Is Sex Political? And Will Biden — and Kamala — Survive the Vibe Shift? 01:01:54

Even men are texting each other about these articles. Really? Even men? Even my text groups are blown up with cut pieces. My very boring, sad text groups. When you've hit the men, you've really hit the fringes of culture and you know shit's about to take off. That's right.

I'm Ben Smith. I'm Naeema Raza. And this is Mixed Signals from Semaphore Media. Today we're going to take a little bit of a break from the DC drama and instead talk about an even more urgent, if ongoing, crisis. And that is the media-manufactured conspiracy that women can have it all. Not sure which of these crises is going to be resolved first.

Definitely the presidency. But we're going to talk about why this kind of "can women have it all" is not actually a women's issue, but it's an everyone issue. It's a societal issue. It plagues our culture and it is in some weird way shaping the backdrop from everything that we see from the tradwife trend, the polyamory bubble, Project 2025.

We're going to bring in the Cut's editor-in-chief, Lindsay Peoples, for part of that conversation. The Cut, which is part of New York Magazine, has been at the forefront of this latest vibe shift. They are like on fire right now. On fire. And they have had some key pieces on Vice President Harris of late. So we'll ask her about that, too, to satisfy your political itch, Ben. I don't know if Kamala can survive the vibe shift, though, actually.

Excellent. That's what I want to ask Lindsay about. You know what can survive the vibe shift? The memes of Kamala. I think those are historic. Yeah, that may be all that survives.

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So hi, Ben. We both fled the U.S. where things are getting a little dear leader-y. Yeah, I think we wanted to go to sort of more stable political environments to consider it more clearly. Yes, and I've in fact done that. I'm currently in Italy. I'm in Rome on my way to Tuscany. I actually am like, I think I'm technically on Australian soil because I'm at the home of a middle school friend of mine who is now the Australian ambassador to the Vatican. So I'm in more stable terrain. Where are you, Ben? The Vatican actually does seem like a sort of model for American governance right now.

I'm in Riyadh. Are you raising some Saudi money? It is interesting. A big finance guy recently told me this is literally the only place in the world that anybody's coming to raise money anymore. But thankfully, Samophore is a going concern. We're actually here recruiting. We're launching a Gulf, G-U-L-F edition soon and looking for some great journalists here and in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, around the region. Gulf journalists, G-O-L-F journalists need not apply, it seems.

That's correct. They cover presidential debates now. You know, if you had asked me, would I have in my bingo card like six years ago, the fact that Saudi would be, you know, women would be shedding their abayas, driving and like almost doubling the rate that they're in the workforce over five or six years while the U.S. overturned Roe v. Wade and women were trying to become trad wives and churn their own butter. I wouldn't have had that on my bingo card. But

That is what's happening. Honestly, both incredible stories. And at the heart of what we're going to talk about today as we get into the culture and get into the gender wars, but Ben, first of all, let's talk quickly. We don't want to get dragged deep into it, but let's talk quickly about what's happening right now in Washington. Isn't

the president just doing what, like part of the problem we diagnosed in the last episode, which is kind of twofold. One, really tight hold around the president, really impermeable White House, kind of keeping it as tight to the vest as they can. And two, waving around this narrative that has a pretty chilling effect on the public, if not the media. And

maybe both saying that, like, if you're not for me, you're for Trump, which is really kind of, it kind of has the haunting of the, you know, Bush 43 with us or against us kind of vibes. Yeah, or a little, I mean, a little of Donald Trump. I mean, let me just stop trying to dive into the situation and just sort of speak for myself, which is to say the media. I mean, yeah, Biden's people have built this wall around him to try to prevent the media from knowing what the hell is going on. And now I think they're, they're,

upset with the media's coverage, but they've been, you know, at best, totally opaque at worst dishonest with us. And I think they're reaping the rewards of that right now. And I think the other thing that's come out recently is like the president has gone on, you know, a bit of a press tour. So like, just distill what's going on here in terms of the White House's media strategy and responding to this. To date, it has been the absolute worst case for Democrats, which say Biden has done some interviews and has done just well enough to

to kind of keep the crisis going, not well enough to dispel doubts, not badly enough to have the whole thing collapse. And we're just, and his ability to communicate in public is right on the line of whether he can continue to run for president. And so the crisis continues. You know, I just, I feel like if I were to write an op-ed on this right now, which I will not do. Or if someone were to stop you in the street. Yeah.

If someone were to stop me in the street, I'd probably say, you know, I think that President Biden's issue right now is not his age, but it's a question of his integrity. Like he is becoming the thing that he so despises and kind of the antithesis of the person he was. Like he's known as this, he's kind of culturally like in the media and,

being seen as this good Joe, not a power-clinging guy. And he is becoming this person who is unconvinced, unmoved by, you know, able to kind of gaslight and say this is just a battle between him and the media. And I am the only one that can do this. Look at what I've done with NATO. Look at what I've done. It's very chilling. Like, it speaks to something that is very frustrating in the culture right now also, which is this gerontocracy and, like, the desire for

I think, young people to feel that there is a future. I think some before had a piece on this. Shelby Talcott or someone had written around this poll how young people perceive government. I'm looking for the headline. I can't find it. Incredible piece. One of the great headlines. A dying empire led by bad people. And I think this kind of idea of a dying empire led by bad people, it gets to this...

general, like the culture of this political election, this election that's going to happen in the United States. And a big part of that has been the culture wars and the gender wars in particular. And I think that was a huge backdrop to the last time Biden and Trump went head to head, right? Like Me Too, the anger around Trump. Abortion has been a leading issue in each of the races that

whether it was the 2020 election, whether it was the 2022 midterms, and every kind of ballot election we've seen on abortion. And I do think gender is like the backbone of this election, which is why I'm so excited to discuss a kind of conspiracy on today's episode, which is a conspiracy I've fallen prey to, that women can have it all. And you, like President Biden, blame the media. I do. I mean, actually, yeah, this is a place where Ben and I like to bring our grievances. Ben brings grievances around Amtrak.

I bring grievances around the culture, but it is about the media. I have very narrow interests, all right?

Yeah. Well, I would love to dedicate this whole episode to the trials and thrills of my dating life. But I think there's this kind of tricky reality of how gender roles have shifted in our modern life and how this idea, like I think the promise of female liberation for so long, whether it was Frieden's book, The Feminine Mystique, to second wave feminism, it all promised female liberation. But actually all it did was not liberate women, but add more shit onto their plate. And then you get to this moment in 2024 where...

the Kansas City Chiefs

Harrison Butker, who is like, what is his, is he a kicker? What is his role? He's a kicker. You're really embodying gender roles here. I really am. Is this a shtick or is this a... No, I actually don't know. But Harrison Butker, in May of 2024, decides to tackle this gender issue in his commencement address at Benedictine College, which is a Catholic college. Let's hear a clip of that speech. For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment.

You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?

Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. The children we'll bring into the world. But honestly, it sounds just like you. I feel like I've heard you say that this is a diabolical conspiracy.

It does sound like me. And I think that the interesting thing is this has been pegged to the conservative movement. And in fact, if you look at the President of the Heritage Foundation's kind of summary of the principles that outline even Project 2025, the first of those is to restore—this is from Kevin Roberts—is to restore the family as a centerpiece of American life and protect our children. And the details of that are a little bit handmaidens' tale-y, right? I mean, he's saying in this very sort of like over-the-top literal sense something that

Like, I do think the current conservative movement is often more subtly saying about a return to much more traditional gender roles, something Donald Trump, like, really kind of personally embodies. But I do think, although this is a conservative platform...

it hits a chord. Like the reaction to this Harrison Butker speech was amazing because you saw people, you know, wanting to cancel him all of a sudden on Instagram. You saw people trolling him for being homosexual because he dressed too nice. It just got into all these weird spaces. And then you saw people like Whoopi Goldberg kind of come to his defense on The View. But also I think he hit at some, he was the wrong messenger, but he was hitting at some principle that isn't just a uniquely conservative principle. I think there are women who have been like told careerism is the path to

especially amongst millennials, I think that's shifting. And he was kind of onto something there. Naima, I know this is your abiding obsession. You know, where does the phrase, the idea of having it all come from? You know, I wanted to blame capitalism for this, but it turns out that you can blame a journalist for this. While the ideas around having it all came from Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique, Madison Avenue really tried to push this idea to sell women, like newly liberated women stuff.

It really didn't come to the fore until the 1980s when the Cosmo editor, Helen Gurley Brown, had this book come out called Having It All, Love, Success, Sex, Money, Even If You're Starting With Nothing. Incredibly influential figure. Did you know her coming up at all?

No, not at all. And I think, you know, she maybe overstayed her welcome at Cosmo, but she was there for 30 years starting in the 80s. You know, but she kind of created this, what we think of as Cosmopolitan Magazine, this very bold, you know,

but also a very professional woman. I'm not sure she would have called herself a feminist, but the kind of idea of pro-sex feminism was born in her 1980s Cosmo. I didn't know she wrote a book of that title, but that's almost too on the nose. But that is the generation I grew up in, and I think a lot of millennials grew up with that, if not the kind of after effects of the Helen Gurley Brown model. Yeah, the politics sorted themselves out a little, but just the core idea of her title of having it all.

Yeah. And not having to choose in any way between your career, your personal life, your looks. I feel like I grew up like between these two cultures, Pakistan, very traditional, like our kind of more traditional patriarchy where women run stuff behind the scenes, but not out front necessarily. In America where women are like girl bossing all over millennial culture, but also was sold like this. I was a sex in the city generation that came up and like

Anne-Marie Slaughter's piece, like, women can't have it all. Sheryl Sandberg telling you to lean in at the same time. This huge kind of conflicting message. And then in 2016, Me Too happens. And then you kind of hit the zenith of, like, the women can have it all culture with the Tatler piece in 2019, which talks about the new trophy wife. Do you remember this, Ben? Yeah, this was the top of the market. Do you want to say who the new trophy wife is? Yeah, I mean, I just want to read you a quote from the top of the piece, the lead. It goes...

Blondes, Birkins, and boob jobs are out. PhDs, pencil skirts, and polemics against the patriarchy are in. The old school trophy wife has been assigned to the scraphead of history, and today's discerning bachelor now pines for a power player in her own right. She's a Meghan Markle, a Priyanka Chopra, a Lady Bamford, her high priestess, Amal Clooney.

Oh, my God. Just to bring this back to this moment, you know, the sort of conspiracy theory, you know, this week is that the reason Joe, that George Clooney turned on Joe Biden and wrote this op-ed saying he was too old to be president was because the White House had criticized Amal Clooney over Gaza.

So this comes full circle. And George Clooney, in fact, in this very traditional way is, you know, standing up for his wife. Oh, gosh. There's like for every, I guess everybody's a Lady Macbeth. Behind every, you know, man is a woman orchestrating it all. So to say. I think he's just a wife guy. Yeah.

But like after this 2019 piece, which I hate to tell you is like it doesn't last for long, the peak. There's a total vibe shift, right? Like this overdue vibe shift. People like Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein are now pretty much out of sight, out of mind. And I think at that point is when

The Cut kind of starts talking about, and we're going to have Lindsay Peoples on in a moment, this five shift away from what was like the hyper beast woke era into a backlash. Yeah. And the evidence of that backlash is like trad wives are on the rise, not just in ballerina farms, but across the world. There's this TikTok trend of soft life coming out of Nigeria. Yeah.

You also have like the girl boss takedown around the same time. You have, you know, people like Way Luggage, et cetera. They're coming for the female bosses. Liberals like Sheryl Sandberg is coming out and apologizing, saying that lean in was a privilege for white women. Yeah, I think you see it in politics. You see it and you see it in media where these new spaces are opening. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think it is in some ways kind of a conservative impulse. So I know you don't want to politicize it.

I feel like it's not. I just, I think that it's being co-opted by conservatives. But, like, there's no liberal offering that I'm seeing. Like, the right, that's been the weird thing about American politics is the right has really co-opted, quote-unquote, family, which is bizarre because everybody has families. You know, the right has at least spoken about this problem, even if in ways that offend a lot of people. And I think the left and the media have had trouble understanding

talking about it in certain ways. But at the same time, like, I think that it's not just conservatives, but the culture started seeing like, you know, women staying home, like all of a sudden, pandemic, people are staying home more. They're like, they're cooking for themselves. And there's this value to care. There's Instagram, a place where you can put your perfectly, you know, plated food or whatever it is, and places like New Yorker and Washington Post and really the cut.

start covering this new woman saying, hey, there's these new trends out there. There are trad wives. There are these really happy divorced women. There are these really happy celibate women. There are really happy polyamorous women. And to some extent, they're all trying to solve the same equation, which is that the lie you've been sold doesn't work. And so you need a new solution and you can configure one that works for you, for your own dynamics. And it's not political. It's just how you want to live your life. It's obviously political. People just don't want to see it.

It's made political.

For me, it's not inherently political. It's been politicized, I think, not just in the U.S., but globally. And it's largely been politicized by men who feel they stand to lose something. And I don't mean you. Thank you for that. But we can keep discussing this with Lindsay Peoples, editor of The Cut, right after the break.

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That includes episodes with Uber's CMO on creating a great Super Bowl ad that everyone remembers, and Zola's CMO and CEO on building a brand with strong values. If you're a marketer at any level, check out Modern Marketers by Think with Google, available wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. We're going to talk more about gender and the culture wars and where we're going with the vibes of our current cultural and political moment. And we're going to talk to Lindsay Peoples as part of that. Ben, why don't you tell people who Lindsay is?

Yeah, Lindsay's the editor of The Cut at New York Magazine. And I think the envy of a lot of editors right now because they're just producing just consistently buzzy, sometimes somewhat deranged personal essays, commentary that have really opened the aperture, I think, on cultural coverage in a pretty powerful way. Deranged, Ben. You're going to get called out for supporting hysterical women ideas. Yeah.

Oh, everybody knows I'm pro-deranged. I'm just concerned we're not publishing enough deranged stuff. That's good. It's good to interview people you're jealous of. Absolutely. Let's go ahead and bring Lindsay in the room.

Hi, Lindsay. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. We know you're so busy, like making the rest of media just look like grandparents, Lindsay, over there at the cut. No, it's been a busy time. But no, I mean, our team is incredible. But honestly, congratulations. The cut is just on fire. And I feel like I'm constantly sending people links and wishing that I had some excuse to do one of these stories. Yes.

Thank you. I appreciate it. So in the first part of this episode, Ben and I kind of took a walk down memory lane to talk about the history of media, the kind of women can have it all, boom bust cycles, and the most recent vibe shift. But do you think this narrative still is defining for the culture or are we in kind of a new phase now that is defined with like hustle culture is dead or is women have it all still the guiding narrative?

No, I mean, I think the narrative has changed. And I think that there has traditionally been a lot of pressure on women. I mean, obviously, since the beginning of time, but I think that there's been a lot of pressure on women to be what others think that we should be or to fit into certain narratives. And so I do think that it's so indicative of why I think our coverage is the way that it is, because it's not siloed as saying like,

just here's some solutions for all of your problems. It's also in conversation with women about things that we want to openly complain about that I think that people have been too shy to talk about before. So many of the theme weeks, the ideas really come from a place of it being the things that you only talk to your therapist about or the things that you only Google because you're too embarrassed to talk to your friends about or you don't want to actually consult people in your life about. And so I do think that this idea of women having it all, that feels very

10 years ago, girl boss era, we're now in this era where we can talk about all the things of like wanting to quit your job or wanting to be in an age gap relationship and not having shame around a lot of these topics that I think traditionally people have felt like women's media couldn't talk about in an elevated way. Yeah, I think all the time about that incredible Alison Davis piece from 2022. And we were setting up some before I was like specifically thinking about the vibe shift.

the term that I think she popularized, I'd say, in that piece. She did. She popularized Sean Monaghan's report on the vibe shift. And I am curious, as you edit and assign these stories about these kind of very diverse women's lives, essentially. I mean, I think she just sort of described the previous vibe as hype beast slash woke. And the new one is post-political in some sense. And I'm curious how the way you're directing this publication fits that, the new vibe. You know,

It always changes. I always think that we're in a different position because I don't ever come from this place of being so sure of my own rightness or from this position or pedestal in the industry of saying that we know how people feel. I think it's our approach and our tone, honestly, that what people are picking up on.

So, you know, when I think about vibe shift or any pieces that we've done that have, you know, gone viral, it is honestly, I think, the vulnerability that people are responding to, not necessarily the naming of the thing. I think, obviously, that sometimes does help. But I think that we're always looking to either start a conversation or finish it better than other people. Yeah. One of the things is that it's...

It feels like a lot of the kind of last generation of women's magazines had a sense of like who their reader was, like the Cosmo woman, the 17 woman. And it feels like you're kind of getting at a kaleidoscope of women in these stories. But I want to run through some of them because for people listening who may not be, you know, reading the cut or seeing the electric Instagram posts,

and TikToks of content. Who aren't yet up on the vibe shift, yeah. Who aren't? People outside of the vibe shift. So let's give a couple of examples. And maybe, Lindsay, you can talk about what do you think this piece reflects in the broader culture? So...

One of the essays that got published this year that kind of electric shocked the internet was The Case for Marrying an Older Man by Grazia Sofia Christi, in which the author argues that young women should kind of capitalize on their youth and beauty while they have it. In her case, in her 20s, when she snuck into a party, I believe at HBS, to pick up her man who was 10 years older. So you should use their youth and beauty when they have it to pick up a well-off partner who can be like a mentor for them.

for them in life. And she makes this case for ease. It allows her to have the access to write as she does now. What does this reflect to you? Or like, why did this story resonate? It resonated with me because honestly, I think that people...

Would initially write about that from a place of feeling judgment and shame. And I really feel like actually a lot of people identified with the fact that life is expensive, but also just being honest with your desires and not having any shame around if you want to be a writer and you don't come from wealth, then what is the path to that?

I think it was one of those pieces that I saw so many people sharing and privately having conversations and then coming back to us and saying because they were embarrassed to talk about their own feelings about it, but agreed with a lot of the things that she said.

But I think that we're always coming from a place of I'm pro women living exactly the kind of life that they want to live. And I would never judge or tell another woman how to live their life. But also, I'm very invested in the decisions that we make and how that affects the trajectory of your life as a woman.

Another essay that kind of hit a chord, or a couple of essays, were on this topic of divorce. You had Molly Rosen's Happily Ever Divorce feature last year. And then Emily Gold's Should I Leave My Husband? The Lore of Divorce. Spoiler alert, she doesn't in the end. But it gave you like the sense of the fantasy of separation. And in the case of Molly, the...

joy of separation, which I think really resonated because I think some of the happiest people I know are people who are divorced with children and then are kind of having a romantic life with a new partner. So what did that piece say to you? Why do you want to run that?

The relationship stuff, I mean, obviously we've done a ton of that. So that wasn't anything necessarily as new for assigning, but we've done a lot around divorce and relationships. And we saw a shift in just the tone in that during the pandemic and post pandemic of how people were actually taking the time and the space.

to have real conversations around the pros and cons. And I remember talking with Emily and telling her like, we should just do like an actual list, a graphic of you doing like the pros and the cons of the things that you listed through. But I think that there is a level of contemplation that goes into a lot of these things that most people, when they write an essay about it, it is just very straight.

And it required, I think to me, just a spectrum of emotions that you go through when you are deciding such a big life decision. I think what's also so interesting is when people...

like give me notes on personal essays and tell me, you know, somebody else has written a divorce essay, but that one is good. It's often, I think that it's just to trying to get straight to a point and deciding, whereas like, that's not the reality of your life. You can say today that you feel this way, but then next year completely rebrand and decide to be a different new person. And you always have the Excel sheet that you can refer back to with the pros and cons. So you can decide. Poor Keith. Yeah.

Another one was, we went from hot girl summer to a summer without sex this year. Celibacy is all the rage right now. This has been a big topic of conversation, not just with you, but with the Bumble advertising campaign. Kelsey Osgood wrote this piece for you guys. What do you think the power of celibacy or boy sobriety movement, which seems to be in the culture right now, I see it around a lot of women in their 30s, what do you think is going on there?

I mean, Angelina Chapin, she just did a big piece for us last month that was everywhere around is dating a total nightmare for you right now. And I think that...

For me, it's always, you know, a lot of those conversations traditionally felt like this is just something happening that's too lowbrow for us to try to report. And a big thing for me at The Cut has always been, we want to be the thing that you're sharing with your friends. We want to be the thing you're in good chance. And that was immediately something that I was like, there's a sense of despair around dating right now that is very different. Obviously up to the election, we're leading up to a place where I think people are just sick and tired of being sick and tired. And

in the opposite place of the divorce stuff. I just saw a very clear pipeline of people talking about divorce and dating and celibacy in succession. And so I think a lot of that for me was us figuring out a way to elevate the conversation, but also do some reporting around it. So it isn't just a lot of these. Yes, we do the personal essays, but we do a lot of service. We do a lot of reporting. So it isn't just one note. Sounds tough out there.

Ben's just happy because he's been married since he was like in his early 20s. He got married young. Most of what I read in The Cut these days reaffirms that decision. I think it's also, you know, engagement for The Cut is really important to me. So I'm constantly looking at the comments, especially on social. And so I'm always looking at like, what are the things that people want to really discuss? But also how can we be part of that conversation and create community around it? And I think

Also some fun. I think like a big part of the cut is that we have humor and energy and a little bit of attitude. And so it's a mix of a lot of different things. But in the midst of that, like we just did our smut and romance week. The romance books are the number one sellers for publishers right now.

And so I wanted to celebrate that because I found, you know, a common thread in all of this was like, yes, there's a lot of single people and a lot of people complaining about dating, a lot of people talking about celibacy. But there is also this huge industry now around romance books. And I mean, Emily Henry's books just got picked up to do five different, I think, Netflix or some kind of films. And, you know, so we did a big week on that as well.

Isn't that part of like defining for our culture and maybe even our politics right now, which is like the fantasy is better than the reality in almost everything. And so much of what you're writing. But that comes back to this idea of the political question that Ben was asking before. I mean,

You're like defining in the kind of, there is no cut woman the way there was this Cosmo woman, but you can attract and marry rich dudes. You can live a soft life. You can be a trad wife. You can homestead. You can be a polyamorist. You can play with celibacy or boy sobriety. You can have a lavender marriage with your gay best friend, all these different types of women. But aren't they all responding to the same political and social problem, which is this problem of women can't have it all, which is this problem of women can't have it all?

problem of society has put us in this place, had these expectations. And there's kind of two competing worldviews right now. One is kind of crystallized in this Project 2025 conservative Harrison Butker view of the world, which is like, your life will begin when you are a mother and a wife. And by the way, I don't want to say it in a judgy way because I also come from a culture where

that being a wife and a mother has like a value to it. Caregiving has a value to it, both for your children, but also for your elders. And I think that is represented in this kind of conservative viewpoint. And then on the left, you see this kind of polyamory and this kind of communal living, which is saying, hey, we want to do these things. We want to have homes. We want to have a family. We want to make rent. But one person can't do it alone. Two people can't figure it out. So like we're going to build a community and social infrastructure that government didn't give us.

Yeah, I think both ends are really important. And I think that but that's indicative of the cut. Like we're not just one note. And I think a lot of these lanes that you're speaking of traditionally publications only thought these are the only topics that women want to have as far as if it's fashion, it's got to be shiny. If it's relationships, it's just a sex column. If it's you know, it was very checking a box where I think that we found a lot of these things on the spectrum of fashion.

You may want a relationship or you may not. You may want to have a hot girl summer or you may have a voiceover summer. Like there's there's levels to each of these things that I think we always want to play into. But it's also we're not looking at it as trends. I think these are all these are all conversations that we're all having with our communities. But also we're never too high up and thinking that we need to tell people how to live their life now.

I mean, I do think of the cut historically and kind of where it comes from is basically kind of progressive in its politics. But actually, I think a lot of your most read stuff and a lot of the things I was just talking about are really conservative and are really talking about a return to, you know, I mean, trad wife is the caricature of it, but to much more traditional gender roles in a way that, I don't know, it's probably embodied by Donald Trump in certain ways. And I'm curious, like, it feels like there's some cultural shift happening

there that I'm myself trying to figure out how to navigate. I'm curious how you think about it. I mean, yeah, I think that obviously it's really important for my team to be progressive, but also just inclusive in tone and voice. I think that is indicative of the kind of publication that I've always wanted to make. The kind of publication I always wanted to read was one that wasn't

leaving me out of the equation as a young Black girl from the Midwest, right? So I think that that's always the goal. But I do think that, honestly, the thing that I'm trying to solve with a lot of politics is we write so much of it that people just don't want to read and trying to figure out how to get them to be part of it. I mean, we wrote about Project 2025 today. We write about abortion stuff every single day. A lot of the politics, just straight politics things, I think people are

feeling already an exhaustion around. But do you feel like on gender roles specifically, do you feel like you're sort of feeling or feeding a shift to the right or shift backward toward more traditional roles?

No, no, I don't. I think that's like, it's almost a trap, Ben. Like I want to jump in for Lindsay. I would say it was a bit of a vibe shift. It was a trap, sorry. Men always trying to be trapping us here. So it's like a vibe shift that went from hype beast and woke to kind of this post-political. I think there was this expectation as a woman, and I certainly felt it like growing up on Sex and the City and like graduating into the Sheryl Sandberg era and all this stuff. But there's...

There was a sense that you couldn't, like when Harrison Butker said that thing, that quiet thing, you're like, oh, I can't feel like maybe he's on to something, even if he's the absolute worst poster child for the message. But I think that's what the cut is doing. But don't you think, Lindsay, it pisses off some of your progressive readers? Like that Mary the Older Man piece, you know, there were a lot of parodies and people kind of attacking the writer and her name and her...

excessive use of commas and the mention of Lolita. Yeah, I think that there's always going to be people that dislike some of the takes that we put out, but I'm careful in curating what kinds of takes because I'm not trying to lift up a voice because I think that people will hate it. I'm lifting up a voice because I think that she had something important to say about the world in which we live in. And I do think that her experience is no better than an opposite experience. And that's

Honestly, to me, that's the importance of it. But I don't think that, yeah, we're never trying to elevate one or the other. It is always a balance game for sure. Do you think you're bringing the men along, Lindsay? I think we are. It's kind of strange because that was unexpected, but I think we are. Are you getting more male subscribers?

I mean, I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I do hear a lot more men talking about the issue. We're doing a lot more men in our upcoming September issue than we have before. So, yeah. Thank you for that. I really, it's important to me to see myself in the cut. So I really appreciate that. I mean, Lindsay did say they were striving for an inclusive magazine, Ben, and we want to make sure you're included. And we are. Do you think that the cut, part of what we talk a lot about in the show a bit is this idea, like, is media inclusive?

the invisible hand or is media just a mirror? And do you think that the cut is reflecting the culture or do you think you're shaping it?

A bit of both. A bit of both. Give me a percentage. Like 60-40, which way? No, honestly, I would say... Come on, Lindsay. Do the girl math. No, it's not girl math. I think it's maybe 60-40. I think that a lot of it is, you know, we'll notice... I'll be reading something and I'll just notice a sentence that I'm like...

I don't even think that they realize, but there's a nugget in there of something that I think we should chase after. And sometimes it's not always like the most magical thing that someone said, but it's usually in the way that they said it that I'm picking up on that there's something there that we need to dig further.

When we are kind of trying to anticipate what it is, it's usually we're anticipating it that it's going to be bigger than what other people are thinking. And so we're kind of trying to beat that moment. But yeah, I only hesitate with that one because it really doesn't come from a place of arrogance. It comes from a place of we know this is going to be something that you love and that you're going to want to devour. And how can we be with you in that moment when you're ready?

Yeah, what you're describing is like having your finger on the pulse and seeing where things are headed. It's kind of like, is it in fashion? Are you choosing what style of jeans we're wearing or you're just telling, you're noticing that people are no longer going to be wearing these jeans and you're telling us? Yeah. I think sometimes we, I mean, we do choose. I notice a lot of people are wearing capris right now. I don't want to write about capris because I don't think that they look good and I don't want people to bring them back. Yeah, they're not good. Don't bring capris. Thumb on the scale there. Do not wear capris, Ben. Okay?

No threat of that. But we offer a lot of other things and we're like, this is going to be the next thing when you're tired of these and you realize that these were a bad mistake. This is going to be the next thing. On the vibe shift, where do you notice it going? Because, you know, that original piece from Alison where she had spoken to Sean Monaghan about the kind of vibe shifts that he had been observing. And he had these four to six year periods. The, God, I'm going to forget what they were. It was the hipster indie period. Yeah.

then the internet techno period, followed by the hype beast woke period. And I guess then the question just is what's next. Yeah. What's next? I mean, honestly, I don't, we're, we're planning a lot of this for our September issue and I still haven't had landed on what I really want it to be. I think that there's like a heavy, I just sense like a heavy exhaustion with a lot of our readers because I think so much is happening in the world. And how do we, um,

provide some relief from that, but also what are the areas of release that we can give them, whether it is a funny moment, but also then pushing them to understand that there's some important conversations that we have to have with them or that we want them to participate in. And so, yeah, I mean, that's honestly the one that I'm noticing right now. Yeah. I mean, is it just pure escapism? A little bit, a little bit, but I think, you know, that's fair.

Fair, because I do think that there is so much heavy in the world right now that I understand. I mean, and I think that was a lot of the reason why the smut and romance books are doing so well, because it takes you to another destination, another place. Yeah, smut, AI. It also could be like a bit of a, if it's a boom-bust cycle for feminism, a bit of a boom, right? Yeah. That's the way the pendulum would go, maybe. Especially if Trump is back in office, I presume, because there'll be a villain. Yeah.

Yes. You mentioned earlier not putting your thumb on the scales except for, you know, maybe Capri's and some other issues. But it seems like lately The Cut has published at least a few articles about the vice president.

in this kind of critical moment where, you know, people are floating her name to be the heir apparent if Biden were to step off the ticket or the heir apparent if he were to stay on and not make it for four years. But you had a few pieces. You had Why Not Kamala, the Rebecca Traister interview with Brittany Cooper. You had conservatives are already attacking Kamala as a DEI hire.

And then is it time to take the coconut pill of which, you know, I had a collection of kind of memes links. Are you putting your thumb on the scale here? Are you, is the cut entering the K-hive? You know, I, I'm. Don't try to hide from the question, Lindsay. I beg you, answer this question. I'm not trying to predict too early because honestly, I don't think any of us know what is going to happen with Biden yet. Like, I think that is still.

To be determined. Every single day there's a new headline about his health. And so I don't think that any of us really honestly do know what is going to happen on this ticket. But I do think that it's really important for the cut to be at the front and center of how we talk about women in this election. I think we've done so much work in the past with Tracer on...

abortion being such a big part of this election and people really ignoring it and how it really just, quite frankly, pissed us off and felt like people weren't paying attention enough. And so the interesting thing about this job is like, these are all issues that we've been talking about, writing about for so long. And then now people just start paying attention, obviously, because we're nearing the election phase.

But I think that more often than not with this, that I want people to make a concerted effort of why we're doing what we're doing when we go into this election. And so when it comes to, I mean, we had a piece today that Dania Esquassie wrote about how Arab American women feel conflicted about this upcoming election. I think that-

important for us to be the place that is having those really hard conversations, because I do think that people feel really conflicted. And I think people feel really unhappy about the state of the world and where it's going, but don't really feel like we have any options or place to talk about that in a way that feels that we're not shaming or judging anyone, but just feeling like this is not the way in which we want to be in this world.

Yeah, I think one of the things that Cut does really well is like an approach I take when I make a documentary film. It's like an honor their truth approach to the essay or to the story or to the profiles. But I don't know that the culture does that too. I think the culture will react. The culture will still shame. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm curious just to come back to Kamala, maybe to kind of bring these two threads together. Like in reading the coverage of Kamala, Brittany's quote about we have to, you know, watch white men be terrible. Yeah.

put us on the brink of destroying the whole democracy and then maybe a black woman can help us. I worry and I wonder if you think, like, it seems to me that logic of the sort of

I don't know that some of the cuts coverage of Kamala feels in some ways from the previous moment and that the kind of, and maybe right left isn't the right way to say it, but the kind of vibe shift that a lot of the other stuff on the cut embodies is going to make it hard for Kamala Harris. And then like this maybe is a tough moment for her. I'm curious, like when you sort of pull back, if there's, you know, with the gal, your galaxy brain thoughts on that.

Yeah. You know, I don't ever want to make it tough or hard for another woman of color. And obviously, I mean, she's in a tough spot. So that's not ever our intention. But I do think that specifically one thing that we do really well on the cut is provide critique in a really fair and level way. And especially as a Black woman, I think that a lot of times we shy away from having these conversations because you don't want to publicly talk about another person of color in a way that is critiquing them.

And not feel like you can have that critique, but also support at the same time. And so a lot of times I think somebody even like, you know, Professor Brittany Cooper is able to have those conversations in a nuanced way and not trying to make it harder for anyone else. But as a Black woman, you are allowed to. I mean, I guess I just mean...

It's more sort of like we're in this moment of backlash and a lot of your coverage in some ways is picking up the energy of that backlash. And I guess I do wonder how that'll play out for Kamala. I mean, for example, Lindsay, you're already seeing this narrative come out. Imagine what could be unburdened by what has been. And you're going to see those constant plays. Yeah.

It's pretty funny. Can't help, right? But it's very funny. So you're going to see the attack on, and I think you've been covering some of the women that have been writing essays in the pages that cut are not necessarily reflected by the progressive women. So does Kamala do well in that world? Does she do less well? I think that's what Ben's kind of getting to. Yeah.

Yeah, but I think that honestly, people don't really know how to feel about her right now, which is why we're covering it in this way. I think that honestly, people are 100% conflicted and are concerned. I mean, I was concerned before the debate, but I felt like people were, it woke people up in a new dimension after watching the debate and feeling like,

a sense of dread and concern and urgency. And, you know, I mean, social media was crazy for the past couple of days because of that after the debate. And so I don't think that we're trying to sway people in one way or the other. I think that we've been having a lot of these conversations and obviously now people are just noticing that in a larger way.

Yeah. I do want to pick back up what you're saying. You don't want to make it harder for a woman of color, and I understand what you're saying there. But I also think as a journalist, of course, you are, I imagine, dedicated to pursuing. There's not an affirmative action on how you are going to cover Kamala Harris. You are going to cover her in a dogged way, I imagine. Yeah.

Of course. But I think that we, I think that it is, it's not a secret. I mean, a lot of the reporting, investigative journalists, et cetera, aren't usually people of color in the industry. And so when I'm, when we're doing a story that is about someone who may be controversial or it may have done, you know, I

accusations, allegations, et cetera. It is a different process when it is another person of color, because I think a lot of times of the Kirby Pyramus story that we did a couple of years ago, he's a really well-known black designer. He's beloved. We knew that there were a lot of allegations, accusations. Most people didn't want to touch it because they felt like,

It would have to come from the right person and it would have to come from a person of color in the industry who knew all of these nuances and understanding of him as a designer and as a Black figure who people really looked up to and understanding that experience.

You do just handle it a little bit more delicate and you don't handle it in a way that you're giving someone favoritism, but you handle it in a way where you understand this is all really important to the culture. But what matters is how fair we cover this in a way that our own like conscious of what we are doing is not just to tear somebody down at all, but ever to, I mean, I think the reporting on that was really stellar because we were incredibly fair. I mean, I totally agree on that piece, but don't you think that public figures sometimes use that?

to shut down fair coverage? 100%. 100%. But that's why I did the story anyway. Yeah. I mean, part of the challenge for the vice president would be that the way she was hired into the process immediately puts a target on her back. And I always hated that moment where then-candidate Biden was like, well, we need a woman who's held state office. It was so specific in terms of the criteria as opposed to we're going to hire the best person for the job. And

find out that it's Kamala Harris. And people could speculate on the dynamics, but to make them explicit in the way that they were made, I think that media narrative will already be out there on the right and is. I mean, that was a conversation we had when we did Stacey Abrams on the cover. That was a conversation we had a while ago. So this is, yeah, it's not a new one, but I think it's a resurrected conversation that now I think obviously there is a sense of urgency around.

Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Lindsay, for being with us. Thanks, Lindsay. Thank you, guys. Ben, did that Brittany Cooper quote about having to watch white men be terrible hurt your feelings? No, it just felt like it was from a different era. Yeah.

like it felt like it was copy and pasted from Twitter seven years ago or something. Yeah, it felt like it was from the hypebeast woke era, you mean? Yeah, it was from the hypebeast woke era. I think it's really interesting to watch like a really, really smart, progressive editor grapple with the fact that a lot of her, the journalism she's publishing is like truly reactionary in the literal sense of that word and traditionalist and conservative. And there's this like deep tension there. It's so interesting. And the work they're publishing is so good. Yeah, but I think

that's applying this dualist polarized worldview onto what is really like the guts of life struggle that every woman or every person who like seeks to partner or have family has. And maybe it's, maybe it's more, maybe I'm sort of, you're right. Maybe I'm kind of over polarizing. It's more just a step away from this idea that the personal is political, which comes in and out of intensely in and out of fashion in America and was deeply in fashion a few years ago. And maybe it's a little out of fashion now.

Yeah, or I think that the construct of actually seeing something as political when it's personal is like seen to be inauthentic and out of touch with the current vibe a little bit, right? Like that's like in the woke vibe era. And now we're in the like, you're just living your fucking life on, you know, and some of it's on the internet and some of it's private. And I don't presume to know what's going on in your life. So if you want to homestead, that's cool. If you want to be with an older man, that's cool. It doesn't mean that I need to do that. Although I would love to homestead with an older man. I mean, what a life.

Yeah, I was going to say you don't have a right to judge, and yet I sometimes feel judged. So I don't know. Do you feel judged? Maybe once in a while. Ben! For my trad wife lifestyle. You're hardly a trad wife. I don't want to make you feel ganged up on, Ben. So let's take a quick break. We're going to let you spend some time with Josh Spanier from Think with Google on this ad break, and then we'll be back with Max Tani. Thank you.

MARK BLYTH: Women's NCAA championship beat out the men's. And I saw Group M is planning to double the money it spends on women's sports. A bunch of major advertisers, including Google, have signed on. Is this going to last? MARK BLYTH: I hope so. I mean, it should do, right?

It's actually, it's super exciting, right? One of the things about marketing and marketers is we're kind of herd-like, right? We want to be cool. We want to be hip. We feel like it's our responsibility to actually, you know, represent the voice of the customer and what they're interested in, we're interested in. And so we follow the trends, right? So in some regard, the surgeon women's sport has actually been great because as marketers, we then follow it and we spend more money behind it and it helps these leagues develop and grow.

I'm really proud of a bunch of work that we've done with our team to actually help create that. So three years ago, we signed a deal with ESPN where as part of that partnership deal for the WNBA, we made it mandatory that ESPN actually show more games on television and try and break that cycle of, well, there's no one watching, so you're not showing games. So we're not going to show games, so no one ends up watching. And actually, if you increase the coverage,

you'll increase the popularity. Now I'm not claiming that Caitlin Clark and the success of the women's game and NCAAs anything really to do with what we've done as a marketing organization but

Brands that are looking ahead, are looking for opportunities, are looking to separate and find differentiation, can identify and spot there is a thirst, there is a hunger, there is an interest in these topics. So tap into it, help enable it. Use your ad and marketing dollars to help grow it. And we continue to see that success. I'm very excited for the new season of the WNBA.

It's healthy to have competition in the sense of that there's more options than just the men's game. Do you have a team? I have multiple teams. I like all of them because we are an official partner of the WNBA. So I'm not going to name a single one.

We're back, and here's Max Tani. Max, you must be super busy right now reporting. I'm a little busy, yeah. You know, the summer is usually a pretty slow time for media, in particular for media reporting, because everybody in media goes on vacation in July and August, but this year is a little different. Hey now, some of us work. Ben's hanging out in Riyadh, I'm in Italy, and Max Tani is holding down the fort in the United States. That's right. Yeah.

Max, thank you for joining us today. You have some blind spots, things that we're missing in our elite vacation slash recruiting bubbles. That's right. I don't know if they're talking about this in Riyadh or wherever you are in Italy, but apparently, according to the Biden campaign, things aren't actually that bad for Joe Biden. Oh, phew. I'm so glad to hear that. That's going to make my Tuscan vacation so much better just knowing. Yeah. I would say people in Riyadh are concerned, so that's all. I'll spread the word. Yeah.

No, but things aren't actually that bad. That's what I'm saying. It's just not piercing your media bubble. And that's according to a new report from Northeastern University in their data-led project, Chip 50, which was quickly blasted out by the Biden campaign today. The report, which surveyed the same group of people before and after last month's presidential debate, said that Biden's performance had little, if any, impact on people's voting preference.

The report's author hopes it, quote, helps illustrate the dangers of making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the media interpreting data. Do you buy it? Yes. Do you buy it? And how does it square with the poll data? I was going to ask if you guys buy it. Well, what's the methodology? What is Chip 50? What is this? Sounds like Baskin-Robbins 31. Yeah.

I think it's slightly different, though a little bit less exciting. I think basically the methodology, as far as I understand it, they found a random sampling of people, but they surveyed the same group of people before and after. So it's like a focus group where you can see if things move. So it's not

a different group of people, it's the same, but it's using polling methodologies apparently. Um, and, uh, you know, it's supposedly a kind of cutting edge, um, uh, survey technique, um, that's supposed to be better than other ones. But again, this is according to, this was posted by Biden's senior comms advisor, TJ Ducklow, who said that it was supposed to be a corrective to the media narrative. Personally, uh,

That's against every other poll that we're seeing across the country, very reliable, long-running polls. So I don't quite buy it, but that is what we're hearing from the Biden campaign. Yeah, I think what's, you know, I think, you know, the grain of truth in there, because I was speaking as someone who sort of basically also doesn't buy it, is that a lot of Americans...

already thought Joe Biden was totally out of it. Like most Republicans and a lot of Democrats already thought he was too old or basically expected him to kind of stumble out there and mumble a lot. And so when they saw that, we're like, yeah, that's my president, including people who are going to vote for him, by the way. And so obviously the political situation has in fact changed contrary to that poll. But I do think that basically the American people on a whole were better informed than like the White House press corps on this question.

I feel like you are taking a lot of mea culpa for the press. I feel like... Mea culpa? I'm just randomly attacking my colleagues. Oh, okay. You knew. Everybody else didn't. Okay. This is your version of the Biden letter coming out right now. I wrote about it last year. I took a lot of flack for it. So I'm, you know, lashing out. I also said it in a podcast in September of 2023. I feel like everybody, like a lot of people in media knew. We're all going back to the time we said it. Yeah.

I was pretty, I was pretty, I admitted in our, in our media newsletter that I was, that I thought I was kind of wrong about this. And I, I underestimated the Biden's change. I mean, though, I will say I did note that he, when I saw him and went on pool duty with him in Rehoboth, that he was walking pretty slowly. I mean, I saw it at the White House Christmas party. It was, which was full of the media in which Biden was.

And I wrote about this stuff, you know, was there to prove I'm, you know, all he had to say was, you idiots, I'm fine. Stop telling me old, I'm fine. That was it. That would have been the speech. And instead, he just sort of randomly wandered into his stump speech, went on for a while. Finally, Jill said, Joe, it's a party. And he said, ah, great, it's a party, enjoy. And it was, and this was, you know, I don't know. And I was actually sort of surprised that didn't get more coverage in front of the whole press corps.

He also thanked the White House press corps for putting our lives in danger, which seemed a bit much to me. I felt like...

and that that's going to take people past the finish line. And, you know, you hear from a lot of voters who are like, okay, if I have to, I vote for him. Like, this is a person who 77% of people in polls are saying he's too old, including 69% of Democrats, and he was still pulling, you know, 40-plus percent of the vote. This is back like last year. So,

You know, that cognitive dissonance could still work in the president's favor if he continues to be on the ticket. That seems to be the bet. But it does not seem like a positive, warm vibe. And I don't mean about the media. I mean, in terms of the culture. Yeah, Kadia had that incredible line in her story of this top Democratic operative saying that a dead or comatose Joe Biden was outperforming Kamala Harris in their survey research.

So here we are. Thank you, Max. I had missed that one. So I appreciate you and TJ Ducklow bringing it to my attention. Absolutely. I'm here to bring the campaign spin. Campaign spin that we're not seeing because the media is so after Biden. It's probably the Twitter algorithm. What are people on the right not seeing?

So I kind of, I veered a little bit in this one because I kind of thought this is something I know. Yeah. I veered a little bit from our, from, from our, yeah. Yeah. I kind of wanted to get a little bit creative because I thought that the story was, was kind of interesting and I feel like it was something that maybe was registering on a national security, TikTok channels for hawkish Americans and people abroad. Is that a place?

Wow. Apparently, apparently it is a place. Taylor Lorenz at the Washington Post had a really interesting story this week about NATO doing PR by giving access to influencers. And so this is according to the Post. As part of its Protect the Future initiative, which is intended to, quote, raise awareness of and support for NATO among young audiences across the alliance,

NATO paid for numerous influencers to attend its major summit in Washington this week, including several TikTok stars who cover current events in politics, one who is an educational content creator, another who is a former Air Force fighter pilot and motivational speaker, an influencer who Taylor described as someone who, quote, covers legal and political commentary in African-American vernacular.

a teacher who makes comedic videos about history and a UK news content creator, among others. Can we just pause to appreciate the newspaper language here of a social media influencer who covers legal and political developments in African-American vernacular? Like, what are the odds that Taylor Lorenz typed those words? Like, zero, right? Yeah.

It was an interesting one. Also, it does include a hyperlink, so the post allows you to delve into that one if you want to understand more about what that means. But I still love that it's still somebody's job to translate English into whatever that is. Excellent. So influencers in the wild gone global for NATO.

Yeah, I, you know, I thought it was, I did think it was interesting in the sense that for the previous generation, people understood the, in the West, understood the value of NATO. But, you know, we've reached the point where there are a lot of younger people, people of my generation who didn't exist during the Cold War and really don't understand

understand the value of NATO as much. So I guess I understand the desire to reach out to influencers. And I understand influencers wanting an all expenses paid trip to Washington, though not necessarily in July. So here's a question for you, Ben, because you noted what a bad PR play it was for TikTok to use its own platform to get young people animated about the TikTok ban. How do you feel about NATO countries bringing in surrogates to sell something to

you know, on their platform. Doesn't that make TikTok a little more neutral? It sort of makes me, it makes me a little, like, a little despairing for, like, the future of free societies, right? Like, the, like, Russia's so good at this stuff. You don't, like, the idea that, like, they invited a few TikTokers to speak in African-American vernacular with their policies, like, great job, guys. But, like,

You know, these countries have massive propaganda and militaries have massive propaganda operations that move the hearts and minds of millions of people in a concerted way. And I think that democracies have a really, really struggle to do that. And it's like you sort of see how the lameness of this versus the concerted efforts you have. And by the way, the Ukrainian government is incredible at this. And Ukraine, you know, won the propaganda war in the opening days.

of that war on TikTok. And for all that people say, it's sort of a Russian, Chinese, whatever. You know, the Ukrainian message is absolutely dominated. And the American sympathies are

It just swept everything before it, I think, in a way. But I just feel like these democracies and organizations like NATO are just inevitably terrible at this. Yeah, this is probably not going to hit as hard as a fancy bear hack from the Russians or a kind of concerted influence operation from Eastern Europe or from China. Yeah, just an influencer operation isn't quite the same.

But I do think democracies also have a way of doing this covertly. You know, the United States was able to interfere in other countries' elections pretty effectively for a period in time, not necessarily through the Internet. But I actually just I kind of just think they lose nothing by kind of doing a cringe campaign.

invite a bunch of random influencers to do this. I mean, look, here's the other thing that we know about influencers is they'll take your free money anytime you want to give them something for free. I mean, there was all those influencers who went to go to like the Shein factory in China and made these videos about it went viral. It's incredible, which I always thought was really, really funny. I think that you can actually marshal a bunch of influencers to do really anything if you want, if you tell them that there's free. Who even

is an influencer anymore. Are we, like, are you an influencer, Max? Max, I feel like you're an influencer, but you are bound by journalistic ethics, unfortunately. I think news people are, you increasingly have these news influencers, right? Like, we used to have this with, like, he's not a perfect example anymore, but, like, Yashar was a great example. Oh, yeah, Yashar Ali. Yeah, he's, like,

A random guy who tweets a bunch of stuff and has a bunch of followers, but he's not really so much of a journalist, kind of complicated, weird, ethical person. So there's definitely people who exist in the news journalist space of which we're not necessarily too far off. Yeah, it's a blurry space where, you know, we're all influencers now. Podcast hosts, that's very close to influencer. I know when you were describing like random people who tweet a lot, I was like, are you talking about me?

Yeah. All right, guys. Max, thank you for being with us and for relieving us of our international buying spots today. Thanks, guys.

Thanks for listening to Mixed Signals from Semaphore Media. Our show is produced by Max Tani, Allison Rogers, Sheena Azaki, Alan Haverchak, and Andrea Lopez-Crusado. With special thanks to Britta Galanis, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, and Jules Zurn. Our engineer is Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Billy Libby. And our public editor is Harrison Butker.

who, you know, was a voice of truth at the wrong time, through the wrong vessel, at the wrong location. If you like Mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and feel free to leave us a review. And if you're watching on YouTube, give us a like and subscribe to Semaphore's channel. And remember to read Semaphore's media newsletter and subscribe. It publishes every Sunday night. Send us your tips.

for the Republican National Convention and Good Media Stories. Yes, I'm sure you'll get a tip from the White House that they're doing just fine. They're doing just fine. Don't worry about it. We'll look into it.