And, This Is How The Media Is Failing Us In 2026 With Alex Wagner
This is Gavin Newsom
iHeartPodcasts
3.0 • 7.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alex Wagner (Crooked Media) joins the show to talk about why legacy media is struggling, what stories will matter in 2026 and how Democrats can find their senses of humor. Plus, Alex shares why she'd love to get rid of the internet and why she refuses to become too negative.
00:00 Celebrating New Years With A Cold Plunge
5:15 The Difference Between Crooked Media & Legacy Media
9:47 Can CBS News Win Over MAGA?
14:24 Is Profitability Killing Institutional Media?
19:07 How The News Chooses What to Cover
23:17 Do Podcasts Break Through The Noise?
31:30 Trump's Endurance
36:00 Why Are Democrats So Humorless?
40:16 Is Media Consolidation And Democracy
45:05 How You Become Alex Wagner
55:23 The Stories We Should Be Focusing On In 2026
1:01:30 How Democrats Should Address Climate Issues?
1:09:16 Fighting Loneliness
1:17:13 What Makes Nihilism So Appealing For Young People?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | First of all, let me just disabuse you of the parallel you're trying to draw between Fox News and MS now. |
| 0:05.4 | Fox News Pedals Lies. |
| 0:06.8 | This movement has captured the imagination of the American public in a way that has awoken our darkest evolutionary instincts. |
| 0:15.2 | America is immigrants. |
| 0:16.6 | Yes. |
| 0:17.0 | To be purging the country of all the brown ones is not going to leave us with much of the country. |
| 0:22.4 | We as human beings need to go out for cocktails and have more sex and do things with other human bodies. |
| 0:29.3 | This is Gavin Newsom. |
| 0:32.0 | And this is Alex Wagner. |
| 0:36.2 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:39.2 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:40.9 | How many, what is it, four podcasts you had now or something? |
| 0:43.8 | How many damn podcasts? |
| 0:45.2 | I have one podcast that I'm very focused on called Runaway Country. |
| 0:49.2 | I'm glad you're focused on it. |
| 0:50.6 | I occasionally dip in with the boys at Pod Save America. And then, you know, |
| 0:56.4 | I do friends podcast. I did Stacey Abrams podcast. I got an invite to come to the mansion to sit |
| 1:02.0 | and be, you know, help inaugurate this beautiful studio with perfect lighting. I, you know, |
| 1:07.7 | I have ticket will go is what I'm saying. I love a podcast. You love a podcast. I do love a podcast. And what you're just done with cable? Cable. Cable. So yesterday? No, Gov. No. I am still, I'm still a senior political analyst for MS now, which you may remember from its earlier heyday as MSNBC. I'm going to get to that in a moment. Oh, good, good, good, good. I'm thrilled to be talking about that. Because I'm still struggling with it. But that said, good to hear. But so, but you're still doing that. I'm still doing that. And then I have a substack called How the Hell with Alex Wagner. And then I also have a book coming out this year that I can't talk about until I'm allowed too, but from my book. How many books have you written? This is my second ill-fated attempt at writing a book. |
| 1:47.8 | You did one about Future Face. Future Face, which is a story about identity and how we sort of decide and tell ourselves who is American and who isn't. And it's largely autobiographical, so it's insanely boring. I appreciate you saying that for different reasons, because I'm coming out with my own book, and I'm concerned about similar fate. Yes, but you know, you're up maybe of slightly more interest to the American public. I don't know about that, but I'm going to talk about you because I think your background is... This makes me very uncomfortable to talk mostly about myself. I notice your physiology has changed. |
| 2:18.2 | Yeah, I'm like grabbing my neck. Your arms are crossed. Yeah, okay, I'm going to relax. Just deep breaths, slowly in, slowly out. Is that your recommendation? That's it. It's well, it's Wimhoff. I do Wimhoff briefly. You do any breathing? Do you do the cold ones? It's 2020. I literally on New Year's Day up there in Olympic Valley, we call it now. Squaw Valley used to be called, but now it's Olympic Valley. Did a hike and just jump right in the river. Icicles, the whole thing. That was my New Year's Day. That's beautiful. It was. |
| 2:51.0 | I did a lot of breathing, |
... |
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