Transcript - America This Week October 25, 2024: "I Wish I Had Hitler's Editors": Trump and The Atlantic

How to hide the ball in peculiarly-sourced stories. Plus, "The Hanging Stranger," another predictive sci-fi fable from Philip K. Dick

Matt Taibbi: All right. Welcome to America this week. I’m Matt Taibbi.

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi: Walter, are you back home? You look good. You look tanned, rested, and ready.

Walter Kirn: I’m actually exhausted, flushed, and unprepared.

Matt Taibbi: Starting off with a bang, both of us.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. I’m back in Montana, which gladdens me because as the election approaches, I want to be in a place with mountains nearby.

Matt Taibbi: High ground.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, high ground. I want to have high ground advantage. I was in New York City, and there’s a feverish sense there that something strange is coming. It’s a town that watches too much news and knows too many people in the media. Back here. It’s a ball game on TV at the bar, and some talk about things that broke nationally five weeks ago. So, I’m glad to be among the less informed, the more informed about their own lives, and the less informed about everything else.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, I feel the same way. I live in a house that kind of floats in the middle of a ravine, and I’m thinking about putting dangerous animals in the ravine for election night.

Walter Kirn: Crocodiles.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the biggest thing, I can get around here out are alligator, snapping turtles, and bears, but I don’t know how I’d coax the bears in there. But as we speak, there are dueling rumors on the internet of campaign ending stories that may be coming out. The once, and I guess now again, relevant, Mark Halperin is claiming that he was pitched a story that would, what’s the language that he used, that would end the Trump campaign? Or wait, let me see if I can, if true would end the Trump campaign.

Walter Kirn: Has any story in October ever ended any campaign?

Matt Taibbi: Not even Access Hollywood killed the Trump campaign, and I thought that was the ultimate in a campaign killing story.

Walter Kirn: I was saying exactly that to my wife the other day. I said, “At this time in 2016, people were talking about grabbing by the pussy and it didn’t leave a mark.”

Matt Taibbi: So, to speak. Yep.

Walter Kirn: Yep.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah.

Walter Kirn: So, to speak. Yeah.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. So, Halperin is saying this, should we hear what he’s ... Let’s hear the audio on this, because I’m always interested in his tone of voice.

Walter Kirn: Sure.

Mark Halperin: These last two weeks are going to be filled with things like this, and I can tell you without going into detail, that I’ve been pitched a story about Donald Trump now about a week that if True would end his campaign. And there’s all sorts of things like that flying around. I’m not the only one who’s been pitched it.

Matt Taibbi: Okay. Where is he, by the way? Yeah.

Walter Kirn: He’s at the headquarters in some New York skyscraper.

Matt Taibbi: Halperin Headquarters.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. Halperin Inc. and it’s got a Lex Luthor vibe or something, or Ayn Randian vibe to be in a steel and glass skyscraper. First of all, what’s the use of saying, I’ve been pitched a story, which I’m not going to tell you, which if True would end a campaign?

Matt Taibbi: It’s a lot of ifs. Yeah. Conditionals

Walter Kirn: Even I don’t do that. I mean, in other words, if nothing comes of it, then you should not have mentioned it. If something does, then you didn’t break it.

Matt Taibbi: I’ve teased stories. I mean, I’ve talked about stories that are coming.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. Stories …

Matt Taibbi: But if you’re not going to do it...

Walter Kirn: But ones that you yourself have passed on. I guess he’s trying to dull the victory for somebody who might bring the story forth, even though he didn’t. Should it prove determinative? I don’t know.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, it’s a strange one. If it’s that good, keep working on it and have it ready next week and then let it fly. And then simultaneously, is it this morning or last night, the rumors started flying that there was a campaign ending situation going on with Kamala that would come out today. So, by the time this show comes out, we’ll know if this was bull or not.

Walter Kirn: Well, and it has a strange provenance, that story, because Trump did say at a rally in Georgia that she may know something we don’t know as an explanation for her rather relaxing campaign schedule of the last few days in which she’s taken days off and so on. And I took it to mean that he thinks the polls are showing her losing badly, and she’s given up. That seemed like the Occam’s razor analysis. But then, George Santos the unimpeachable, but impeached, Long Island Congressman got in front of his camera in what seemed like a moment of enthusiasm because he hadn’t shut up.

Matt Taibbi: Well, you can tell. Look at the shooting.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, exactly.

Matt Taibbi: Right. Yeah. Let’s hear it.

Walter Kirn: Well, let’s see it.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah.

George Santos: Oh, hey guys. Got to tell you something. It’s so crazy. I just got off the phone with a source, and they’re telling me that tomorrow the Kamala Harris ship sinks, you’re going to see all the rats jumping off. The story that’s going to break tomorrow is so damning and so, so bad that Democrats are going to distance themselves from her something you’ve never seen before. And essentially, you might even see some asking for people to vote for Trump. This is wild. Stay tuned as this drops tomorrow.

Matt Taibbi: Boy, I’m waiting with bated breath, aren’t you, Walter?

Walter Kirn: Was that on Twitter that he released that?

Matt Taibbi: It is on Twitter. It looks like it might’ve originated elsewhere.

Walter Kirn: So now that Twitter pays actual money, and I’ve gotten a few hundred dollars here and there from him, one can imagine that he made a few hundred dollars just from that little video, but he did seem excited. It also seemed that maybe he had ducked out from a wild party in the next room to make that, because George, who I imagine is vain like the rest of us did not look put together for that thing.

Matt Taibbi: No. Well, it could have been a studied, rushed look.

Walter Kirn: Right. Cinema Verite, as they used to call it.

Matt Taibbi: Right.

Walter Kirn: Yes. Internet very, by the way.

Matt Taibbi: Don’t you love this era? You can just go on, let’s say you’re at a party and you need to score some ice to really make things go over, but you don’t have the cash. Just go on Twitter and say you got a campaign ending story. And I’m not saying that that’s what’s going on with George Santos.

Walter Kirn: No, no.

Matt Taibbi: I’m just saying one could theoretically, if one were in a situation where you needed a couple of hundred bucks to score something, you could do that now. Right?

Walter Kirn: Well, and also, even though journalism has now fallen below, I don’t know...

Matt Taibbi: Congress.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, rain gutter contracting, as a profession in terms of public esteem, still everyone wants to be a journalist. He just got off the phone with his source. He’s really adopting the swagger of Mr. Deadline there.