BONUS: Media & Messaging w/Grant Stern

Ken Harbaugh:

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Grant Stern:

This is the real plot to fuck America up as bad as humanly possible, and hand it to a few rich people. I wish it was for some other reason than let's just cut America into small bits and hand it off to a few rich people. But that's essentially, I'm just boiling it down, dramatically, but that's what this blueprint does.

Ken Harbaugh:

My guest today is Grant Stern, a journalist and radio host. He's the executive editor of Occupy Democrats, which creates some of the most widely shared political content on Facebook. He's also a regular on Newsmax, where he challenges Republican talking Points.

Grant, welcome to Burn the Boats.

Grant Stern:

Thanks for having me.

Ken Harbaugh:

How did you become the go-to person for Newsmax. A arch conservative, right-wing news network when it comes to pushing back against their right-wing conspiracies?

Grant Stern:

Ken, I can't point to any one reason. They just invited me on one day, and I went on there with the same kind of attitude that I take to these highly populated right-wing Twitter spaces that I've been on over the last year.

And I think it's just a combination of them wanting to have an opposing viewpoint and someone who's going to be vigorous about it. But also, they've never actually come at me and said, “Okay, we got some better facts than you, or you're wrong. We fact checked you.” None of that stuff's kind of funny, because they can't. I always hit them on something that's really happening.

And I don't know. I mean, why they want to have balance all of a sudden, it's beyond me, but I'm just taking advantage of this to get our message to a lot of people who haven't heard that there's another voice out there besides everything should be run by Project 2025, the Heritage Group, the Federalist Society, and maybe Donald Trump sometimes too. Because that's, I don't know, it's just this bubble.

So, I'm trying to pierce the bubble with some facts, some what's really happening in the world, kind of statements on a network, it's not used to that.

Ken Harbaugh:

I want to play this quick clip from your post-debate appearance on Newsmax, and we'll talk about it right after.

[Clip Playing]

Grant Stern:

You saw him on MSNBC, after the debate, speaking to supporters, feeling relaxed not sounding like he's talking in a monotone. You would've thought, where was this guy an hour ago? And I think it just speaks to the fact that he was over-prepared and not under-prepared for this debate.

And we were talking about this last week. There were 16 different advisors preparing him at Camp David. And it wasn't just one message, it was the fact that they didn't prepare him with the overall themes of what he has done for the American people, what he's going to do for the American people.

And the debate strategy of bringing those up first, then attacking your opponent Donald Trump, who by the way, had a ridiculously bad night himself. Donald Trump did not bring any independence. He did not sway on any undecided voters last night. He could not even answer a yes or no question, “Will you accept the election results?”

So, it's not one particular talking point. Joe Biden's team, I think, did not do him justice. They overworked him, and he seemed like he was a fighter who had just gone 14 rounds with his own team, and then stepped into the arena to go another 15 rounds.

And the fact is that he did better as the debate progressed, not worse, which is not exactly what you would expect for someone who's really suffering from an actual problem. It's someone who is suffering from being tied up in knots trying to give the perfect answer when most answers would've been just fine.

Voiceover:

You know what, Grant? Here's something you'll never hear again: “I actually agree with you.”

[End of Clip]

Ken Harbaugh:

So, Grant, what is the reaction like when you go on a network like that, that is just mainlining disinformation to its audience, and you offer truths that are really uncomfortable for a demographic that doesn't want that? Or maybe they do, correct me if I'm wrong.

Grant Stern:

You know, but what I could tell you is this, alright, one of the things I said on that appearance, which is not in this clip, is that if I had a dime for every time Democrats had anxiety, then I would be living in Palm Beach, my name would be Chris, and I would own Newsmax.

And I got to say that on Newsmax, which is kind of funny. But the serious thing that I said which made it memorable, is that Donald Trump didn't win one single independent voter by lying. I mean, lying so egregiously, anybody tuning in would know that he was lying.

And then not being able to answer a simple yes or no question, “Will you honor the results of the election?” That's it. Nobody's going to be swayed by the Donald Trump that showed up on stage that night. Forgetting anything that Joe Biden did.

And Joe Biden's issue is more like this pundit-driven in-party situation – very pundit driven, clearly. Driven by the New York Times, by columnists, by people that are like, “Hey, we're going to be thought leaders here.” Whereas with Donald Trump, I mean, it was so bad. It wasn't going to pick people off from the Democrats and bring them over, it was repulsive to watch.

And on top of that, the independents, like for example, I think it was Univision that did a Latino focus group. And the person that was there in the focus group was an independent voter, undecided. And he's just said, “Donald Trump lied and lied again, and it some of the same lies he is been telling for years. And he's just unstable, I would never vote for the guy.”

So, the narrative obviously in the media is very different depending on what outlet you go to, and what their perspective is. But the one thing that I want to point out a lot is that you should judge these now outlets by their purported perspective.

And that's what I think was missing from coverage, and I kind of talked about it even on Newsmax during appearances in the lead up to it. Which is that there's not really such a thing as a left-wing media right now.

There's an outlet here, an outlet there, but on the right, there's a very large ecosystem, and in the corporate media, they're not left-wing. I mean, they may be selling stuff to left wing viewers, but they're not a left-wing anything.

And so, people have woken up and learned that in the last couple of weeks now after this debate happened.

Ken Harbaugh:

I think we need to revisit this myth of the liberal media. If you just look at the corporatization of the legacy media and who owns Twitter, right-wing billionaire, who owns Facebook, who owns Fox News.

And I think more convincingly just drive across America, go into a truck stop. Go into a squadron wardroom on any military base in the country, just about. And it's not Midas Touch that's playing, it's Fox News.

Grant Stern:

Fox News, yeah. Oh, dude, I've done all of those things. I mean, all of them. In the last like five years, let's say, even with COVID, I mean, I can honestly say I've been to over a dozen states. I've stopped at the truck stops, I've done all sorts of stuff. And I could tell you go all over the place, and you see Fox News playing, and people kind of think it's news, because it says it.

And I mean, they gave up a $787 million settlement rather than go to trial on defamation claims. I mean, it's an astronomical amount of money, astronomical. And that's because they thought they were going to get hit with a multi-billion-dollar judgment.

I mean, they thought they'd get hit with the 800 million, plus, it boggles the mind.

Ken Harbaugh:

The fact that $800 million fines are the cost of doing business now-

Grant Stern:

That's like not even a year's profit for them. That's like one quarter's profit: “Oh, sorry guys, you have to give up one quarter of profits.”

And it's like if I told you how much money I've earned as a journalist, I mean, it would just embarrass me. It's certainly not $787 million. It's something I do because I care about my country, I care about getting to the truth, exposing the facts that expose the truth. And what they're doing is spreading lies and it's extremely profitable, and they have a lot of sponsors to do it.

Ken Harbaugh:

Your website describes you as a new media journalist. I'm going to ask you to define that, but really with an eye towards explaining how legacy media is not up to the moment. And this is not a condemnation of the “ media,” the fifth estate-

Grant Stern:

There's two problems. One, there's objective bias. The objective outlets have a bias, but they call themselves objective. It's just wild.

So, there's the objective bias, and then there's the haves and have nots, and the news media. That's just kind of how it is. You're in that 1% circle. I mean, how much are these columnists making? How close are they to the people?

I can't say that they're very close to the average person right now. The average New York Times pundit who forgot that the elections happened, like the primary elections, don't know much about politics. I mean, it's like, wow, New York Times headline, let's save Democracy by ignoring the Democratic primary process.

That's my Doug J Balloon, the pitch bot. But the reality is the headline that they published as an opinion story this weekend, it was worse: Why I Don't Vote, and Neither Should You. It was literally a voter suppression column written by somebody connected to the Heritage Foundation, who does in fact vote.

I mean, they published a column and corrected the headline twice. I don't know if they say there's a correction on the story, but corrected the headline twice. What's going on here?

What's going on here is that rage equals clicks. And I mean, let's be real here, we have an advertising duopoly in this country. There's Facebook and there's Google. And Facebook took itself out of the news publishing business about a year and two months ago, and it's been rough running ever since then. And all these outlets are suffering from it.

So, combine it all with the media's favorite clown, and the people who are higher up making a lot more money. I mean, there's a bias there, and they don't want to admit it. They think they are unbiased, they really do. And if you think that you're unbiased, I have a bridge to sell you.

Ken Harbaugh:

Do you buy into this notion, this, I guess … I don't know if it's a media conceit, but you hear it repeated again and again that the voters already know the candidates, and Donald Trump and Joe Biden combined have been public figures for nearly a century. This isn't really about educating voters, and the media's job is something else between now and the election.

You published a very popular series of voter guides to educate people about candidates. So, I know you've got a perspective on this. When it comes to Biden and Trump, how much is left to learn?

Grant Stern:

Oh my gosh. I mean, the people who are news junkies are not going to need to learn anything, but even they don't know necessarily all the stuff that Biden is doing.

Because I'll be honest with you, I get these bulletins from the White House, and I flip through them sometimes, and I know how far people read down the page. And so, I know that people are not reading to the 10th paragraph with the bullet points you have to push out there and stuff.

And I'm like the hyper news junkie, the news junkie leader of the news junkies. But the news junkies, they know a percentage of what Biden has done, at least something solid, the three or four different bills, something has affected them hopefully, this is the thing.

But down the line, past the hardcore partisans that their votes have been locked in since the day that the candidates were locked in, in the middle there's a lot of people who are low information voters. They tune in very occasionally, they just want to know, what do I have to do right now. What's going to help me next week. Essentially, that's what they're looking to learn.

And I think the Democrats need to refine their message to those voters who are just tuning into what's happening, and say, “This is what we're going to do when we get re-elected, and we're going to push for it. And we need more people in the Senate to do it, we need more people in the house to do it. We need to keep the presidency to do it, but this is what we are planning to do.”

And then you need to push those people to do it. And then with the next election, you have to say, “Look, we need this many seats to do this and that many seats to do that, but we've done …” and then you have to make the list of things you've done.

And I think that this election cycle, they're never fully about policy, even though they really should be because that's what we're deciding here. But it's about administrations. We saw two very different administrations back-to-back.

One, full of convicted felons, wanted to spend a quarter billion dollars on mall santas, head of administration advised injecting disinfectants directly into bloodstream.

One, strong economy, low oil prices, inflation back down to normal after $8 trillion of deficit spending under Trump. Bipartisan infrastructure Bill helped our veterans. Let's weigh these things a little bit more, because this is not the normal election where you just have to say what happened yesterday, but we don't see that from the media.

So, there is education, which is weighing results. Donald Trump went to Wisconsin and promised a Foxconn facility that never arrived. Joe Biden passed the Chips and Science Act, a new facility moving to the former Foxconn site.

We can measure these two people objectively and say they have done different things in the White House. So, I think the media's job is to do more of that.

Ken Harbaugh:

I am still surprised when I talk to these (and I don't mean, it pejoratively) these low information voters at how people still don't know, for example, that Donald Trump said that people who served in uniform are suckers for having served, and those who died are losers for having given their lives.

Grant Stern:

My dude, 40% of the voters or high information voters know that it's been reported that he said that and don't believe it. So, you can imagine why low information voters just hadn't heard about this because they're not hanging on all of these stories.

Ken Harbaugh:

There's example after example, after example. Project 2025 is another-

Grant Stern:

Think about this, hold on. So, that debate happens, and the number one Google search result afterwards was suckers and losers and Trump.

So, you had 50 million people who tuned in, 50 million likely voters, let's say, because they watched the debate in the middle of the summer. That's like half of what normally tunes into one of the presidential debates. So, these are the hard hardcore, and even they're all like, “Oh, suckers and losers, really?”

What it takes for a story to become viral is a lot smaller than people realize. A lot smaller number, something that really resonates. It doesn't have to reach a billion people at once. It grows and grows and grows, and it's got a secondary effect if people that have seen the headline and the photo, and have some cognition of it.

But even that, one viral moment doesn't define anything, but when something really, really goes big, everybody's seen it once or twice, but they don't know everything about it. They've just seen it.

And so, when I'm just out there talking to the average John Q. Public anywhere on the street, somebody I haven't met, that I assume knows nothing about political anything. I just say, “Hey, did you hear about the scam where they were trying to build a private wall and raise $20 million?” And they go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard about that.”

And that's the extent of their knowledge on it. “Did you remember who it was?” “Oh, yeah, it was somebody really close to the president.” I'm like, “Do you know who wrote the story that caused it to fall down?” That one they never answer right, which is funny because anyhow-

Ken Harbaugh:

What are the other stories that we need to be amplifying? Suckers and losers in my community as a vet is a huge one. We're going to be doing a ton around that-

Grant Stern:

Look, tell people about the PACT Act. Let's just be really, really fucking serious for a second. Like totally politically wonky.

So, Donald Trump put $4 trillion of discretionary spending onto the federal deficit, and Joe Biden put two. And then Trump put 4 trillion in COVID spending, and Joe Biden put two roughly, being very rough here.

Well, 500 billion of that $2 trillion that Joe Biden put out there in federal debt is to pay for the PACT Act over a decade. That's the act that finally recognizes burn pit exposure in America's veterans as a cause of illness.

And I have a friend who actually was in the Army for 13 years. He got asthma and that's why he got out, he wasn't going to leave the Army. And he went from Republican to Democrat long after that. But like the PACT Act was … I mean, are you kidding me? There he was, he is like, “Man, I'm involved, I get to benefit from that.”

I think almost everybody who served overseas is going to benefit from the PACT Act because they did this practice. Republicans opposed it. It was a very slim majority in the house that passed it. A few Republicans voted with it. And then it took a lot of politicking to get the Republicans not to hold that PACT Act.

Ken Harbaugh:

I can't miss the opportunity to roll this clip of Ted Cruz high-fiving on the floor of the Senate when he was one of the votes that shot it down. Roll the clip.

So, Grant, this is exactly what you're talking about. People need to understand that the Democratic Party led by Joe Biden has delivered, the Republican Party has been obstructionist for everything, including veterans’ benefits.

Beyond the veteran question, what are the issues, what are the stories in your world that aren't getting enough traction that can speak to those voters in the middle?

Is it Project 2025? Is it the Epstein Records? Is it the rising threat of Christian nationalism? What, as a new media journalist, are you seeing has the kind of appeal and resonance with those voters we need to move?

Grant Stern:

I mean, look, man, Project 2025 is definitely breaking through. It's a book, they can't deny it exists. 81% of the people who wrote it, worked for Trump. Stephen Goebbels – I’m sorry, Goebbels Miller, his chief propagandist recorded a propaganda video for them with the book in the Frame. And he is like, “I'm not involved in that at all.”

We have to take advantage of this. This is the real plot to fuck America up as bad as humanly possible, and hand it to a few rich people. I wish it was for some other reason than let's just cut America into small bits and hand it off to a few rich people. But that's essentially, I'm just boiling it down dramatically, but that's what this blueprint does.

Every one of these things benefits some narrow interest who gets a fortune. And it's all about money, it is all about money.

It's like Die Hard. Terrorists break in and everybody treats them like terrorists. They roll out the terrorism playbook, and they're sitting there and they're waiting for the terrorism playbook. They're like, “We demand the release of all of these hostages you'll never give up all over the world.”

And so, what happens? They're like, “Oh, you guys, you look for miracles, I give you the FBI, and they shut the vault down, and that's it, they got all the money.” That's what I feel like this election is about. We've been raided by terrorists, our country is being taken hostage by Project 2025. And here comes the New York Times, and they're like, “Cut the power now.”

So, that's not the biggest story, but I'm just saying that's my feels. But I mean, I just want to say, look, you want three things that are really important, it's true. There's abortion. There is the economy, and there is the democracy in no particular order.

Abortion rights, it's such a cornerstone of what is happening, because the next president is going to get to choose two replacements for two conservative Supreme Court justices, just based on the age of the guys. It happens, people step down, all these things.

Thomas is 76, Alito’s 72, Roberts is finally 70. He feels like he's been there forever. And he will be in a sense, because he'll be like the really horrible courts of the late 19th century with the Plessy versus Ferguson decision. They'll always call it the Roberts Court, like the kooky court.

So, I mean, these are enormous issues. That's what abortion brings up to the economy. Look, you can go to the gas station and see it, gas price’s down in the summer, that never happens, my friend.

Ken Harbaugh:

You mentioned abortion and how central of an issue that has to be in our messaging between now and the election. What does it tell you that the Republican platform just came out and doesn't mention reproductive rights at all?

Grant Stern:

They're terrified. They are the dog that has caught the proverbial car. And we should mention that they took away women's rights at every opportunity. They stacked the Supreme Court and caused all these problems.

And the reality here is people, there's a big problem that the Supreme Court caused, and it wasn't just the Trump immunity case, which was horrific. The Supreme Court of the United States made a pair of decisions, one, based on a herring boat and the other based on a truck stop in North Dakota.

It's basically an economic plan written by the Supreme Court to deregulate every industry on every point they don't want to be regulated on in all of America, all at the same time. And to create a bureaucracy to decide what the regulations mean through courts.

Instead of, the federal agencies that administer these laws, who are very able to regulate that write something. And then if it's not supported by any substantial evidence, the courts would look at it. But instead, the courts have just taken away all of that.

They've taken all the power from the executive branch to say, this is a regulation that tells you … when Congress says that people shouldn't have to wait too long on a tarmac, the agency can no longer decide that two hours is enough.

And so, it's going to lead to a lot of problems if it's left to stand. But I mean, in the next 12 months, even before the election, we're going to see an assault by business on the federal government. And this is all because of one man who decides, which judges make the call on the abortion, on the Supreme Court, now on all regulations. It's nuts, man. It's nuts. We can't let them decide again, never, never, ever.

Ken Harbaugh:

Trump is now saying, he tweeted or bleeded this out, truthed this out I guess – that the president has the power to cancel any federal program. I mean, the overreach is-

Grant Stern:

Okay, Ken, that's what the Supreme Court just said. The Supreme Court just said the president can cancel anything; he can basically do anything he wants, and the only thing you have is impeachment. Good luck.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah.

Grant Stern:

I mean, that’s it, it’s end of story. The president in his official capacity decided to cancel your federal program that Congress passed – este toto man, it’s done, goodbye federal program, and they're going to do it.

I mean, they did it on day one in the first Trump White House. If they're elected, they will do it. But they said, we're going to just close the entire border, nobody can enter. On a whim, boom, orders go out.

So, don't expect anything less if Donald Trump is allowed anywhere near the White House ever again. I mean, they've created a presidency that is indistinguishable from King George.

Ken Harbaugh:

I want to end on a hopeful note. We try to do that here, it's getting tougher lately. But we have these election results from Europe, from the UK, and France. And it's, for me, an indicator. And more than that, it is a reassuring vote for democracy, for humanity pushing back against this rising tide of extremism. Do you think we're more like France and the UK in that regard, or more like Hungary?

Grant Stern:

I think we're a lot more like the UK and France in that regard, than Hungary. Hungary is a very, very centralized country with one incredibly large city. It's kind of like the state of Georgia. Like one really, really large population center city, lots of countryside around it.

We're a lot more like the UK which has a very broad and diverse population spread out geographically. I mean, the UK is about a fifth of our size population-wise. But they speak English, they read our stuff, we read there’s. I even write for the Byline Times over there.

But that's a reaction. And we're going to see a similar reaction here, which is that people do not want a fascist government. Like we have seen what these things do.

The reality here is that Democrats have to accept the results of the Democratic Party and fast, and reject the pundits who misunderstand the democratic process and how things are run, and they sit around and speculate.

The reality here is that Joe Biden is popular with the base. The CBC has his back, the Congressional Black Caucus. I'm sorry, man, if you don't know Democratic politics, which all these pundits have proved completely that they don't know anything about the Democratic Party as a political party, in this past week, they know nothing about the political party that operates things.

This is all you need. Hillary Clinton was nominated for the presidency because she had a dominant position and relationship with the Congressional Black Caucus, and the same thing with Joe Biden today.

I mean, these are important political realities that have been disregarded. We have to disregard all this noise and just say, “Look, there's policies, there's accomplishments, there's more things they can do. There's things we have to fight back against that just got thrown at us last week that people aren't even talking about yet.”

And not say, “Geez, is he old enough to hold a pen and sign an executive order?” The answer is, he is. And is he competent enough to do it? Yes, he is. Do you think that Democrats would sit around and be like, “This guy's like Weekend at Bernie's, we're going to wave him around in this?” No way. No way.

And the reality here is no matter what his age is, that's why we pick a vice president. Ronald Reagan faced all the same criticisms. Ronald Reagan had a bad debate. Ronald Reagan became the president twice.

So, I just think Democrats have to look at things with a broader perspective than what does the New York Times say? But at this point, it is Joe Biden's race to win, and Democrats have to do one thing; circle the wagons around him, push the campaign forward, win up and down the ballot like they did in 2022 when that red wave never appeared. And I think that the rest of the polls will take care of themselves.

I mean, Joe Biden, by any stretch of the imagination, outperformed every single poll in 2022. There's no question about it. There was no red wave, barely lost the house, increased seats in the Senate in a first-year midterm election.

I just think we're living in different times. The things that people used as corner points and touch points before maybe aren't as accurate as they were because the only polls that mattered were in November of 2022. And those told a story. And we're going to see that story told in November of 2024 as well. And unless something remarkable changes, I would expect a similar story.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, Grant, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us and keep doing those Newsmax hits.

Grant Stern:

I will, I will. Thanks, Ken.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

For updates and more, follow us on Twitter at Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

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