@standupkid conversations

As Fox News marks its 25th anniversary this week, the network sits as the unrivaled ratings king of cable news, finishing the third quarter with an average prime time audience of 2.372 million viewers—more than CNN and MSNBC combined—a win that marks Fox's 79th consecutive quarter as the most-watched cable news network. “We've made huge strides over 25 years,” Fox anchor Bret Baier told me. “When Fox started it was this niche market. It turned out the niche was literally half the country.”Previous episode:In Episode 19 of the podcast, I spoke with Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney, whose new prime time show is American Built with Stuart Varney, which focuses on architects, engineers and historians and the iconic projects they created, like the Hoover Dam and the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Stuart Varney is a busy man—and he's about to get even busier. Varney anchors host of Fox Business Network's market opening program, Varney & Company, a fixture of the network's programming that's often the highest-rated financial program on cable. But starting today, Varney takes on part of FBN's prime time lineup as well, with the debut of American Built with Stuart Varney, which focuses on architects, engineers and historians and the iconic projects they created, like the Hoover Dam and the Hubble Space Telescope.Previous episode:In Episode 18 of the podcast, I spoke with Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, about America's exit from Afghanistan. Griffin's been reporting in and about the Middle East for 30 years, and is today one of the best-sourced journalists covering the Pentagon. In our conversation, Griffin talked about the first Saturday she'd had off from work in 30 days of nonstop reporting on Afghanistan, and how stepping away from the story brought up a flood of emotions. She was attending the convocation at Georgetown University, where her two daughters are attending classes.“I sat there listening, feeling extremely emotional at the idea that they made the announcement that 60% of the Georgetown class were women this year,” Griffin told me, the pain and sadness catching in her throat. “And I just thought of those Afghan university students in Kabul, and how those girls are not going to be getting educated. It is too much. This is 20, 30 years of scar tissue.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

For Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, it was in a quiet moment, exhausted after a nonstop month of work that the emotional impact of America's exit from Afghanistan caught up with her. It was her first Saturday off in weeks, and she attended convocation at Georgetown, where her daughters had just started college.“I sat there listening, feeling extremely emotional at the idea that they made the announcement that 60% of the Georgetown class were women this year,” Griffin told me, the pain and sadness catching in her throat. “And I just thought of those Afghan university students in Kabul, and how those girls are not going to be getting educated. It is too much. This is 20, 30 years of scar tissue.”Previous episodeIn Episode 17, I spoke with ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, who has covered the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Thernos extensively in her podcast, The Drop Out, which returns for a new season focused on the trial.“For me, part of the joy of doing the work with The Drop Out: Elizabeth Holmes on Trialwas both the investigative side, but also this creativity where I was in this entirely new format...it was like painting with a paintbrush and getting to test things.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

This week, Elizabeth Holmes, once described as America's first self-made female billionaire, goes on trial for fraud. She's accused of defrauding investors, doctors and patients who believed in the promise of her company, Theranos, which promised to test for hundreds of diseases—all from a single drop of blood.ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis has covered Holmes and Thernos extensively, and this week her podcast, The Drop Out, returns for a new season focused on the trial. “For me, part of the joy of doing the work with The Drop Out: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial was both the investigative side, but also this creativity where I was in this entirely new format...it was like painting with a paintbrush and getting to test things.”Previous EpisodeIn Episode 16 of the podcast, I talked to Dateline NBC supervising producer Dan Slepian about his podcast, 13 Alibis, which told the story of a man convicted of murder despite having thirteen people willing to testify he was in another state when the crime was committed. “I think that we would be stunned as a country to get a real understanding of how many people have been taken from their families, and put in prison for crimes they didn't commit.”“This isn't an aberration. It's how the system works,” he told me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

After spending nearly 30 years on death row, Ogrod was released from prison after an investigation uncovered misconduct by police and prosecutors. In his first national interview, set to air Friday night on Dateline NBC, Ogrod tells NBC's Lester Holt how he was pressured to sign a confession filled with details he knew nothing about.“I think that we would be stunned as a country to get a real understanding of how many people have been taken from their families, and put in prison for crimes they didn't commit,” says Dateline supervising producer Dan Slepian, who worked on the story, digging into what Slepian describes as “a thirty year old case with thousands and thousands of pages of documents.”In our conversation, we talked about the details of this case—and his podcast, 13 Alibis, which also featured a man wrongfully convicted of murder. “This isn't an aberration. It's how the system works,” he told me.Previous EpisodeIn Episode 15 of the podcast, I talk to Bill Kurtis, veteran anchorman and one of broadcasting's most identifiable voices, familiar to viewers in Chicago, where he anchored newscasts at CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV for decades alongside Walter Jacobson. Today, he can be heard on true crime shows like American Justice, Cold Case Files and American Justice. He was also the narrator of the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. If you don't watch movies or television, you can catch Kurtis as the announcer and scorekeeper of NPR's Wait, Wait… Don't Tell Me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Veteran anchorman Bill Kurtis has one of broadcasting's most identifiable voices, familiar to viewers in Chicago, where he anchored newscasts at CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV for decades alongside Walter Jacobson. Today, he can be heard on true crime shows like American Justice, Cold Case Files and American Justice. He was also the narrator of the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. If you don't watch movies or television, you can catch Kurtis as the announcer and scorekeeper of NPR's Wait, Wait… Don't Tell Me.Now Kurtis is adding a podcast to his credits, hosting We Interrupt This Broadcast alongside MSNBC's Brian Williams. Each episode focuses on a major news event—the 9/11 attacks, the shooting of President Ronald Reagan, the death of Princess Diana—as seen through the voices of the reporters, anchors, producers and crew who covered the stories in real time.“It show us how chasing the truth is hard—finding it is even harder,” Kurtis told me. “It gives us a whole new perspective on the story.”Previous episode:In Episode 14 of the podcast, I talked to Bill Kurtis' podcast partner Brian Williams, the anchor of MSNBC's The 11th Hour and a confessed geek about the history of broadcast news. We talked about We Interrupt This Broadcast and some of what Williams hopes to cover when the podcast returns for its second season. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

As the anchor of MSNBC's nightly The 11th Hour, Brian Williams is no stranger to live coverage of major breaking news, and now he's narrating a new podcast about broadcast news, We Interrupt This Broadcast, which tells each story through the voices of the broadcast journalists, producers, photographers and others who covered the story on that day.Based on the book of the same name by writer Joe Garner, We Interrupt This Broadcast tells each story as it unfolded through the eyes of reporters, news anchors and the photographers, producers and technical crews that drop everything to cover major news. “You know, I was there for some of these,” Williams told me. “And I've delved into all the audio, and I've sat in the studio and narrated them, and they still make my pulse race. They still make me emotional.”Previous episode:In episode 13 of the podcast, I spoke with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace on the 25th anniversary of the Fox News Sunday public affairs show.“When I came on [in 2003], I wanted to put Fox News Sunday at the forefront of the conversation, that it would be taken as seriously and make as much if not more news than any of the other Sunday shows,” Wallace told me. “And I think we've succeeded at that.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

This weekend will mark the 25th anniversary of Fox News Sunday, the public affairs program which debuted April 28, 1996 with the late Tony Snow as host. Chris Wallace took over as host in 2003 and will mark the anniversary with a special edition of FNS, which airs Sunday mornings on Fox Broadcasting stations and later in the day on Fox News Channel.“When I came on [in 2003], I wanted to put Fox News Sunday at the forefront of the conversation, that it would be taken as seriously and make as much if not more news than any of the other Sunday shows,” Wallace told me this week. “And I think we've succeeded at that.” Previous episodes:“Until the world is vaccinated, no one is vaccinated,” said NBC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden. “The virus will continue to spread. This pandemic could go on for another 7 years if we don't succeed in distributing the vaccine around the world.”In Episode 12 of the podcast, I talked to McFadden, who recently traveled to Uganda, where she had exclusive access to the international teams working to bring Covid-19 vaccines to some of the most vulnerable—and remote—communities on Earth. “We got to see a small part of a very big puzzle,” McFadden said. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

“Until the world is vaccinated, no one is vaccinated,” said NBC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden. “The virus will continue to spread. This pandemic could go on for another 7 years if we don't succeed in distributing the vaccine around the world.”McFadden recently traveled to Copenhagen and Uganda, where she had exclusive access to the international teams working to bring Covid-19 vaccines to some of the most vulnerable—and remote—communities on Earth. “We got to see a small part of a very big puzzle,” McFadden said.McFadden took two international flights, a soaking boat ride and then a three-hour drive alongside UNICEF teams carrying a small ice chest packed hope—40 vials of vaccine destined for health care workers in the Buvuma Islands of Uganda. It's the first time a broadcast news crew has seen the global distribution effort first hand, showing viewers of NBC Nightly News and Today exactly how difficult it is, both to access the vaccine and then to get it to remote communities in the world's poorest countries.Recent Stories:In Episode 11 of the podcast, I talked to Politico's Eugene Daniels about race, journalism and covering the Biden-Harris Administration.“When I go into the White House it's not lost on me the reason that I'm there is because of the hard work of my family members, the hard work of Black people in general, and the fact that slaves built that building.”In our conversation, we talked about covering DC, being a Black man and a gay man working the White House beat, and about his experience in local news in Colorado, when a news executive told him his “voice was too Black to be a full time reporter in Colorado Springs.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Politico reporter Eugene Daniels says his grandmother, who was active in politics and the civil rights movement, instilled in him both a love of history and politics. She died in 2012, but he knows she would have loved seeing him step into his new role: covering Vice President Kamala Harris, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden as part of Politico's White House team. He'd also be one of the new writers producing Politico's iconic Playbook.“When I go into the White House it's not lost on me the reason that I'm there is because of the hard work of my family members, the hard work of Black people in general, and the fact that slaves built that building.”In our conversation, we talked about covering DC, being a Black man and a gay man working the White House beat, and about his experience in local news in Colorado, when a news executive told him his “voice was too Black to be a full time reporter in Colorado Springs.”Recent Stories:In Episode 10 of the podcast, I talked to NBC News correspondent Kate Snow, who recently talked to kids across the country about how they're coping after a year in pandemic lockdown. The kids told her: they're struggling. Stress around isolation and grappling with remote and hybrid learning has kids feeling disconnected—and for some, feeling profound pain. Snow wrote last year about the stress she felt when her husband fell ill with Covid, leading her to seek treatment with a therapist. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

The pandemic has impacted everyone, but new research by NBC News shows our kids are under heightened stress, and it's taking the pleasure out of school—and for some kids, creating serious mental anguish and pain. For NBC's weeklong series “Kids Under Pressure,” correspondent Kate Snow talked to kids about how they're coping, and in our conversation, we discussed the series and why Snow decided last year to write about the stress she felt when her husband fell ill with Covid, leading her to seek treatment with a therapist.Here's Kate's story, 'I am seeing a therapist': Kate Snow discusses teletherapy, stress of COVID-19And here's my story, ‘Screw Stigma: I'm coming out'Recent Stories:In Episode 9 of the podcast, I interviewed David Katz, whose new book, Barack Before Obama, is filled with hundreds of rarely or never-before-seen photos of a then-little-known state legislator named Barack Obama. Katz, who joined Obama's 2004 campaign for the U. S. Senate, became the candidate's photographer and captured previously unseen images of the man who would become president. In our conversation, we talked about how he got to know Obama—and how he earned enough trust that Obama let him photograph his private moments with his wife and daughters.In our conversation, we talked about how he got to know Obama—and how he earned enough trust that Obama let him photograph his private moments with his wife and daughters. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

In his new book, Barack Before Obama, David Katz takes us back to a time when Barack Obama could walk on a crowded New York City sidewalk just like any other guy, talking on his phone, without a single person rushing up to him to shake his hand or try and grab a selfie:The book—filled with hundreds of rarely or never-before-seen photos (like the one above, which shows Obama having his hair cut by his longtime barber, James Zariff Smith, who would open his shop after hours to cut the candidate's hair after long days campaigning)—documents the time from Obama's 2004 race for the U.S. Senate right up to his election to the presidency in 2008. In our conversation, we talked about how he got to know Obama—and how he earned enough trust that Obama let him photograph his private moments with his wife and daughters.[Thanks to David Katz and Ecco for sharing these photos, which are all copyright David Katz, from Barack Before Obama, and excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers]Recent Stories:In Episode 8 of the podcast, I talked to Jon Sternfeld, whose new book, Unprepared, documents the coronavirus' spread from Wuhan, China to the U.S., and how public health officials and the nation's elected leaders responded—some with great empathy and a commitment to science, and others with a stubborn refusal to take the virus seriously.In our conversation, we talked about some of the most striking moments from those early months of fear and lockdown—and what we may be facing now as the spread of Covid-19 reaches peaks unseen at any time since the coronavirus first appeared in the U.S.At Forbes:On NBC's ‘Today,' Dr. Fauci Says Covid-19 Trend ‘As Bad As I Feared'MSNBC's Steve Kornacki To Swap Election Map For Playoff Picture On NBC's ‘Sunday Night Football'News Networks See Record Ratings In November; Fox News, CNN Split VictoriesIn First Interview Since Losing Election, Trump Calls Result ‘Greatest Fraud' In U.S. HistoryAuthor Says Trump Shifted Covid-19 Response From Science To Politics, And ‘That's Why We Got Decimated' This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

As Americans prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, many families are feeling the tension: wanting to follow the traditions of the holiday and gather with family and friends—versus the realities of the pandemic, which is accelerating in virtually every part of the country. In his new book, Unprepared, Jon Sternfeld documents the coronavirus' spread from Wuhan, China to the U.S., and how public health officials and the nation's elected leaders responded—some with great empathy and a commitment to science, and others with a stubborn refusal to take the virus seriously.In our conversation, we talked about some of the most striking moments from those early months of fear and lockdown—and what we may be facing now as the spread of Covid-19 reaches peaks unseen at any time since the coronavirus first appeared in the U.S.STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:In Episode 7 of the podcast, I talked to Neil Cavuto of Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. On Election Night, Cavuto returned to work at Fox News headquarters in New York after working from home for seven months—but he says he remains vigilant about Covid-19 and considers himself at high risk for complications should he contract the coronavirus. “I have a scary and healthy respect for this thing,” he told me.At Forbes:Fox News Wins Prime Time Ratings, But CNN Leads In Key DemoNeil Cavuto on Covering Covid-19 And The Election This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto says he doesn't see stories in red or blue, but green—he tends to look at the news as it impacts business. But even as he steers clear of the partisanship that makes up much of the cable news world, he still hears from viewers who think he's either way too tough—or not tough enough—on figures like President Trump. “My job isn't to do that,” he says of viewers who wish Cavuto would be more loyal to Trump. We talked after the election, which brought Cavuto back to the Fox News studios for the first time in seven months—a move that brings elevated risk as Cavuto lives with multiple sclerosis, an unpredictable and disabling disease. But he says for every difficulty and struggle, he knows others are hurting even worse—particularly those impacted by Covid-19. “I have a scary and healthy respect for this thing,” he told me.STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:In Episode 6 of the podcast, I talked to Kal Penn, the actor and activist who this year launched his own political series, Kal Penn Approves This Message. We talked about taking on big issues without resorting to the sort of partisan coverage commonly found on cable news, and why he's excited about the activism of young people who don't watch cable news—but do tend to talk to each other, even across the partisan divide.At Forbes:CNN Leads Cable News Ratings For Week Including Election, AftermathCNN's Brianna Keilar: When Does The Media Call Elections? ‘Since Always'Broadcast Networks All Cut Away From President's Election RemarksFox News Has Highest-Rated Election Night Coverage EverNBC's Savannah Guthrie Interrupts To Fact-Check President Trump: “Just Frankly Not True”Fox News Dominates Ratings In Week Leading Up To Election DayMartha MacCallum Prepares For An Election Night Like No Other This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Kal Penn's new show, Kal Penn Approves This Message, takes on the same divisive political issues often debated on cable news—but his approach is totally different. “Cable news is not a place where you're going to get these nuanced conversations and young people don't watch cable news anyway,” Penn told me.The series, which debuted with a six-episode season on Freeform in September, has just dropped the season finale (on Freeform last night, and streaming on Hulu beginning today), focuses on young viewers—Millennials and Gen Z—and Penn says he finds them far less entrenched in the partisan divide than their parents. “Younger audiences are so good at coming up with creative solutions to things and we can't expect that things will be changed if we only continue yelling at each other. So we wanted to provide with our show an opportunity for people to come together and focus on the complex nature of specific issues.”In this standupkid conversation, I talked to Penn from Toronto, where he's shooting a new series for CBS and living in a “monitored quarantine, because they believe in science up here.” STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:In Episode 5 of the podcast, I talked to Arnon Mishkin, director of the Fox News Decision Desk, about the new tool Fox News will use this Election Day to determine how the race between Trump and Biden will break—a tool that Mishkin believes gives Fox much more insight into early voters and voters who used absentee ballots, which may be critical in being able to make a call in the 2020 presidential the race.At Forbes:Tucker Carlson Leads Fox News To Highest-Rated Month In Prime Time Ever55 Million Viewers Watch Final Trump-Biden Presidential DebateWhy Fox News May Have The Edge In Calling The 2020 Presidential Race This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

On Election Night, viewers watching Fox News won't see much of Arnon Mishkin, but as Director of the Fox News Decision Desk, he will play a crucial role in how the top-rated news network covers the results of the 2020 election—and, if he can, it's Mishkin who will make the call on projecting a winner. “If the margin between the candidates is significant, there's a chance of a call on Election Night,” he says, but don't count on it. “When you're in my position, you're looking at various different scenarios, and we want to make sure we're prepared for any of them.”This will be the first presidential election since Fox News broke away from the other news networks to create its very own tool to determine voter sentiment, after Mishkin and his team decided the traditional exit polling done by a consortium of networks just wasn't providing an accurate view into what different groups of voters were thinking in the days up to Election Day. “We think voters will be better served by having two tools, but we think our tool is better.”In our conversation, we talk about how the tool—the Fox News Voter Analysis—was built, and why it may be well-suited to understanding what's happening in an election where millions have already voted, some by mail, and others through early voting. And I asked him what it's like to make a critical call—as he did in 2012, projecting that President Obama would win the state of Ohio, pushing him to re-election—only to have commentators on his own network questioning whether it was a mistake. “My first thought was ‘ooooh, that's scary' but then I looked at the data.”And he will be looking at that data nearly non-stop until a winner is determined. Then, he hopes to take a little time off.STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:In Episode 4 of the podcast, I talked to Seyward Darby, author of the book Sisters in Hate, about the rise of white nationalism in America, and how women play an often overlooked role in the leadership of hate groups. She says the news media often suggests that hate is something associated with men, when the truly dangerous members of these groups don't seek out the cameras, and use a softer sell to reach out to potential recruits.At Forbes:President Trump Says ‘Deck Is Stacked' Against Him For Final DebateTrump Calls CNN ‘Dumb B******s' For Covering ‘Covid, Covid, Covid'Biden Beats Trump In Broadcast Ratings For Head-To-Head Town HallsPresident Trump On Tonight's NBC Town Hall: ‘I'm Being Set Up'Fox News' Chris Wallace: ‘Facts Are Clearly Under Attack' This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

In her new book, Sisters in Hate, Seyward Darby turns our focus away from the image that often springs to mind when we think of white nationalism—that of angry, often armed white men. As she writes of the men who marched with burning torches in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, the “iconic images…show illuminated male faces—grimacing, grinning, threatening.”But in a video posted online from that night, Darby was struck by a woman who stepped from the crowd to confront a counter-protester—using a racial slur to accuse the person of being a race traitor by failing to join the marchers. “She seemed disgusted that someone would debase themselves instead of standing with their own kind.” That moment helped propel Darby to begin reporting deeply on the women leaders in America's hate groups—the women who, unlike many of the men, do their work quietly and away from the cameras. “The people who are most frightening are always the people who don't want to talk to the mainstream media.”In our conversation, we talk about how these women sell their own unique brand of hatred, wrapped tightly in homespun American values—and distributed via YouTube, social media and other channels. “They have always been savvy about communicating with each other and potential recruits outside the eyes of the mainstream media.”STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:In Episode 3 of the podcast, I talked to Liar's Circus author Carl Hoffman, who spent months traveling across the country attending MAGA rallies in an effort to understand the people who stick with Donald Trump, no matter what. At Forbes:Fauci Tells CNN: President Trump ‘Asking For Trouble' With Florida RallyTrump: I'm Not Going to ‘Waste My Time' With Virtual DebateVice Presidential Debate Draws 50 Million Viewers This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Carl Hoffman is a very brave man—and one hell of a reporter. In 2019, he set out on one of the most audacious reporting gigs ever: driving thousands of miles across the country attending President Trump's MAGA rallies. He had no Trump supporters among his friends, and really didn't know any of the president's die-hard supporters personally. Why did they stick with him through every scandal, every outrage, and lie after lie after lie?By embedding himself in the rallies—lining up outside huge arenas in the cold the night before the event to spend the night in a folding chair alongside the devoted rallygoers who fight for their spot at the very front of the line—he began to get a sense of who these people are, and why they idolize Trump. “They're not freaks, they're not foreign aliens, they are us, they are just like us in so many ways and they're funny and they made me laugh.”But, there is a dark side to the president's supporters, both in their vilification of journalists and in their unquestioning belief in the most extreme conspiracy theories.In our conversation, Hoffman talks about taking on this assignment—and about the people he blames for allowing the MAGA movement to take root in America. BIG UPDATE: The podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts! If you get podcasts via Apple, please subscribe—and if you like the conversation, please consider giving the show a review and a 5-star rating. Reviews and ratings are the most important metric in convincing Apple's algorithms to put @standupkid conversations in front of more people who might like it.STORIES FROM THE LAST WEEK:PODCAST: Episode 2: Jean Guerrero, “Hatemonger”Shep Smith on Leaving Fox News: ‘It Was Time For a Change'Trump Biden Debate Draws 22.8 Million Viewers On Broadcast NetworksHas Chris Wallace Watched The Debate Again? ‘Oh, God No'Chris Wallace Tells Fox News Viewers: ‘Wear The Damn Mask'CNN's Jake Tapper: Trump Has Become Symbol Of His Own FailuresChris Wallace Tests Negative For Covid-19 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Last night, during the chaotic and discouraging debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the president refused to condemn white nationalism—and even appeared to send a message directly to the Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist group, saying “stand back and stand by.” The group heard the message—and celebrated it.How did we get here? How could an American president be so comfortable engaging with hate groups? Journalist Jean Guerrero points to Stephen Miller, senior policy adviser to the president—and the man she says has “radicalized” Donald Trump. Her new book, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda, details Miller's own radicalization as a young man growing up in California—a process fueled by right-wing talk radio, and later some of the darkest corners of the far-right web. It's not easy reading, but it is brilliantly reported and exceptionally well written. Guerrero describes Miller as “a true fanatic,” and “probably the most ideological person in the White House today.”In the podcast, we talk about her work covering immigration stories along the U.S. border with Mexico, and how being one of the first journalists to expose the Trump Administration's policy of separating migrant children from their parents led her to begin focusing on Miller, the architect of the child separation policy, which she reveals was designed from the very beginning to intentionally cause the most excruciating pain possible to migrant families.Have a listen, let me know what you think, and if you enjoy the conversation please share it with your friends. It's exceptionally difficult to get new podcasts in front of people, so sharing and recommending is vital.And if you haven't already listened to Episode 1, the link is right below. I had a fantastic conversation with NBC's Keith Morrison, perhaps the most distinctive reporter in all of TV News—that voice!Stories from the last 7 days:PODCAST EPISODE 1: Keith Morrison, ‘Dateline NBC'How NBC's ‘Dateline' Delivered a New Season Despite Covid-1955 Million Viewers Watch Trump's Supreme Court AnnouncementKamala Harris On Trump's Taxes: ‘Tell Us Who Do You Owe The Money To?'‘Hannity' Has Highest-Rated Quarter In History As Fox News Beats Broadcast Networks, A TV FirstCNN's Jake Tapper: ‘The President Thinks He Is Going To Lose And He Wants To Bring Us Down With Him' This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

On Thursday night, Keith Morrison kicks off the 29th season of NBC's Dateline, which is now the network's longest-running show in prime time. The story, a true crime mystery which plays out across two hours, focuses on the survivor of a horrific attack who believes police have the wrong suspect. Or, as Morrison put it when I asked him about the story, “oh my…”Indeed. Few reporters have as distinctive a style as Morrison, whose delivery led Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader to make Morrison into a popcorn-munching and mayhem-loving recurring character. In the first episode of the podcast, we talked about where Morrison's unique style came from, and how he—and the rest of the Dateline team—produced the new season's stories despite the harsh restrictions put in place because of Covid-19.Have a listen—and let me know what you think. I hope you'll enjoy the conversation enough to sign up for the newsletter—and soon find yourself looking forward to Hump Day when another @standupkid conversation arrives in your in box.Stories you might have missed:Trump Describes Journalist Hit By Rubber Bullet As ‘A Beautiful Sight'Hillary Clinton: ‘McConnell Cares Only About One Thing, And That's Power'On CNN, Bob Woodward Questions Whether Trump Knows ‘What Is Real And What Is Unreal' This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com