you go. And, and there's just the fact that, like, you know, you have candidates talking like that and you have Trump doing his thing. Um, it's going to be a very contentious election and it's just, it's playing with fire. It's playing with fire. Um, Lake has been trying really hard to pretend she never supported the 1864 abortion ban.

She's basically talking like she's suddenly pro-choice and apparently has been calling Republicans in the legislature, uh, to try to convince them to repeal the ban. Uh, so far, no takers in the house. I think she's got a few in the state Senate who might be trying. now. I feel like this is going to be even harder for Lake to pull off than it will be for Trump.

Um, since she is like, there's audio of her saying that she supports the 1864 ban. Um,

There are audio recordings of her supporting this law and there is going to be, and I, this is a low end estimate, $120 million of ads with that footage to show voters. Like I don't, she is not going to be able to escape this. She might be able to get voters to focus on another issue than abortion. I'm very skeptical that she could actually accomplish that, but she, this is, she, this is a huge problem, which is why she's desperately trying to get them to repeal the law, because that's the one thing she could do that could lower the salience of the issue.

Not just the extremism, but the, the on the stump performance, the outsider appeal. And if she's trying, if she becomes like a normal politician, that is going to, that is going to undermine that bit of her strength that allowed.

It was mostly Democrats. It's far from the top issue for voters and that voters prefer Trump's position over Biden's. Um, speaking of bullshit, you think there's any truth to any of that, or is it just all,

Yeah. Yeah. It's what I, what I think is probably true and worth noting is that probably a lot of people did have no idea that this law passed and that we're going to have to just, this is, this whole election comes down to narrowing the news chasm between what is happening and the voters. And so, I mean, this is like, people know a lot more about this than Trump's trial, other things, cause it's a huge deal in the state and being talked about in the state and covered in the state, but people are probably not following it. A lot of people not follow it closely because.

Um, so, you know, here's, here's a, um, here's a organic plug. vote, save america.com. How's that? That's nice. Not as organic as whatever message.

I mean, if the, if, the, if the ad sales people aren't out there trying to get a sponsor, or the strap on segment, I don't know. Strap-ons in civil war.

Marjorie Carrie Lake straps on for civil war. Speaking of civil war, when we come back, um, I will talk to the writer and director of civil war, Alex Garland. Two quick things before we go to break. Um, if you want to fight back against book bands, the crooked store is doing a flash sale on all free the books, merch, free. the books, teas, sweatshirts, and magnets are 30% off, but the sale won't last long.

So make like a conservative who found out about a kid's book with a gay character in it and act quickly. head to crooked.com slash store to shop before the sale ends. Also, the entire second season of world corrupt, co-hosted by Tommy and men in blazers. Roger Bennett is officially out on the pod. Save the world feed.

If you're a fan of the series, you'll be excited to hear that Roger is logging onto crooked's friend of the pod discord for a round of. ask me anything on Thursday, April 25th at noon Pacific, ask him about anything, including the making of this latest season of world corrupt, Saudi Arabia's big investments into soccer, F one racing. And, honestly, any embarrassing question about Tommy? That's, that's what I'm just recommending. Uh, if you're not a member, you can head to crooked.com slash friends now to sign up, uh, check out, world corrupt.

It's a fantastic series. If you haven't listened to the first season, um, check out both. If you have, the second season is fantastic. So, uh, take a listen.

If you're someone like me who worries about our democracy falling apart, boy, do I have. the film for you? Civil war is a vivid depiction of what it might look like for America to dissolve into armed warring factions and what it would look like for journalists to try to cover that story for the rest of the world. It's number one at the box office, the biggest hit yet from our friends, at eight 24.. And we are lucky to have with us today.

The man who wrote and directed the film, Alex Garland, Alex, welcome to pod. Save America. Thank you very much. Pleased to be here. Thank you.

So, for the last eight years, I have lost countless hours of sleep worrying about the scenario this movie is about. So I wasn't really sure that I wanted to see it, but I did. And I loved it. Uh, I've been telling everyone to see it. Um, you started writing this movie in the summer of 2020, which was the beginning of a period when I really felt for the first time, like everything here could just fall apart.

Um, why did you want to make a movie about that?

So, uh, several other countries, many other countries. And I wrote it for exactly the same reason that you might've written it.

And that's because I'm center, left. Um, and it, it, it ran along the lines of what our points of agreement. And, um, I think, uh, that is because one of my realizations in summer of 2020 is that I would always have described myself for years and years and years as left-wing. If somebody said, what are you? I'd have said left wing.

And in some respects, in ideological terms, I could be really very left-wing in on particular issues, I suppose. And around that time I realized I'm not left-wing, I'm a centrist. That is to say I'm left of center. And it was, it was the word centrist and the way I felt attached to the centerism and suddenly having a kind of epiphany about it in a way and realizing that I had framed politics as left, right. And I no longer in a way cared about left, right.

I do care about left, right on some ideological issues of the function of running a country, like how taxes are spent or something like that. But I don't care about left, right. When the issue is centrism versus extremism. And at that point. I'm a centrist and I have far, far more in common with someone on the center, right.

Then I do on an extreme. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, that totally makes.

That is a typical of a very kind of centrist statement, actually. But, but that, that's where I am. Extremism poses something completely different, not the trading of power. It starts at a certain point to pose existential threats.

Not normal back and forth. And, by the way, I do want to say, cause we're having a political conversation, that I do, I have issues with centrism. I'm not saying it's like a great sort of perfect solution, but, but when you put it alongside extremism, uh, most of those problems melt away in comparison to what you're facing.

So what it, whatever it was we were doing, uh, was not effective. And I became increasingly concerned about what was effective. And in fact, in my country, something really odd is happening, which is that the left is about to win a huge victory over the right. And the right in my country has, uh, I think, objectively been extremist, and they are not winning the victory in a funny way because they have done anything really. The right has just collapsed in the way extremist, uh, governments or parties can collapse, which is really under the way of their own madness.

And so the, the left just had to wait. And in fact, clearly, at a certain point, decided to stop being extremist themselves as a counter to the extreme right. And the current leader, whatever he might present to the world, has moved into a much more centrist ground. And then, in a way, just shut up. He's just stopped speaking and stop.

He does make pronouncements, but they're very cool, kind of banal, bland, sort of broadly reasonable pronouncements and, and just waits for the right to burn up, which they're doing incredibly effectively. Like they are toast. So that, that might, that might be, uh, it's just not a very satisfactory answer, which is wait until the other side destroys themselves. Sometimes something more active has to be done. Uh, the easiest thing for me to say is, I've got no idea what the answer to your question was, except that I thought one of the ideas would, might be to stop demonizing the center, right.

Um, and somehow I felt that the left again, which I was part of, was repeatedly, effectively making the same statement as Hillary Clinton, was sort of making a basket of deplorable statement again, and again, and again, and again, and again. And I, I couldn't see how a reasonable consensus would arrive out of that. Um, people would just get more fed up and more extremist. And that could, could, it's only a, it's a small could, but could be a road to help.

And then there's your movie.

and they are, they are not deplorable. They may be Trump voters for any number of reasons. Some, some of them are actually, uh, very similar to the reason I'm left wing, which is the family I grew up in. I grew up in a left wing family and I took on those ideas and I agree with them in a, in a way, I'm culturally left wing and some people are culturally right wing and, and, and demonizing people for that reason doesn't seem fine. I strongly agree with what you said, that it is a mistake.

I believe it is a mistake to make an ethical judgment on the basis of, of someone's voting preference. You can, you can make an ethical judgment, uh, on the basis of whether they're racist or not. You can certainly make an ethical judgment there. You certainly can't make an ethical judgment based on whether someone believes in the free market. Um, I, I don't believe in the free market, but I don't think the argument for it is, uh, irrational or unethical.

I just don't happen to agree with it. And, um, I have, I've been saying this sort of centrist stuff in interviews and what, what, what people keep saying is that I am a political and the film is a political. And I think that that is, that is only true if politics means left versus right. And if politics only means left versus right, then that polarization is a kind of inevitable product of that form of thinking. Uh, politics should be a much, much broader term,

Like, so I thought, I thought the movie was maybe ideological, but not partisan. and ideological only not in the left, right sense, but in the sense of like authoritarianism versus like liberal democracy.

Really? I think he's, uh, honestly, I think he's insane. I think he's kind of, he's, he's sort of, he, he, he gives indications of being unbalanced and he gives indications of being authoritarian. And I, and, and I would say, the right wing thinking is not by necessity, either insane or authoritarian. So I, I'm, I'm not sure whether to bracket him there.

I also think, by the way, if the left, this is one of the things that I, I'm going to just modulate the language that I'm sort of instinctively reaching for. But, but if, if the left wants to combat right wing extremism, it needs to be in the business of winning elections. That that's its job. That is the function of the left in a situation like this is, hands down, flat out to win an election. And you do not win an election without usually persuading people of the other side to come and join you.

And you don't do that by screaming at them and telling them they're unethical. And I, I have felt personally vindicated by some of the responses that I have seen, not vindicated in a good way, but vindicated in a bleak way by seeing the left in a way do that. I find it depressing, because I'm left wing and what I really want to do is remove what I see as dangerous extremists from occupying mainstream political parties.

Why is breaking a story about corruption, not effective in the way it used to be. That's a complicated answer, but a big chunk of that answer is social media.

But they, they, they're problematic if you want to win elections, I think. And if you want to defeat the right, then, then that becomes tricky, I suppose. Um, I think also, uh, I made a set of assumptions, which is on a point of agreement. Um, one of, one of the things people keep saying about the film is why doesn't it explain, as it were, that the sequence of events from the present day to the start of the civil war, uh, why, why is that left blank? And one of the reasons I didn't is because I don't think the reasons for this civil war would lie between this point now and the future.

I think they all essentially lie in the past. that they are, they are things that precede this moment, not things that follow this moment. And, uh, the, in other words, they relate to history and, um, and the way in which history is dealt with or not dealt with. And I, I think the, uh, one of the politicals sort of, I suppose it's an oblique political statement was leaving that question deliberately in the mind of the viewer, um, to, to contemplate that, uh, and, and, and come to some kind of conscious or, or, or, by the way, unconscious.

It's not, it's not born from the right. I mean, there are fascist theocracies, I mean, uh, or, or fascist communist leaders, as it were. And, um, so, so what I felt was this, so if, if part of the thinking behind the movie is what do we agree on? here are Texas and California agreeing, they're saying actually our political positions are less important than this fascist president. Um, which to me, in a way would be rational in, in fact, I think it is rational.

Yeah. Um, and, uh, in the face of fascism, the thing to do would be to agree that it's bad. And, and your, as it were your family, cultural, ideological background becomes immediately secondary to the problems that fascism presents, which is why we have a, a Cheney on our side.

I am fascinated by their thoughts and opinions and also having a beer with them. They make me laugh and I enjoy their company. and, uh, and what of it.

sometimes the sometimes points of the heated point of conflict are not broadly slathered all over the land. They are in localized and intensely dangerous areas, but some places can be surprisingly unaffected. And, and a lot of people, when normal life can go on, what they do is continue with normal life, where they will continue with it up to the point that they can't. Um, and, and in some respects that is an extension of the state we find now not in wartime. Right.

So there's a neat line to be drawn between the two. No, I mean, I found that terrifying.

Um, there, there was an incredibly clear issue and an ethical issue to rally around, but that that's really not always the case, that you know, different factions might have an ethical issue to rally around, um, uh, removing their own authoritarian leader. Um, uh, but other ones might not. And yeah, sure.

It not only that, it can stop other problems from being fixed. So not only does it bring new problems into play, it also seizes everybody up where a social improvement is concerned. So, so, yeah, sure. I, that guy, uh, could be right. Um, and, uh, and I hope is perfectly legitimate, reasonable point to make, but, um, it, civil war isn't the only game in town.

And this is a movie being illustrative of a problem at its extension, but the problem it's being illustrative of is,

And I think to me, it's actually something quite simple, which is the number one, a journalist, motivation can get separated from the product of what they do. So a journalist may well be motivated for careerist reasons or just competitiveness. So their career, so, so it, uh, careerists, they get a promotion, competitiveness, they get a scoop. that doesn't lead to a promotion, but it gives them a dopamine hit, right? That's just sort of life and work and stuff like that.

But, but the product of that journalism has a societal function. Um, so as an individual, uh, like, uh, they may or may not, uh, demonstrate great sort of, uh, I don't know, uh, moral certainty and ethical behavior and stuff like that. It's, it would, it would vary person to person, but that would not negate the product. Um, and, and then there's, so, in other words, show them as conflicted, show them as morally compromised. It doesn't matter.

That's fine. They're allowed to be. those things just like I am, just like you are, just like everybody is. Um, but they are doing something else, which is the, in the acquisition of the product, for whatever reason it is. And I think at times, by the way, Lee, the, uh, sort of lead journalist, lead photojournalist, does present an ethical argument about what journalists.

So I, I would also, uh, listen, it's not as clear as she'd like, maybe, but that's sort of my stock in trade. So, okay. Um, I think that they're doing something simple alongside all of that, which is showing enormous physical courage, huge, huge physical courage. And I do admire that I've, so that is the other part of the component. That's the other thing that I'm presenting.

I've, I've known many journalists very well who do exactly that thing, and I admire them for it. So if I present that to the world or to that journalist, and she says, well, I don't find that admirable. I'd say, okay, well, that's a difference between us. So I am, I am startled and admiring of that. And you're not like that.

And, by the way, if I put it like that, of course I'm being a bit tricksy, because she probably would say, yes, no, I do. Of course I admire that. I realized that I'm, I'm, I'm making a point, but, um, uh, I guess, all right. So there's my answer. I don't care if they're conflicted as individuals, that that kind of thing doesn't really bother me, that they do great work.

If they do it in an ideological way, which is to be non-partisan or, put another way, impartial. I think that's good for news reporters to be impartial. Um, lack of impartiality, I would attach the social media thing we were talking about before. I think it's problematic with reporters. Um, and the other thing is they can be incredibly brave.

So what's not to admire? and that I would say, yeah. Although I hadn't read that piece, but that you mentioned, that's partly because I decided to detune from the smart debate as well. Um, uh, I had read, uh, another thing which, which was talking about the journalists being cold in some of their behaviors, shooting, dying people, photographing, dying people, or tortured people or whatever. Number one is, that is something that war photographers do, and, uh, need to do it.

And the other element of that is the, I think, in the example that's being used, she's actually using the camera to get out of a difficult situation, for she is using the camera to be distracting in the moment from the direction this, this sequence of events could go. She's trying to, so, so I think it's not in my, in my mind, in narrative terms, it's not as it.

Thanks again for your time. Can I say one more thing? Sure. You sure can.

I'm to speak more freely, because, uh, it's, it's just on a personal level. It's a relief. So thanks.

Thanks. Appreciate it. All right. Take care.

All right. Thanks to Alex Garland for joining us today. Uh, everyone have a great weekend, Dan and I, and Tommy and Aaron Ryan will be at the LA festival of books doing a live positive America on Sunday. And you will hear that episode on Monday and then we'll have, uh, the usual Wednesday episode for you. So have a great weekend and we'll talk to you soon.

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Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira Joachim is our senior producer. Reed Sherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

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