Many know Matt Tabbi who provoked the ire of Democrats and other journalists for his role in researching Twitter records and then releasing internal communications from the social-media giant that expose its censorship and its contacts with government officials.
He is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. A former contributing editor for Rolling Stone, he is the author of several books, former co-host of the Useful Idiots podcast, and publisher of the Racket News (formerly TK News) on Substack.
From his newsletter Oct 19th arrives a dialogue with Walter Kirn. It is about a 5 min. read. It is an interesting take on the what's happening with a hint of sarcastic humor tossed into the mix.
Matt Taibbi: All right, welcome to America This Week. I’m Matt Taibbi.
Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.
Matt Taibbi: Where is Walter Kirn?
Walter Kirn: Walter Kirn is in an anonymous DC hotel room far from the honey traps and the listening devices trying to broadcast his pirate podcast with Matt Taibbi. But having had many technical difficulties, one only wonders if they’re putting in the new protocols, the pre-election protocols.
Matt Taibbi: Yeah, we’re being hit by high-intensity jamming wave guns. Every one of our posts is slapped with labels and all kinds of horrible stuff.
Walter Kirn: I woke up this morning to one of my less controversial Twitter posts of the last year, and it looked like a redacted government document about UFOs. It was all spam, probable spam and sensitive material. It took so much label peeling to even read the comments that it was almost not worth it.
Matt Taibbi: Well, this is what we have to look forward to in the future, Walter. We’re going to be many levels underground, I think, in the coming Reich, whatever version we end up getting. You’ve had an interesting couple of days. Can you tell us anything about that?
Walter Kirn: Well, yeah, so I joined yesterday the JD Vance campaign on its plane. I joined here in Washington, flew to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and then to Wilmington, North Carolina. Most of this story was really on background for a story I might do in the future, but I can tell you a few things. They’re very confident they’re going to win. I did not get the feeling that I was being hyped. I had very good access to his campaign manager and to Vance. They feel they’re in an excellent position. I think that that is credible reporting from my part.
Number two, it’s interesting to see the flow of a campaign at this point as news comes in, negative/positive to see them adjusting to it, deciding whether it’s worth reacting to, not worth reacting to. I think early yesterday there was a story about a former Vance staffer that came out in Wired who had talked on Reddit about his drug use at one time, and that became a story in Wired Magazine for some reason that passed through the …
Matt Taibbi: I thought you had to talk about your drug use on Reddit.
Walter Kirn: That’s what Reddit’s for.
Matt Taibbi: Isn’t that how you log on or something?
Walter Kirn: Yeah, you have to blow into a breathalyzer and show a certain ketamine level in your bloodstream before you can actually comment. So there was that little nothing. Then we went to northern Pennsylvania, beautiful fall-like, pumpkin and autumn leaves weather in Williamsport. He spoke at a kind of recreation center, which had as part of it a big bouncy castle, like a trampoline recreation center. He had his wife and one of his children with him, and we all bounced for an hour. He shot baskets-
Matt Taibbi: An hour?
Walter Kirn: Dude. So they have a lane there, which has a trampoline-like run up to a basketball hoop, and you can jump and try to dunk. He managed to dunk. A couple of his staffers managed to dunk. I came nowhere close to dunking. People’s shirts were flying up. It was like Elon Musk at that Trump campaign event where his shirt flew up over his stomach. That was a lot of fun. Then he moved seamlessly into a speech to about a thousand people. He’s getting very good crowds. To my satisfaction, the speech ended with a pretty rousing defense of the First Amendment of freedom of speech, which I thought for a working-class town might not go over as much. I figured it would go over well, but I didn’t think people would be excited about it. Yet they were. I was a little surprised by that and pleased. Then-
Matt Taibbi: What kinds of things did he say?
Walter Kirn: Well, he was just basically talking about threats to the First Amendment, threats to freedom of speech, and the notion that in the future, if the future is bad, people may not be able to share their opinions, share news, represent their thoughts and feelings about things. It was a pretty ornery crowd when it considered that dark possibility. So then we got back on the plane and flew to Wilmington, Delaware, excuse me, Wilmington, North Carolina. One thing you learn when you have your own plane and there aren’t all the TSA protocols is how easy it is to get places. You fly down to North Carolina from Pennsylvania in 45 minutes or something.
Matt Taibbi: Right, yeah. It’s like going to the supermarket, basically.
Walter Kirn: No, it was. I always thought that campaigns were these exhausting, grueling regimens. But when you have Chick-fil-A on the plane, or what else did they have, some kind of fast food, and there are no security protocols to pass through, except the ones you have to do at first with the Secret Service but then you’re good for the day, it’s pretty fun. Got there. He had his dog, his German Shepherd, and he handles it in a very military fashion. It’s an incredibly well-behaved dog and handled quite professionally by him. He hands it off, gets up, gives his speech. Keeps it short and sweet. Again, there, they had a very good crowd at the airport, even though it was cold out. Talked to him about books. Found out who his favorite author was. As someone-
Matt Taibbi: Who’s his favorite author?
Walter Kirn: Cormac McCarthy.
Matt Taibbi: Oh, okay. Wow.
Walter Kirn: And his favorite... well, I hesitate to say his favorite book, but the McCarthy book that he has read most often, he told me, was The Road, the dark story of a father and son traveling alone across a post-apocalyptic landscape. I asked him what he liked about it. He said it was about doing your duty even in a situation when your duty might be pointless. The world has ended.
Matt Taibbi: That’s a little dark.
Walter Kirn: Yeah. There’s a lot of the Marine in JD Vance, I’ll say that. I get the sense that he enjoyed maybe the survival and evasion part of training. He’s a very self-possessed, calm, deliberate, good-humored person, and I don’t think much gets to him. It’s not my job to rate politicians or rank them, but I’ve had exposure to a lot of them over the years. This is a guy who, though only 40 years old, is in full command of his presence, his words, his thinking, his emotions, and probably has reassured his side quite a bit that there’s more to what they’re doing than the rather mercurial Donald Trump.
Matt Taibbi: There’s also already this phenomenon where reporters are going to Vance asking, “Well, what did Donald Trump really mean by that?” which suggests to me that they think that Vance is the more reliable narrator in that campaign.
Walter Kirn: Well, I think that’s the nature of being a vice presidential candidate. You’re asked to answer for everything that the person at the top of the ticket says. The person at the top of the ticket really isn’t asked to answer for you.
Matt Taibbi: That’s true, yeah.
Walter Kirn: When you’re on a plane all day and going to speeches and recreational centers and airport tarmacs, you’re not in constant touch with the other candidate. So I imagine there are times when they’re told to comment on some phenomena in the Trump campaign that they’re not even aware of.
Matt Taibbi: Well, while you were on the plane, there was a major interview of the other candidate. Was there any reaction that you can share with us, or do you want to just get into that interview?...
