The “Dangerous Undercurrent” in American Politics

One by one as they drop out of the GOP primary race. Donald Trump’s opponents must admit that the voters will embrace no one else.

Greetings from Florida. I am today suspending my campaign. It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. He has my endorsement because we can’t…

There was a moment after January 6th where Trump’s triumphant return to the public stage seemed unimaginable. But a CNN entrance poll found that 66% of Iowa Republicans went into caucus night saying that they do not believe Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. Well, that set off alarm bells for Oliver Darcy, and he says it should for the media, too. He joins me now. He’s the senior media reporter at CNN, and he writes the Reliable Sources newsletter. Hey there, Oliver.

Hey, Audie. Thank you for having me.

This raised alarm bells for you. Certainly, because then you made it the subject of your next newsletter. Can you read just a little bit of it so we can get a flavor of your response?

There is a dangerous undercurrent dragging Americans who wade into the political waters out toward the extreme. But much of the national press basking ashore on the sun soaked beach refuses to acknowledge it in a serious manner.

Okay. So you start off subtle, about both Americans and the media. So let’s try and just break down some of the ideas here. First of all, this idea of the dangerous undercurrent dragging American. So what do you mean by that?

I mean that when people get into the political waters, start paying attention, it can be very easy to be sucked away by this at this point, very sophisticated, potent propaganda, uh, disinformation machine really at Donald Trump’s disposal.

So political waters to you is the media? Social media? What people read? What is that?

You know, just paying attention to politics. You know, maybe you YouTube some of the candidates, and then you get a Fox News recommendation on the right hand side, and you kind of start getting pulled into this universe. And I think there’s a lot of reasons. I mean, ther’s one, people say you should watch Fox News and watch CNN and consider them equal. That’s obviously not the case. And so maybe people who are being given that advice, just dipping their toes into this right wing media universe in good faith, looking for “the other side” and get pulled in to those dangerous waters. It can be very, very easy, Audie.

So what do you mean by the media sunning on the beach?

‘So I, I think – so when I’m watching Iowa caucus coverage, I’m seeing a lot of discussion about how Donald Trump has a firm grip on the Republican Party. I’m seeing a lot of discussion saying, you know how alarming it is that, uh, the vast majority of Republican caucus goers don’t believe that Joe Biden was legitimately elected into office. But there’s not a discussion about why that is. Why does Donald Trump have such a firm hold on the Republican Party? Why do so many people not believe the election was legitimate? And if you dig deeper into that, you start to have to call out some of these media organizations and talk about this propaganda machine. And I think there’s a few reasons why the national press simply doesn’t want to dig below the surface and talk about those issues.

Well, you name checked the following is part of the problem. You say cable channels such as Fox News, a stable of national and local talk radio, host an assortment of online influencers and a network of online outlets such as Breitbart. So, it feels like there is no news organization more kind of covered, critiqued, talked about, and faced legal consequences than Fox News. Right wing radio for years and years and years has been talked about in terms of its reach, influence. So what do you feel is not being addressed?

You know, I think there is a group of media reporters that do cover Fox News, but I do not see the national political press that are on air during those big nights, um, that are writing the A1 stories, often for these big papers. I do not see them really, uh, grappling with the media machine that Donald Trump’s disposal. I mean, I was watching, um, flipping channels on Monday night. I didn’t hear Rupert Murdoch’s name mentioned. I didn’t hear Fox News mentioned. I didn’t hear anything about talk radio or some of these, uh, websites that are out there mentioned. I heard a lot about, wow, Donald Trump has a firm grip on the Republican Party and no explanation as to why that is. And I obviously think there are some exceptions. You know, I being one of these people who cover, uh, these, uh, media organizations and, and personalities, but. By and large, I just rarely seem to see, you know, you’re not going to turn on World News with David Muir and see a segment about Fox News.

One of the things I think is worth noting is that, so far at least, the early ratings show that just interest in watching the caucuses was way down from 2020, right? In 2020. 8.5 million people watched caucus coverage on the networks across the board, and this year, that number was 4.67 million, right. So that’s like half the amount of people. And of that number, more than half of them were watching Fox.

Mhm. Yeah.

Meaning that’s their own choice.

Yeah. No, it’s their own choice. And it highlights and underscores how powerful that you know media organization is. Um it’s not like no one’s watching. And in fact a lot of people are watching that channel. And every single day they’re being fed a lot of dishonest coverage.

You talk about in your article, this idea, you say, crucial coverage of the grave undercurrent in GOP politics that’s propelled caucus goers far outside the Overton window, because they believe the duly elected president is not actually the duly elected president. I hear pundits referencing the Overton Window a lot, in a really casual way that not most people would understand. Can you just remind us what that is?

Well, I think that there are some ideas that have become so mainstream in the Republican Party. You know, if you were to tell, you know, if we were to have this conversation ten years ago, you would say, there’s no way that most of the Republican Party is going to believe that, um, the election was stolen by a president even after, you know, all those cases are tossed out of court, even after the former president’s own confidants come out and say that it was the most secure election, you know. There are some ideas that are so far out there now that I think that most of these Republicans have been dragged out of what will be the conventional, you know, Overton window or, uh, accepted wisdom inside the party. I mean, the idea that, like, you know, there’s more polling from the entrance polls, the idea that most people would say that Donald Trump is still fit for president, even if convicted of some of these crimes, is remarkable in itself.

Who do you think is responsible for pushing Republican voters further beyond what is factual knowledge? Because there is Trump himself, right? There’s social media. What are you thinking it is at this point?

I mean, it’s so difficult to pinpoint one thing. I do think the biggest organ in this universe is Fox News. It’s really the heart of this disinformation universe. But it’s not the only thing. And, uh, it’s certainly growing at this point beyond, uh, Fox News…

Yeah, it’s funny, I think the opposite. I feel like Fox News is the most mainstream face of a vast ecosystem. Right? Like by the time it gets on Fox News, it’s actually filtered up from a lot of other places that have huge audiences online.

Yeah, I mean, people like Steve Bannon, you know, who is running this War Room podcast and talking about election denialism every day almost, uh, you know, he has a huge audience. Uh, Breitbart has an audience. The Gateway Pundit has an audience. People like Mark Levin, uh, have a huge national audience. I actually think one of the reasons that maybe sometimes this discussion doesn’t come up necessarily during those big nights when you’re talking about why people don’t believe the election is because a lot of the national press, you know, it’s very easy to get trapped in your own bubble. And that goes for the people who live in DC and who consume, you know, the credible news media The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Journal, uh, CNN. And if you don’t like, leave that bubble and go check out the bubble that Donald Trump voters are in all day, it’s difficult to explain, like how drenched this universe is in outright misinformation. And I think that could actually be one of the reasons why, um, so many in the national political press don’t, uh, more often and vigorously bring up this, this issue when discussing why so much of the country, uh, believes outright, you know, nonsense these days.

Oliver Darcy is senior media reporter for CNN. He covers the intersection of media, politics and technology. We’ll be back after this.

Okay, Oliver. We’re back. It’s interesting to see Ron DeSantis pointing at Fox News saying that they’re running interference for Donald Trump. Right. And that they’re shielding him from real criticism.

He’s got basically a praetorian guard of the conservative media. Uh, Fox News. Um, you know, the websites, all the stuff, they just don’t they don’t hold them accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers and they don’t want to have the ratings go down. Uh, and that’s just that’s just the reality. That’s just the truth. And I’m not complaining about it.

Now, just for some background here, they backed Trump’s election denials that resulted in a lot of legal penalties, multiple lawsuits. But ever since they called Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020, it was sort of understood that the former president was not happy with Fox News and at times made personal attacks against the Murdoch family. So how do you pass these like two perceptions? Are we seeing a shift in a relationship again between Trump and Fox? Is Ron DeSantis right?

Yeah, most certainly you’re seeing a shift in relationship. I think the Murdochs can see the writing on the wall. Everything they’ve done has failed to really stop Trump. And I think it’s interesting that Ron DeSantis is the person who is pointing out how Fox News is protecting the former president and how he kind of lays the blame over at the Murdochs feet. And, you know, what’s really interesting is that, you know, he understands where his voters are getting information, he understands how they’re learning about the news. And so he knows how powerful Fox News is. So he’s laying the blame there. And you’ve seen other Republicans in the 2016 primaries, for instance, talk about this right wing media machine and how powerful it is and how it refuses to criticize Donald Trump. And it’s almost like the people who are, again, in this universe themselves know how it works and know why so many people believe this stuff. And it may be difficult for people outside this universe. You know, I used to work, Audie, back in the day, in conservative media, and so I have been listening to a lot of these talk radio hosts for, you know, since I was a teenager, you know, you, kind of, can see, if you’ve been in it, you understand how potent these lies can be. And when I hear DeSantis talk about this and talk about Fox, uh, that really comes to mind.

When you worked in conservative media, did you think you were pulling people in a dangerous direction?

‘Uh, no. And I would say that I, uh, just just to be clear, I worked in conservative media pre-Donald Trump, and…

But you worked for The Blaze, right? And it was very, very much conservative and very much its founder and ideas behind it were also couched in their own kind of conspiratorial Glenn Beck era ideas. Is that how you felt about your newsroom?

No, no, no, no, and I definitely did not feel at the time that I was pulling people to the extreme.

What did you think you were doing?

Yeah, well, in retrospect, I would say that I would not have published a lot of the stories that I did back then, but…

That’s a really profound thing, though, Oliver. Like, I want to pause. That’s a really profound thing to say, given what we’re talking about.

No, and I agree. Um, I just would stress again, though, that there was a difference, though, between what The Blaze was aspiring to be back in 2011, 2012 or whenever it first started. And when I started working there versus Breitbart of 2016, when Donald Trump’s running for office. Um, so I just stressed there is some distinction there. But now now there’s really not, now they have gone full, full MAGA.

The reason why I’m bringing this up is because you write about this idea of the Overton window. This is like a political theory that describes basically how to change public opinion, right? It’s a model for understanding how ideas shift over time. And it’s the idea that things that might have been acceptable right out of the frame become acceptable over time. And it does happen bit by bit. Right? Like, there is an argument out there that says it started with The Blaze and now we’re all the way here at Bannon. Like, do you see that spectrum? Because it’s also how people right now fall into that thinking that you’re talking about. Right? They start with something that feels very rational and it moves and moves and moves until suddenly they’re in a place that’s a lot less rational.

‘No, no, you’re spot on. And I think that if you really went back, you know, you’d start maybe with, I guess, Rush Limbaugh and then Fox News becoming like a on-air version of that show. And, um, then you have the websites that sprout up, uh, during, especially during the rise of Facebook. And, you know, you kind of end up where we are right now, but you’re spot on.

So the reason why I’m asking you that is because what from that period do you take with you now in understanding the relationship between the national press, the mainstream press, the establishment press and this broader ecosystem, right? Where people are getting sometimes outright misinformation.

‘I just think it’s – like I wrote at the time, you know, you you walk into maybe this blue water on a sunny day and it can be very easy not to see this undercurrent pulling people out toward the deep sea.

Because I actually don’t think that’s a problem, like, we do see it. Right? Like, if anything, what I notice when I’m like on those panels or having these political discussions is there is a kind of helplessness. I don’t think it is clear. I think it feels like the national press sometimes feels like if we keep doing what we’re doing, if we keep shining a light on the truth, if we keep relentlessly repeating the facts, that’s somehow kind of all we can do. I want to know how you think about it.

Yeah, I think that there’s more. I mean, I think that, um, the national press could do a better job holding some of the people who are pumping these lies into the discourse accountable.

In what way?

Well, for instance, you saw NBC News this cycle partner with, um, Rumble and Salem. And Salem, one of their top hosts, Charlie Kirk, said last summer that Joe Biden should either be locked up in prison or maybe given the death penalty. And so, you know, like, NBC News is apparently happy to link arms with this organization and do a debate. I mean, I often don’t see coverage of, like, you know, who are these Salem executives who are allowing this on air? Rupert Murdoch does really escape. I know we talk about him when he is in court, maybe, but he generally does escape a fair amount of scrutiny, so does his son, Lachlan.

‘And by scrutiny, you mean not all the news reporting about them? You seem to be saying that regular day-to-day press should be talking about them.

Holding them accountable. Yeah, talking about them, talking about how they are continuing to poison the well and and holding them accountable, you know, shining that bright light on them. These are the people who are making a lot of money by knowingly, often, if you talk to some of these people off the record, they know that this is not good. They can’t defend it, but they’re making a lot of money on it. And I think, you know, if you shine the light on some of this stuff, that could be helpful. But, you know, the press’s job is not only to repeat the facts, though, I think it is to hold power to account. And now you have a case where holding power to account raises, I think, a lot of uncomfortable issues. You know, Newsmax just boasted, for instance, that they signed major deals, cable distribution deals with Verizon and I believe Comcast and some others. There is not much coverage of that stuff. But, like…

Now we’re cookin’. So what you’re saying that’s that’s a yeah, a good example of where the mainstream business community is facilitating this problem you’re pointing out.

Exactly. And you don’t hear this. Like, I would love to hear the Verizon CEO explain why he’s okay distributing a channel that pumps out outright election lies. Like, it’s not a question of whether Newsmax engages in this behavior. It’s just, you know, reality. And so, why don’t these people, these, you know, they never face these sort of questions. And it’s uncomfortable for sure. Because, you know, if you’re maybe, let’s say, uh, a cable news outlet and their parent company has a relationship with Verizon and you’re going after them, maybe that feels uncomfortable. I don’t know, I just feel like there’s a lot here that does not get covered. And one of the reasons to it seems like the national press, national political press, is just uncomfortable criticizing or, uh, shining a harsh light on other media, uh, entities.

I think that’s fair. And because also it you end up looking like you’re bickering, especially with opinion personalities. Right? And it devolves into a thing where it becomes about individual personalities and not scrutiny of systems, which is what it sounds like you’re advocating.

‘Right. And I also think, you know, if you looked at Fox News of 2010 or whatever, you know, yes, it’s a conservative news channel, but they do have people like Shepard Smith, our colleague Chris Wallace, others doing maybe center right newscast, but reality-based newscasts. And over the years, particularly during Donald Trump’s presidency, that completely shifted that outlet morphed into a propaganda outlet. And there’s just a refusal, I think, to acknowledge that that this thing that we once knew has changed. Um, I think part of it’s DC culture, people want to still get cocktails after work with their pals over at Fox News, and they just don’t want to confront this issue and be in a weird, awkward situation. But I think a lot of it is that they just view criticizing Fox as criticizing competition or someone in the same business. And I think people need to realize that Fox is not in the same business as NBC, ABC, CNN. They’re in a totally different business at this point. It’s a propaganda channel. I mean, if you don’t, you don’t need to take it from me. Just read the documents that came out during the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit. Uh, their own executives acknowledge, uh, some of the irresponsible, reckless behavior in very stark terms, right? So I think if people in the media acknowledge maybe, perhaps that Fox isn’t in the same business as us, it’s actually a political machine that’s being wielded by people like Donald Trump. Maybe they feel more comfortable putting this kind of coverage on air and in print and wherever else. I don’t know. I’m at a loss for words sometimes.

Well, I’m glad you’re keeping an eye on this, Oliver. And, um, you’ll be back for us to swap notes and talk more. Oliver Darcy is senior media reporter for CNN. You can subscribe to his Reliable Sources newsletter, and we’re going to have a link to that in our show notes. Oliver, thanks so much.

Thank you.

And that’s all for today. We’re going to be back with an episode on Thursday. And the assignment is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Dan Bloom. Our senior producer is Matt Martinez. Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN audio. We got support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru and Lisa Namerow. Thanks, as always, to Katie Hinman. I’m Audie Cornish. Thank you for listening.