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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
00:06:00:23 - 00:06:21:09
David Sirota
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Lever Time, the flagship podcast from The Lever, an independent investigative news outlet. I'm your host, David Sirota. On today's show, we're going to be talking about succession. What is easily become one of the greatest TV dramas of the 21st century. The award winning HBO series is sadly coming to an end this Sunday night.
00:06:21:11 - 00:06:44:06
David Sirota
Today, I'm going to be speaking with the one and only Frank Rich, who's been an executive producer on the show since season one. We're going to discuss the series critique of legacy media and the corporate media business, as well as its critique of the ultra wealthy and its look at American democracy itself. You may remember Frank Rich as a New York Times columnist during the Bush years.
00:06:44:08 - 00:07:14:09
David Sirota
He is fantastic. You can see his influence on this show. This is a great interview, not just about a television show, but about the deeper themes that have been explored by this show, themes that are almost never explored on television at all for our paid subscribers. We're also dropping exclusive bonus episodes into our Lever Premium podcast feed. Last week, we discussed the skyrocketing rent prices in cities across the country with Tara Rajveer, the campaign director for the People's Action Home Guarantee Campaign.
00:07:14:11 - 00:07:39:03
David Sirota
And coming up next week is my interview with Adolph Reed about his important new book. No Politics but Class Politics. It argues that what he calls race reductionism is designed to help billionaires and corporations actually kill off the kind of working class politics that arose in the New Deal and the civil rights eras. So stay tuned for that in the premium podcast feed.
00:07:39:07 - 00:08:02:09
David Sirota
If you want to access our premium content, head over to our News.com and click the subscribe button in the top right to become a supporting subscriber. That'll give you access to the lever premium podcast feed, exclusive live events, and all of the in-depth reporting and investigative journalism that we do here at the Lever. The only way independent media grows and thrives is because of passionate supporters and by word of mouth.
00:08:02:11 - 00:08:13:04
David Sirota
So we need all the help we can get to combat the inane bullshit that is corporate media. So go subscribe it directly funds the work that we do. I'm here today, as always, with Lever Times Producer. Producer. Frank. Hey, Frank.
00:08:13:04 - 00:08:25:08
Frank Rich
What's up, David? It's a bittersweet time right now with Succession's ending coming up this Sunday. I know. I know you're a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. And, yeah, very, very bittersweet.
00:08:25:09 - 00:08:36:17
David Sirota
Although I read I read some commentary recently that they're making the characters so hittable that you actually don't mind the show ending because you can't stand looking at them or hearing from them anymore. I mean.
00:08:36:17 - 00:08:50:04
Frank Rich
Yeah, I mean, they've always been pretty abhorrent. It's just that in this last season they've had the opportunity to exert their horrible, abhorrent influence on other people and, and American democracy.
00:08:50:04 - 00:09:19:19
David Sirota
So I do think there is a rule now in TV where no matter how awful inhalable characters are over many seasons, you at least feel like you get to know them. So even saying goodbye to them, it is kind of bittersweet, even if you hate them. I remember feeling this at the end of Breaking Bad, like I had lived so long with Walter White that as much as I loathed him by the end, I was also like sad about him leaving, which actually comes full circle because I guess I can do a spoiler alert here.
00:09:19:19 - 00:09:43:13
David Sirota
One of the main characters of Succession recently passed away and he was hated by other characters. But now that he's gone, they're all feeling bad, that he's that he's gone. I do think it's like you get to know people for so long that they just become part of your lives. But I will say I am with you. It's a bittersweet ending to succession because I've enjoyed watching and hating these characters for a long time.
00:09:43:13 - 00:09:49:21
David Sirota
And soon enough I'm not going to be able to watch and hate them on a Sunday night anymore. So that's that's a bummer.
00:09:49:23 - 00:10:03:21
Frank Rich
It's also just such an entertaining show. It's like at both times, a screwball comedy and a Shakespearean drama. It is like there are very, very few things that operate on the level that succession has been.
00:10:04:01 - 00:10:28:18
David Sirota
It's very, very difficult. Having written some things for Hollywood, I can say it's very difficult to to toggle between scenes that make you laugh and scenes that make you horrified. And I feel like moment to moment on succession, you're like laughing and grossed out and horrified all at the same time. And that is not an easy thing to pull off.
00:10:28:20 - 00:11:01:19
David Sirota
Now, before we get to our interview today with Frank Rich about the deeper themes of succession, I first want to talk about a huge story that The Lever reported last week. Talk about terrifying and and horrifying. It's about a new freight train route that could threaten one of the American Southwest's only remaining sources of fresh water. Now, like most terrible things that happen in our world, this new train route is being spearheaded by fossil fuel companies, specifically the fossil fuel industry in Utah.
00:11:01:20 - 00:11:22:16
David Sirota
They want to create these companies want to create an easier way to transport petroleum from this area in Utah and transport it right along the banks of the Colorado River all the way to the Gulf Coast. Now, you may be thinking, what have you heard about the Colorado River of late? Let's think. Oh, oh, right. It's drying up.
00:11:22:16 - 00:11:49:12
David Sirota
Right. And you may have heard that one in eight Americans, so one in eight people in this country relies on the Colorado River for water. Okay. So let's put put a couple things together. They're going to put a train route next to the one source of water for one in eight Americans. And they're going to do this in the middle of a derailment crisis.
00:11:49:14 - 00:12:17:03
David Sirota
As I ask, what could possibly go wrong? Here's here's the problem in more detail. The Colorado River carries snowmelt from the Rockies down to desert communities. The trains route. It's not just next to the Colorado River. And not just it wouldn't just go during a general derailment crisis. It would wind through a specific canyon prone to rockslides and mudslides.
00:12:17:05 - 00:12:39:09
David Sirota
And the United States, again, is already averaging around 1700 train derailments per year. Okay. Are you getting the picture here? They're going to try to put a train next to the southwest. One source of water as it winds through a an incredibly treacherous canyon. By the way, I've been to that canyon a lot. I live out here in Colorado.
00:12:39:09 - 00:13:06:02
David Sirota
It's Glenwood Canyon. If you go through there, it's oftentimes it's closed because of avalanches, mudslides, rockslides. Now, I told you that was the icing on the cake. So then you probably asking, well, okay, it's a fossil fuel industry cake, right? Yeah, it's a fossil fuel industry cake being served on a platter by wait for it by the Biden administration, which has already approved the initial permits for the project.
00:13:06:04 - 00:13:34:06
David Sirota
Not only that, but the project's backers have taken steps. The initial steps to apply for special federal taxpayer subsidies. They've applied or taken steps to apply for special bonds from Pete Bridges, Transportation Department. That could give them tens of millions of dollars in public subsidies for the project. And shocker of all shockers, despite the pressure to come out.
00:13:34:09 - 00:13:59:05
David Sirota
Pressure from Democrats and local communities to come out and say this is not acceptable. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has remained completely silent on whether or not he'd actually approve these bonds. So he hasn't come out and thrown cold water on it. He's just let it kind of kind of fester. I mean, this is a horror movie, actually. It sounds like kind of a scheme like like something that Logan Roy would would invest in from succession.
00:13:59:05 - 00:14:03:11
David Sirota
Like it sounds like something out of out of like a comic book feeling, doesn't it, Frank?
00:14:03:17 - 00:14:22:09
Frank Rich
Yeah. It's almost like someone went to the Biden administration and pitched them, you know, high speed rail. So people can travel around the country in a sustainable way. And they were like, Hmm, that's a good idea. What if instead of people, it was oil tankers? What if that's what we did instead?
00:14:22:11 - 00:14:41:21
David Sirota
Right. Right. That would be the, like, dark turn in the horror movie. And and this is this is happening. I mean, this is this is happening. Now, I do I want to say there's a silver lining here. Democratic lawmakers, local communities have said this is completely unacceptable. They're trying to sound the alarm. Our story, our reporting, which you can find 11 news.
00:14:42:00 - 00:15:04:05
David Sirota
You should read it. You should share it with anybody, you know, especially people in the Southwest, to make it clear to their local officials that this is not acceptable. I mean, this battle is not over yet. But the fact that this is even on the table is just unbelievably mind blowing. And we exist the lever exists to try to sound the alarm, blow the whistle, and make sure things like this don't happen.
00:15:04:05 - 00:15:23:13
David Sirota
So take a look at that story. And please, please, please share it with as many people as you can. It's at Lever News.com. Anyway, we're going to stop there because we should get to our big interview with Frank Rich about the season finale of succession. Let me just say one thing about this. Whether or not you've watched this show and certainly it's a little better if you've watched the show.
00:15:23:13 - 00:15:44:16
David Sirota
So you have some context. But the show really is about corporate media. American democracy and the ultra rich. So this interview gets into those deeper themes and how difficult it is to get those deeper themes, get a real analysis of those deeper themes on television to a mass audience. So stick around whether or not you've seen succession, stick around.
00:15:44:21 - 00:16:05:13
David Sirota
It's a great interview. All that coming up after this quick break. Welcome back to our time for our main story. Today. We're going to be talking about one of my favorite TV shows, the show Succession. Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the last five years, you most likely have watched HBO's Succession or you've at least heard about it.
00:16:05:15 - 00:16:37:06
David Sirota
Set in the world of legacy media and cable news. The series follows the Roy family, a group of highly dysfunctional billionaire oligarchs whose petty family squabbles have literally world shattering consequences. Think Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch and his family only officially. It's not the Murdochs, even though it kind of sometimes seems like it is. The show is a razor sharp satire of the influence of corporate media, the uber wealthy and the American democratic system.
00:16:37:08 - 00:17:03:05
David Sirota
It's also simultaneous, one of the funniest screwball comedies and devastating family dramas of the modern television era. The series finale is this Sunday, in my opinion, if the final episode lands as hard as the rest of the series, it'll end up being one of the best TV series ever made. That's why today I'm talking with Frank Rich, who's had a storied career as a New York Times columnist and essayist.
00:17:03:07 - 00:17:34:12
David Sirota
You may remember Frank's columns from the Bush and Obama years. He was one of the only journalists willing to tell hard truths about both political parties during the Iraq war and the financial crisis. He transitioned from journalism into television, first, working on HBO's Veep and then becoming an executive producer on succession since season one. I talked with Frank about Succession's perspective on American democracy, capitalism, how rich and powerful individuals exert their influence on mere peasants like us.
00:17:34:14 - 00:17:43:19
David Sirota
And we talked about how at its heart, succession is the story of a broken family desperate for connection. Hey, Frank, how are you doing?
00:17:44:00 - 00:17:45:09
Speaker 4
I'm well. How are you doing?
00:17:45:12 - 00:17:48:18
David Sirota
It's good. It's great to catch up, as always.
00:17:48:20 - 00:17:49:19
Speaker 4
Same here.
00:17:49:21 - 00:18:28:15
David Sirota
I. I have been obsessed with succession. Like most people who have been into television. And I, you know, I don't watch all that much TV anymore. But this one. This one I make a special exception for. I want to start with with a question about this show. It's bigger than the last season of the show. I want to ask a question about what the meaning of the show is in the sense of it's a show about a media company and the succession of the kids and a media mogul.
00:18:28:17 - 00:18:43:22
David Sirota
I just want to start with with an open kind of question about is this show about the wealthy? Is it about the media industry? Is it about me? What do you think this show centrally is about? Beyond it just being a show about like a rich family?
00:18:44:01 - 00:19:17:04
Speaker 4
I would answer the question sort of in a reverse way, it seems to me. You start with characters in a story. So we start with a family and a family where they're forget about what profession they're in or even with their economic bracket. A family where there's a father who doesn't want to let go, who is a lousy father, plays his kids off each other to, you know, succeed him in the business, and also for his love as a father who whom he loves most, if at all.
00:19:17:06 - 00:19:41:07
Speaker 4
And then the other the other aspects are themes I think arrive, as it does in all good drama from the characters themselves and their relationships. And so, you know, a lot of people have certainly we've discussed it in the room and so on, you know, just obvious resembles to to in some ways to King Lear. But it's not like we started and said, let's do King Lear.
00:19:41:07 - 00:20:02:12
Speaker 4
That and that comparison is somewhat heightened by the fact that Brian Cox, as a stage actor, did one of the great king leaders of the past, probably of the post-World War two era. But, you know, King Lear could a modern production could said King Lear in a at a media company and do the same play. And you say, oh, it's it's about a media company.
00:20:02:14 - 00:20:25:20
Speaker 4
I think we didn't we we really we wanted to tell a story of a family. We wanted to do it in this world, which has such an impact on everybody's lives in this era, this continue era of, you know, burgeoning mass media that just, you know, even in the course of the six and a half or seven years we've been working on the show, it's so expanded its reach.
00:20:25:22 - 00:20:49:08
Speaker 4
But always with the characters. I think the show works because of the characters as well as they're both as they're written and as they're acted. So, sure, it has something it has things to say about the media, about politics, about inequality, about class. But it's heart. It's about three siblings and a parent and a father, a patriarch. Well, let's.
00:20:49:09 - 00:21:14:20
David Sirota
Talk about the media part and your relations ship at the show. I mean, your background is in at The New York Times, at New York magazine, clearly has a lot of a lot of experience in in the political media world that this series depicts the writing team. Does it turn to you when discussing plots about the news business or how a newsroom operates?
00:21:14:20 - 00:21:21:06
David Sirota
In other words, do different writers have different specialties that they bring to the table when writing something like this?
00:21:21:09 - 00:21:41:10
Speaker 4
Well, first of all, I'm not a writer on the show. I'm a I'm a producer. So as so my role is I mean, do I have ideas or lines that sometimes end up in that? Sure. So I'm there. It's almost if it were if there were a journalistic equivalent, almost be like being an editor to some extent in reading scripts, talking about scripts.
00:21:41:12 - 00:22:07:14
Speaker 4
The fact is that sure, people ask my $0.02, but frankly, the level of detail that the writers want, starting with Jesse Armstrong, who created the show, is so intense that I can't hold myself out as even a particular expert. And I and so we actually from the very beginning, going to consultants who were billed, you know, in the credits for various areas.
00:22:07:14 - 00:22:35:09
Speaker 4
So. Sure. So for instance, for the very beginning, we've had a consultant, Marissa mayer, who was for many years covered the media, beat the businesses in media for The Wall Street Journal. She helps us about, you know, very specific questions about the media and the corporate side of media that I don't know anything about or I know about as a reader of newspapers or hearing gossip around the times when I was there or whatever.
00:22:35:11 - 00:23:05:19
Speaker 4
Then this season where there's a very heavy orientation towards ATM, the fictional network we brought in and we used last season to. John Klein is a former president of CBS News and CNN because it involves a contested election. Ben Ginsberg, the Bush v Gore Bush lawyer, Eric Shultz, who is a strategist and media adviser to Obama and still is post-presidency, you know, all sorts.
00:23:05:19 - 00:23:32:05
Speaker 4
We've even brought in people who know how to write Kyron's, you know, And so so it's because we're all media junkies on the show, all of us. And but basically, I'd say what most distinguishes the writers, I think distinguishes my passion for the show and Jesse's and all the writers is is the characters. So take a writer that I helped recruit who worked on the past two seasons.
00:23:32:07 - 00:24:00:02
Speaker 4
Will Aubrey So Will Aubrey is a really, really brilliant young playwright, is runner up for the Pulitzer Prize Right before the pandemic. He comes from a very, very conservative, intellectual, religious, Catholic family. His breakthrough play is set in the world of like, where can be comedy comes from, that kind of right wing Catholic intellectual. So he knows a lot about that.
00:24:00:02 - 00:24:20:16
Speaker 4
But in his plays with reason why I wanted him to join us, it's not so much that expertise as helpful example, but because he writes these heartbreaking characters, some of whom have hateful politics. And so, you know, Lucy Prebble, who's a brilliant British playwright who works on the show as a writer, wrote the play Enron that was done on Broadway.
00:24:20:21 - 00:24:46:08
Speaker 4
But she's also a media junkie and and a comedy writer. And so people are sort of well-rounded. What we're not doing is a docu drama. And by the way, if you look at Jess's previous work, a lot of it has nothing to do with politics or media, including it's hit British series. And and although I first met him, he wrote one episode on Veep in the last episode of Season one.
00:24:46:08 - 00:25:09:00
Speaker 4
That's where we started our creative relationship. So anyway, it's getting the getting the facts right is important and we really want them to write. And we spend a lot of time on it. But it's actually that's the more journalistic and less creative part of putting together the show and getting all the facts right and have a dead show.
00:25:09:02 - 00:25:16:04
Speaker 4
If the characters don't have passions and hearts and minds that you care about independently of the subject.
00:25:16:05 - 00:25:48:06
David Sirota
They're discussing the series is really an incredible critique of capitalism, corporate media, and obviously, speaking of the characters, the people who run those machines and those institutions, it it feels like one meta take away from succession is that in order to swim in those waters and rise to power, there has to be something inherently broken or inhuman about the way that you operate, the way that you treat other people.
00:25:48:08 - 00:26:02:22
David Sirota
Do you think there's any aspect of legacy media, elite media, whatever you want to call it, in the real life that this series defends? Or is it all one giant condemnation?
00:26:03:00 - 00:26:25:23
Speaker 4
It's not really the way we look at it. It's a very dark view of it. And, you know, we're trying to let the characters go where the characters go. So we're not we're not pre determining how people are going to act. And indeed, one of the big exercises in the room is right. So this the story is happening will say Tom and Shiv and Greg or whatever.
00:26:26:00 - 00:26:47:01
Speaker 4
What if Craig felt this way about it? What if Roman felt this way about it? We actually play it out, try to find the human truth. Because really the easy part is, Oh, they would do this. They would manipulate the course of an election, you know, to call an election. That's the easy part. But how everyone behaves in that moment is what gets us there.
00:26:47:03 - 00:27:16:02
Speaker 4
And and so a lot it's not ever predetermined. And one of the things even exciting about the show is everything's always been on the table, constantly evolving. It feels like a living organism. It's been enhanced by a cast that by the end of a season, it's so internalized the roles and we've so internalized them that while they're not writing their own lines, in case someone will improv a line, but they become part of this organism too.
00:27:16:06 - 00:27:47:15
Speaker 4
So take something like Logan's death. We actually discussed killing him off in the first season when we made the pilot, which ends with him having a stroke. We had not decided yet that he would live on, and then we had a when the show was picked up by HBO, we had a three or four month period. We started a writers room and started producing scripts, and it remained a lively topic for a little bit.
00:27:47:17 - 00:28:11:14
Speaker 4
We've talked, we thought about killing him off last season and we played out the various permutations and then if we did kill them off, what episode? And maybe not. Jesse's idea was always that we don't do it. In the last episode of the season with everyone gathered around the deathbed, we sort of did that when he was thought to be dying in episode two of season one anyway.
00:28:11:16 - 00:28:35:09
Speaker 4
And so everything is sort of open ended rather than predetermined. And there is there is a bigger view, I think that becomes clear of, of the meta picture of where the series ends up. But it's nothing I can talk about because it it will become clear audiences I think in the series finale, which is 90 minutes long, right.
00:28:35:11 - 00:28:57:13
David Sirota
Everyone's waiting. Who watches the show is waiting. You really to know what's what's what's going to happen. I mean, I, I will say that these characters all seem human in the sense that very few of them are two dimensional, right? I mean, like, they're able to surprise you. They're they're they're nuanced. I mean, some of the the politics of the characters themselves.
00:28:57:13 - 00:29:19:22
David Sirota
I mean, Kendall, for instance, you get a sense that he's caught between sort of the corporate world and his his father's politics, which are kind of Rupert Murdoch, but he also has, you know, a wife or an estranged wife and a family that are presumably kind of more liberal. And his politics are sort of in that he understands, I think, what his father's politics are.
00:29:19:22 - 00:29:55:19
David Sirota
But he also has kind of his own politics and he kind of goes back and forth and then and then Shiv is obviously very clear. She's she's a Democrat. Let's talk about a little bit about that, that choice there, because I think that's actually one of the most profoundly important choices that the show made, which is that Shiv is inside of this Rupert Murdoch ish world in which she is a known in the press, in public as a Democrat, to the point where she was at one point essentially a Democratic consultant for a prominent Democratic senator.
00:29:55:23 - 00:29:56:08
Speaker 4
Right.
00:29:56:09 - 00:30:15:20
David Sirota
That choice doesn't seem like an accident. I just wonder what what the sort of choice matrix was behind that. If you can give us some insight into that, into why and why it was important for her to be, for instance, a kind of known out there Democrat.
00:30:16:00 - 00:30:48:13
Speaker 4
I think for drama purposes, you know, I don't think there was any great deliberation about. I think the fact is you don't want every character to be the same because otherwise then you sacrifice drama if everyone's the same. Someone like that could exist in a very conservative family, even in conservative media, family, weather. And keep in mind, she's not the most loyal Democrat and, you know, not to you know, she's sort of an somewhat of an opportunistic Democratic centrist the way I describe her.
00:30:48:15 - 00:31:09:02
Speaker 4
But, you know, you look at the the the whether it be the Murdoch daughter who's trying to be a liberal or the Disney niece who's trying to be a liberal, you know, or all these families have that person and it just makes it more interesting. And then I think you characterize the other politics, the politics you mentioned correctly.
00:31:09:02 - 00:31:26:20
Speaker 4
But look at a character like Roman who increasingly seems in this season aligned with Mencken, this this sort of populist, quasi fascist presidential candidate. But is that what he really believes? I don't know if I can tell you the answer, just like.
00:31:26:22 - 00:31:47:16
David Sirota
I should be clear. I think actually that one of the things that comes out in these people's politics is that their politics are transactional or if not transactional, they're just sort of, yeah, she happens to be a Democrat, he happens to be a Republican or aligned with the Republicans right now because that's that that's what sort of fits.
00:31:47:16 - 00:32:08:06
David Sirota
But I don't think they're ideological at all, although let's let's take a moment to explore that for a second because in the election episode, so you've seen all of these these these characters who are sort of they have politics, but the politics are sort of what helps them navigate what they want sort of in the business corporate world.
00:32:08:08 - 00:32:44:01
David Sirota
But on the election night, Shiv actually expresses some sort of core ideology, at least about sort of democracy itself there. It actually did get to something core, at least in her. And then, of course, Roman says, you know, nothing really matters, which I want to go into for a second. But but there was kind of a bit of an admission that there is like a core in there which which frankly was a little bit surprising because for a while you're kind of like, I'm not sure these people have a core, right?
00:32:44:01 - 00:32:46:07
David Sirota
Like, I'm not sure. I don't know where the core is.
00:32:46:12 - 00:32:55:19
Speaker 4
On the other hand, if Lucas Madson is ready to cozy up to Mencken, she just might lose her course, so.
00:32:56:00 - 00:32:56:17
David Sirota
Exactly.
00:32:56:18 - 00:33:18:07
Speaker 4
It's complicated. I think the best thing I think the important thing you said is it's transactional. So they all figure, you know, Kendall thinks of himself as having a core. He has children of color and he doesn't want them to have a racist president. And you feel in the moment when he's fighting with his ex-wife, rather, you feel he really believes it.
00:33:18:09 - 00:33:48:08
Speaker 4
But then, you know, something transactional presents itself. And I think that's the real lesson. It's not. It was fascinating, the ideological point. I just want to I don't read everything about succession first. I have no life if I did. But I was fascinated. The conservative columnist, The Times attempted and suddenly people don't have to like the show. I couldn't actually tell whether he liked it or didn't like it, but it was fascinating to me about very conservative columnist Ross Douthat is how you said it.
00:33:48:10 - 00:34:26:07
Speaker 4
So he wrote this argument that I stumbled upon a few days ago where he said, given this a lot of good things about the show, it captures the crazy, especially online, Right. You know, captures the menken's of this world. It captures the cynicism of Murdoch esque executives who parrot at least pretend to like their stuff before. But he said what's left out of it, left out of the show is he use the phrase the normal Republicans who don't like the crazy don't like MAGA.
00:34:26:07 - 00:35:02:15
Speaker 4
Basically, but still participate in conservative media because they still are more scared of of the left than they are of the crazy right or the normal. Republicans in this show, to my mind, are Kendall Karl. Hugo Jarry Yeah, that's right. They're there and, and they're presented as complete quislings to this, to this horrible thing that's going on at their own company.
00:35:02:17 - 00:35:25:12
Speaker 4
So I it was fast and conservative, didn't want that kind of person. Peggy Noonan whatever is in the show, we're not literally basing it on her or any, you know, or any editorial board member. The Wall Street Journal. But that's exactly the kind of normal Republican who aid and abet the rise of a Trump and aid and abet the rise of a Gerard Mencken.
00:35:25:14 - 00:35:36:06
Speaker 4
So that maybe you feel very good about the political positioning of the show, because it really got on the nerve of someone who didn't see his own group was represented right in front of his eyes by a half dozen characters.
00:35:36:11 - 00:36:07:08
David Sirota
Now I want to talk about Mencken because because I find him to be not as odious a character as he is referred to in the show. Now, I don't know what this says about my own politics because I don't consider myself to have politics aligned with Jared Mencken. But I've I've been dying to ask you this question, so there's not a ton of you seeing Jared Mencken be a horrible right wing fascist, right?
00:36:07:08 - 00:36:26:04
David Sirota
It's like referred to as like he's a right wing fascist, like he's this horrible person. And there's a lot of, like, assumptions baked in. But when you see him at least in many, I mean, there's some parts where he's talking to Roman and he's sort of wheeling and dealing, but in sort of public, he is presenting himself as this principled ideological.
00:36:26:06 - 00:37:06:23
David Sirota
You may not agree with me, but I'm here to tell the truth kind of guy, which contrasts with the other characters on the show who we just talked about had this sort of transactional. I have no real like compass kind of person. And you you can almost see the appeal of a politician like that in a world where people perceive the elites to have no moral compass at all in other words, this whole I'll vote for somebody who's got principles, even if I don't agree with them, to essentially detonate a bomb on a completely corrupt sort of corporate blob what are you like?
00:37:06:23 - 00:37:09:21
David Sirota
So I just ask for your response on that.
00:37:09:23 - 00:37:39:23
Speaker 4
Well, I feel there's times where it's clear he's quite right wing, particularly in that first last season, that that meaning that conversation in the bathroom, the hotel bathroom with him and Roman. But what I like it for first of all you have in it and this applies to several other characters on the show you have an actor of tremendous wit and charm and form of Justin Kirk in this case.
00:37:40:01 - 00:37:41:01
David Sirota
Great actor.
00:37:41:03 - 00:38:03:13
Speaker 4
Great, great actor. I've followed since he was a, you know, a young actor in the theater, wonderful actor. And so he's he's you know, for years we've been talking about what if there were a Trump who really were seductive and not a fucking, you know, Right. You know, a bully, an asshole in public. This is that I think this is not how I this is my words, not the show's words.
00:38:03:15 - 00:38:30:07
Speaker 4
He is sort of the tonic version of someone like that who is smart and witty and tough. That's that's a much more interesting villain, you know, and is is not a buffoon. He's not Roger Ailes. You know, he's not he's not Trump. He's not even Josh Hawley. You know, he and so I think you're right to feel that way.
00:38:30:07 - 00:38:36:06
Speaker 4
But but, you know, it's the same thing with some other characters on the show, including at times.
00:38:36:10 - 00:38:38:02
David Sirota
KENDALL Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure.
00:38:38:03 - 00:39:01:02
Speaker 4
Good times. Logan Who is sometimes the smartest, the room doesn't suffer fools gladly and has some kind of self-awareness. And and again, I think the decision there is just to not make him the cliché fire breathing, to not make him Brett Kavanaugh and not make him Trump, not make him one of those thugs.
00:39:01:04 - 00:39:33:15
David Sirota
I do think I do think the liberal I wouldn't say a liberal vanity of the show, but I do think there's something baked in which is and frankly, I said this to Adam McKay, are, you know, who was involved in creating show? I said to McKay, I was like, Listen, man, the thing that freaks me out about Jared Menken is, is that the show is portraying the election is close, but if the Republican Party nominated a Jared Menken like I think there's a world in which that election is not close, where that election is a 400 electoral vote now maybe not because of the red blue, but I guess what I'm getting at is I
00:39:33:15 - 00:39:50:03
David Sirota
feel like the scary part. A lot of people in the election episode took away oh, they remember the election night. Donald Trump 2016, by the way, which hit me pretty hard because I was actually hanging out with some of the cast that night because they were in New York for the table read at Adam's place.
00:39:50:03 - 00:39:59:13
Speaker 4
Yeah, we had we had we had the table read that that morning. And the reason I was at that party is I had to write about the election for a New York magazine. On deadline that.
00:39:59:13 - 00:40:15:11
David Sirota
Night, I saw Jeremy Strong at the opening of a of Don't Look Up. And I didn't I didn't know if he'd remember me. And he came right up to me and was like, Man, I still think about those conversations we had that I was, you know, in 2016, you, you and McKay freaked me out. You said it looked like Trump was going to win.
00:40:15:12 - 00:40:36:18
David Sirota
I didn't want to believe you. And it it actually happened. But but, but I think I think what I'm what I'm getting at is, is that a lot of people seem to take away. Oh, I remember. It's, you know, the night of 2016, how scary it is. And it was all close. And who's going to call it? I took away part of it from that episode was you're being nice to me by saying this is would have been a close election.
00:40:36:18 - 00:40:55:16
David Sirota
But I see in Jared making if the Republican Party ever actually figured it out and could could create a nominating process where they could get a Jared Mencken who on the surface seems likable, charismatic, principled, etc., etc.. That's a nightmare scenario, I think, for the country.
00:40:55:17 - 00:41:17:04
Speaker 4
And I've always said that and and wrote about it. I mean, yes, you know, thank God if we have to have a Trump, thank God it's Trump who is unappealing and incompetent part that. That said, I think you can't do a literal translation to our fictional world because you don't know anything about him as his opponent. Sure, sure.
00:41:17:06 - 00:41:36:02
Speaker 4
For all the audience knows, imagine as is, you know, Jack Kennedy, time three, his charisma and so on. He's not he's hardly even seen in the show. Right. And so I so I wouldn't you're I get your thesis but I think it's it's sort of apples and oranges to compare it to a fictional world like ours.
00:41:36:05 - 00:42:04:07
David Sirota
Sure. I just know that like the scary thing about Jared making, in my view, is seeing kind of granted in little, little little bites is seeing what a charismatic, seemingly principled, somewhat appealing right wing, quasi authoritarian, quasi fascist candidate, what it could look like in the real world. Now, granted with an asterisk, if the Republican Party could actually nominate somebody like that, which I'm not sure that their mission.
00:42:04:09 - 00:42:34:23
Speaker 4
And by the way, just a question of the premise a bit premise that I've shared and have been in print about in years past, it may be that those two things don't really go together. It may be, you know, Hitler was comedy was comical. It was, you know, comical lunatic. And I'm not making a glib Hitler comparison to either Mencken or Trump, but but just, you know, sometimes, you know, Joe McCarthy was a, you know, a crazy person and came across that way on television.
00:42:34:23 - 00:42:44:19
Speaker 4
So it's all very, very speculative. But the fact is and also we look at the Republican Party feels they don't have that person. I mean.
00:42:44:19 - 00:42:45:16
David Sirota
No, they don't.
00:42:45:18 - 00:42:55:14
Speaker 4
Ron DeSantis is not. Ron DeSantis, I think, thinks he's that person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but he's, you know, comes across as a child really. Anyway.
00:42:55:15 - 00:43:17:00
David Sirota
No, no, you're right. That's and that's what I mean, like McKay and I were debating this was a couple of years ago. I was like, man, you know, I think if the Republicans figure it out to go like one or two clicks more normal from Trump, a kind of smart authoritarian, that would be dangerous. MCKAY He took he was like, I don't think there were the Republican parties like nominating process can produce that.
00:43:17:05 - 00:43:26:08
David Sirota
I think they're going to produce like Marjorie Taylor GREENE or like something even more circus and even more zany because that's the sort of arms race on their.
00:43:26:10 - 00:44:00:05
Speaker 4
Adam may be right about that, but it's also or not, you know, because, look, the whole thing is going on now with abortion, suburbia. They they don't know what the hell they're choosing. But I would go back to your original premise. If someone like a Mencken played by someone like Justin Kirk, with that kind of mixture of sort of Christian gravitas and conservative politics we're running against a generic Democrat will say, Joe Biden, it might not be close, but he's running against Semanas and he doesn't really exist in the Republican Party.
00:44:00:11 - 00:44:07:14
Speaker 4
So and, you know, for all we know, men as survivors, assassination attempt, whatever, you know. Sure.
00:44:07:14 - 00:44:40:10
David Sirota
Sure. So let me let me ask you the the question about the the media reaction to the show. This show has a particular Lee a big and very on line and very excited to be a fan of the show audience among the media, which is not surprising. I mean there's you know the old broadcast news line, you know, never forget where the real story not them, which is one of the great, great lines in all of movie history, in my view.
00:44:40:12 - 00:44:41:06
Speaker 4
Of the movie.
00:44:41:07 - 00:44:43:14
David Sirota
Such a such a great movie, such a great line. It completely.
00:44:43:14 - 00:44:45:08
Speaker 4
Holds up. I hold up better than network.
00:44:45:12 - 00:45:13:21
David Sirota
I like, watch it like once every three months. Just because it holds up so much, It's almost it's almost eerie. But I but the question that sometimes comes up for me, it's like, does the elite legacy media, that sort of blob not understand that there's like a deeply cutting critique and sort of simmering anger at this media blob that they're in?
00:45:13:22 - 00:45:34:08
Speaker 4
I mean, you know the answer to that, and I suspect it depends on who you talk to. But because there's also, as you know, as a journalist, you know, a certain kind of masochism to being a journalist anyway. Sure, maybe you want that. But I think that yeah, I think it's hard to generalize about that. I'm sure some people think it's glamor.
00:45:34:10 - 00:45:44:18
Speaker 4
I can't imagine anyone thinks it's glamorizing unless they work for Fox News. I'd be fascinated to know what people will work for Fox News or Newsmax or whatever. Think of it, you know.
00:45:44:18 - 00:45:53:02
David Sirota
No, I mean, listen, there's there's not, if I'm not mistaken, there's not one character in this show who's like an intrepid journalist, right? I mean, I don't think that anyone.
00:45:53:02 - 00:45:54:11
Speaker 4
Who's a journalist. Yeah, right.
00:45:54:12 - 00:45:59:18
David Sirota
Exactly. It's like there's a difference in media and journalism, right? Like this is media, right?
00:45:59:18 - 00:46:20:00
Speaker 4
We don't really have you're right. We don't have an intrepid journalist. We have we have media, we have anchor people. We have a Tucker Carlson esque, you know, opinionated. Ah, And it's not a show about journalism, really. It's about an empire that controls journalism or tries to.
00:46:20:04 - 00:46:38:20
David Sirota
I wonder, like, is there any like consternation or like, why is the media like you want the media to like your stuff? Because they're I mean, everybody likes approbation. But is there is I wonder, is there like any like, wait a minute, you're not I don't want you to like this because, like, it's kind of about, you know.
00:46:38:20 - 00:47:10:15
Speaker 4
No, we don't. There are people who don't like it. The first season we got really crappy reviews both in the Times and The Washington Post. No, I don't think No, that's not the way I think about it. Maybe other people do, but no. And also, you just can't generalize. Like I have a lot of friends in the media who are fans of the show, and I think they're sophisticated viewers of it and are willing, you know, like the show, even if it attacks and are not saying, oh, I like the show because it's so glamorizes our business.
00:47:10:15 - 00:47:22:00
Speaker 4
I think they it expresses some of their own complaints about the business and not just about people like the Murdochs or the others, like them.
00:47:22:05 - 00:47:51:08
David Sirota
So let me ask one one final question here. Just about the there is at least among these specific characters, but obviously these characters are in some ways placeholders for for larger forces to go back to this question of a morality. Right. Like there are transactional ideology, this vision of kind of let's just call it corporate media is a vision of people who make these decisions.
00:47:51:10 - 00:48:35:22
David Sirota
Don't they have fairly fluid principles? They have fairly fluid political affiliations, fairly fluid ideologies that change in any different circumstance. So if that's the vision, that's a pretty as we said, it's a pretty dark vision. Like, is that just like the reality in your view, having worked in in media for as long as you have? Like is that the reality that's going to be an unchanging reality, or is there like a different version in a in a in an alternate future or in a different country, a different society where media looks different than this, where there are some basic prints where it's not so dark?
00:48:36:00 - 00:49:02:11
Speaker 4
You know, it's a great question, David. I can't say I know the answer. If media is changing and evolving so fast, it's hard to know. Let's take the Times, for instance. The Times is one of the last of these big companies is still owned by the original family, which may violate them at times, but fundamentally is quite principle, although we have a family slightly.
00:49:02:11 - 00:49:35:17
Speaker 4
Sulzberger Ask the Pierce family in succession that you know Nan Pierce the right amount of money is like the Bancroft family sold out the journal to Murdoch so we can look at the Times, which is thankfully in a very successful period right now. Commercially, it's had real bumps during the course of the digital, you know, transition, but it's it's a success by, you know, particularly with games and recipes are underwriting a lot of the newsgathering, which is fine.
00:49:35:18 - 00:50:16:09
Speaker 4
There's nothing unprincipled about that. It's a way to survive. But it's an indication to me about how much things are changing. That's sort of the last thriving family owned company and what lies ahead. Who knows? You know, who would have thought whatever happened happened to tie make to the Tribune Company, right, To CBS News, to CNN. They've all been terribly compromised the way remove their original mission, for the most part, The Washington Post also had one of these great families, the Graham family.
00:50:16:09 - 00:50:36:07
Speaker 4
No, obviously, it's now Jeff Bezos. It's it's doing okay and it hasn't been compromised. But how long will that last if that billionaire loses interest in it or decides, you know? We'll see. You know, the next it's in the hands of either Elon Musk or Sam Zell or every, you know, you want to mention. So I think we don't know.
00:50:36:07 - 00:51:01:00
Speaker 4
And I think it's and in the all the rules of are changing so quickly, it will be different. It some of it may well be honorable. Some of it now is out of the many good things happening in journalism, if you know where to look. And there are plenty of principled people who are in it for the right reasons, not necessarily the owners, but occasionally an owner too.
00:51:01:01 - 00:51:20:22
Speaker 4
But do people even want what we think of as a news media in the way we think of it ten years from now, or they rather the cliched stupid version you get the news from tick tock and extrapolate with the facts are from the culture. I just don't know. And I never could have predicted half the things that have happened.
00:51:21:00 - 00:51:39:16
David Sirota
No, I don't. And by the way, that the Mattson character kind of gets at this, he's sort of like this kind of weirdo, like he doesn't have real, like media experience as far as you can tell what his company does. And this is just a business play for him. And you're like, at one level, you're like, you're kind of ridiculous.
00:51:39:16 - 00:52:00:22
David Sirota
You're going to own a giant media company from a family on, you know, Rupert Murdoch or the Rupert Murdoch House characters. Say what you will about him. You know, that character, Logan, is a media professional, a media builder, a media expert. Right. And Mattson comes as sort of a novice and you're like this. He seems ridiculous. But he also he actually kind of seems like the future, right?
00:52:01:00 - 00:52:03:09
David Sirota
Kind of like in this crazy world he does.
00:52:03:09 - 00:52:29:01
Speaker 4
And whether that's another character on the show, I'm very proud of, because that guy is not a character. It's not a Silicon Valley cliché. He's not run Musk. He's somewhat like Mencken, not in terms of his politics and sincerely the extent that he has any. But he's a he has a lot of charm and wit and, you know, and and again, I've said Alexander Skarsgard fantastic.
00:52:29:03 - 00:52:33:04
David Sirota
He steals every scene he's in. I mean, it must be annoying to the other actors because he just, like, steals.
00:52:33:04 - 00:52:59:13
Speaker 4
Every seat is getting in. Yeah. He is also a fantastic colleague and fantastic guy, but and we're very lucky to have him because there is a you know, you lose something when you lose Brian Cox at the center of the show. It's like that's a freebie. A freebie. One of the thing I just want to say, but just in thinking about the show, if you have another minute, just about why we don't think in terms of starting with everything isn't predetermined.
00:52:59:13 - 00:53:31:23
Speaker 4
The politics, the themes, the moral judgments. One of the most interesting things for me, watching this show and creatively being in the process now for for really it's almost seven years, is it? We do this going back to this idea that it's a living organism, it really does evolve. So there's a history in the show of actors who were cast in secondary and tertiary roles who are so good and make it so alive that we end up building out the roles for them.
00:53:32:00 - 00:53:56:23
Speaker 4
And so, for instance, the classic example is James Cameron, who plays Jeffrey that was originally conceived of as a man. He was Jerry. Jerry our why. And then we thought, be good, good to have, you know, mix it up, have a woman executive with this conservative hidebound corporation. And then you have this brilliant actress has been a great stage actress for years in New York.
00:53:56:23 - 00:54:26:21
Speaker 4
And and it becomes really interesting in her relationship on screen with with with Kieran whom they're friends that she they her James Cameron's husband, Kenneth Lonergan, is a great playwright and screenwriter and they both acted together and things of Kennedy's more recent example. This is a very young actress named Zoe Winters. She was who plays Carrie the last mistress of the young.
00:54:26:21 - 00:54:57:12
Speaker 4
And she's great. So she's great. So she she was invisible to most audiences because she was in the show beginning maybe late season two. But just as a nameless, faceless aide to Logan, literally carrying a phone behind him, we saw her in a play by the aforementioned Will Aubrey off-Broadway. And and we were thinking of we want to give him a younger mistress that would sink in the Succession's, too.
00:54:57:14 - 00:55:21:13
Speaker 4
And we said, Shit, let's just make it this this character, because this actress can do it. Alexander Skarsgard was always going to be a high profile person on the show, but I think Jesse Armstrong, as the rest of us were, was so taken with what an unclear shade version and fresh version of this character. He did that, that we build him out.
00:55:21:13 - 00:55:51:07
Speaker 4
And to some extent that may be even true of Justin and make it as Minka. There are other examples, too, in that what that says about the show to me is it's not, as you said, it's not ideological and it's not about fitting people to a message. It's about the people having a life, lives of their own, and the message evolves out of the most truthful presentation we can make of these living characters, both in how they're written and how they're acted.
00:55:51:10 - 00:56:15:18
David Sirota
Okay, so that's it. That's a really important segway. And I know I said my last question was my last one, But but it's a question for you. It's about you. You are somebody that I came to know through your writing during the Bush and the Obama years. And you really I'm not just saying this because you're here. You were like one of the very few people who I would read and be like, Thank God someone gets it.
00:56:15:18 - 00:56:40:10
David Sirota
Like at a deeper non bullshit level, just like I really mean it. Like it was for, for, for, for like thinking people who didn't just want red blue stuff, who wanted like a deeper, more honest analysis. Like I felt like you were, you were like a, like a beacon of light in a really dark time. And and I want to be clear, I mean that both through the Bush years and into the Obama years, the financial crisis.
00:56:40:10 - 00:57:13:02
David Sirota
I mean, you have you have a piece that I've just sent to a friend last week about the Obamas, like they were a younger person that was like, you know, Obama, the financial crisis, like he wasn't all perfect, like, just read this one piece. All of that is context for a question about so you were doing this, then you move into this kind of work where you're helping create these shows, which are a portrayal in Veep of the sort of the political world of succession, the corporate media world.
00:57:13:04 - 00:57:36:17
David Sirota
What was that transition like of like weighing in every week, sort of very publicly in the identifiable political world and then transitioning to the world that you're in? Do you miss weighing in? Is this? Another is this like a different way to weigh in And in a it may not be because you just you sort of are saying, look, it's not it's not an ideological show.
00:57:36:17 - 00:57:44:12
David Sirota
It's it's it's about the characters like I just wonder like your own kind of work satisfaction, how you think about it, that transition. Because that's a big transition.
00:57:44:15 - 00:58:12:18
Speaker 4
It isn't. It isn't. It's a very good question. I'll try to give you the short answer. First of all, I grew up in Washington, D.C., around politicians. My family was not in politics, but I was always a news and political junkie. But I was also a theater nut, and I was obsessed with theater and still am. And indeed, before I was an op ed columnist at The Times, I was the chief drama critic for 13 years and a period of the Reagan era.
00:58:12:18 - 00:58:36:18
Speaker 4
And indirectly, a lot of that was a big play. As I reviewed fiction was Angels in America. An August Wilson plays was dealing with politics as a columnist. I started to get the Bush years. I really felt very strongly about is, as you were just saying, and I felt very strongly about Obama, including when he was less successful in the one might want.
00:58:36:20 - 00:58:57:01
Speaker 4
But at the time someone asked me if I wanted to join a group of several journalists that work at HBO. One side, it was a side view when I was still columnist. The Times talk about programing at a time when they were going through a big transition I didn't think would necessarily lead to anything. And I, I have to say, fell in love with the work.
00:58:57:01 - 00:59:27:11
Speaker 4
And I just and I was bored writing a column. And this is frankly, it's been 14 years now that I've been involved in this stuff. And I don't not only do I don't I never miss drama criticism. It's maybe it's I have a crazy personality or a disloyal. I don't I don't I don't miss being a columnist by the I kept writing serious in my view and even more, I hope, even deeper opinion pieces for the Times and New York Magazine as I began this career.
00:59:27:13 - 00:59:54:08
Speaker 4
But ultimately, the work, particularly in succession, kicked in on top of Veep, became so enormous. I had to cut it back. I started writing one piece a month for New York magazine. That was one piece every three months. I'm still on staff there and and may yet write again. But this is just combines my own idiosyncratic interests, love of the theater and the American scene and coming in the American scene.
00:59:54:10 - 01:00:16:19
Speaker 4
One other thing relates to journalism about this. One of the things I missed in journalism in the later years is I like the newsroom. I'm sure you felt the same way. I like walking in. I like the camaraderie, the kind of front page ish atmosphere. Once digitalization happened, it vanished. There was no reason for a newsroom. No one had to come in to turn in their copy.
01:00:16:19 - 01:00:39:09
Speaker 4
You literally had to physically turn it in, you know, when I began at the Times or do it on a dedicated word processor in the newsroom, you go on a set for a show. There are 150 people. There are brilliant people, there are artists, there are camp cameramen who are artists, There are makeup people, there are stagehands or actors.
01:00:39:11 - 01:00:59:18
Speaker 4
There are people who are hacks or people who are divas or all of that and felt like a newsroom to me always. But the best thing is you can make it all up and do it. And and so it's it's just been a blast. And I think like a lot of people in succession, it's been such a great ride.
01:00:59:18 - 01:01:07:11
Speaker 4
It's hard to let it go. But I think we're letting go in the right way and getting off the stage when before we start repeating ourselves too much.
01:01:07:12 - 01:01:26:16
David Sirota
Oh, and I should say that one of the best little commentaries I saw on social media was they and if you want to answer this, you can or we can just let it lie is whether the show is ending by making the characters so so horrible that you're like you as the viewer is like, okay, with it ending.
01:01:26:16 - 01:01:31:03
David Sirota
Like it's like, Dude, I can't take anymore. If you guys like Kendall or like.
01:01:31:05 - 01:01:52:13
Speaker 4
No, I, I think I, you know, I think not. I think I think that Jesse always had an idea of where the show would end. And I'm not talking about story points here. I really mean thematically what his final verdict was on these people and this corporation. And it will become very apparent, I think this is not a spoiler.
01:01:52:13 - 01:02:19:06
Speaker 4
It'll become very apparent in the finale. And so we always knew that destination. And the question was always how getting there when you know, how many times can you have a conversation about who's going to succeed. Logan Right, right. There is at a certain point that can we're at it's welcome and interesting people both in the business, in the television or movie business and in, you know, other people.
01:02:19:06 - 01:02:37:14
Speaker 4
I know when we announced was the final season, people said, oh, well, it's it's the final season. You had to change the ending. And I said, No, We always knew what the ending was. It's not like we're going to spoil or we're not killing everyone off in an earthquake. You know what I mean? Okay. It's not that kind of show.
01:02:37:19 - 01:02:58:01
Speaker 4
And so the question was, what was the best way to get there to be true to the characters? I don't think we ever had a discussion. Oh, these characters are so hateful that people will be sick of them because people love them. People love Kotoko, but people love Rome and they love Cousin Gregg, they love Logan. And so, no, I think people are sorry to see them goodbye.
01:02:58:03 - 01:03:09:12
Speaker 4
Say goodbye to them because they're very human, very flawed humans, very unlikable in many ways. But you follow them because at some level they're human.
01:03:09:14 - 01:03:29:14
David Sirota
Totally. Although I have to say, I did remark to my wife on the last episode, I said, The only character I like watching these characters like, do I like them as people? No. But the character I do like as a person is James Cromwell, that character I want to hang out with him like I want to hang out.
01:03:29:14 - 01:03:32:11
David Sirota
I like his rage in there, Like I wanna hang out with that guy. Oh, my.
01:03:32:11 - 01:03:43:12
Speaker 4
God. That you that eulogy. Amazing at the church and and by the way, Jamie is sort of, you know, he he's constantly being arrested to protest.
01:03:43:12 - 01:03:45:22
David Sirota
Totally. He's like, yeah, he's like a it's perfect.
01:03:45:22 - 01:03:56:14
Speaker 4
But but he's also just a phantom, just a character actor. You think of L.A. Confidential, all the things he's done and the scenes with him and Nick Bryan as Greg earlier in the show.
01:03:56:16 - 01:04:07:12
David Sirota
Greg has a whispered line that I love in this last episode where he goes, That was a good heartache. It was a good like 6 seconds of where he's like, Don't go up there and I'll go up there. It was like.
01:04:07:12 - 01:04:36:04
Speaker 4
Exactly the same guy who was going to sue Greenpeace, you know, it's like, anyway, it's and there's a, there's a wit and there's even a wit, even though you and as of is contempt for the entire family and and certainly for Greg but there's a wit in there shadowboxing you know, and that just oh God but also in that last speech, that eulogy beyond the the politics of it and what he has to say about Waystar and Logan Media.
01:04:36:06 - 01:04:47:15
Speaker 4
But thinking that he gave his sister polio, all that stuff, it's just so powerfully affecting however much you might hate. Logan It's just it's real. It's real.
01:04:47:16 - 01:05:11:15
David Sirota
Yes. And I think I think that's I think that is why people really love this show. And I cannot wait until until Sunday to see it. I do, as I've said to a bunch of people lately, like I've got two things right now that are like my my like guilty pleasures. It's Denver Nuggets, basketball and succession, so I cannot wait til Sunday.
01:05:11:18 - 01:05:35:11
David Sirota
Frank Rich, I should remind everybody, is an executive producer on the HBO series Succession and I should mention also White House Plumbers, which I am watching and I also love. And he still is a writer at large for New York magazine. The series finale of Succession airs on HBO this Sunday. Frank Rich, thank you for taking time. Thank you for your writing in the past and thank you for being part of this show.
01:05:35:11 - 01:05:53:02
David Sirota
And I should I should add one last thing. The fact that you're writing that I know you from your writing means that I am ascribing a large part of the genius of this show to you, whether it's whether it's deserved or not. I can't see behind the scenes with like that. That's in my that's in like my narrative.
01:05:53:06 - 01:05:58:09
David Sirota
So like all, you know, big credit to you for for, for helping make such a great show. Thanks again, man.
01:05:58:14 - 01:06:00:05
Speaker 4
Thank you. Great to talk to you, David.
01:06:00:05 - 01:06:26:03
David Sirota
It's always that's it for today's show. As a reminder, our paid subscribers who get leisure time premium, you get to hear next week's bonus episode, my interview with Adolph Reed about his new book, No Politics but Class Politics. Listen to leisure time premium. Just head over to Labor News.com to become a supporting subscriber. When you do, you get access to all delivers premium content, including our weekly newsletters and our live events.
01:06:26:07 - 01:06:49:00
David Sirota
And that's all for just eight bucks a month or 70 bucks for the year. One last favor. Please be sure to like, subscribe and write a review for lever time on your favorite podcast app. The app you are listening to right now. Take 10 seconds and give us a positive review in that app and make sure to check out all of the incredible reporting our team has been doing over at Lever News.com.