MARY:
Steven, it’s really good to see you because I need some help figuring out what in the world is going on. As you’re probably aware, it feels as bad as 2025 was. It feels like America basically fell off a cliff on January 1st, 2026.
STEVEN:
I actually was out of the country until Friday night, the 2nd of January. And the third was the morning there was the invasion and attack of Venezuela. And then that appalling, insane press conference where we learned ostensibly what had happened and that Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth were now running Venezuela later only to find that Donald was, in fact, the acting president of Venezuela. And it feels like since that Saturday, it’s just been nonstop.
MARY:
Yeah, it has. It feels that way because it has. You’re a journalist and I am, like many people have been, deeply concerned with the failures of corporate media to keep the American people informed and lay out the facts instead of pretending that both sides have an equal because I think that is clearly not at all true anymore. Do you see any shifts? Every once in a while, The New York Times has put out a couple of great pieces for example recently the extent to which Donald and his useless family are enriching themselves through the presidency, etc. But it feels like we’re at a crossroads here. I want to get a sense from you if you feel like the media in general is keeping up and presenting the reality on the ground that we’re in a dangerous place that seems to get more dangerous by the day.
STEVEN:
Yeah, I wish I could say that The New York Times has suddenly found the right course or for that matter, The Washington Post. Both of those have obviously been part of the problem in their inability to name reality. And it’s obviously a lot of what’s gotten us here. And you add CBS News, the fabled Tiffany network, the place of Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow and all sorts of talented journalists over the years, including a lot of them at 60 Minutes. We’ve seen the downward spiral of that with the arrival Bari Weiss. And the problem is, it’s exactly playing out this sort of old idea that you show both sides. You give the platform to the Trump regime, and that’s somehow going to make the story more full and truthful. That’s a deep failure at a time when there’s right and there’s wrong and there’s true and there’s false. I think there are certain sort of legacy media that I look to like The Guardian, the BBC, and ProPublica. From time to time there’s solid reporting at a place like The New York Times. But it’s interesting if you take what’s happening in Minnesota, I mean there is national coverage and there’s solid reporting, but I find that it’s just as useful, maybe more important to look at something like The Minneapolis Star Tribune
It’s really important for people to make a point of reaching out to check what’s being said on the ground locally by the reporters who are closest to what’s happening and often provide the best detail about the specific events, the specific facts. If you were talking more broadly about the state of the media, we’re in a point where the independent media has become more and more critical, and it’s because people like you and me and a lot of others have sort of said, “You know what? We’re going to call fascism, fascism. We’re going to say things as accurately as we can now. There is a narcissistic malignancy here and this is what it looks like, and these are the conditions around sociopathy, and these are the ways of understanding things that gets into realms that I think a lot of the legacy media has refused or failed to do.”
MARY:
You bring up a couple of great points that I wanted to dig into a little bit more before we shift gears to the world stage, which is sadly something that we need to be grappling with.
STEVEN:
I’m weirdly optimistic about that, if I can just foreshadow that part of our conversation.
MARY:
Good, because we really need to have something to cling to.
I want to talk a little bit about the necessity of local media. We’re essentially beholden to these massive corporate media monoliths because local reporting, local media has been decimated. And the importance of local media has been underscored by the recent situation in Minneapolis, because the reporting on the ground there has been excellent. And it allows people to see in a way they would not.
STEVEN:
The decimation of local newspapers is a tragedy because journalism is, as Jefferson said, the fourth estate, and it really does provide another guardrail to provide a point of view and a light to what the truth is. And by the way, skepticism and the willingness to use facts to speak truth to power. And if there’s not credible and real journalistic organizations, newspapers or otherwise in all these local communities, and that only allows ICE to come in and do what they’re doing, but it allows MAGA politicians and a lot of others to roam free without having the kind of pushback that the exposure of good local journalism provides.
MARY:
And as a counterbalance to what we’re facing at the level of corporate media and the fact that the FCC is a wholly-owned entity of Donald Trump and is stuffed with sycophants who will do his bidding. Are you surprised at the extent to which massive corporate media outlets like Paramount Plus have gone all in on the fascism and the betrayal of journalism in service to the bottom line? And do you think there’s anything we can do to put the brakes on it?
STEVEN:
Jeff Bezos was one of those people who was standing behind Donald at the inauguration. You really don’t need a more specific example of one of the richest men in the world who was more than happy to show that he was there backing him, literally.
If you look at what used to be a really important opinion page, The Washington Post has become oftentimes laughable because it goes out of its way to kowtow to the interests of the regime. And this was an organization, an institution, a newspaper that you could count on providing serious important coverage. And so whether it’s Bezos or whether it’s the Ellisons who now own CBS News and others who are busy thinking about their responsibility to their shareholders and their desire to be able to make sure that their other media deals go through. And so between the FCC and their concerns about whether or not they get the backing from the Trump government to proceed with their mega-mergers, what gets lost in that? The truth that gets lost. This is where the work of independent media becomes just so critical.
MARY:
What’s happening, particularly at Paramount/CBS is sort of emblematic, I think, of what the Trump regime has been doing since 2017. It’s not enough that they’re winning. They have to shove it in our faces. For example, Donald got to fill another Supreme Court seat. It could have been any right-wing hack that would’ve done his bidding. But they had to pick one of the worst people on the planet, Brett Kavanaugh. CBS could have hired some journalistic hack who was relatively capable of being an editor-in-chief, but no, they have to get the incompetent, unqualified, and biased Bari Weiss. Does this feel like it’s part of the strategy to demoralize us?
STEVEN:
You have to also look at somebody like Brendan Carr who’s the chief of the FCC. He’s obviously been focused on serving the interests of the [Donald]. And that means coercing media entities, whether it’s Jimmy Kimmel or whether it’s Seth Myers and looking for ways to intimidate and cause fear to get them to fall in line. It’s been a decade long effort to push this agenda. This idea that the media is fake, news is fake. You can’t trust anything that’s said if you break down people’s belief in the reliability of trusted voices or trusted institutions. Once you break down that trust, and it was already at a relatively low level, the only voice you can really rely on is mine.
MARY:
One of the most humiliating consequential events in modern American history. I don’t like to call it a speech, but Donald’s delusional, mendacious, threatening ramblings on the world stage at Davos. So, we’re looking at the unraveling of the post-World War II order at the hands of an American president. You said that there might be something to hang on to hope for in the midst of what is nothing short of a debacle for the world and certainly for this country.
STEVEN:
It’s the responsibility of European leaders to try to cooperate, to try to get along, try to work with what is the most powerful country in the world. I think what happened in Davos was a kind of nail in the coffin for a lot of those European leaders, if they were still holding on hope that there was some version of appeasement that was going to get them somewhere. This, despite the contempt with which they were treated despite sort of the hostility, the insults, the lies about their history, lies about Greenland, lies about their involvement, their support of their involvement in supporting America with NATO and the NATO alliance, all the ways that they heard lies and insults and threats. This was a moment that was a real shift for a lot of people, even if the result was that Donald then sort of backtracked in terms of the so-called deal, the concept of a deal for Greenland with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO.
But the thing I’m holding on to, I’m sort of lingering on the remarkable speech of Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister. He named things, he said things that I think for an awful lot of people, European leaders and a lot of people who have been holding on to the belief that the national order can in the near-term survive this nightmare. And he really set the course for change. And I made a point of actually pulling out a few quotes because I think it’s worth people hearing. Carney called what’s happening, a rupture, not a transition, and that “the old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. The powerful have their power, but we have something to the capacity to stop pretending to name reality, to build our strength at home. And this may be the most important thing to act together.”
MARY:
I think that Carney’s speech was phenomenal. It was clear-eyed, it was strong, and it drew a line in the sand. That is what has been missing. And if it took Donald’s making it clear to the world that the United States is no longer a participant in Western liberal democracy and will instead make common cause with authoritarian regimes like Belarus and all of those other horrible people on the so-called Board of Peace, then so be it. Because Steven, I think one of the most alarming things for those of us watching has been the repeated attempts at appeasement, which don’t just fail, they put us in a worse position and empower Donald further.
STEVEN:
I’m always thinking about J.B. Pritzker who said in February when he made a point of saying the only way to deal with a bully is to punch him in the face. He may have been speaking metaphorically, but he was making the point really clearly. He began to detail his knowledge about the rise of the Nazis and the necessity of looking things soberly and honestly, and not just trying to get along, not just trying to adapt. And this is where we are.
Again, I’m grateful for Mark Carney. I find myself, not rooting against America, but rooting against Trump’s America. Just as I look to spotlight people who are part of the opposition and who are willing to speak out and stand up and speak with a strong and clear voice, I look at our historic democratic allies around the world. When they speak out, it’s so important to hear them. I think it should be a source of uplift for all of us who are of us who are looking for the point where we get through this and know that there are allies in the world who are hoping that the day will come again when America can be a genuine ally and supporter of democracy around the world.
Carney was disinvited from the Board of Peace by our thin-skinned president who obviously knew about Carney’s speech and didn’t like what he heard. In Davos, Donald made a point of saying that that Canada only lives because of the United States, which was an incredibly obnoxious, offensive, bullish thing to say. Carney’s response was this:
Canada does not live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian and listen to this, diversity is a strength, not a weakness. And Canada is the greatest country in the world to be a regular person, and you don’t need to be rich, have a certain color or worship a certain God in order to thrive.
MARY:
Wow. First of all, there are a lot of Canadians here today. So one, we’re sorry, and two you the right, you have the right man in charge and as always elbows up Canada. And thanks for everything you do.
STEVEN:
And please know there are many millions of us who are as horrified as you are about the trajectory we’re on right now. I think it’s so important to look at those examples of people speaking out who are looking squarely at what’s happening and are naming reality or telling the truth and are not going to do it. There are great consequences to what Mark Carney is saying, surely in terms of trade relations, but he’s saying we’re not going to be beholden. We’re not going to be held hostage by a madman.
MARY:
I think one of the reasons what’s happening now is so consequential and will hopefully get more Americans to sit up and pay attention, is that Europeans aren’t just looking at Donald as the problem. They’re looking at an American government that is continuing to enable him and back him, and tens of millions of people in the American electorate who continue to put people like him back in power. And I think that should be an invitation for those of us who agree with Mark Carney to step up and remind the world that, as you said, there are tens of millions of us in this country who are on the right side of history. Do you think that that was also one of the good things about this, that a call to action?
STEVEN:
It is a call to action. On the domestic front, let’s give praise to our friends in Minnesota, our friends in Minneapolis. Given the incredible intensity and extreme brutality of what’s been happening in Minneapolis it’s clear that Minnesotans have said that they’ve had enough. And today, they’re having a general strike as an expression that this idiocy, this nonsense, this violence, this abuse, this lawlessness has to stop. Let’s be optimistic that what they’re doing in Minnesota becomes something that then spreads around the country. Because I do think there needs to be other efforts that are made to express the national revulsion and opposition to the regime.
We can talk about the cognitive and the physical decline of Donald, but I’m curious about whether you think it really is accelerating? Is there a way to name where we are in that process? Is it all surprising that the federalized police state that seems to be just an extension of the madness of Donald, that there are so many thousands of people who are not only willing to see it happen, they’re applauding it?
MARY:
I think that Donald’s decline is hastening. It’s pretty obvious, and that’s how these things typically work. But I don’t know that it’s going to matter. I worry about not just the mechanisms that have put into place, but the people who have been put into place who will continue to do this vile work. Let’s say theoretically Donald decides that he’s going to resign or that he’s simply going to go play golf all the time. That doesn’t change the fact that people like Greg Bovino and Kash Patel and Kristi Noem, etc. are in charge. I think Stephen Miller has more power than almost anybody in the American government. And I think that he is actually running things in a way Donald is not.
I don’t say that to make people feel demoralized. We need to be honest about where we are, and things will get worse before they get better, but they will get better because we are living at a crucially important year.
I wanted to shift gears. There’s one aspect of your newsletter, America, America. Your work is shot through with hope, and you frequently underscore the necessity for connection in these times. How do you hang on to that? Because it’s not easy.
STEVEN:
And sometimes it’s harder than other times. There are days I’ll write about something and I know it’s dark and I know that it’s demoralizing. And I know people feel overwhelmed often and they feel despair. I’m conscious that people are always one story away from giving up because they don’t feel empowered in any way. And so I’ve felt the responsibility is to spotlight good people who are doing good things, to spotlight wise words from people who are opposing what’s happening. I find nourishment in that, I find uplift in that. And I’ve been encouraged by readers particularly to make a point of looking at what we can do? I used to think journalistically, the job is to document and diagnose. Those things are important, but I think it’s also it’s important to give people some sort of sense of what they can do.
Even if it’s just to hold onto the truth and to speak out and to tell the truth as much as you can and to remain clear, this for me is the fundamental thing that is going to get us through this. I remain convinced of that.
There have been a lot of very terrible periods in the history of the country, whether it was the bloody Civil War or whether it was during the Civil Rights Era or whether it was periods of the Revolutionary War, when things looked quite bleak; whether it was the reconstruction after the Civil War where there was an incredible amount of violence that led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and so on and so forth. We have had many periods in our history where Americans have stuck with it, stuck with the idea and under conditions as bad or far worse than what we’re living through now. And so the idea of America, America continues to be a source of nourishment. And I hope it can be for others, especially this year where we have a chance, this generation, this moment, we have a chance to say we helped to save the republic.
At other times that might seem hyperbolic. It doesn’t seem that way now.
MARY:
It is so important to remember how much darker things have been in American history. And I’m not saying that means things are okay now. They’re not. They’re terrible and we are on a precipice, truly. But I say that to remind people we have been through worse; it’s important to be motivated to stay in the fight because it’s clearly one worth fighting and it’s one we can win. And maybe more importantly, Americans need to be reminded or to be taught that democracy is a process. It’s not an end point. And it’s something we always need to be working for— to strengthen, to expand. It’s never ever something we should take for granted. And I think one of the reasons here is because we have.
STEVEN:
The other part of this is about community. And if you feel alone, if you feel disconnected, if you feel disengaged, if you feel like you see these sort of dark forces and you don’t feel the solidarity of being with others, whether that’s in reality and physical proximity or whether it’s in virtual communities. One of the things that I take strength from is that the community of America, America is meaningful. It’s been built over time, is genuine. I see it in the comment sections, and I see people reaching out, I see that people care. People are thoughtful. People want things to be better. It helps to be able to connect with and communicate with a community of others. So if people are feeling disconnected, and I try to be sensitive to that with readers, it’s so important to be a part of a community, whether it’s America, America or The Good in Us. or some other organization that advocates for immigrants. It’s so important to feel connected and to do what you can to help because it’s not only good for others, it helps you get through this period.
