Transcript - America This Week, Oct 10, 2025: "American Psychos"

CA Gov Candidate Katie Porter's outbursts, Hasan Piker's shocking controversy, and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Matt Taibbi: All right. Welcome to America This Week. I’m Matt Taibbi.

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi: And Walter, you know what? I was having a terrible week. I still am sick, I’ve been sick, been kind of down. I was so down that I watched an episode of Mike Tyson Mysteries and didn’t laugh.

Walter Kirn: Whoa.

Matt Taibbi: And I was really in a funk. And then this whole Katie Porter phenomenon happened, and I caught a little bit of it online, and it’s like the gift that keeps on giving. I’m wearing a tie today. My wife suggested, she’s dressing me today. She said, “Look good, feel good. You know?” So I’m wearing a tie instead of dressing like a 14-year-old with money, but this is to go along with-

Walter Kirn: It’s weird, now you look like a guy in his 50s who doesn’t really have money, like a guy who had a tie in case of birthdays, parties, or some reason, and you just threw it on. It does match. I mean, there’s a jacket.

Matt Taibbi: That’s legitimately a Half-Windsor knot, I can tie one of those.

Walter Kirn: Really?

Matt Taibbi: I think, yeah.

Walter Kirn: Well, see, nobody knows what those are anymore, so it doesn’t impress people as much as it did, but.

Matt Taibbi: I can’t do a Pratt Knot and I can’t do a Four-in-Hand.

Walter Kirn: But you see, the problem, Matt, is the cap. The cap, man. The cap doesn’t-

Matt Taibbi: I know, I know.

Walter Kirn: You take it all away with the cap. It’s like, choose, okay? Are you’re going to be just a guy with a cap? You’re going to be this man with a Windsor knot?

Matt Taibbi: It’s just, it’s too glaring and it’d be like the Star Trek episode with the guy with the giant head who says, “Exterminate,” all the time. It’s too distracting. But anyway, I feel buoyant a little bit today, at least temporarily, because this story, it’s just genuinely funny, this person, Katie Porter. Did you know a lot about Katie Porter before this week?

Walter Kirn: No, I didn’t. And here’s the thing, when I found out that she was the leading gubernatorial candidate, just after seeing that first video, I thought, what is California politics? I mean, how do you become that repulsive? And you’ve obviously been that way your whole life. I mean, even in high school, you were the person people hated. And yet, you get to be the leading gubernatorial candidate? Is there some backroom process or set of protocols that has nothing to do with appeal, nothing to do with, I don’t know, eloquence? Or maybe she’s accomplished amazing things. I don’t know. If she has, it’s because people just say yes and want to get out of the room. I mean, that is the person who you just vote yes during the meeting because they want you to, so you can get the hell out there.

Matt Taibbi: She does have some skills, politically.

Walter Kirn: Is she a lawyer?

Matt Taibbi: One of them, she is a lawyer. She can be very confrontational in, let’s just say in a politically entertaining way with CEOs, executives from Wall Street. She has a shtick that everybody knows, which is writing on a whiteboard, explaining complex issues in a way that’s accessible to some people, and she’s reliably orthodox on all the progressive issues of the day.

The problem is that her personality, and let’s just watch the clip. This is her being interviewed by CBS’s Lori Watts, and it’s for a series of interviews with all of the California gubernatorial candidates. The point is, this is pretty standard political fare where it’s almost like political speed dating. You’re being asked a series of questions that every other candidate is getting the same stuff, and the whole point is to read off a pro-former response and then move to the next thing and get the fuck out, right? That’s what it is. It’s a free commercial, CBS is basically giving free commercials to all the candidates, right?

Walter Kirn: Right.

Matt Taibbi: And this happens.