Transcript - America This Week, October 11, 2024: "After the Edit"

Did something just get broken in a 60 Minutes interview that won't easily be fixed? Walter and Matt discuss. Plus, "After the Ball," by Leo Tolstoy

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

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi: Walter, how are you?

Walter Kirn: Well, I’m starting to return to a state of nature. I’ve been alone in this cabin while my wife’s been away for, I don’t know, a week.

Matt Taibbi: Mm-hmm.

Walter Kirn: It’s very, very far out. That’s all I can tell you. It’s not near anything, the road that comes to it. I saw the game warden yesterday for this county, and he was saying he didn’t like coming down here because the road’s too rough. And so, when the game warden won’t visit, that means you’re all alone.

Now there’s a mouse running around, and it’s one of the biggest mice I’ve ever seen. It seems to be a mouse-rat hybrid. The bear has been outside. At this time of year, when things get cold in Montana, everything that lives outside wants to come inside, okay?

Matt Taibbi: Mm-hmm.

Walter Kirn: So you literally have to look at your feet when you open the door, because anything that’s within striking distance will run inside. I’m in here and I’m not looking in the mirror, and I’m eating strangely, whatever’s in the freezer. I think I’ve had four meals of just short ribs or lesser cuts of beef in the last few days without vegetables. So I’m a little rough, frankly.

Matt Taibbi: That’s great. Are you typing, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” yet over and over again?

Walter Kirn: It’s getting there, except you’ve got to realize that in The Shining, his problem is that his family is with him.

Matt Taibbi: Right, yes. He would’ve been just fine.

Walter Kirn: He would’ve been just fine. He would’ve written three novels. He would’ve written a trilogy. But he had that worst of both worlds combination of isolation in a snowbound hotel and his family.

Matt Taibbi: Oh, that’s a piece of commentary about that movie that’s probably never been uttered out loud before.

Walter Kirn: I think it’s essential.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no.

Walter Kirn: Quit pressuring me.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, exactly.

Walter Kirn: I can handle the ghosts and Scatman Crothers. But you guys are-

Matt Taibbi: You’re hanging on my neck like impending doom.

Walter Kirn: Exactly.

Matt Taibbi: Stop it.

Walter Kirn: Exactly. You’re watching over my shoulder. How am I supposed to get anything done? Damn it.

Matt Taibbi: Oh, man.

Walter Kirn: Anyway.

Matt Taibbi: Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Walter. Obviously try to make sure you don’t slip and fall so that mouse doesn’t eat your remains. I don’t want come and discover I’m running in and out of the eye sockets of your disembodied head.

Walter Kirn: Yeah.

Matt Taibbi: No, but are you getting things done?

Walter Kirn: Yeah, a lot of little things. But there’s one main thing that I’m here to do, and that I’m getting done less.

Matt Taibbi: It’s all right. It’s all good.

Walter Kirn: Yup.

Matt Taibbi: Well, we discussed off air what topic we should do this week. I think we’re in agreement that the ... We had a major journalism scandal this week, maybe even a historic one, and it’s gone a little bit under the radar, or at least the competitors and the normal media reporters aren’t really touching it. But it involves 60 Minutes, which, with a couple of exceptions, has stayed fairly free of scandal in its lifetime, I would say. It’s generally considered to be one of the ethical standards for the business.

Walter Kirn: Right.

Matt Taibbi: But Bill Whitaker gave an interview to Vice President Harris. It was a recorded interview. They released a teaser. There was also a clip on Face the Nation. Also, the original broadcast, right, over the weekend contained the first version of this answer?

Walter Kirn: Well, I’m confused as to whether it even aired on Sunday night. I’ve read that it was bumped for something.

Matt Taibbi: I see. I only saw it in hindsight. So I know that it appeared on Face the Nation and I know that there was a teaser that released. So I didn’t watch it live. I watched the show later. But in the original version, Whitaker, who, by the way, started off the interview with an uncharacteristically tough question about the way she was made the nominee.