Fighting with Fox News feat. Jessica Tarlov

Pod Save America

Host Tommy Vitale interviews Fox News commentator Jessica Tarlov about her new book, 'I Disagree: Winning Arguments without Losing Friends.'

Key takeaways

• Jessica Tarlov's book focuses on techniques for engaging in debate without destroying personal relationships.
• Tarlov describes her role on 'The Five' as a 'political test kitchen' where ideas are tested in real-time.

Main topics

• Fox News commentary dynamics
• Political communication strategies

Notable quotes

You have to find a way to make, what I call in the book, the truth safe to hear.

Conclusion

The episode offers a nuanced look at how political discourse can be na

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:20) Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. My guest today is a political strategist, a pollster, a TV commentator, a podcast host. Those are in order of importance. You've almost certainly seen her trading barbs, throwing haymakers, cracking jokes. You picked the cliche on The Five. And now she's the author of a new book, I Disagree, Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends. Jessica Tarlov, great to see you again. Speaker 2 (0:44) Yeah, thank you for having me. This is so exciting. And in person. In Speaker 4 (0:47) person. A West Speaker 2 (0:48) Coast hang. A Speaker 4 (0:49) West Coast hang in an important time because the midterms are about six weeks out. Hopefully, the Democratic Party is going to do a little bit of a better job of just sprinting through the finish line here. Speaker 2 (0:58) Yeah, maybe like let's not kill each other. Let's just like go towards the goal. Speaker 4 (1:01) Yeah, that would be good. But the minute the midterms are over, blood sport, and it's going to be a huge conversation and a fight over the future of the Democratic Party, the style, the substance, the political approach, the way to win, which is why I wanted to talk with you today because— You are a pollster by training, a data junkie, someone who understands these arguments in sort of the crosstabs, but also like you don't just work in a spreadsheet. You're on TV every day, kind of where the rubber meets the road, battling it out with various interlocutors and figuring out what works in real time. Speaker 2 (1:36) Yes. It's like a political test kitchen. Speaker 4 (1:39) Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:40) You know? You're scrambling eggs over here. Didn't need that nutmeg or like, I'm not a great cook as you could tell that I went for nutmeg, which is not an essential ingredient anyway. But yeah, it is fun to test your ideas out and then to also watch them testing their ideas. Speaker 4 (1:56) They're Speaker 2 (1:56) like, what do we think? Speaker 4 (1:58) Like how Speaker 2 (1:59) easy is this to pull apart? Also, what is the counter to it? Right? Like what do you have hanging in your arsenal that you're like, oh. You shouldn't have zigged there because my zag is way better on that. Speaker 4 (2:09) Right. There are definitely times on the show where you make a good argument and Greg and Jesse don't say something obnoxious because they know that they are quietly owned. Speaker 2 (2:18) Yes. The silent L is my favorite. The loud L is the worst. Speaker 1 (2:24) Yeah. When they're Speaker 2 (2:25) just, you think you're having a normal conversation about the war in Iran and suddenly you get asked, what is a woman? Speaker 2 (2:32) You think I have one, but I also hate myself. And we're talking about this now. Speaker 4 (2:37) Well. Thank Speaker 2 (2:38) you, Marshall Blackburn, forever. We'll Speaker 4 (2:40) get more of that. So I'm excited to unpack with you what it's like to work at Fox as a Democrat, whether Democrats should go on Fox News. I think we have a little debate about that. If you go on, how to be successful, what you do, messaging strategy, what Democrats are getting wrong and what they're getting right. But in case listeners have not seen you on The Five, first of all, they're a loss. But here's a little taste of the vibe and what it can be like. Let's watch. Speaker 3 (3:06) They're Speaker 1 (3:06) not Speaker 2 (3:07) cutting SNAP Speaker 1 (3:08) benefits. They're just saying you can't buy Speaker 4 (3:09) Doritos with food stamps. That's absolutely Speaker 2 (3:11) not true. It is true. That is not true. You can't buy candy with food stamps. That's not a cut. Even second-tier senators like Josh Hawley would tell you that that talking point is invalid. We talk about the useless trade war. What's Speaker 4 (3:23) a Speaker 2 (3:23) woman? Speaker 4 (3:24) Can you define a woman? Why do you ask Speaker 2 (3:25) the woman who gave birth that all the time? You're talking about $20 billion in American goods. We're going Speaker 4 (3:32) to get a deal, Jessica. It's just posturing. Just the way Carney walked out at the last second because he didn't want to open up his economy. The president is trying to get a better deal for Americans. This is part of the deal. When Speaker 3 (3:44) you have Speaker 2 (3:44) no toilet paper, don't complain to me about your wiping. Speaker 1 (3:47) I Speaker 2 (3:47) stocked Speaker 1 (3:48) up Speaker 2 (3:48) during the Speaker 3 (3:48) pandemic. Speaker 2 (3:49) 40 % of Donald Trump's wealth has been accumulated. since he became president because of two crypto coins. This is not even Speaker 4 (3:57) part of the segment. You're Speaker 2 (3:59) talking about a meme coin. No, I'm talking about who's corrupt and who is profiting off the American office. Did he try to cover that up? I don't think Speaker 1 (4:07) so. You know a lot of Trump supporters. Do we need to be deprogrammed? Be careful. Speaker 2 (4:13) That's why I come to work every day. Speaker 4 (4:16) You're very good at this. It's four on one all the time. Speaker 2 (4:20) Yes, it is four-on-one by design. It is funny going down memory lane. I love that you randomly had the what is a woman thing in there. But then the last one, I'm heavily pregnant. So I'm like, oh, that's a cute look when I was just taking up the whole side of the desk like that. Speaker 4 (4:35) I did not notice. You can't Speaker 2 (4:36) comment. Of course you didn't. I Speaker 4 (4:37) did not. No, Speaker 2 (4:38) no man would. Speaker 4 (4:39) I would never. It's a good Speaker 2 (4:40) 45 extra pounds there. Speaker 4 (4:42) I would never. It's also fun to know that you are a host of the show. You get to produce the show, presumably, with the team. The one time I went on with Jesse Waters, it was going to be like, we're going to talk about Biden and pardons and this. And I walked out onto the set and he just yelled, how many genders are there, Tommy? Like five times in my face. And I was like, okay, this is how it goes for Jessica every day, I guess. Speaker 2 (5:03) Yeah, on a special day. Speaker 4 (5:05) Special day. But you Speaker 2 (5:06) do, you loosely have the guidelines, right? So you have your topics. But it's the same thing as knowing anyone in your life. you know, know what everyone's pet subjects are. I know we're going to do a little trans, a little Hunter Biden, whatever it is. Yeah. Add that nutmeg and it's going to taste delicious. Speaker 4 (5:27) It's like the five. So let's talk. Let's dig into the job. So we're we're about a decade into the Trump political era. A lot of people I know who used to read every tweet and watch, you know, MS Now every night have tuned out because they're like, I just can't take it anymore. You. I've done the opposite, which is you go into Fox News every day, kind of do battle. I think most listeners just want to know, what is the experience like? Like, how do you prepare for that? Do you have producers kind of doing a, you know, like a moot court with you? Or like, how does it go? Speaker 2 (5:57) So we get the rundown every morning at 11 a.m. So you have six hours, essentially, to prepare. And I usually record Raging Moderates. My podcast with Scott Galloway around that time, 11, 1130. And a lot of times the topics intersect, which is great because you're doing prep as you go. And then I can also audition the long-form answer because I'm not going to get interrupted. And you just have more time in pop world, obviously. So that's nice and that there's some carryover there. But I do what, based upon your tweeting behavior, you're doing too. It's just a constant doom scrolling that I'm sure is going to have very bad implications for our future. When Elon Musk fully owns all of our brains. And I have a strange algorithm that's... very right-brained and left-brained, politically speaking, because I prepare for what I'm interested in or what I think I want to advance as my argument. And then I also try to prepare for them and where I think they're going to go based on also what sources I know that they find interesting, Speaker 4 (7:09) you Speaker 2 (7:09) know, who they might be reading. You Speaker 4 (7:11) read the New York Post every morning, I assume. Speaker 2 (7:13) Well, yeah. Yeah, Speaker 4 (7:15) as you should be. Speaker 2 (7:16) Well, first of all, the covers are undefeated. So that is fun. Speaker 4 (7:20) Absolutely. Speaker 2 (7:20) But yeah, looking there, looking the Daily Mail will sometimes have stuff that you think is absurd, but then also things that other places aren't covering that end up being a story two days later for more mainstream sources. So it's kind of fun to get the tea leaves direct from the sources that way. And then, yeah, we have three. Three or four topics that I would say are meatier. And I figure out what the three or four points that I absolutely have to make are. Like I'm going to white knuckle my way through whatever is coming my way to make sure that I can get it out. And then the back. 20 minutes of the show is really light and easy. Speaker 4 (8:04) Right, Gunfeld's Speaker 2 (8:04) like, look Speaker 4 (8:05) at this fat bear. Speaker 2 (8:06) And then he says like, is that Joy Behar? And then... He's Speaker 4 (8:09) like, dude, come on. Speaker 2 (8:10) Right, fat bears, family photo, you know, like it's Speaker 4 (8:14) a Speaker 2 (8:14) breezy round table. Yes. So there is a light side to it. And I think also people miss out. I mean, obviously, if you never saw me like do the job at all and that montage was your first introduction, then you certainly wouldn't know this. So much of our ecosystem only consumes me through clips. So they don't see what the response was or what even the setup was or those moments where there is connective tissue between castmates. Yeah, which I put a lot of that in the book quite intentionally because when people say like, how do you do this? And how much is your therapy bill? Are you on drugs? Are you medicated? I say, actually, if you watch the whole thing, it's not as bad as it looks. Well, Speaker 4 (8:57) I want to ask you about that. You write about having what people might find to be a surprisingly close friendship with Greg Gutfeld. I was a co-host on the show, a comedian. But Greg once called you his muse, I think, in the New York Times. Speaker 2 (9:12) And it was a stunning, it was so nice. And to do it in the Times. I was like, you went into my paper. For my people. And you said this lovely thing about me. That's nice. Speaker 4 (9:23) And then there's Jesse Waters. Who Speaker 2 (9:24) has not called me his muse. And Speaker 4 (9:26) like, you know, I've always assumed that on Earth 2, there's like a version of me and Jesse that went to the same college. And like, we could be friends and never talk about politics, but like make fun of the Patriots or the Jets or like whatever team he likes. Eagles. Eagles guy. Okay. Philly guy. Yes. We definitely fight it out about that. But he seems like he's in on the joke and that he's trying to be entertaining and provocative and like, sure. Dina Perino just seems like a nice person, so I almost don't raise her. But then even in the book, you write about a surprising interaction with Roger Ailes, of all people. Can you just talk about the relationships you have inside Fox and what might surprise viewers of people listening to Pod Save America who probably don't consume a lot of Fox? Speaker 2 (10:08) It's a really good place to work. And it's always ranked as one of the top places to work. It is a TV network, and there are lots of liberals working there, lots of moderates. I mean, Roger Ailes himself was a John Kasich supporter. So his programming choices, obviously, at times were in more of the extremes, but he was hyper aware of where elections are won and they're won in the middle. So I think that that would surprise people. You know, I have lots of friends. I don't sit alone in a corner. That's also— They're nice to you. They're like, there Speaker 3 (10:46) are Speaker 2 (10:46) memes of that, like Jessica in the corner of the cafeteria and no one will talk to me. That's not true. Very popular with hair and makeup. Those Speaker 4 (10:55) folks are great, by the way. They're incredible. The hair and makeup folks at Fox are particularly friendly, I found. Speaker 2 (11:00) Yes. I mean, no. I'm not trying to turn this into some sort of infomercial, but like they're also well compensated and there's great health care and maternity and paternity leave and all of these things. That's why when we get into fights about things like vaccines or whatever it is, you just think like we had a vax mandate. Speaker 3 (11:17) Everyone did it. Speaker 2 (11:18) Right. I mean, there were a few exemptions for it, which was normal and happened most places. But it is in a lot of ways just a very nice, normal place to work. Speaker 4 (11:33) Ponce of America is brought to you by Jolie. If you struggle with chronic skin concerns like dryness, sensitivity breakouts, or scalp issues, you've probably tried a lot of products with ingredients that promise to address them. But what about the ingredient with which your skin comes into the most frequent contact? Your home's water. 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Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Speaker 4 (15:10) The fact that you're friends with Greg or Jesse, like that doesn't surprise me because there's human beings you interact with every day. If you weren't friends, you would leave. The Roger Ailes thing is weird because he is Speaker 2 (15:19) famously Speaker 4 (15:20) a creep and a horrible person accused of assault and all sorts of things. But your interaction with him, he