OLIVIA NUZZI Talks Trump, Scandal, American Canto

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to launch your holiday season in style. Upgrade your yard with this year's hottest holiday decor, including the showstopping towering Santa. Oh, I like that one. And his impressive reindeer, both 8.5 feet, and both designed with incredible detail that stands out day or night. When you want decor that delivers impact, The Home Depot has it. Make your home Santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want, all waiting for you at The Home Depot. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching a game. Really, any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer up buttery slider rolls with Boar's Head London Broil Roast Beef,

• 0:45Speaker 00

  American White Cheese, and picante provolone. Delicious. Then add roasted onions, peppers, and Boar's Head pub-style horseradish sauce. I love horseradish. And you've got the ultimate game day cheesesteak. They've also got a whole lineup of premium meats, cheeses, hummus, and dips, condiments, and more to serve up on game day. Head to your local Boar's Head deli counter to shop now. For game day sandwich inspiration and more, visit boar'shead.com. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905. Well, you think being so successful so young, like, kind of robbed you of an early adulthood?

• 1:19Speaker 01

  And that's why I'm fucking up now?

• 1:21Speaker 00

  I don't know. I'm just asking you.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Do you think you have to catch up on like 24 now? Because you were chilling with Trump the whole time?

• 1:28Speaker 01

  No, I think I'm good on like fucking up for now.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. What do you guys get up to? Zach?

• 1:35Adam Friedland?

  Yeah?

• 1:35Speaker 00

  What's like the vibe over there?

• 1:38Adam Friedland?

  Zach gear.

• 1:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, no. I mean, like, for what you do, like, what kind of stuff do you do?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  What's that? He plays guitar. Are you going to learn guitar?

• 1:49Speaker 01

  I really want to get my pilot's license.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Oh, pilot's license?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's my goal for 2026.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  That'd be cool.

• 2:24Adam Friedland?

  Welcome back to the Adam Friedland Show. I'm Adam Friedland. I'm going back on the road with Caleb Pitts, Emerald City Comedy Club, Seattle, Washington, January 22nd to 24th. We're doing five shows. Get tickets at emeraldcitycomedy.com. There's also a link in the description. And guys, tickets are going fast. They will all be selling out because I'm fucking famous. And Caleb's famous. We're... Is that... Also, as always, I want to thank our members here on youtube.com. You make the show possible. Guys, seriously, you have supported us all year, and we couldn't have done it without you guys. If you're not a member and you'd like to join, members get access to all the episodes early. And if you'd like to join at the second or third

• 3:08Adam Friedland?

  tiers, you can get your name in the credits of this very fine program. If you'd like to join the Friedland Family Foundation, you can do so by clicking the "Join" button here on YouTube, or clicking the link in the description below. Also, if you have Patreon and you prefer to use it, then the link for that is also in the description. And guys, merch is available, theadamfriedland.show. Check it out. Holiday season. Presents. Presents. Get your dad a hat. I think people's parents might have seen some of the show. My guest this week is Olivia Nuzzi. Nuzzi, if you're not familiar, made a name for herself as a correspondent for The Daily Beast, where she covered Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, and subsequently, she was hired in 2017 by New York Magazine, where she

• 3:52Adam Friedland?

  published various well-regarded profiles on The President. In September 2024, news surfaced that she had been engaged in an inappropriate relationship with current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that was described as emotional and digital in nature. She was subsequently fired from New York Magazine and has just released a book about the experience American Canto, which has been overshadowed by a five-part Substack published by her ex, Ryan Lizza, alleging that Nuzzi had acted as a de facto political operative for Kennedy, among other accusations. Guys, the lesson here is that journalists should not be famous, and I stand by that statement and I will die on that hill. So, let's get to it.

• 4:37Adam Friedland?

  Please enjoy my interview. I don't know why I hit her. So, let's get to it. Please enjoy my interview with Olivia Nuzzi. Scandalous, I think it was. I hope you like it. I hope it... Was it good? You guys liked it? I wonder if people... Yeah, okay. All right, good. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome journalist, author, author of the new book on Simon and Schuster, American Canto, Olivia Nuzzi. Olivia, welcome. Welcome. Thank you for doing the show.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Thank you. You have a nice outfit.

• 5:12Adam Friedland?

  She didn't want to do the walkout and...

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Where are you at?

• 5:16Adam Friedland?

  But you're a good guest. It's my house and you have to... So I'm being like the guy who asks his friend to come over and play video games and then he doesn't let him play.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Is that a type of guy?

• 5:27Adam Friedland?

  No, that's... I'm sorry. I'm scared right now. Why am I scared right now? I don't know.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Why are you scared?

• 5:33Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. Because I'm like... Because you yelled at me about... What was that? The Hitler thing we were fighting about on the phone?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  You just kept talking over me.

• 5:40Adam Friedland?

  No, you said something insane and that...

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:43Adam Friedland?

  You said that Donald Trump is selfish.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Are you afraid of women?

• 5:47Adam Friedland?

  When I get yelled at by them, yeah. I don't want to get yelled at.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say yelled.

• 5:52Adam Friedland?

  I don't know what's... In that situation, I'm just constantly like, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." It feels terrible. Anyway, I've heard your name a bunch. You're a journalist. You've interviewed the president multiple times. You're attached to various political campaigns. You made a name for yourself very young, and you've recently just published this book. How does it feel to get it out?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Fine.

• 6:18Adam Friedland?

  Fine, yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt like I was sort of, I started covering Donald Trump in 2015. Or I guess I interviewed him for the first time in 2014. And I didn't know that when I signed up to do that, that it was going to become a whole era, right?

• 6:33Adam Friedland?

  You caught a big one.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so I felt like this book was sort of completing this thought that I had begun forming 10 years earlier.

• 6:41Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh. You know. Correct me if I'm wrong, like journalists, you guys all hate each other? Is that the deal? Is it a band of brothers?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  I don't hate anyone.

• 6:51Adam Friedland?

  I think that like what, one thing that kind of I'm resistant to is that, I just had a sports journalist on. And he said that, or pundit, actually, he's not a journalist. But he said that, I was like, is it kind of like, is sports coverage kind of celebrity gossip at this point? You know? And he said, some of the things that get the highest engagement isn't even related to the players. It's one pundit being mad at another pundit, right? And that's kind of become the news, where it's like the people covering the news kind of are the, like, stars, if anything. You know, is, am I off there?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's a lot of manufactured public drama.

• 7:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  And there are a lot of people who are sort of operating in bad faith in public spaces. Who are just trying to perpetuate it for, you know, personal gain of some kind.

• 7:43Adam Friedland?

  But if you see two journalists popping off against each other, if you see our girl. If you see our girl Taylor just going at another one, people are like, people are like locked in on it, you know? On Twitter or something, you know?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, although, I mean, I think going back, I mean, it's not a new thing for journalists to have like sort of a personal brand. Right?

• 8:04Adam Friedland?

  I don't know.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Edward R. Murrow, like his most famous.

• 8:07Adam Friedland?

  Cigarette.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  His most famous moments were often when he deviated from the straight news stuff and he expressed an opinion, right? And expressed something of his character. So I don't think it's totally new, it's just a new medium.

• 8:22Adam Friedland?

  Well, that was new in that era, right? In this day and age, it feels a kind of more, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but people are upfront.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  I think it's a bad thing, probably.

• 8:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  But I think just, there's always going to be sort of friction when different.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Practices are evolving on different mediums.

• 8:40Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Right, so.

• 8:41Adam Friedland?

  One thing I noticed, like, when I've read your profiles and they're like, I really loved them. Like, but like, the way you write, in your writing, it does track like you're, like, it could be about Rihanna or something. Politicians are celebrities now, you know?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  It's about character, right? Like, what I'm always interested in is understanding the human beings that I'm writing about, right? And for most of the last 10 years, covering kind of Trump's rise to dominance.

• 9:07Adam Friedland?

  You caught a big one.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  That's been about just understanding the people, like, seeking or influencing or clinging to power.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  And when a character wants something, you know, it's a good engine.

• 9:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  For a story and a good way to sort of see their character brought into sharp relief.

• 9:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I mean, he's the most fascinating, probably, public character, I think, of my lifetime.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  I mean, he's very simple, and sometimes I've had the experience talking to him where I'll be asking a question, something about his psychology, and I'll see him start to lose interest in the question. I realize, like, oh, I've thought about your inner life so much more than you ever have.

• 9:47Adam Friedland?

  I love the parts in the book where you write about Trump.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 9:50Adam Friedland?

  They're like so three-dimensional, and he is, he is as a character, just like.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  He's fascinating.

• 9:56Adam Friedland?

  He's fascinating, yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  He's singular. He's strange. I mean, there's this one exchange with him, I think it's in the book, where he was talking about how he was, he's not weird. He's not a weird person. Yeah, and I was like, okay, well, are you, would you say you're unusual? And he's, okay, yeah, I'm unusual, but I'm not weird. I'm the most not-weird person.

• 10:14Adam Friedland?

  I guess there's a connotation more, yeah, unusual, you could be like the cool art kid.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Unusual's more neutral, yeah, than weird is more of an accusation, I think.

• 10:22Adam Friedland?

  You're from New Jersey, you know, the thing, your book is like, kind of like a shoebox of like photographs, right? They're like, just little pictures, I feel like. Is that accurate?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Expressionist.

• 10:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. It's not like, like, linear as much as like, kind of images in different times.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was trying to just sort of replicate the experience of the last 10 years and with my, you know, proximity as this, like, official witness to Trump's rise.

• 10:48Adam Friedland?

  So cool.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  What it feels like.

• 10:50Adam Friedland?

  You were remarkably successful remarkably young, right?

• 10:54Speaker 01

  And unsuccessful.

• 10:55Adam Friedland?

  No, I mean, like, you were like, kind of in the, you know, press pool in the West Wing, like, at like, what, 22, 23?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 11:03Adam Friedland?

  Is that, was that stressful at any point? You just took it in stride?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  It was just, it's easy when you have a mission, like when you, I think there's like a, the stakes of politics are inherent when you're covering it. You never have to wonder if what you're doing matters, because it obviously does. And that's like a great gift in some ways, right? Because I think-

• 11:25Adam Friedland?

  I think you grew up fast, it feels, it seems. Like you became an adult quickly.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Well, but he was, it was his first time there as well, right?

• 11:33Adam Friedland?

  But he's the president!

• 11:34Speaker 01

  But there was something sort of, and I felt like I understood something of his psychology because he grew up in Queens, right? He grew up in Jamaica Estates.

• 11:41Adam Friedland?

  He's a, yeah, outer borough trash.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  But when you're on the periphery, when you're outer borough trash, when you're on the periphery-

• 11:47Adam Friedland?

  He's real estate too, it's disgusting.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  You're always looking at the center of Manhattan, and like, his whole life seemed to be about getting there, and then, you know, ascending to whatever midtown heights he wanted to ascend.

• 12:00Adam Friedland?

  Honestly, good for him.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  But the personality of a striver in him, right? And like, this kind of resentment that he always had about Manhattan, it was interesting to watch it transported to politics.

• 12:14Adam Friedland?

  One thing I thought was an interesting thing from the book is that you associated New York City, like, from a very young age with Trump. Did you feel like you knew him, kind of like, you'd known him for a while, or something?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Well, he was just like this great tabloid villain of my childhood, right? And then The Apprentice premiered when I think I was in like the third or fourth grade. He was always in the papers, my father always brought home the New York Post and the Daily News.

• 12:39Adam Friedland?

  He's what? He's an intellectual.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  I mean, he worked for the sanitation department in New York, and I just was used to seeing him every place, and I don't remember a time when I was not aware of him.

• 12:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Right?

• 12:52Adam Friedland?

  He's in Home Alone 2.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  He's in Home Alone 2, and there's this scene in the book where I just, I remember being in my dad's truck on Central Park South.

• 13:00Adam Friedland?

  I have an excerpt for you.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  And him pointing out that Donald Trump's town car was in front of us, and I was like six years old, I think, and I knew exactly who he was. I thought he was scary, because he was the beauty pageant guy, and I thought beauty pageants were scary.

• 13:14Adam Friedland?

  Here's an interesting thing, and this is related to you. It's the toughest interview.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Who, Trump?

• 13:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. You possessing that ability, just, it's the hardest difficulty setting, and being able to do that from a very young age, like, did you feel like you became an adult early?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  I guess, you know, I was a child of alcoholics, it's like a pretty typical

• 13:34Adam Friedland?

  You have to raise them?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Response, yeah, not successfully, but it's a pretty typical response to like, try really hard to appear collected, you know?

• 13:46Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, could you just like tell us more about how you just instantly knew how to approach that subject?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  I didn't, he's really, he's a domineering force, I mean, he's sort of like the great force around which we're all oriented, right? In some sense, in the culture for the last 10 years, increasingly so. You have to be very like active in an interview with him, you have to, it's like dealing with a wild animal, you know? So you have to just, he's sort of assessing in real time like what he thinks that you want or what you need. And so he's trying to manipulate you.

• 14:19Adam Friedland?

  How do you, how do you like disarm that?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  You don't really, you just have to like meet him on his level, and depending, I mean, sometimes he's just in a bad mood. But if you go in there thinking

• 14:30Adam Friedland?

  I would die, he'd kill me.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  That you're gonna, no, he's not, I mean, he's not that scary.

• 14:34Adam Friedland?

  Do you think Trump would like me?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Do I think he would like you? I don't, um

• 14:39Adam Friedland?

  I mean, I'm not politically, I don't like him, what he's doing, but you want Trump to like you.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  You want him to like you.

• 14:45Adam Friedland?

  If Trump was like, like the way he liked Zorron. I mean, he was just like in love with, he was like, oh my, Zorron, don't answer that question, they're fucking with you.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  That was incredible, but I thought it was sort of like, it was a perfect example of how he just, he orients himself around power too. He responds to energy, and he's sort of, he's sort of like, just this wild animal who synthesizes other people's energy, and he's very, for someone who's so egocentric and so unconcerned with others, he's really interested in others. And he's really sensitive to kind of what other people are.

• 15:21Adam Friedland?

  He's

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Sunny down.

• 15:22Adam Friedland?

  He is.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Not sensitive in the sense that he has any empathy, right, but sensitive like to

• 15:26Adam Friedland?

  Figure you out someone.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, he feel, I mean, it's like why he has to do the rallies and why, like during Covid, for instance, when he couldn't do the rallies. It contributed to like what was described to me by people close to him is sort of his version of depression. And it was

• 15:41Adam Friedland?

  He missed the, he missed the shows?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Well, it was like he was able to, yeah, he missed the shows and

• 15:47Adam Friedland?

  I mean, he crushes.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  He kind of, he's energized by other people's energy. He's the type of extrovert who just, you know, he requires other people's energy. He feeds off of it in a kind of vampiric way.

• 15:59Adam Friedland?

  I mean, you've probably been to a Trump rally, right?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:02Adam Friedland?

  I mean, they have so much fun at that, they love it. Do the people there like?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  No, not really. It's interesting.

• 16:08Adam Friedland?

  It's better than the Democrat ones.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Well, they don't try to, they seldom try to replicate anything like that, right? So that made it hard in like 2016, for instance, to really know how much value to place in the Trump rallies, right? Especially when it wasn't being reflected in polling because it's like, well, she's not trying, Hillary Clinton's not trying to host an event at a monster truck arena. So there's nothing really to compare it to.

• 16:33Adam Friedland?

  They're just wheel out like Oprah and be like, wave.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  I also just think that part of it's just kind of about loneliness and boomer loneliness where it's like there is just, he's, the show is rolling through town and maybe you're in like Biloxi, Mississippi or something or somewhere in Oklahoma and like you, there are not that many, I think, opportunities to hang out and chowgate and listen to Elton John and the Stones and Pavarotti and

• 17:01Adam Friedland?

  And YMCA.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  And chill with, it's funny, for a long time, the song at the like end of those rallies was not the YMCA, it was You Can't Always Get What You Want, which I thought was very funny.

• 17:11Adam Friedland?

  When he came out on election night, right? Didn't he come out to, I remember it. I remember, it was like 2016, didn't he come out to-

• 17:18Speaker 01

  When he won, you mean?

• 17:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, so you can't always get what you want.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so.

• 17:22Adam Friedland?

  And I remember his fat body in silhouette, like-

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a Hitchcock.

• 17:25Adam Friedland?

  Maybe it was a- I mean, it was one of the most insane things I've ever seen in my entire life.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  But I talked to him about this, and it's in the book, where I- that night when he came out, we were in midtown, I think at like the Hilton or something. And he looked, there's this scene in the movie The Candidate with Robert Redford, that I think is about Jerry Brown, but he, um, he wins and he has this dumbfounded, I mean, he just looks-

• 17:49Adam Friedland?

  I remember.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  terrified, right? And he says to his aide, "What do we do now?" And he looks really scared, and then the crowd sort of comes between them, and while he looks helplessly. And I brought this up to Trump, and I was like, "Oh, you reminded me of Redford," and he was like, he got very like-

• 18:05Adam Friedland?

  He was a fellow blonde?

• 18:06Speaker 01

  He was thrilled to hear that I reminded him of Redford, and I was like, "You looked scared," and he went like, huh, you know, kind of sank back into-

• 18:13Adam Friedland?

  He liked that you were blonde, do you think?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  No, no, I was telling him that he looked like Redford.

• 18:16Adam Friedland?

  But was that part of the bond?

• 18:18Speaker 01

  The bond?

• 18:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, a blonde.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Because some, I mean, more of-

• 18:22Adam Friedland?

  It's like when I say another Jew, I'm like, oh.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Oh, that we're both blondes?

• 18:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, he likes it, he's like, "Oh, there's another blonde person here."

• 18:29Speaker 01

  I, it seemed more about New York, like, I think he really missed New York when he was in the White House, and felt sort of, you know, like he was in an alien space.

• 18:39Adam Friedland?

  I made a joke to Zorin where I was like, "Do you think the hang is so bad that like a cool guy came to hang out with him, and then he like just-" And it kind of now seems like that's a kind of a real thing.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  I think so, and I think he's like homesick for New York in a way.

• 18:51Adam Friedland?

  Does he have no friends?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  I don't think he has friends in the manner that like you might think of a friend. I think there are, there are people that he, he doesn't like hang, really, you know?

• 19:03Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, it's because it's like-

• 19:04Speaker 01

  He spends a lot of time on the phone. He's like, it's a very- We've caught a similar guy. You guys are very similar. I was thinking that.

• 19:11Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I love the phone, yeah. You have his number?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yes, do you want to call him?

• 19:15Adam Friedland?

  No. Who would?

• 19:16Speaker 01

  I don't care.

• 19:19Adam Friedland?

  I do this joke every episode. If this is the first one that actually happens, Olivia.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  You should call him.

• 19:28Adam Friedland?

  What can you do?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I don't want to call him. I don't want to talk to him.

• 19:31Adam Friedland?

  He's not gonna pick up for me. Does he pick up? Oh, you said in the book, he picks up every call. Get my phone. Get my phone right now. This is amazing. No, it's in the... Oh my god.

• 19:41Adam Friedland?

  Does he pick up every call?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I... In my experience...

• 19:45Adam Friedland?

  What if he's like, "Hello, Adam?"

• 19:50Adam Friedland?

  Oh my god!

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Hi Nate.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Nate, may I please have my phone?

• 19:57Adam Friedland?

  Wait, you want to say... You want to just say, um... You want to say the number so our listeners could also give him a call?

• 20:02Speaker 01

  No, well, that's... I don't want... I don't really want to give you his number. I feel like that's not responsible.

• 20:07Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so I'll call from your number.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  May I have my phone? Oh, it's... It's behind you, I think.

• 20:11Adam Friedland?

  So you also have Trump's number?

• 20:12Speaker 01

  No, I don't want to call from my phone. I don't want to talk to him.

• 20:14Adam Friedland?

  I'm not gonna prank call Trump when I'm just hanging out with my boys.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Actually, I don't even care. Yeah, you can have it.

• 20:18Adam Friedland?

  Is this cool?

• 20:19Adam Friedland?

  This is great. This is awesome.

• 20:21Adam Friedland?

  Caleb, why don't you look more excited? I need you guys... This is the best thing ever. This is the best thing in my entire life.

• 20:26Adam Friedland?

  This is the best phone of your life.

• 20:27Adam Friedland?

  Whoa, dude! Oh no, you have pink.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  What?

• 20:31Adam Friedland?

  Nothing.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Alright, oh, Jesus Christ.

• 20:33Adam Friedland?

  I have orange, bro.

• 20:35Adam Friedland?

  What do I say to Trump?

• 20:36Adam Friedland?

  Hello?

• 20:38Adam Friedland?

  No, I should give him a piece of my mind after all this.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Alright, wait, can I have your phone?

• 20:44Adam Friedland?

  I just want to do the show.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Okay, can you unlock it?

• 20:47Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 20:50Adam Friedland?

  Here.

• 20:52Adam Friedland?

  Do you think maybe he saw this on an episode? Should I ask him that?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 20:56Adam Friedland?

  Is it ringing?

• 20:57Speaker 01

  No, I didn't call yet. Your phone's about to die, by the way.

• 21:00Adam Friedland?

  That's okay. That'd be...

• 21:01Adam Friedland?

  I'm mad at you.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  You're on 4%. You are on 4%.

• 21:07Adam Friedland?

  That's enough for a Trump. Okay.

• 21:11Adam Friedland?

  Wow. No, that's not his actual number. That's the number he got?

• 21:24Adam Friedland?

  Can I leave a message?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:26Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  I'll probably go back.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Your call has been forwarded to voicemail.

• 21:38Adam Friedland?

  Classic him.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  The person you're trying to reach is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up.

• 21:45Adam Friedland?

  Hello, Mr. President. It's Adam Friedland. I'm a talk show host in New York City. I would love to extend an invitation for you to come on the show. I just had Zoram M'Adani, who I know you're quite fond of. And he's a kind of intellectual style, the Vade of Dick Cavett talk show. We also had Steini, who I think you're friends with as well from the Melody Boys. All right, thanks a lot. Mr. President, it's a great honor and I hope you're having a good day.

• 22:16Adam Friedland?

  Whoa, okay, whoa. I'm sorry, did you think it was okay? Did you think it was good? I dropped Steini. I also dropped Steini. He might know that. Why the hell was Trump on fucking Steini's podcast? Anyway, okay. So, I guess like, um...

• 22:37Adam Friedland?

  Oh, I feel like I'm flying. Did you, did you, when did you first want to be a writer? You know?

• 22:44Speaker 01

  I always wrote.

• 22:45Adam Friedland?

  I always wrote.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  I always, I was always writing when I was a kid. But I loved comedy.

• 22:51Adam Friedland?

  You did? Like what?

• 22:54Speaker 01

  I loved Carlin, Pryor, Chappelle, Janine Grofflow.

• 23:00Adam Friedland?

  Casey calls back. And your book is inspired by the Divine Comedy?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  It's sort of in the structure a little bit.

• 23:08Adam Friedland?

  Were you always a big John Waters fan?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  I do love John Mudders.

• 23:15Adam Friedland?

  Guys, just wake up a little bit, guys. This is the last interview of the year.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  I love John Mudders.

• 23:20Adam Friedland?

  This is the last interview of the year. Guys, this is my sixth interview. Olivia's Olivia, let's make her feel like the biggest star. You are the biggest star in the world. You're our favorite. This is the best interview I've ever done. You always like comedy. Do you write comedy?

• 23:35Speaker 01

  The first pieces I wrote were like satire.

• 23:38Adam Friedland?

  Do you have it in?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Somewhere, probably.

• 23:40Adam Friedland?

  Really? Like what? Do you remember it?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  They're really bad satire.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  What? Yeah, like I wrote, I got the first like letter to the editor that I was the subject of. I was writing for an alt weekly in New Jersey. And they published this letter to the editor that was like, what does Olivia do for America? And I was really upset because I was like, I write here. Like, why are you publishing hate mail against me? I didn't realize how it worked. But it was, I wrote some really terrible thing. It was about the border wall. And it was like, if Republicans are so serious about the border wall, they should send like the Boy Scouts to go form a human fence.

• 24:19Adam Friedland?

  Why?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  I don't know. It was like seventeen. You know, I was just like being dumb.

• 24:24Adam Friedland?

  You were seventeen with the border wall?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  We've all, I mean, we've had the border wall.

• 24:28Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, I guess so. I associated with Trump, yeah.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  I mean, it's early 1900s, really. It's like USDA.

• 24:34Adam Friedland?

  How could I forget, yeah?

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, how could you forget? Yeah, this defining feature of the country. But, and then, you know, the border wall, the border wall itself didn't really become like the point of immigration debates on the left and right until the Obama administration. Before that, it was really about like, it wasn't so much about the interior of the country. Like, well, it was a bipartisan issue to fund the border wall, right? Two thousand and six, like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, all sorts of Democrats funded.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Voted to fund the border wall construction. So it was not like this super contested issue for a long time.

• 25:12Adam Friedland?

  Should I call Trump back? Maybe I forgot. I feel like I'm the right. I'm just thinking about this.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  You miss him?

• 25:17Adam Friedland?

  I'm just thinking about this call.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:19Adam Friedland?

  How's he? You just like, you just know that. Here's the thing that's fascinating is that you write critically, right? And you still maintain his trust.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  He doesn't read.

• 25:28Adam Friedland?

  He, well, oh. But he doesn't, he hates the media.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Well, he's been mean to me. Like, he's been.

• 25:34Adam Friedland?

  What's the meanest thing he said to you?

• 25:35Speaker 01

  He said I was dumb as rocks.

• 25:37Adam Friedland?

  Oh, that's all right.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  He said I was.

• 25:39Adam Friedland?

  A little derivative.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like, I thought that was funny. He said I was a whack job.

• 25:44Adam Friedland?

  A whack job?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:45Adam Friedland?

  That's pretty funny.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Pretty good, yeah. He called me.

• 25:49Adam Friedland?

  That's so Trump to say whack job.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:51Adam Friedland?

  Did he ever call you a dog? Because he always calls women dogs.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  He, well, he also says people like have choked like a dog. Like Mitt Romney choked like a dog. If he, when he.

• 25:59Adam Friedland?

  Like a dog.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  He hates animals.

• 26:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  And so when he talks, when he compares people to animals, it's usually just to humanize them in some way, right?

• 26:07Adam Friedland?

  To dog hu, to dog, dog them, yeah. Well, Baghdadi, right? When he killed that terrorist, he said he died like a dog.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Right, which I don't know what that means exactly. To die like a dog.

• 26:20Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. What does that mean at all?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 26:23Adam Friedland?

  So, so, what, do you remember what spurred his, his anger at you?

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Sometimes it's a question he doesn't like. Or if like he's failing in his efforts to sort of manipulate you in real time. He gets agitated.

• 26:38Adam Friedland?

  Who does he manipulate? Who's like?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  He's very like, he's charming, right?

• 26:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  And so, and he's like a good hang in a way. Like, you can talk to, he wants to talk about, he likes to gossip.

• 26:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  He loves talking about.

• 26:50Adam Friedland?

  I got a good gossip for him. I should call him back.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's the gossip?

• 26:54Adam Friedland?

  I'm like, I can't say, I'm a celebrity.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  You want to talk to him in private?

• 26:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I heard that, I just heard that Marilyn Manson got one of his ribs removed.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Was that before or after the Richard Gere thing?

• 27:06Adam Friedland?

  I heard that Richard Gere. Well, the first one was Rod Stewart was OD'd and then he got his stomach pumped and there was two liters of semen in it. Which is so much pump. I mean, it's like an insane amount of pump. Like, take us through his charm a little bit more, because I think it's just fascinating to hear.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  I mean, he's just, he's a performer, right? And so, he's always trying to get people to like him. He wants to be liked. I mean, we all want to be liked, right? But with him, it's amplified and even like, I think the defining trait of a politician. And I think I write something about this in the book. It's just like, a politician is a man who wants to be loved more than other men. And through his pursuit, reveals why he cannot love himself, right? And all politicians really want to be loved. But with Trump, it's like the added, sort of Elvis quality to him, right? Or Liberace quality. The Vegas in him, if you will.

• 27:58Adam Friedland?

  Well, he's a television star, too. He's in show business. He's way more that than like, people think he's like Goldman Sachs. He's like, from New York City real estate and he kind of fucked it up.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  And not even really, right? Like, it's like a marketing exercise. And like, he wanted to be in show business. He wanted to be in the movie business. He wanted to go to film school. And I feel like the great lesson, one of the great lessons of the 20th century is if someone wants to be an artist, you have to let them, because the consequences are dire.

• 28:23Adam Friedland?

  Oh, okay, because of, yeah, because of...

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Hitler.

• 28:27Adam Friedland?

  Oh, Hitler. I wasn't thinking of that.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Who were you thinking of?

• 28:30Adam Friedland?

  I was thinking of George Bush.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Oh, also that, yeah.

• 28:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, if we let him paint.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  I love his paintings.

• 28:36Adam Friedland?

  The early ones are good.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  I prefer his earlier work.

• 28:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, the naive ones. Yeah, where he's trying to wash off his sins. Yeah, he's just haunted by the ghosts of the dead Iraqis. One million, whatever. You kind of, your first, I don't know, arrival was you were in the internet with a friend of the show.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Anthony Weider.

• 28:54Adam Friedland?

  I would say best friend. Would you guys say best friend of the show? Best friend of the show, Anthony Weider's campaign. And then, you left the campaign, you wrote, it became a front page story. Is that Trump? No, Gmail. Okay, I'm sorry.

• 29:09Adam Friedland?

  I'm so nervous. Okay.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:11Adam Friedland?

  Um, yeah, and then, uh, the New York Daily News. Were you recruited from there to like become a journalist? Or did it feel like, oh, now I'm in the game? Or like, when did it dawn on you that you were good? Like, I'm gonna be a journalist? Like?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I was writing for this alt weekly when I was a teenager in New Jersey. And I ran out of opinions really quickly because I didn't know anything, you know?

• 29:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Garbage weekly, yeah.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then.

• 29:35Adam Friedland?

  The sanitation news, yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  And then when I started, um, like, performing acts of journalism, um, and I realized that you could do that, that you could just ask anyone anything, and that there's this sort of like mechanism for my curiosity.

• 29:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  And like a way to utilize that. And it was justified because it's in the public interest. Like, that was fascinating to me. And I was, um, I was interviewing, I think it was Rush Holt. He was a congressman and a rocket scientist from New Jersey. And he was running for the Senate in a special election to fill the seat vacated by the death of Frank Lautenberg.

• 30:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  And, um, I had all these questions written out and I was like really nervous. And then we started talking. And I just, I threw the questions out because I realized, like, you have to, if you're in the conversation, um, you, you don't need to be nervous. You don't need to be, right?

• 30:27Adam Friedland?

  No, I just, I don't know. Is there an overlap between like having a theatrical training early on? And like, is there a performance aspect to journalism?

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Maybe, I mean, well, certainly like going on TV and doing stuff like that.

• 30:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Um, probably.

• 30:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  And understanding Trump, I think it was helpful, too.

• 30:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, because he's also a show, uh, razzle-dazzle showman, yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's someone, like, a longtime aide of his, um, in, in American Kanto, says, um, you know, in another era, if he was better looking, he probably would have loved to have been like a Cary Grant or something like that.

• 30:57Adam Friedland?

  I remember you say that, but also, he is, he's way hot, he's one of the hottest.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  You think he's hot, yeah.

• 31:03Adam Friedland?

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• 37:17Adam Friedland?

  You were first place on the Chrissy campaign with the Daily Beast. Were you at those primaries in 2016? Because that was the best show of all time.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  The 2016 primary?

• 37:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, the debates.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:28Adam Friedland?

  I guess like, what was it like just seeing the RNC crumbling? Because like, he was a, he was a virus on the system, right? They kept trying to like, there was another, there was one week where like, lying Ted would try to take him down. And one week where they were like, Marco, you gotta do it this week. And he was just, you just saw this guy like, like Agent Smith. He was like, growing in power, like, it's like, it's a moment of American history that you had a like, firsthand account of.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  I mean, there was, in some sense, you could look at it like, there was a real democratic process on, on the right that year. Whereas, I think there are a lot of people who, for good reason, feel that there wasn't on, on the democratic side, right? That Bernie Sanders, maybe would have been the nominee, had the party not put its thumb on the scale.

• 38:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I think she persisted, actually.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, nevertheless.

• 38:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  But I, Trump, it was like, nobody want, there were no experts available.

• 38:27Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  To help contextualize what was happening. Because I remember, it was my first election year that I was covering, and I would talk to, I don't know, a political scientist or somebody to try and help me understand it, and they would tell me something like, you know, oh, well, people lie to pollsters, or people get serious once it really becomes time to vote. And I would go on like, television and say this, and, you know, I talked to so and so, who said this. And as it turned out, there were no experts. Like, there are no, political science is a contradiction in terms, and like, politics is extraordinarily emotional.

• 38:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  And American politics and domestic politics is extraordinarily emotional. And he was manipulating that successfully.

• 39:07Adam Friedland?

  I mean, he knew how to do TV.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Have you ever gone back and re-watched some of those debates?

• 39:11Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, they're the best. I watch all the time.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  But you can't, you, your eyes just go to his center, right? Like, he is the point.

• 39:18Adam Friedland?

  He, and.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  And they're all, they look ridiculous.

• 39:21Adam Friedland?

  You remember they, they were telling the crowds not to cheer, and they just couldn't help. They were like, ah! Yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:26Adam Friedland?

  Like, when did it dawn on you that this like, this could be the President of the United States?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  I remember, I had, you know, it was hard because I was mostly covering him. So it's not like I was at every Hillary Clinton event, or, you know, on the trail with her constantly. And I was mostly just trying to understand his supporters and, and also just trying to understand the kind of machinations of our election system, for the first time, formally, professionally.

• 39:52Adam Friedland?

  At 22, 21?

• 39:55Speaker 01

  I think I was twenty-two.

• 39:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, right? Yeah, and so I had a feeling, but like I remember discussing it with two friends of mine that we all had feelings that he would win, but you can't exactly like go report like according to my female intuition, he's gonna win.

• 40:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  There's no, there was no way to, you know, to corroborate that with any data.

• 40:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  So.

• 40:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  And it was also hard to like, you know, it was hard to know like how much value do you put on the sides of his crowds? Are they just there because they're curious and it's kind of like the circus is rolling through town and it's something to do? Or are they there because it's an actual expression of how they're gonna vote? And it's not as though he won the popular vote, right?

• 40:44Adam Friedland?

  Right, it was razor thin.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in the end, it's like, this was this marginal victory.

• 40:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  And I don't, I still don't really know how much, when you look back at just like the visuals of it, right? Like Hillary Clinton in like a half-full high school auditorium versus Donald Trump selling out some big stadium. That wasn't really a reflection of what ended up happening, right?

• 41:08Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  So.

• 41:09Adam Friedland?

  People are just like, ugh, I'll vote for her. Yeah, fine, I'll vote for Hillary. I'm not gonna go to the thing, though. Yeah, I'm not gonna go to the high school and stand there and listen to her, but I'll vote for her, fine.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Well, it's not like, the types of people who usually show up to political events are unusual.

• 41:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Right? They're unusually engaged and, or they are unusually like not busy in the middle of a workday.

• 41:31Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Like, so it's not, you don't really get a great sense of what like a quote-unquote average voter thinks by going to, I don't know, a rally in Des Moines or Ames or something.

• 41:43Adam Friedland?

  There's a really funny thing I pulled from, from the book is, in the Oval Office, you're handed a page with fifty-eight bullet points typed in large font, and at the top, underlined in bold, all caps, it said, "Trump Administration Accomplishments."

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Do you still have that piece of paper?

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Do I? I don't know.

• 42:03Adam Friedland?

  My impression of that first term was like he was just like you kind of what you illustrated earlier was like he was the loneliest man in the world because it wasn't like classy to work for Trump.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  It was a lot of people that hadn't been there before either, right? And then there were sort of like people who had been in politics but probably would not have gotten the opportunity to work in the White House. Because most people who work in politics, that's the goal, right? And then you work in the White House for a few years and your stock rises and you can sort of you can command much more in the private sector. It's like this totally cynical gross.

• 42:41Adam Friedland?

  You get paid in revolving door.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But it was, you know, there were a lot of.

• 42:47Adam Friedland?

  Was the food good? They let you hit the cafeteria or you had to go off campus?

• 42:53Speaker 01

  If you were like meeting with someone, like you could go with someone who worked there, but you can't like in the White House like press briefing room and behind it where the reporters are, there was just like a vending machine.

• 43:07Adam Friedland?

  That's all you got? He has his own chef. That's not fair. If I was the president, I'd let all the reporters have the food so they write nice things about me.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:19Adam Friedland?

  President Adam gave us carnitas today. He's the coolest president ever.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Did you ever watch a movie in the movie theater?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:29Adam Friedland?

  President Trump sucks, dude. Don't tell him I said that.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:33Adam Friedland?

  No, it's my friend text me. Why did you write the book as a blind item like as a like literary device or like, you know, was that just a choice like a flourish?

• 43:47Speaker 01

  I only named I named founding fathers, I named writers, and I named publications. But I didn't name most other people. I used, you know.

• 43:58Adam Friedland?

  Because me and the fellows, we've been having a blast trying to figure out who the people were.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:03Adam Friedland?

  I think I know who the politician is. It's George Santos. It is.

• 44:11Adam Friedland?

  It is George Santos.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:12Adam Friedland?

  No? I guess you've written it over the last year.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 44:15Adam Friedland?

  So what was the, your, on the, at the outset, like, what was the book attempting to do?

• 44:20Speaker 01

  It wasn't really attempting to do anything. I mean, I just was writing it, right? And so I, in September of 2024, my, I had this, like, rapturous event in my life, right? And I fled New York.

• 44:37Adam Friedland?

  September 11th.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Fled New York.

• 44:40Adam Friedland?

  Why did I do that? Why don't I talk? It's my last interview of the year. September 11th? I saw myself in the middle, I'm like, remember? At the end, you're like, kind of left, like, there's no triumph at the end, right?

• 44:53Speaker 01

  There rarely is. But I, so I was writing it, and, you know, I kind of fled New York and went to the West Coast. And then the election was coming to a close. And like, this story that I had wanted to see through of the election, I...

• 45:08Adam Friedland?

  Did you not watch?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  No, I watched, but I was watching from this different vantage point, right? From, from like, the edge of the country.

• 45:15Adam Friedland?

  You're an insider, yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  And it was like, you know, it was the first time in my life where I didn't have a job. And I didn't have anything to really go hurry and do. And I was sort of still for the first time in 10 years. And I was able to synthesize the 10-year period and like, look back and, and try and make sense of what had happened in our national politics and to the character of the country. But also what had happened, you know, in my own life to my own character. And this sort of, this warping of reality in, like, it seemed to me that, like, amid Trump's rise to dominance, there's this sort of sprawl of this distortion field, right?

• 45:58Speaker 01

  That like, he is the center, and in like, the heat around him, everything warped.

• 46:03Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  And I was in that center for a long time. And it warped for me as well. And that seemed like important and something that I should really try to understand.

• 46:15Adam Friedland?

  Did you feel Didi on style, being in California, writing a book?

• 46:18Speaker 01

  People, you know, I always felt like I was too Italian to understand her, like...

• 46:22Adam Friedland?

  Too Italian?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Just like, too Italian-American to understand...

• 46:25Adam Friedland?

  You're getting marinara on the book.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  To understand that sort of like detached WASP ethos.

• 46:31Adam Friedland?

  You know, I don't think it's nice to be mean to hip like what to hip like what is what's wrong with wanting peace?

• 46:36Speaker 01

  But anyway, I I but then I did understand it.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Some people in my life were like, you can't be living out there in Malibu and not, you know, be reading that.

• 46:48Adam Friedland?

  Doing like a eat, pray, love.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  And well, no, then I read it and I was like, okay, maybe I'm like finally sad enough to understand this.

• 46:55Adam Friedland?

  Why does it cause such a stir, I guess, like in your estimation?

• 46:58Speaker 01

  What, my book?

• 46:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and just like the why are you like in the middle of a fucking controversy?

• 47:03Speaker 01

  I mean, last year, when I was at New York Magazine, right, like I fucked up.

• 47:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you didn't disclose.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, like those ethics roles exist for a reason. They're good roles.

• 47:12Adam Friedland?

  Did you kill stories on behalf of Secretary Kennedy?

• 47:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:15Adam Friedland?

  That's been alleged, I guess.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of things have been alleged.

• 47:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I've heard a lot of things.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  We did not.

• 47:20Adam Friedland?

  So that's not true? Yeah, okay.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  But I those rules are good and there was a reason why people were really mad at me and they were right to be.

• 47:30Adam Friedland?

  But you think like regular folks are mad about journalistic ethics?

• 47:34Speaker 01

  But I don't care. It doesn't matter, right? Like it just what matters is that I did something wrong and in that way I hurt the whole industry. And like that's I take that really seriously. This feels different, though, like this current cycle of just

• 47:49Speaker 01

  uncharitable opinions about me. I don't, you know, I think it's I guess it's I kind of feel like it's not really my business.

• 47:59Adam Friedland?

  It is your business, your life and your career.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I wrote this book that like I think is valuable.

• 48:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but people are hating on your I mean, like just as for your career, you're writing a book and everyone's saying fuck you. It's like you're you're selling you want to sell a book to people, you know?

• 48:15Speaker 01

  I wanted the book.

• 48:16Adam Friedland?

  And everyone's crapping all over you.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  But I wanted the book to be like an honest expression about this tenure period and about my own experience. And I'm happy with it. And I also knew when I was working on it, anytime it would sort of like intrude, like how are people gonna react to this? I was pretty clear right about the fact that people might just say like, get the fuck out of here.

• 48:37Adam Friedland?

  Well, are people reacting to the book or are they reacting to what's happening around you?

• 48:41Speaker 01

  I think they're reacting more to the latter, yeah.

• 48:43Adam Friedland?

  So that's why I'm saying like, it's obviously, it has affected your abilities to get your book out there to people, right?

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, that's alright, like, you know, I just wasn't, I felt like-

• 48:53Adam Friedland?

  You can't possibly feel like this is fine.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Well, it's not going well.

• 48:57Adam Friedland?

  Right, no, no, no, no, no, not, I'm not talking about the book, I'm talking about the, I'm just talking about like, the way that people are like, people are fucking like pissed off at you.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  But I can take it, like, I don't feel broken up about it, yeah, I feel, I think it's interesting.

• 49:10Adam Friedland?

  It's not, it's not-

• 49:11Speaker 01

  I'm more curious about it than I am devastated by it.

• 49:14Adam Friedland?

  I, your ex-partner, I read the sub second, I really don't care about journalism, like, it's, I don't care, I watch, I watch sports. I read his thing.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 49:26Adam Friedland?

  And first of all, I don't understand, like, I'll say this for me, this is my opinion, okay? But it's like a little bit, like, bitch ass. To serialize details about your past relationship and a breakup for, behind a paywall on your, like, writing a journal website. I mean, like, just for money to talk about like painful real life experiences, I think it's a little bit, it's a little bit, I don't know. I, no one's really having that reaction to, to him. I think everyone seems to be bad at you, and then the third party seems to be a sitting member of the federal, of the administration. And, uh, I, I, to me, I'm a very, I'm an outsider, right? So I've all, I've just learned about this the last fucking four days.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I feel like an outsider.

• 50:10Adam Friedland?

  It's not distributed equally, right?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I don't write about that person much in the book, um, I reference-

• 50:17Adam Friedland?

  He's measured.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  But like, I forgot him, you know, and I, I didn't want to remember, and so-

• 50:21Adam Friedland?

  This is playing out in public.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  It's really unfortunate, and I also just think it's like, I mean, this is this, like, harassment campaign that's been going on for like sixteen, seventeen months, right? It started when I went, during the scandal in twenty twenty four.

• 50:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Um, and it continued, um, and now it's like this bad faith effort, I think, um, to present-

• 50:44Adam Friedland?

  Is it sexist?

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Among other things, I think it's harassment, I think it's abusive, like, I think, as someone I met when I-

• 50:50Adam Friedland?

  Who put the target on your back?

• 50:51Speaker 01

  It's someone that I met when I was nineteen years old, right, and was with for a really long time. And, um, it's-

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Just like engaging the public and the rest of the world in this. Like when I left that relationship, I left this abusive dynamic, right? And it seems like that person is still existing within it. And if that person can't like control my life from within my life, then they'll try to control it from the outside. And it was all a way of just like stepping on the book, right? And like writing over the book that I wrote before anyone had a chance to read that book. Right? It started before the book came out.

• 51:29Adam Friedland?

  There's that, but then there's also just like-

• 51:31Speaker 01

  And also just providing a tell-all that I didn't write.

• 51:33Adam Friedland?

  And if indeed, I'm taking you in good faith. Like, I mean, from what I read, here's the thing that I'm gonna ask you directly about, because I don't understand why no one even cares, right? The most absurd allegation that's levied is that there was a recording that was surreptitiously made by an illustrator at New York Magazine. It included the president talking about details related to the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt that have been hidden from public knowledge.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:00Adam Friedland?

  And that you received a phone call from Secretary Kennedy while he's in Mexico on vacation, and that you deleted that recording. Is that true?

• 52:09Speaker 01

  That's not true.

• 52:10Adam Friedland?

  It's not true.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:11Adam Friedland?

  First of all, with all this crap coming out, no one's talking about that even. Even the people that are taking his words like as gospel. I'm like, listen, I'm talking to you right now, I'm taking you in good faith. But like, no one even cares about that one part, which is like, what? It was an assassination attempt.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:30Adam Friedland?

  So where, so is this individual like just completely just free-sylling on this shit?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  No, I mean, some of the stuff, it's like rooted in some fact, right? And then, but then it's like contorted in such a way that it like, it's unrecognizable. And that's what makes it hard to respond to, right? Because it's, I can't say every single thing that this person said is false. Some of it is, is like- You know, when you get down to it, there's some truth there, but it's not, it's like, there's this reporter's

• 52:56Adam Friedland?

  Why would you pursue defamation claims? I mean, this is like,

• 52:59Speaker 01

  I don't want to, because it's like, I don't want to be involved in with this person.

• 53:02Adam Friedland?

  No, if indeed this is not true, saying that you fucking like covered up something related to an assassination attempt is like, is egregious.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:10Adam Friedland?

  And it, and it kill, it's career ending. Beyond your, your, your failure to disclose your relationship with,

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Sure, but, but the, but the things that this person has written are not publishable by the standards of any actual news organization, right? It just would not meet the standard. And so,

• 53:28Adam Friedland?

  But that is def, he's defaming you in public.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 53:30Adam Friedland?

  Even if it's on the internet, right?

• 53:32Speaker 01

  But from my point of view, it's like, okay, best case scenario, what, I spend several years and probably like seven figures to get a Substack retracted and some kind of forced apology. I, that person,

• 53:44Adam Friedland?

  To clear your name.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  But I was with that person for 12 years. Like, I don't want to spend any more of my time

• 53:49Adam Friedland?

  So you make a fucking Jewish guy do it for you in the court? I mean, it's your name and you have, I mean, if indeed this is like, if indeed you weren't killing stories on behalf of a politician that you were covering. And if indeed, like, you didn't cut, like, delete evidence related to a presidential assassination attempt, you, you gotta clear your name. I mean, I, I would see no other, no other course of action.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  My point of view is like, I don't feel like the onus should be on me to answer for this person's allegations. You know, the book is not about this person.

• 54:19Adam Friedland?

  Well, I'm not even talking about the book. I'm talking about the way people are talking about you right now.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  But this is about the book. The whole thing is designed to write over this book that I wrote. And I don't want to attack that person. Like, I feel sorry for them. And like, it, it freaks me out and I think it's like disturbing. And I hope that they move on. I think the problem was that it was, you know, a situation where, like, I was really, really young. When I got involved with this person and I think that they became accustomed to like violating my privacy, my space, etc. And I left, you know, and like I didn't leave in a great way, obviously, right?

• 54:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Like, I don't view this person as credible. I think this is obviously this like vengeance campaign, right, designed to inflict harm on me.

• 55:03Adam Friedland?

  It's related to a fucking, the president, someone is shooting him.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  But there are so many things.

• 55:09Adam Friedland?

  It's like James Bond style allegations.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  This is like an eight, what is it, eight part series?

• 55:14Adam Friedland?

  It's five and you're acting like you don't know, but you're in a lot of...

• 55:16Speaker 01

  No, I haven't read any of them.

• 55:17Adam Friedland?

  You're also a better writer than him too, he's probably...

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Thank you, but I haven't read any of them.

• 55:20Adam Friedland?

  You know you're a better writer the whole time? Just don't date another journalist.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Very different, but very different type of writing. That's part of like what was so weird, like...

• 55:29Adam Friedland?

  You're being nice to him though?

• 55:30Speaker 01

  I've always been being nice about him. Like, I don't have, I'm not, I've never been, I'm not in a feud. You know, this person is trying very hard and succeeding, frankly, in assassinating my character and like that's a choice and I made a different choice. I have to, like, part of getting through this period of like being publicly shamed over the last sixteen months, right?

• 55:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  I had like rules for myself of how I would, how I would deal with things. And the first rule was just I would never use anyone else as a human shield. You know, I would never try to like wriggle out of culpability by harming anyone else. I would, like, I had to remember anything that was fake is probably ephemeral, right? That time, if I sort of didn't waste the opportunity of this crisis in my life that's fucked up, the opportunity to like proceed better and become better,

• 56:28Speaker 01

  then anything fake wouldn't stick around, right? Like, that's my belief about it.

• 56:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  And so I wasn't like terribly concerned with that stuff. Like, I know it's not true and like, you know, I have my lawyer respond when appropriate, but like...

• 56:41Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so you got one?

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a lawyer.

• 56:43Adam Friedland?

  Thank god you have one. That's all I'm asking you. If you have a guy...

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Of course I have a lawyer. Yeah, he's amazing.

• 56:48Adam Friedland?

  Do you have a support system around you? Do you have like a, do you have good friends that like are there for you and stuff?

• 56:54Speaker 01

  I'm, this is not at risk of shattering me.

• 56:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  You know, it's just not, I think it's unfortunate, but I think it's very interesting. But the response to this also is in the book, right? Like, I write about what I did wrong in my book. I write in American Canto about the truth of that affair, right? I write of things that don't make me look good. I didn't think anything would redeem me, and I wasn't trying to do that.

• 57:16Adam Friedland?

  You said you lied, but I assumed like it was kind of vague. You said, "I committed ethics violation," and you also said, "And I lied for him," right?

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did lie for him.

• 57:27Adam Friedland?

  But it was, yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Right, like the spin that...

• 57:29Adam Friedland?

  It was with Lizzo. It was with your...

• 57:34Speaker 01

  But I, you know, the spin that he and I agreed on was like that it was a flirtation, nothing more, right? And that was, you know, what... It's been, the only thing that I've been surprised by, because I knew, like, when I poked my head up from being in this sort of isolation, that I might be met by like some madman charging at me with an axe, right? Like, I figured that people weren't going to be normal in general about me writing a book. But I didn't know that other people would participate in that harassment, right? Or other institutions would participate in that harassment, or in my violations of privacy, or in my being slandered, or in, you know, just character assassination.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Like, I, that was a surprise to me, but it's been interesting.

• 58:23Adam Friedland?

  Why is this not spurred a political scandal? Like, it feels like it's all about you and your ex-partner.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Because my ex-partner is trying to harm me.

• 58:31Adam Friedland?

  But it's not, but, yes, but like, kind of like, it seems like the political sex scandals are like one of America's favorite things. Isn't that, everything is so schizophrenic these days, and there's just scandal, scandal, scandal, scandal, that no one has time...

• 58:45Speaker 01

  There was a scandal about it, there was a scandal about it a year ago, right?

• 58:48Adam Friedland?

  But did he face any blowback from it? The honorable Reverend Doctor Secretary?

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I mean, it was before the election, right?

• 58:57Adam Friedland?

  Oh, he was a candidate, or a surrogate for Trump.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  He, at that point, that the scandal kind of sparked... He had dropped out of the presidential race and he had endorsed Donald Trump, yeah.

• 59:07Adam Friedland?

  Do you buy all that crap he says about the vaccine, you know, the health stuff?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:11Adam Friedland?

  You think it's dangerous?

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Some of it, yeah. I mean, I also think that there are some good things that he's done too, right? Like, I think when it comes to processed foods, dyes, pesticides. I thought the work that he did as an environmentalist was important, suing Monsanto.

• 59:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 59:29Adam Friedland?

  Okay, that sounds good, yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Like, I think that's great. But when it comes to, like, you know, degrading trust in the medical profession, or when it comes to negatively, you know, affecting vaccination rates, or sowing confusion about that stuff, or relying on people who are not credible or just not being transparent in the government.

• 59:52Adam Friedland?

  Dr. Umar.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Not good, right? And I, you know, among things that we shared, I think, was just like a broad skepticism about power. Right?

• 1:00:01Adam Friedland?

  You fell in love with someone?

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just like fell in love with someone and in the wrong circumstances, in the wrong person, right? And I handled it the wrong way.

• 1:00:08Adam Friedland?

  When did you first feel like you'd fallen in love?

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  You know, I write about it in the book.

• 1:00:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but like, he's told you he loved you.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:18Adam Friedland?

  You didn't say it back a couple of times.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:21Adam Friedland?

  Had it started before your, your profile of him?

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  No, after.

• 1:00:25Adam Friedland?

  Because you kind of flamed his, you dunked on his ass in that. It was a critical profile.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:00:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, they were critical.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  He hated it.

• 1:00:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, he hated it.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  He really hated it.

• 1:00:33Adam Friedland?

  You are able to, like, write critically about subjects and then maintain kind of their trust in an interesting way.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. But don't you find, like, if you're critical of someone but you're being honest about it and it's not coming from, it's not in bad faith, you're not trying to inflict harm or just be honest, that not, you know, oftentimes people are all right with that?

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  No, you don't find that?

• 1:00:55Adam Friedland?

  No, no one likes to be criticized, even if it's legitimate. How did New York Magazine find out about your relationship? Like, how was that? How did they tell you about?

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  They, um, my, the editor in chief confronted me in a meeting.

• 1:01:08Adam Friedland?

  Had someone leaked it to them, or?

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, Kara Swisher had, um, brought it to them. Uh, she later told the New York Times about that.

• 1:01:17Adam Friedland?

  And she became aware of it from, you don't know, or?

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  I had my suspicions.

• 1:01:22Adam Friedland?

  I guess, so, so you didn't feel like you were like on a house of cards that could come tumbling down?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  I mean, it just felt really besides the point, which is, you know, my mistake and one of the delusions I was operating under was that, um, it didn't matter, right? And it mattered, everything matters so much, right? Every little thing that we do here matters. And so, I think, to me, it seemed, and part of what I spent a lot of the last year thinking about was like, you don't just wake up one day and make a big mistake, right? Like, if you're gonna make, if you're gonna fuck up in some, um, rapturous way, it's probably gonna be preceded by like imperceptible errors in judgment. And, um, a lot of letting things slide with yourself, that sort of amounts to like a, a misconfigured worldview, right?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Or like, amounts to a path before you that's like, gone awry. And, that was important for me to assess, cause a lot of people had told me, um, you know, when I was fired from New York Magazine, a lot of people had said like, oh, like, fuck it, just continue to cover the election, you should take this assignment or that assignment, and you should just pretend that this didn't happen, you should be shameless. And, it was like, this expectation that, um, that I should or that I could, assume the sort of shameless posture that animates so much of American life now.

• 1:02:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  Um, and certainly animates, um, the kind of, um, um, powerful social strata in American life. And, that, I couldn't do that, you know?

• 1:02:53Adam Friedland?

  So, you, you, are you saying you like chose to remove yourself because of the? The kind of ethics violation, or was it because

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Well, I was fired, right?

• 1:03:01Adam Friedland?

  Everyone fucking hated you.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Both, right? Both, like, I was fired. I also was, but I also fled out to the west coast and I was really scared and I was like in hiding and I didn't want to be found and I, I was scared of the, the person who's now writing those Substack things and I didn't really know, like, everything had shifted completely in my life, like, it had been one way for a really long time. And I didn't know what to do and so I just, but it also just struck me that like personally, as an interior matter, it was like this big spiritual event and like my moral error was important, like, it was important that I take that seriously and I became really

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  grateful that it had happened because it felt like, I think I write in the book about how it felt like, like, the hand of God had come and like swatted me off the path that I was on. And I became very grateful for that, that the only thing really lost was public standing and a job rather than something much more serious.

• 1:04:02Adam Friedland?

  These days, in any industry, there's a tremendous amount of nepotism. You're, you're a self-made individual, you're from a working-class background. If you are looking at losing that ten years of like your work product

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  It's impossible.

• 1:04:17Adam Friedland?

  Or that trajectory, do you, could you, can you continue to that trajectory or, I feel like it's knocked off course and it kind of

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  But I was on a different trajectory, right? Like, I, when, when that happened last year, when I was fired and, and when I, you know, was writing the materials at first that became American Canto.

• 1:04:35Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  I was already on a different trajectory at that point, right? And that was okay and I was interested in that and I, and that was necessary for me to have the perspective required to write that book.

• 1:04:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Right? Like, I couldn't, when you're really, I write about how something can become so familiar, you can become so close to something that it ceases to be familiar.

• 1:04:58Adam Friedland?

  You're ready for president.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  That it becomes, that it becomes foreign.

• 1:05:00Adam Friedland?

  You're ready for president.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Adam Friedland?

  I think you are.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  And, and, how old do you have to be?

• 1:05:05Adam Friedland?

  Thirty-five.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  When's the next one?

• 1:05:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but you're twenty-one.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  I would, I would be able to do it. I'd be thirty-five, I think.

• 1:05:14Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah, you're thirty-two.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:15Adam Friedland?

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  But, so, but my point was, it's like, I was already on a different path. And I was all right with that, like, I was grateful to be on that other path and to be, like, interested and to have the perspective to, to synthesize that ten-year period.

• 1:05:31Adam Friedland?

  So what's the path now?

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  It wasn't, I, I mean, this book came out like a week ago.

• 1:05:35Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but like, look ahead, because where the book leaves you and where you're at right now, sorry to be a Jewish mother and tell you what's going on, but like, you're, it isn't, um, it isn't a place of that's like of-

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  But you're talking about career and you're talking about material things.

• 1:05:50Adam Friedland?

  For life.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  I'm not, though.

• 1:05:51Adam Friedland?

  What do you mean?

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  This book is, to me, it was, it was this spiritual, moral event.

• 1:05:59Adam Friedland?

  I understand, yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  And this book is a creative effort about, in some sense, this spiritual process of understanding this ten-year thing, understanding my fuck-up, understanding where I fit and where the corrosion of my character fit within this broader story about the corrosion of the American character in this ten-year period. And to me, it's like, I'm not so concerned with the, like, nothing can be taken from you that didn't belong to you.

• 1:06:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Right? If some, like, nothing can be taken from you that wasn't handed to you unjustly to begin with. And there's no such thing as, like, justice in public narratives. There's such a thing as poetic justice in public narratives. But like, the only justice is knowing that you do not share the qualities that the people who have behaved unjustly towards you.

• 1:06:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:06:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  So I'm not, I'm not so worried about all that. Like, I, I'm proud of American Canto. I think it's valuable, but I also was aware the whole time that maybe it wouldn't be considered valuable for like ten or thirty years.

• 1:07:11Adam Friedland?

  But you feel as if you've, like, proud of your work. That's what you're saying?

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Adam Friedland?

  Um, what I, what I'm seeing, and maybe I'm reading between the lines, is like, um, well, you think being so successful so young, like, kind of robbed you of an early adulthood?

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  That's why I'm fucking up now.

• 1:07:29Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. I'm just asking you.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Maybe, um, maybe. You know the writer Annie Hamilton?

• 1:07:35Adam Friedland?

  I know Annie.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Adam Friedland?

  She's an actress, I thought.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think of her as a writer, but she's an actress too.

• 1:07:40Adam Friedland?

  The writer, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's an actress too, and she's hilarious. I love her.

• 1:07:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  But she said something really funny once. Um, I can't remember if it was in, like, a piece or a tweet or something, but, um, that people always used to say that she was an old soul and then at a certain point, or that she was mature for her age, and then at a certain point, they stopped saying that.

• 1:07:56Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Probably something similar to that.

• 1:07:58Adam Friedland?

  Do you have to catch up on, like, twenty-four now? Because you were chilling with Trump the whole time?

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  No, I think I'm good on, like, fucking up for now.

• 1:08:06Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. You maybe, I don't know. What's, what is it? What do you guys get up to? Zach? Yeah. What's, what's, like, the vibe over there? Zach here. Yeah, no, no. I mean, like, like, for what you do, like, what is it? What kind of stuff do you do? Zach has a band?

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:22Adam Friedland?

  What's that? He plays guitar. You should learn guitar.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:08:28Adam Friedland?

  Are you gonna learn guitar?

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  I really wanna get my pilot's license.

• 1:08:31Adam Friedland?

  Oh, pilot's license?

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Adam Friedland?

  Oh, shit.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  And it's like golf for twenty twenty-six.

• 1:08:34Adam Friedland?

  That'd be cool. Yeah.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Adam Friedland?

  Trump didn't call me back.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Trump didn't, oh, um.

• 1:08:40Adam Friedland?

  Should I call him back again?

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  You can text him.

• 1:08:42Adam Friedland?

  Um, I don't know. I'm, I'm just trying to, like, no, I'm not saying that's why you're fucking him now. Like, was it, was, I'm, I'm just saying for you as a person, it's like, you're, you were busy, right? You were busy very young, right?

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm not, um, I don't know. I just feel, I guess, like.

• 1:08:59Adam Friedland?

  Do you have free time now?

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  I'm never bored, because I'm interested in things.

• 1:09:03Adam Friedland?

  What kind of stuff do you?

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  I spend, I hike a lot.

• 1:09:06Adam Friedland?

  California stuff? Green juice, crystal.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  I don't, no, I don't, I don't drink, I don't like cold beverages.

• 1:09:11Adam Friedland?

  You don't like cold beverages?

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Uh-uh.

• 1:09:13Adam Friedland?

  You drink hot water?

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Room temperature.

• 1:09:15Adam Friedland?

  Room te- oh, me too.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:17Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I don't like ice water, because it hiss my teeth.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  I don't, yeah.

• 1:09:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're, we're dressed the same.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Adam Friedland?

  It's crazy. I just think it's, uh, yeah. I'm annoyed that I had to learn about any of this crap.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 1:09:30Adam Friedland?

  But I'm really glad that we got, I got to, to meet you and talk to you, because I-

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you for having me.

• 1:09:34Adam Friedland?

  Because I think that, um, I don't know, we just had Alec Baldwin on the show.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Very similar.

• 1:09:38Adam Friedland?

  No, but it's just like, uh, the way people, uh, that are well-known, um, the way, uh, people process their lives fucking up is, uh, there's a revelry that people have, you know, people like kind of like jack off to it, you know? In the same way, it's like, I think like, I see how talented fucking Alec Baldwin is.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:58Adam Friedland?

  And I, I was saying this to him, it was like, you know, his struggles with celebrity.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Adam Friedland?

  Um, uh, undermine the very reason for him being a celebrity.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  It was interesting though, because it's like, I spent so much of this tenure period as like officially cast as like a witness, right? And then to be someone who suddenly becomes witnessed. And to like be witnessing, the witness being witnessed.

• 1:10:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Right? It, it created this really, um, and as someone who has been in the media for this really long period of time. Um, I guess I used to think that there was like subject and chronicler, right? And there were like, there's that vantage point and this vantage point, there's inside the story and outside the story. And then this whole experience has sort of, um, crystallized for me, and it's more like this, this kaleidoscopic thing, right? It's more, um, there are, it's, there are a million facets to a story, a million different vantage points. Um, there, it's much more complicated and more interesting than I had kind of given it credit for.

• 1:11:04Adam Friedland?

  Do you, you like being the subject? It kind of probably sucks.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  No, it sucks.

• 1:11:07Adam Friedland?

  Maybe you should apologize to Trump. So now I understand what it's like to be the subject.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  It sucks, but it also teaches you about being the chronicler in a way that like, does that make sense?

• 1:11:19Adam Friedland?

  You need to let Trump write an article about you.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  You see like when you're, when you are written about, right?

• 1:11:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I can't read it.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  It's really, really hard to read.

• 1:11:29Adam Friedland?

  Are you gonna watch this?

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:11:31Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you're gonna come on.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  No, I'm gonna ask Nate to watch it.

• 1:11:33Adam Friedland?

  You're gonna wanna see what it is?

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  I'm gonna ask Nate to watch it.

• 1:11:36Adam Friedland?

  Wait, was it, it was mainly sexting, not, not on the phone, or is texting?

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  I don't talk about that in the book.

• 1:11:44Adam Friedland?

  Well, you know what the joke, the obvious joke is. You're gonna get mad at me. The obvious joke is that, 'cause he has to text.

• 1:11:54Adam Friedland?

  'Cause he talks so funny.

• 1:11:57Adam Friedland?

  George Santos.

• 1:12:00Adam Friedland?

  Olivia Nuzzi, everyone. She's mad at me!