Jon Favreau On How Be A Better Public Speaker & Have Your Ideas Heard

They are the Bostics. >> Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Bostics. Today we are sitting down with John Favreau who is the co-founder of Cricket Media and co-host of Pod Save America, wildly popular show that I'm sure many of you have heard or listened

to. He has a former presidential speechwriter, podcast host and political commentator, best known for being the head speechwriter for President Barack Obama, where he helped craft some of Obama's most memorable speeches during his presidency. After leaving the White House, he co-founded Cricket Media, like I said earlier, and now

hosts as well, the popular podcast where he breaks down current events and U.S. politics in a more conversational, accessible way.

We had an incredible conversation with John, its wide-spanning.

We talk all about speeches, speechwriting, we talk about the state of politics in this country. We talk about how it's okay to talk to different people from different walks of life and different political ideal beliefs. We also talk about empowering the future of America through political education and what it really takes to bring people back together again.

Again, this is a wide-ranging conversation, really enjoyed sitting down with John, easy to talk to fellow podcasters and hosts, with that John Favreau, welcome to the Bostics. Okay, so I'm just going to keep it going, John, first we'll do the intro later, of course, but welcome to the show and what I want to keep rolling what we were just talking about, which is, this is your world, but everything these days feels like it's getting blended

into some political conversation. This show is 10 years old now. We started health, wellness, marketing, relationships, how to build an online brand. Now you find yourself navigating these pod holes of conversation, so I would love your perspective because it's like, obviously this is your world, your politics, but does everything

these days have to be political? It didn't have to be, it's a real careful wish for situation because I was in politics for many years and I believe very deeply in organizing and the power of politics to change

people's lives, and so I've always wanted more people to get involved and participate

in politics, not quite like everyone is today, which is, you know, it's like crisis to crisis and it has infected almost every area of people's lives and not always for good.

“It's not like everyone's having thoughtful conversations and debates about the best way”

to change the world, and so I think to the extent that politics has invaded everything in a way where it's like hobbyism, like people are sort of viewing it, like they view sports and who's winning, who's losing, and, you know, what's the drama of the day and it's like a reality show, like I don't think that is obviously very helpful, what we try to do is, you know, help people who may be following the news, but are not political

junkies like us to sort of make sense of what's going on. You give it a layman, like you make it digestible for people to understand. Yeah.

It's challenging in media these days, not just on this platform, but just in media in general,

is to your point, like it's become this spectator sport where there's one side or the other, one's going to win, one's going to lose, one's good, one's bad, depending on which side you're on. Yeah.

“And we've largely got to a place where, I think when, I think we're around the similar”

age, when we all came up, like you could have different conversations with different people with different thought patterns. Yeah. Something like this, like we'll put a trailer out sometimes, depending on someone leaning left or right.

It'd be like, you sound a bit, you're like people, like before the content even comes out, it's almost like you're allowed to talk to some people you're allowed to not, like, depending on which side of the audience you're on. And I think that's a, it's a challenge, it's a challenging time to be in media navigating all about.

I think the internet has played a huge role there as well, because I still find that when I talk to people in person and people who may not share my politics, I can have like very reasonable conversations with them, like we may walk away disagreeing usually, we do, but you could have a civil conversation.

“I think when you are having all these conversations mediated by all of these algorithms,”

then what you're exposed to and especially if you're someone in media is you're exposed to the most extreme opinions on both sides, and it would be nice to say, oh, that doesn't have an effect on you as someone who's in media, but it does, as if it's all of us, like none of us are impervious to like seeing all that crap all the time. And so I think that actually, unfortunately, continues to like polarize the conversation

more deeply, and that's something I talk about that a lot on. I have one podcast called Offline where we sort of talk about how the internet is breaking our brains and society and making democracy harder, and, you know, there's a lot of research

world, to just be getting all of our information through our screens all day long. We have to talk about the art of speech writing. Yeah.

“Can you tell when a speech is written by chat, G.B.T?”

Yes. For now. Okay.

Because first of all, a lot of speeches aren't very good.

Before, chatGPT came along, they were very good, and so, but, you know, now that we've had a couple years of large language models, especially chatGPT, you can tell the M-dashes and, you know, it's not this, it's that, and, you know, you're not just right, you're really right, like it's just a very recognizable. Like, I read them.

Yes. It's a rhythm. I don't think it'll be like that forever, at least, according to all the, you know, people who are building AI, I think it's going to get smarter and smarter, but, I do think that AI will be able to replace a lot of speeches, because, like I said, I think a lot of speeches

were pretty pedestrian.

“I think they're, it will then incentivize people who are really creative to write better”

speeches and to give better speeches, and I think that will sort of be the test. You should launch a speech AI chat. I'm, I'm, I'm sure that will come along. You have to do it yourself. I feel like it would crush it by you.

Yeah. You would as like the early, remember the early days of social when, like, people would squeak in those, those ads that were, like, they were scamming and people would, like, think it was real and real, and then, like, over time, you just get really good at recognizing like, hey, that's, that's BS or something.

Same with, like, the AI Slop, I think that is what will happen with AI with humans. I think we'll just get really good at recognizing, because a lot of people will take

a more pessimistic view of, like, oh my god, we're never going to be able to tell what's

real and what's not.

“I think the opposite, I think humans are going to get very good at being able to distinguish,”

like, that's human, that's not human, that isn't, I think we'll crave more of the human. I think that's right. You become the youngest political speed trader in history. That's crazy. I mean, having my accident, I was, so as in college, which is a college of the Holy

Cross, Massachusetts, I grew up in Massachusetts, it's just north of Boston, and there was an internship program, a junior in college, I interned for Senator John Kerry, with my home-state Senator, and I did that because I thought maybe I'd be interested in politics, but it was a good opportunity to take an internship and go to DC for a semester with a lot of my friends who were going.

So I did that, I sat in the Communications Office, I sat next to his Senator Kerry's Communications Director who also happened to be a speed trader, and just learned a lot from him, especially as they were preparing to launch John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2003. He gave me the opportunity to start writing constituent letters, maybe an op-ed and a local newspaper, and so I got the taste of writing for someone else, and I thought, oh, this

is kind of cool, graduated college, joined the Kerry campaign as an assistant, that was the press assistant to six different people in the press office, and that was like wake up at 4am, get all the news clips, facts them to everyone, because it was 2002, 2003, and get everyone lunches and all that kind of stuff, but at one point in the campaign, John Kerry was losing in the primary, Howard Dean was winning, if that Howard Dean was going to be

the nominee. Yeah, I know, a lot of people did, and we're just going to mention today like, remember Howard Dean was too crazy, because he yelled a little loudly at the end of a speech. Yeah, he said, it's pretty tame now, but when John Kerry was losing, a bunch of people quit the campaign, some people were fired, he had to mortgage his house, they ran out

of money, and they needed a deputy speed trader, and I originally asked if I could have the job, and they said, no, you're too inexperienced, really, like 21, and then when they were really out of money and they couldn't, no one else wanted to join the campaign, because it was a sinking ship, they were like, all right, you can have a chance being deputy speed trader, because this thing's probably going to be over in a couple months anyway,

and we don't have to pay you more, I was making $24,000 a year, and so I got the job, and then John Kerry wins the primary, and so I was speed trader all through the general election. And then when we lost a bush, my former boss in the Kerry campaign had gone to work for now, Senator Barack Obama, at the time, he would have been running for the Senate,

and so he wins the Senate, and Robert Gibbs, who would, but my boss reached out and said, you know, he wrote that 2004 convention speech himself, he doesn't think he needs a speed trader, but I think I know he needs a speed trader, because he's in the Senate now, he's going to be given a lot of speeches, and he's not going to have time to write, and so would you come down to DC and have breakfast with him, and see if you guys mesh, and had breakfast

with Obama, his first week in the Senate, in January of 2005, and we hit it off, and he was

like, I still don't think I need a speed trader, but you seem nice enough, so let's give

When you met him, did you know right away the talent that he had, because I mean, I think he's probably one of the best speakers of the last few generations, right? Like, I mean, just like natural, I don't know how much of that isn't, I mean, you tell me it's not natural, but so talented. Do you recognize that right away, or is that something you guys were going together?

The first time I met him was at the 2004 convention in Boston.

He was the keynote speaker, and I was on the carry campaign, and I was backstage at the convention, and my job was to go over a lot of the speeches from the different speakers of the convention, and I saw the Obama speech, and I remember reading it for the first time in thinking, oh, this is different, it's a pretty good speech, and then I got a call from my boss, who was on the road traveling with John Kerry, and he said, there's a line in the

speech being delivered by Barack Obama, the keynote speaker, that John Kerry wants in his speech, and so we need to take it out, and I was like, okay, why are you calling me?

“It's like, well, you need to go find Barack Obama and take the line out of the speech,”

and I'm like, okay, so I walked down the hall, and he was practicing the speech for the first time, as the first time he had ever used a teleprompter, so he was practicing, and I went up to Robert Gibbs, who had been my boss, and I was like, okay, I don't have to talk to Obama, I can talk to Gibbs, and I told him the whole story, and Gibbs is like, I'm not telling him to take out that line, he loves that line, you go talk to him, so that's how

I met Barack Obama, and he came up to me with an inch of my face, and I was like, are you trying to tell me I have to take out my favorite line, and I think I blacked out for a few seconds, and then when I came to Man walked up to me, introduced himself at David Axelrod, and he said, "Son, let's walk outside, and we'll rewrite the line together." So we did, and then I heard him deliver the speech that night, and when I heard him deliver

it, I was like, this guy is so special. And then when I sat down with him a year later, in the Senate office, I had read his book at that point, but in preparation for sitting down with them, I read dreams for my father, and when I read that book, it's like the fact that someone who wrote this honestly is now in national politics, and was this vulnerable in the book, and this, if someone like this

can make it in politics, I need to be part of it. And that was a different time in politics, since people weren't doing that. No. Those books were real dry back then. Yeah.

I mean, he talked about drinking smoking weed, cocaine men, like I was all in there. All the taboo stuff that you just couldn't do. Yeah. And it was also just beautifully written, and it was like, you know, he talked a lot about race, and just the things that politicians didn't do at the time.

So from your perspective, were people that are interested in giving speeches or speech reading, what makes a compelling speech? Yeah. What makes a compelling speech is, it should be as close to a conversation that you're having with someone in real life as possible.

Huh. And it's a good tip. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people sit down, and there's the formality of a speech, there's the professionalism.

“And so you think you have to write it like you're, as people especially do this in politics,”

but in all aspects of life, people write like they're writing for history, they're writing to like read it in the book. And if you want to really connect with an audience, especially now, where so many speeches or, you know, commentaries are delivered just on a screen alone, and someone's just watching it.

And speak like you're just chatting with someone. And, you know, it's not a hard and fast rule because it needs to be elevated a little bit if it's a speech, but too many speeches like start up here, it like 10,000 feet. And they need to, you need to write the speech as if you're trying to convince or, you know, persuade or talk to just a friend at a bar or at a restaurant.

That's what I always try to think.

And you, you were trying to tell a story, right? Like a good speech is telling a good story. And so it should have a beginning, a middle and an end. And it should be, it should grab people at the beginning, it should have humor, it should have some emotion. And it also should not be that long.

I know and has ever left a speech and said to themselves like, that was a great speech, but I wish it was just like five minutes longer, 10 minutes longer, like, and every one writes too long and speeches are always too long. So, take note, wedding toasters. That's my main advice on a wedding post.

My main advice, because everyone, there's all the wedding speeches are like very cliche. And there's a lot of, you know, talking about the process of writing the wedding toast. It's like, when I was told that I was going to do this, I had thought about all the stories between. I would not want you in the audience when you were doing a wedding speech, that would be like

fuck.

“Well, you know, I think it's when I'm, so many weddings have been to, even when I don't”

know the people super well, like family members giving the speech will be like, and I know

there's an Obama, there's an Obama speech writer in the audience, and so it's always a,

You know what's so interesting when you're saying what makes a good speech? This is like very weird, but that makes a good piece of social media content too. Like when I'm, when I am, like when I hop on my Instagram story, I try to hit what you're talking about, which is like feeling like you are talking directly to the person. And you've seen people like Alex Earl, who's obviously blown up, and her whole thing is

she talks to the audience like she's face timing them. Yeah. So in a weird way, it's a little bit like creating a piece of content for social media obviously on a bigger stage, but it's similar, at similar points. Very similar.

Very similar.

“And look, I think there's a slight difference if you're delivering a speech to a crowd”

of, you know, 5,000 people, 20,000 people, like you're going to want some lines in the speech and moments in the speech, where you get applause, you get people on their feet, or you get people feeling emotion. So, you know, depending on the venue and the audience, it can change a bit. But I still think it is, it's a hard and fast rule to make the speech as conversational

as possible. So on the personality side, and I'm sure you've analyzed this, thought about it before. If you were to look at Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Trump, what do you think that they, because obviously, they all became president and the one is still president, what do you think each of their strengths are in weaknesses are as it relates to giving speeches.

Because obviously, like, they're able to, these people have been able to resonate with audiences. Yeah. I mean, I'll start with just their, I think that people who rise to that level in politics have a confidence and a self-assuredness, and it is this belief that like, this is who

“I am, and this is what I believe, and you like it, or you don't like it.”

And, you know, I know that watching Obama first hand and getting to know him really well,

you can clearly tell that from Donald Trump. And I do think Biden has an element of that too, because I think he has been in politics obviously for a very, very long time. But, you know, the Joe Biden, I mean, and I got to know him in the White House as well, but like the Joe Biden that was in public is the Joe Biden behind the scenes as well, too.

You know, he's just, he is who he is, and he isn't, he's okay not changing that. I think that for speaking, you know, with Donald Trump, like, Donald Trump is at his worst speaking, for just talking about the style of speaking. He's at his worst when he has to read off a prompter, and you can tell that he is reading something that his staff wrote for him, and he doesn't like it, because he has this

feel for the crowd. And it's also, it's the same as he's better in front of a crowd than he is when it's just the camera, because he has a sense of like what's working and what's not working. Obama was like this, too, when he was in front of a big crowd, he knew when a line was working, when it wasn't, when a riff was working, when it wasn't, then we'd go back

and retool it, and he would, you know, use the ones that were working well and not.

“And so I think that that ability to feel in sense where the crowd was going and how it”

was reacting is like a strength for both Obama. You can feel the energy of what's going on in the room, no matter how big. Yes. You know how to react to maybe moments that weren't planned. Yes.

I think for Obama, one of the weaknesses, one of the challenges that we always had to overcome

is he wants to over-explain everything, if something's not working, or he thinks something's unpopular, like his instinct is, okay, if I just explain more, more facts, more statistics, then like it's going to land, and I think in this intentional environment, even back then, when you only have people's attention for short amount of time, you can't just be like going deep into the weeds on everything, and so we would console him to like, cut, shape,

polish, so that he was giving more of an emotional argument than like getting into the weeds on every single policy issue. He needed to land the plane. He needed to land the plane. I mean, with Trump, it's like that been in a different way.

Trump's not really trying to over-explain, but he's just going on and on and on and on. I mean, like the two hour or two and a half hour rallies, speeches, or it's amazing to watch that he can just talk that long. I don't think it serves him that well. I think that, you know, he's probably as best when the cameras cut to him for like 10 minutes

at a rally. I don't think it necessarily works with the television audience, but it works with the people who go to the rally. You know what though? And again, like, I'm not so close to this, but when I just think about watching both of

them give speeches, no, they're analyzing it in this way, which I've never done.

There's something about the way they speak, where you just feel like they're speaking to you in such a common sense way, they're speaking to you in such terms that you're going to understand.

No matter what's going on, they're able to deliver it in a way where you feel like you're talking to your buddy and that they understand. Is that them or the speed triter, though?

“Well, that parts them, because I think sometimes where, at least for me, it goes over”

the head, is when you feel like you're being delivered some very coordinated and polished and designed. First, when you use his way to be good words, I can't do it. I can't get it through the thoracists. And there's something like a spider sense that I think kicks in and all of us were like,

"I don't know if I trust that." You do what they both do is they break the third wall a lot.

And Obama's humor was always at its best when he was making fun of the game that is politics

and letting people know, like, "I know that a lot of this is bullshit," and believe me, like I'm still normal, I get this is crazy, I'm just going to tell you about it and Trump does the same thing pretty well. Yeah, it's very human. Yes.

Yeah, and I think both of them have done, and by the way, a little bit, both of them have done as they kind of took us out of the Bush, Clinton, Reaganary, polished political realm. And you've talked about a little bit with the book and they made it feel like, "Okay, I'm participating in this as opposed to just viewing it and trying to keep up." Right.

With it, you know, it's no accident that that sort of coincided with just trust in political institutions, media, all institutions going way, way down.

And so people are more primed to think that what they're hearing from a politician or a business

leader or anyone is bullshit. And so if it sounds like you are reading something that is tightly scripted or that you're like reading the stage of directions, then people aren't going to trust you, fundamentally. And if you sound like you're just talking to them, then they're more likely to trust you.

“And I think a lot of politicians have a problem with that.”

Can you explain to the audience how you conceptualize a speech? Like say, say Obama came to you and he wants to talk about blank. You could give us a topic. How do you guys start to do it? Is it collaborative the whole time, tell us, the behind the scenes?

Sure.

So let's say, so I, last time I worked with him on something was the last democratic

convention when he spoke for Kamala. And, you know, I would talk to him and say, okay, what, what do you want to communicate? Like what is the, what is the one thing that you really want the audience to take away? What's been on your mind? That's really like, father, new biopolitics are bothering you about the campaign or you

think you want to say. So you sort of, I just get his thoughts. And then he and I will usually just have a conversation about politics. What's going on? The news and I will sit there and just type everything he says and just get it all down

on a piece of paper. And he will, sometimes, have like an outline in his mind of where he wants to go in the speech. Like he's, it is the real loyerly part in him where, like I remember when during the O8 campaign, he gave this big speech on race about his pastor, Jeremiah Wright and it was

this big controversy and so he delivered this big speech on, on race. And he called me the Saturday night before the speech at like 11 o'clock at night after he had been on the campaign trail. We were given the speech two days later, I was freaked out, but I had to write it so quickly. And he was like, I'm just going to be stream of consciousness and tell you, like, what's

on my mind? And then hopefully you can like put something together. And then he starts going like, all right, I want to talk about one. A, two, two, a, to b, then go through, like he had off the top of his head, the outline of what he wanted to say.

Now, that didn't happen all the time, but he's very good at figuring out the outlines of the speech.

“Partly, I think it's the lawyer and I'm partly, it's the storyteller because he knows”

that like the speech, a lot of political speeches are just like a plos line after a plos line and or like, this is going to be quoted by the press. So I got to put this line in, but they're not all like connected together. So he's very good at connecting different parts of the speech into a story. So once we get the story of the speech, the layout, the logic, the flow of the speech, correct.

And I get his thoughts, then I go off and I'll do a draft and I'll write the speech. If there's research needed, I'll have I have a team that would help do research for the speech, whether it's like finding an interesting anecdote or a quote from history or just policy research if we're doing a policy topic. And so I get all that input, finish the draft, I would send it around to all the relevant

people in the campaign or the White House, depending on what it was. Then I would send it to Obama. It would either come back with a bunch of edits and markups and he would take a pen and just sort of like rewrite and stuff like that, or it would come back with very few marks on it and like a note pad, a yellow note pad, just full of writing, which meant like

he put a lot of effort into the speech and a lot of himself into the speech, it ended up being a speech that only he could give and one of the better speeches he would give. I mean, when he got the Nobel Prize, we didn't have much time at all to write that speech. And I remember it was the morning that we left for Oslo that he handed us, I worked on the speech with Ben Rhodes, my fellow speechwriter, he handed us 11 pages of written material

for the speech plus the speech we had already written.

And he was like, I like some of what you guys have, here's what I'm thinking, can you combine

it all together and have it ready before we get on the plane tonight. And then when we landed in Oslo, he had to deliver the speech right after like an hour after landing. And this pre-chouch, GPT, you can't just blend it all together. He's there.

It's Hella Promptor there? Yeah. Yes. So he's reading a teleprompter as well. Yes.

And on that speech, I added the last page of the speech into the teleprompter as he was walking up to the stage, as the closest we had ever gotten to not having a speech.

“What's the worst speech you've ever seen in your entire life?”

Wow, that's a good one. Be honest. I mean, you know, there's a lot of trump ones that are pretty bad. I don't know that I could, like Biden had some bad ones too. Yeah.

Yeah. He had some rough ones too. Biden had some rough ones too. Not as rough as the, I mean, the debate performance, but you're also coming off the back of like one of the, again, greatest speech gives him all time.

So it's like, it's a hard bar, you know, you already got to work with like the top. I mean, there's speeches that are bad just because they're written poorly or the person delivering them is delivering them poorly. Are they plagiarized? Or they plagiarized.

But then there's also, we were talking about this recently. There's speech, like sometimes we get in the habit of this and the way it has sometimes because Barack Obama was such a great speaker is people thinking that if there's a big problem, a speech will solve the problem. Right.

And in like no matter what, if we just give a speech and remember back in 2010, there was the deep water horizon, oil spill and the golf. And remember, he just kept spilling oil over and over and no one could plug the hole and Barack Obama was getting like so much criticism for it. And everyone was like, we have to give an oval office address on the oil spill.

It was like, great. Do we have a solution to stop the oil spill? And we didn't. And I was like, this speech is going to be terrible because no matter how well it's written and no matter how well it's delivered, people want the oil spill to stop.

And if it doesn't do that, it was going to be judged a failure. So like, people who gives speeches, and I do think that, and we talked about it recently because Trump's speech about around last week, the prime time address was very similar. The speech didn't have any news in it. So they just don't want to be at war.

Yeah. Like, he wasn't announcing the end to the war, he wasn't announcing war, he was just like summarizing his free social posts. So like, it wasn't judged well because it didn't do anything to solve any problems. What about a speech that blew your mind, not political?

Maybe it was at the Oscars, maybe it was a TED talk. What's something where you were like, damn, that person really nailed it? I'm trying to think of who, this is a hard question, either really hard questions. I just think that you, I feel like you would point us to a speech where we could go watch it

“and be like, that's how you get the speech.”

It's been amazing speech.

God, actually. Someone just gave one, I feel like at the Oscars, but maybe not this time, maybe it was the last time that was so good that had everyone standing and clapping, but I can't remember it was a show. Was it a show on Penn?

Was it not a show on Penn now? I didn't see. I didn't see it. Did anyone else? Okay.

I didn't show up. I didn't show up. I'm trying to think. Matthew McConnaie is pretty good at speeches. Yes.

He gets you going. With that accent, he's got his mannerisms. There's something about how you're watching, like I like watching some of these guys go and speak at college graduations. Yes.

Jim Carries done a good one. Remember that one? Oprah. Yeah. Oprah's excellent.

Charlie Munger did a good one.

“Do you think that's natural or all contrived or both?”

I think it is. I think some people are just naturally talented at doing that. I think Oprah is just as good as people think she is. Like when she gives a speech like that, you're like, "Oh, that's something that only she could do."

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I want to switch gears with you a little bit here, when someone like yourself who has

the experience you have in Washington being as close to politics and political leaders as you have been, what's your filter when you view the news or when you watch people cover politics knowing what you know?

“You filter in what way, like, what am I going to say?”

This is BS, I know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, it's a talking point or like, hey, this is something I got to pay it to, like, how do you consume now knowing what you know? When it's news about politics on the White House, or campaigns, even though I've been out of politics since 2013, I think about my experience in the White House, my experience

in politics and try to judge what's happening based on that.

So there's some sort of insight that that gives me that I touched it on.

I've also now been podcasting in in media for the last decade and you're a pioneer. I don't know if I'm a pioneer, but it's been a lot of time. Do you know what I mean? One of the early ones. And so I, you know, I judge a lot of the media content based on just, you know, what

“I've seen over the last decade, but look, I think one of, we sort of fell into podcasting”

and one of the reasons I like the medium so much is, do you think television is a medium and a lot of the television news broadcasts, cable broadcasts? We talked about this with speeches, like, they are at a point where, because how television news and cable news is structured and how anchors speak, it's not how people consume information anymore.

So if people are used to consuming information with, you know, watching an influencer on

TikTok or Instagram and then they tune into the news and it's someone like sitting there with their papers and reading like their Walter Krunkke, then it's not going to feel as compelling because they're not going to feel as authentic and there's, there's going to be that distance between the person delivering the news or talking about politics and the audience and with podcasting, like, you're just sitting around to table, you forget

the cameras there, you're having a conversation with friends, it's not sound bites either. It's not sound bites and so you just sort of let you clarify that, like, you say something and so they're like, oh, well, what did you, like, they're not used to doing that on these other platforms. Yeah, one question back, back in the internet and I noticed it now because I still do cable

hits from time to time and whenever I'm on cable TV, I'm like, oh, I have, like, two minutes. I'm just going to be a commercial trip. It's still, I still not, like, I've gotten better at it over. The podcasting has made me better because I now don't worry about the appearance that I'm like, whatever, it's going to be on. I'm sitting in my, usually I'm sitting in the studio, the podcast studio as well. Just talk and sometimes it's good and

sometimes it's not, but like, at some point, you don't care as much. You've, like, had enough reps that you're like, whatever. Speaking of that, and I wanted to talk to you about this. So again, we started this show if you could go back 10 years. We started it. Health. Well, and as we were curious about the medium, we were listening to a lot of shows. You're like, Tim bears and ritual, like,

you know, self optimization a lot of it. And we just fell into this and it's evolved into a medium where the types of people that will now come on shows like this compared to the early days is drastically different, right? Yeah. Like it was back in the day, if any politician or any a list person went on any show, it was like, in the podcast, it was like, oh my god, somebody like, I remember Tim bears had the bronze James people like, I can't

believe this happened. I remember what Obama did Mark Marin. Yep. That was huge too. It was like, it was like, I people had heard of a podcast before. Yeah. And so, you know, obviously it's a, we've evolved with the medium. Recently, we had RFK Jr on here. And obviously, like, that hits a nerve on both sides. Some people are very excited. I'm sure everyone was thrilled. But what I, what I, what we appreciate about the medium is, you know, whether

you agree with someone's policies or not. Like, if somebody's actively in office, they're going to affect you in some kind of way. So we had some clarifying questions. What, what I've seen you talk about this in the past where you say you think more people on both sides of the aisle should do more long-form content. And one of the criticisms we got, which I read a lot of them, I ignore. I say, okay, like, the people are just angry because somebody's on like, ignore,

you know, people are like, do better ignore. But some of the, the feedback was, hey, why do you guys have this person and not invite more people on the left? And what I don't think they see is like recently we invited Gavin Newsom on Gavin if you're listening. And it's, and maybe it, if it's got to him, not sure, but for sure, got to his people into decline. And what I've seen doing this is there's maybe a willingness for more people on the right or for perceived right

to come and do long-form and maybe less so on the left. I don't know if you agree with that or not.

“I think that was, uh, that has definitely been true over the last couple of years. I think it's”

changing a lot. I mean, Gavin, I'm surprised they said no, because he's been doing a lot of work.

But I, but I, but I sometimes, you know, like, I think maybe one of his people saw it and they're like, oh, they had this on and they think it's the perception is one way or another. But yeah, you know, that for him is, is not a problem because he has been among a lot of different Democrats. Gavin's good about this. Rokana's good about this is like going on right wing or not right wing, but even just like right leaning or not political at all podcasts and just like talking with

people who've made disagree with him and Gavin has a podcast and he's had, you know, we had Charlie Kirk on. It's Steve Bannon on. So he's been trying this like talking to people from trying to get

“in the media. Yeah, I think I think that's why I thought he would say yes. Yeah, because I think and”

look, some of these things is he's, he's got the book and he's running around. It also could be also the people. We can't just let him grab it. But anyways, what I'm addressing is I think like, you know, as hosts, all you can really do is extend the invites. Right. Like we have and what I've noticed and I'm and again, I won't get into particular and put everybody down. I did that for Gavin because I want to pressure him to come on. But what I've noticed is we're typically able to get a few more

yeses for people that are maybe considered in the right camp than we are in the left camp. And I don't think it's just the show. I just think there's more people in that realm that are open to doing long form like this and having these debates. Maybe it's changing and I just wanted to talk you about it. I mean, I, I think it, I hope it's changing because I, you know, I very much believe that Democratic politicians are life-laning political figures should absolutely be everywhere

all the time. And I think it, I think the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians have been slow to realize that not everyone, in fact, most people aren't getting their news from CNN or MSNBC anymore. We don't have the news in our house anymore. I mean, it's, we don't watch it in our house. It's not on and I do it for a living. It's crazy. And that's interesting to hear

you say that. Yeah, because it's just, it's not, well, I mean, also part of the problem is we have

two little kids. And so I'm like, I can't put the news on. I go to my 82-year-old dad's house and that thing is blasting. And it's just like, it takes me. I put it on mute. KTSD, right back to childhood. It's funny. You know, we, my, my parents love up in $1,000. And my wife always notes that when we're like, we walk into their house from like the TVs on when it's now and it's like,

“and it's like, they just have that TV is on. Yeah. But I think that Democrats were slow to realize”

that people are consuming information in so many different ways. And like, you just have to be there. And I, I don't think it's a, like, a partisan reason for like, oh, we don't want to go in more rightlyening spaces or places that aren't friendly to Democrats. I think it is a, um, a fear of, like, am I going to do well? Am I going to be normal? Am I going to set, you know, like, there's this, this sort of innate caution that I think for Democrats is born of now having

lost two elections to Donald Trump. And a lot of most Democrats in the party don't trust their

instincts anymore. Because they're like, we lost the first election. And then we went into

them and lost the second inch. They make sense. And now we don't know what to say. They'll be all stiff. And, you know, like, everyone's like, oh, Joe Rogan, average going to Oregon. Yes. But I could also, like, count on one hand, the number of Democratic politicians, if I was working for them, that I would trust to go on Joe Rogan. Because a lot of them, I think, would be, have no idea what they were getting into. Because he was so smart. Just because he would,

just because he would throw them questions on topics that they are totally not prepared for. Yeah, like, you could go down a lot. You could, well, but I think that with funny enough, I think that's what people are looking for. It's like, I want to hear your perspective on policy and ideas. I also want to hear how you think about parenting. And I also want to think about what you do for a hobby and what you like. And are you going to watch the new Star Wars movie of the Mandalorian?

I want it, like, I think people want to know, they want to know them. I think they want to know

the behind the scenes. And what I've always viewed it as, because we've been doing the show for a long

time is it, whenever you start to broach those conversations, say, hey, I want to have this person answer, well, what are the topics? What are the questions? I'm like, no, we're going to just have a, like, we can give you ideas of what we want to talk about, but there's no, like, these are not, there's not like set talking points. There's no set questions. It's that we're going to have a conversation. And I think that throws some people.

We have in the, in the, in the Democratic Party, we have a lot of, um, uh, front row kids, uh, who are in their, in class, they were like in the front row, raising their hand, asking for more homework. And I think the challenge is when they're in those settings and you're asking them, like, what are your hobbies? What do you like to do? They know the answers, but in the, the editors going in their head, and they're like, what to say, what if I say this and this upsets this person,

if I say this, then this person's going to be mad and what if people don't like my hobby and what if my hobby's late? Like, in the, the, the, the, the self editing starts and they're just

“too nervous to, which is, again, those back to like, what Obama has, which, like, you have to be”

comfortable in your own skin and just like, this is who I am and these are my answers and if people don't like them, whatever. Well, Obama can do it and he does some shows and he thinks he's great at obviously Trump does. And to Secretary Kennedy's credit, like, and I'll just say, we had,

everybody else ahead of time, there was no, it was like, it just had a conversation and he answered the question, I'd say, and I thought that, you know, we tried to keep it very, like, down the line of, like, what's going on, particularly in health and health policy, but like, we threw some questions at him and he, at least had answers and I think, like, people appreciate that because they want to see that the people in charge are at least thinking about trying to figure out

solution, whether you agree with the solution or not, like, we want to know, like, hey, what are you guys working on over there? Yeah. How are you thinking about taking care of us? Right? But that's, I think people appreciate when, even if they, um, falter a little bit or even if they kind of stumble and they are trying and you're seeing, like, they're, they actually are thinking about it, like, I think we're, we recognize the human element and appreciate people doing that.

“Yeah. No. It's just, I think it's also the only way anyone makes progress on anything. It's, like,”

having real conversations, sometimes difficult conversations, having some time disagreements and debates lives that aren't, like, perfectly mediated and planned and ahead of time, like, that's, that's how, like, real change comes about in persuasion. Speaking of persuasion, you said politics is a persuasion game. Mm-hmm. What's, uh, and this is from the team. This is not my question. I will say this is a team question. She said, what's a specific political belief

that you've held that you are successfully persuaded to change? Well, I think this is, I think this is sort of over the last couple of years, but it was a democrat, come here to become a democratic politics. Anytime you would give a speech about Israel or democrat,

politician would give a speech about Israel, you would talk about how amazing Israel is in our closest

ally and wonderful, and it's like, you have to be pro Israel, no matter what, that's like the whole, it's a core thing to the democratic party. And I think even when, obviously, October 7th happened, and I was just horrified, I think it's like, you know, what Hamas did was, like, the worst things you can do to other human beings. And I think when their at first was criticism of Israel's prosecution of the war in Gaza, I was much more likely to think, well, that's just people who, um, you know,

were on the far left, and they don't, you know, and then as more came out, and the war went on, and the killing continued. You know, I, I really did start changing my opinion of the Israeli government, and Israel, and what it was doing in the Middle East. And, um, it's hard in the democratic party, even now, I think it's a big split in the party, because there's still people who's like, well, that's our, you know, our closest ally in the Middle East. I also think like, you know,

here in the United States, I very much believe that, um, we have a president who is, you know, has authoritarian tendencies, and wants to turn the United States into something that I don't,

you know, believe it should be turned into. And so, I'm, I'm always like a, why couldn't that happen

“in Israel as well, right? Like, that's just, but I think that's what BB Netanyahu and a lot of the”

Israeli government has done there as well. So my opinion on Israel, um, and I'm not to bring up an issue that is, I know this is an easy issue that everyone agrees on. Um, but it's changed over time. It's changed over time. I highly consider myself independent, large, because I've never been in politics, and I try to take issue by issue. But I imagine when you have the party affiliations that's more like your self-housing or that close, and you start to change your opinion, like,

is that a challenge to do to lose friends over that? Do you start to push back? Do you have professionals reaching out to you saying, don't do that? Like, yeah, you do. I mean, on the, you know, I, people have gotten mad at it. Well, it's funny, because when I was in politics, um, it didn't happen as much because you're really in the bubble when you're working in politics. You're either in the White House, you're in a campaign, and so you're just surrounded by people who think like you,

and there is a bunker mentality, especially when you get to the White House. I think that's through every administration of both parties. Um, once I started podcasting and being a political commentator,

you still have some of that. Like, the first couple years, I think I still had that. Now,

I am much more willing to say something that I believe, and if people on my side get mad at me, yeah, when it's like really broken out and built around the country, media companies show so it's a bit different. But I imagine that's a struggle because it might, it almost feels like you're like abandoning. I mean, this wasn't like a policy issue, but the, um, the, the most criticism we got was after that first debate with Biden and Trump, and we all right after that debate said,

you know, Biden should really consider dropping out. Yeah, but I mean, like, the people, I mean,

“like, I think all of us at the time were like, well, there's something awful. Well, that's what,”

I mean, that's why we, we were like, and we would get like so much pushback from the Biden campaign, from friends of ours and Democratic politics that we've had forever. There's like,

and the Obama White House, and it's a, it's a vendetta that the pod guys have, and you know, Hunter Biden was very mad at us. Um, but of course, like I was like, well, do you guys realize what most of the country believes right now? Um, but that was, you know, and it's not like it was tough. I was very happy to do it, and I think we were right. Well, I mean, like, the, the country,

“we have, we all have eyeballs. That's what I said. Yeah, exactly, you know, but it was like, it was,”

uh, you know, well, I think, I mean, credit to you because I think the people that didn't do that and kept up like, you know, maybe we were like carrying on a facade that they knew was not true. It was like, they, uh, I think a lot of those people lost a lot of credibility, right? Because it's like,

the truth always kind of shines through and we can all see what's going on. Yeah. If you didn't

do that, I don't think you'd have the platform to have now. Well, we were just talking on an earlier episode about how one of the highest signs of intelligence is flexibility of the mind and me able to change your mind. And it feels like sometimes in this day and age, if you change your mind, it's the torches and the trolls coming after you. We have to be able to get to a point where people are allowed to change their mind. Yeah. But yeah. Like I'm sorry, just because I thought, you know,

five years ago that I liked this or that, doesn't mean I have to think it today. Well, as it relates to politics, too. And again, I just will pick on the RFK. She won more time. Like agree with this policies or not, whatever. I want to hear somebody come on and give a counter idea or a better idea if you disagree. What I don't like is these people just fighting and

attacking each other constantly. It's like, okay, if we all can step back and say, well,

maybe there's a health issue going on in the country. We're all kind of aware of it. If that's not the right idea, I'm not highlighting a specific policy, then what is what's the better idea? But when

“people just scream in yellow and say this person's this or that, like I think it does a disservice”

to everybody in the conversation. Well, RFK Junior is a great example because I think that if Democrats just write off the Maham movement as eventually hookes, then that is not only wrong, but politically dumb. Because I heard some of the episode where you guys talk to RFK. And like a lot of it is a Michelle Obama court who said when she did, let's move as an initiative in the White House. And I get it. Like, I'm very into health and wellness. I fiercely disagree with

him on vaccines. And I also wish that a lot of what he believes about companies and food companies and like what they do to our food, like that there was actually more regulatory pushback in the administration. I think he has won in some of that and the rest of the administration has said, no, which I think likes a very issue we brought up. Yeah, like I think something about like the priorities of the rest of the administration. And I think actually some of the stuff that I probably

agree with him most on, he hasn't made as much progress on as some of the stuff that I don't agree with him on. But I get that there is complexity there, even recently about Iran, like I'm very against this war and I want it to end and Tucker Carlson gave a 40-minute monologue on his show about the war that I listened to this morning and I like posted it and like I know I'm supposed to say like I don't agree with Tucker, but he made a few good points. I'm like I thought that 40 minutes of this,

there was only a few things that I disagreed with here. Well, this is where I think that we're seeing the breaking of the traditional parties in this country because there's people now that are like, I mean, there's things that, again, we've been around a little longer than some of the audience.

“If you go back 20 years, some of these policies that we're all talking about, you should be”

on the left and you have someone on the right and they're like flip-flop positions, but somebody's like, wait, I'm still on this side and like how that get over there and that's over there. And so it's confusing, right? And, you know, Bill Marsman on the show and he talks about

that all the time where he's like, you know, he always says that he didn't change the things

that change and I think what we're what we're viewing here is that people are wanting to take common sense practical, I'm talking about the majority of American people. They just want to be healthier, they want their kids to be okay, they want to thrive, they want to be safe, they don't want to be an endless war. Like, like, those are things that people want and I think sometimes, if it doesn't align, they feel scared to say that, but we're all kind of looking for the same

thing which is prosperity for ourselves and our families. Yeah, and look, sometimes, people can very much agree on what the problem is and have very fierce and legitimate disagreements on the outcome, I'm only like, healthcare coverage is a great example of that, you know, like, you can have most of the country thinks that we pay too much for healthcare and that everyone in the country should have access to affordable healthcare. How to get that done is, obviously,

a point of fierce disagreement with both parties and I, you know, I have my views and other people have their views, but at least, like, you can agree on on a problem. I do think there's, like, there's two different things we're talking about here. One is sort of policy differences. And the other is, like, a larger sort of political, political strategy, how we talk to each other,

for everything, for for changing our minds, for going back and forth on things, for making mistakes.

And I think that both parties have had issues with that, especially over the last decade, especially in the social media age. And in this goes back to our conversation about sort of going on in other podcasts with people you disagree with. I think there was a time where it was like, don't platform this person or don't say that or you can't be seen with this person or you can't be having, you can be associated with this person. But they're not going away. They're not going away.

And again, it's not like you, if you go on someone's podcast or you're associated with someone,

“you have to agree with all of their views. I look up to Barbara Walters.”

Barbara Walters, I think, interviewed Saddam Hussein. Yeah. No one on the internet said, you're giving Saddam Hussein a platform. I guess what you had a platform. I'm a media outlet. If I like to interview people of all different walks of life and I like to understand why people came to that conclusion, it's doesn't mean that I'm co-signing them. And a lot of people that come on here, I don't agree with. Yeah. But it's up to the audience to form their own opinion. I don't

have an agenda to work through the person to get to the audience. Well, you know, and when sometimes

the audience gets upset, what I always try to tell folks is like, when you're listening to something

or watching something, the point of it is not to make you feel that all of your pre-existing views are validated because it maybe it is. But if that's the case, then like, what did you get from that? It's like, it's comfort food, right? It's like, I believe this. I listen to that. I was like, absolutely. It's like, like, you're in a sign, though. It's a pretty sweet way. It's like, it's not a chatGBT. No, like, I want to be challenged. I want to listen to a challenging conversation

between people. Like, the criticism of that we get sometimes and I take it seriously is the four of us on positive America were like, we agree a lot. We're really good friends. We've been around each other forever. So it's like, it's hard to disagree. But sometimes we try to like, have debate. So sometimes we try to bring people, we often try to bring people on that we don't agree with because I do think and we try to do that more because I do think that for the audience,

you want to hear our perspective. But you also want to hear perspective challenging us because otherwise it's just a whole bunch of people agreeing with each other and you and I don't know

“that anyone gets anything out of it. I also think, I think that you have to think what kind of dinner”

party do you want to have? Yeah. We don't want to dinner party where everyone is going to-- I'm bored with that. I'm bored to tears. Like, I'm meditating. Oh man, you're not gonna show it up. No, I want some different-- I don't need some different color. I want some different opinions. I want a little fight. Maybe it's Thanksgiving and birth. This says something weird. I need like a lot of different energy. Yeah, you're dramatic, Laura. No, I love like I want different

opinions. I am at the Democratic Convention last time in Chicago. We were in our little area and got an knock on the door and these two young kids and they were like, oh, we're from Jesse Water Show. He would love to have you on the show. Would you like come upstairs to the Fox do you're right now at the convention and go on Jesse Waters? And some of my staff are like, you're crazy. You can't go. You're going into Lines then, you're not prepared. And I was like,

why not? Who cares? What's going to happen? And it was funny because I like I walk up there and it's like being in the in the mothership. But there's Laura Ingram and they're all walking around. And I went on Jesse Show and he gave me shit and I gave him shit back and it we like gave us good as we got and it was fun. My prediction is that that kind of content, what you just said, that's off the cuff and not so planned out in methodical and is going to go viral. I think you're going

“to see all that's what people want to watch. They want to watch different people. He's done a very”

well with it. I mean, again, like whether he's done very well building his show independently with this kind of conversation and just having different people. I mean, I think he, you know, it's, it's an eclectic group that he has on. That's a hard one, too, because I've seen here's a show and it's like when you have a bunch of people who are all remote and they're all on the boxes and it's like, it's a lot because then you're then you're yelling over, but that

I'm like, maybe it's good TV, but maybe that's not for me. But like sitting around to table with a bunch of people, you just agree like that to me is I could do that for sure. This episode is brought to you by Nuro, the makers of the world's smartest gum. I love things that make me smart. I love things that make me focus and I love things that give me energy. So what is Nuro gum? It's a Nuro energy and focus, smart gum. It's powered by natural caffeine,

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to get those red lips, very summer-esque. And again, it's in the Eden Rock St. Bart's branding. And then we launched facial towels. Everything is limited edition. It's very exclusive. Once it's gone, it's gone. And these facial towels are plastic free. They don't have any from aldehyde in them.

after an oil cleanse. This collection is so major. I'm so excited about it. And it's so fun to see this gunny confidential come to life in red. You can shop our collaboration at the link in the show notes or on shopsganyconfidential.com. And if you're at the Eden Rock St. Bart's property, you can also shop at the Eden Rock St. Bart's boutique and the spa. Eden Rock St. Bart's wherever you are. So the way I look at it is we're all entrepreneurs, business, people. And I look at it through

the lens of like if I'm trying to do a deal with someone or if I'm trying to build someone and I start by just personally attacking them and screaming at them and telling them how shitty their ideas are. It's going to be hard for me to do anything with anyone. And what I worry about

“in American politics and I guess no world politics is general. Is that if that's how every”

conversation is starting and every kind of negotiation is starting, how do you ever solve anything for anyone? Because if if the idea is that you're a terrible person and all your ideas are shit

and then write back same thing like you can you could never in the business where I'll get a deal

done that way. Well in politics the analogy is the people I think who understand how to persuade the best are people who've knocked on doors like the organizers. Because if you've been on a campaign and you have to go knock on a bunch of random doors, first of all you're not sometimes you're knocking on doors and just reminding people who are already going to vote for your candidate like get out and vote. But a lot of times you're going into neighborhoods where people either

might not vote or they might vote for the other candidate and you get all kinds of people on the doors and it's not even like you get like hardcore right-wing people with all right-wing views. You get people with like everyone in the country such complicated views and so they could be very liberal on one issue and very conservative on the other and sometimes they could give you a crazy conspiracy theory that's not true at all and sometimes they could be nice and sometimes

they could shut the door in your face and so I always find that people who have been on campaigns

who have organized door-to-door ahead of talk-to-actual voters usually are better at persuasion more practical and more pragmatic wherever you stand on the ideological perspective. You could be far left and pragmatic because you've knocked on doors and far right and pragmatic. They are more pragmatic and persuasive than people who only argue about politics on the internet.

“What make someone persuasive? I think empathy to me is like the probably the most important”

value there is and I think about this all the time as a former speechwriter and now in what I do what myself and the shoes of someone listening to this who may not agree put myself in the shoes of the audience that I'm speaking to or that the person I'm writing a speech for or speaking to. And what are they thinking? What are their hopes? What are their fears? What are their based on their background? Based on their demographics? What might they be thinking about politics?

And then also once you've thought about that what do we have in common? Because the whole thing falls apart if we cannot find in this country like the thread that connects us all because if we don't

have that and look that doesn't mean that we're always going to agree on everything like we are

divided and we're probably going to be divided for a long time. I think the hope is can we live together even with these divisions and these disagreements? That's the test now because otherwise

“the whole thing falls apart and I think you need to have politicians who and this is why I always”

think of like there's this thing now when a Trump voter has someone in their family who's deported they're like oh well good you voted for that you know and it's like anyone who experiences a harm like that or who's thinking twice about the political decision they made I want to be open to that person and like welcome them over and say like come on over to our side and I think we I think the Democratic Party. I think I think Trump did that well in 2024 and now I think

a lot of the people that came over to Trump in 2024 are probably now the first ones to leave because he didn't he hasn't quite delivered what they thought but I think in the campaign they were very skilled in RF Kaging years in example of that like people who hadn't been in the tent they were like welcome you can be part of our crew and I think Democrats need to do that as well. What do you think needs to happen for in the country and again if you can maybe wave a magic

wand for us to get to a place where we're not so divided. I do think that we we put too much emphasis on the actions of politicians and political leaders. I think that if we only see politics as a transactional enterprise which is every couple years politicians campaign they ask for

then I'm going to go back to my life and then you're going to go fix my problems and if you don't then I'm going to be pissed off and then I'm going to throw you out and I'm going to select someone else

“like we will continue to be disappointed and divide it. I think more people need to be involved”

in the act of governing and when something doesn't happen between elections reach out to your member of Congress run for office yourself get involved in your local community. I do think that because politics has become so nationalized because of the media environment and like everything's about politics. Everything's not about local politics or state politics. Everything's about national politics. I think that real change happens on a local level and so I would look to see like more I think

of more Americans got involved in their community and their neighborhood. First of all you would

encounter more people who don't agree with you necessarily even if you're living in a blue area area there's still people with different views and so you learn more to work with other people and get things done with other people who you don't necessarily agree with and that would filter up as opposed to us hoping that we are going to elect the perfect person to then filter the

“good feelings and the unity down. Like I think that we we just see politics too much as transactional”

right now because look like you get the you get the politics that you that you fight for that you deserve and if we don't have good people running for office then the way to change that is for other people to run for office and it's for other people to get involved in politics and so I do think that like political participation and more political participation not just political hobbyism which I think is just watching politics unfold getting nervous about politics commenting

on politics yelling online I think treating it as a sport I think less of that and more of the actual work of getting stuff done and changing things on a local level I think that's going to help what this is right now it's my run there it is if I win an Oscar will you help me write my speech

wait you got to be an absolute you never know I could I I'm multifaceted I might win an Oscar

I'm going to put it out there will you help me write my speech the number of especially since I

“moved out to LA the number of potential award winners who like through their agents rather people”

have been like hey will you write so and I'm like I'm out of that business but I will I usually seem like I'm happy to look at a draft and have a conversation with the person but I can't do anything from scratch because I don't have the time to do so I've done that a few times I feel like you've already been to like the speedwriters version of that super thing yeah okay I want to switch just a little bit of gear one more time with you and talk about your

business sure we have tremendous respect for for you and what you've built because we know ourselves firsthand how hard it is one to build a show but then to build a media company beyond the show create other shows work with other people have that be successful when did you decide you wanted to start crooked with your partners and what was the motivation behind it we we the podcast that is now positive america started as a podcast called keeping it 1600 and we did it during the

2016 campaign and we did it with the ringer which is bill Simmons media company and I had known bill previously we both went to the same college we get to know each other when he came to the White House didn't view Obama and he said you know we do sports and entertainment and culture but like I'd love to do politics it's an election year would you be and you moved out to LA would you be interested in like doing a podcast so me Dan Fiverr Tommy V. Torch on love it we all started this

podcast and then we all had our other jobs and we thought Hillary Clinton would win and then we would be done and we would go back to our lives and be retired from politics and then Donald Trump wins yeah and we and then Donald Trump wins and we were like oh maybe we maybe we were not retired from politics and maybe you know we had talked before about when we were in the White House the media is failing because of this so we don't like it because of that and wouldn't it be we should have more

progressive media companies and wouldn't it be called the start one and it was always sort of

you know a conversation you'd have intermittently and then once Trump won we were like we should continue doing this podcast but we should build the media company that we've talked about and just started from scratch and started positive America and we so there was love it and Tommy and I sitting at my kitchen table in West Hollywood at the time and we hired a woman named Tonya Somanator as our chief content officer and she had worked at the Obama White House we got introduced

to her through my now wife and we had her we hired Sarah Wick who's our chief our COO again through a friend and she had like worked on some startups and then we hired an assistant and it was literally the six of us sitting around I kitchen table we went to the Bank of American West Hollywood and we're like we'd like to open an account for our media company and the woman's like great do you have money and we're like no do we need money so yeah we're like do you have 10 bucks here

were you just we formed a company we like talked to some lawyers but like I would say it was raw hiring I mean you guys this like hiring people to do that to like build the business is the most

“important thing you can do when I started this I tried to find a CEO that would I was like okay”

now I got to get a CEO to do it and nobody like I have this woman and she at the last person I don't want the job and who the hell I was doing something else I'm like well who's going to do it who's going to do that and then I was like well you realize at the beginning you you do everything you know and you're in every meeting and your mind is pulled and your time

is pulled in a million different directions and now we mostly the founders we mostly do just

hosting and you know we do you know we're on the board and so we have board meetings and we do big strategic directions and you know meetings but we have a CEO who's like a very experience CEO and an adult who's in the tree who's been at the company for a while and thank God for her because now most things happen the company and we don't even know but you know when at the time when you guys did it similar to this I think people like now everyone know like I used to explain

to people like we used to create social videos that we would put on her Instagram so we're showing people where to find the podcast application because at the time people were like where what the hell is that and now everybody and now I just call them shows at this point right because they're they're audio video and there was that weird appears like is it going to be video and audio and like that was a big thing yeah we've all just recreated television exactly but people forget there

was also like much fewer ways to monetize so it was hard there was very few people taking the medium seriously it was like the it was like the weird stepchild of media it's like oh you're doing a podcast it was out there it was like I'm sorry you do that like you know and so the reason I have so much respect for you is because I think for the early people that were able to like slug through it

“those are in like kind of formed a market like now if you want to do something like this what it”

yes it's more competitive but the market's very well established and there's some huge tailwinds and it's and you can make real living doing this but at the time it was like this is going to work or not yeah well look we had a we had a theory and it wasn't even it wasn't a business theory at least it wasn't you know thought of like that it was it's like okay what is missing in media and political media right now what is missing in political media is you know we all just worked in politics for the last

10 years and the conversations we would have even in the most heated serious moments in politics we're still accessible to people they were we had gallows humor when things were bad we joked around with things were good we approached the job with joy we were like you know made friends that are our friends for life and this and like what if we could bring that to the public because I think right now most people think of politics as what they see on cable news

or what they see when a politician gives a speech which is still to boring self-serious not it was

basically the people who who were in political media were two self-serious and they weren't

treating the topics with the seriousness they deserve and we wanted to flip that and say like let's treat these issues like they are life and death serious issues but let's do it with humor about ourselves and not take ourselves too seriously and joke around and just be who we are you know and clearly it resonated like so no I just thought I wanted to hear the story because obviously from afar we've viewed a lot of what you've done but what I find interesting about early adopters

in this medium if you it kind of just a lot of people like that became successful it just started as like a passion or as like a need to fill a gap that they weren't like for us same thing like we just weren't finding what we were looking for the surface our own show was like okay well

“just like do this for finding maybe it works it works I'll never forget like it was maybe a”

month into the company and we're invited to the upfront summit here and Cara Swisher was going to interview us on on stage and she said she's like okay so what is the what is the business plan like what is the revenue plan and John love it just goes he's like honestly we just turn the microphones on and then the money just starts coming but that's just been how it's working so far just like what and we're like but that is like and it was a joke but it was also like we had not

we did not have this like detailed business plan the whole time pretty cool yeah really cool democracy or else how to save America in 10 easy steps go check out the book pod save America what else

working everyone say how do you yeah you can find I'm unfortunately always on Twitter all day long

at John's house and Instagram and and I also host offline with John Farrow you can catch that all the time and pod save America and our YouTube channel when now we're always in just turning out content on the YouTube channel you're busy man very busy congratulations John thank you for coming on the show thanks for having me this was fun