dude don't become the thing you hey you wrote a whole book called hate ink hate ink was about how

msnbc and fox both kind of created their own universes where they tell you about the other side's

awful and evil well matt are you a component of hate ink now because you think the democrats are a

cult and you just like hate them and you think they hate you which probably considering the the rough hearing he had on Capitol Hill, I understand why he would feel that way. Do you not want Democrats to read you at all? Do you not want, are you not at all interested in what Republican governors of the House or the Supreme Court or maybe the president in less than a year are doing? You have to consciously avoid that. And it's hard.

I want to say that. I want to recognize that it's hard and that we all struggle with it. But I put out a Congo episode that I know that nobody wants to watch because I think it's important that I do a Congo episode. I put out a Haiti episode that I know nobody wants to watch. I think it's 5,000 views on YouTube because I think it's important to me. you give the audience a little bit what they want,

but the whole point of having an audience

that's committed to you somewhat

is that you can do your passion projects mixed in in between or things that you think are morally significant mixed up in between, but to completely abandon the stuff that brought you in this in the space to begin with that defined so much of your early reporting. I know how this is going to sound like I'm jealous or something, but if you're pulling in Tybee kind of money, you can afford to lose a little bit every now and then. Like not every post has to generate like 500 new subscribe, paid subscribers or something, right? Like Tybee is one of the most successful people on that platform. And when you're one of the most successful people,

I think you should be able to take more leaps of faith. You should be able to stick your neck out more than if you were someone who was just starting out and no one has heard of and you really feel like you have to build an audience in a certain direction. I think that's right. I want to come back to something you were just saying, though, about the Twitter files. This is another exchange that you two had. You said, I never said I object to your Twitter

file stories. I object to you saying you won't write about Republicans anymore. We both know you don't

want to upset your subscribers. Why lie about it? I always admired you for your honesty and integrity.

Taibi responded, after the Twitter files, Democratic politicians threatened me with jail, called me a Putin

sympathizer and a Trump ally for doing my job, and now you're reprising Debbie Wasserman Schultz's

act of calling me a sellout. Maybe I just genuinely think you all suck. So there we see some of this

evidence that he does seem to be having a kind of reactive politics where it's about

who's been beating up on him recently. And I get it. I think all those people are shitty too.

Democrats come after me and attack me and threaten me more than Republicans for whom I'm largely

invisible. But that hasn't changed who I think is the most powerful.

Well, I don't even say most powerful or most dangerous, but who is at least equally powerful and equally dangerous party in America.

Right.

Because those facts should exist independent and objective to like what our position is.

If tomorrow a million Democrats did a protest march outside my house saying down with Zed. I would feel bad. I understand why I would feel bad. But it wouldn't change the reality that like my governor is a Republican. The whole legislature stacked with the Republicans and that they have much more power than Democrats do in my state. Look, the Plaskett thing, one, she doesn't actually have the power to do that.

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