This podcast is brought to you by the Albany public library main branch and the generosity of listeners like you. God daddy these people talk as much as you do! Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Unsupervised Learning podcast and I guess, YouTube at some point. So today I'm here with Lee Fung. He's someone I've kind of started following over the last three or four years, he is an investigative journalist. So it's kind of a little different conversation than I usually have. He's, you know, a reporter, he does all that shoe leather stuff that we hear about. And so I want to ask him about that. But just so you guys know, he has his own substack. I will post the link to it, you can find him there. He worked with The Intercept for many, many years actually, before that. And he did some other stuff with, you know, I think like, CAP: Center for American Progress pand other places like that. So we can get into that older stuff later. But mostly, I want to talk about what he's doing right now. Lee, do you have anything else to say for yourself?
No, that's basically it. Thanks for the intro. It's the website, I bought a domain, my name in the domain: leefang.com So you can just go to that for my substack.
Alright.
So I guess the first question that I have, is that, you know, we're having issues in the media ecosystem, in terms of cuts, layoffs, revenue problems, you know, so I guess the way I would describe it to the listener, my perception is, you know, there's the internet shows up about like, 25-30 years ago, depending how you wanted to find it. They didn't really know how to do anything with it. Initially, everything was free. But you know, most people were still reading print. And then in the 2000s, in the teens, there was a pivot to online, only a few outlets have really, really mastered this. The New York Times, for example, has it. The Wall Street Journal, a few other places, right. And then you have the collapse of digital media recently, not the collapse. But you know, what's happening to Vice where they're filing for bankruptcy. Vox really didn't end up doing its thing all of its founders left. You know, Ezra Klein is now columnist at the New York Times, Matt Yglesias has his own substack. And I think the other co founder last name is Belle, I think she's doing some other startups. So, you know, we're in this moment, in the early 2020s. And one of the things that people often say, is there are a whole areas of journalism that are collapsing, because they don't drive clicks, like people want culture war. You know, I don't want to say clickbait, because that's a very like teens thing to say. But, you know, like, the kinds of stuff that's commentary, actually, a lot of the stuff that people say substack is good for. So you know, you can have your own thoughts as an individual. That's what I do. You know, I offer my interpretation. A lot of times scientific literature, as an individual, there are other people who are commenters, and then you have like one man, you know, one person shows like Glenn Greenwald, I don't think he's on substack anymore, but that's where he was for a while. But you do something different. And what you're doing is actually one of the things that people have said, media commentators, media observers, investigative journalism, where you need institutional resources, you need the support of a bigger organization. And so like, what's going on with you? Like, I mean, how are you doing it? It was that a BS like line of reasoning, I'm mean I'm actually kind of perplexed. Because like, if you go to your substack, like, you get shit done. I mean, you're digging stuff up on people. It’s kind of scary, but whatever. Like, so I mean, like, tell me what's going on here? Do you have a take on it? Like, do you have a perception? Because I don't know any of this stuff. I just know what I read. Are they lying to me?
No, I mean, it's kind of true. I feel like if I had institutional support, I could do longer, more deep divy features, like if I left the substack. I mean, I just launched this thing about a month and a week and a half ago, like, it's pretty new. So I'm still experimenting with what works. But if I had more resources and time, yeah, I could like kind of, you know, go deep on a subject, published a long feature a piece, but I'm doing these kind of 1000 word 1500 word investigations, and trying to do one or two a week, because you know, people are paying a couple dollars a month for me and it could be spending that and their HBO Now/Go, whatever it's called now and so many other subscriptions, I want to provide as much content to make their money worth it. And, you know, I've just gotten used to this, I've, I used to live in the DC area, and you get a lot of scoops by just going to interesting events. For the last 12 years, I've lived in San Francisco, still covering mostly national politics, but really kind of everything under the sun. And I've gotten used to just finding different information streams, that I can transform into reporting. So I'm looking at, you know, corporate disclosures, legal filings, political, you know, content streams, I'm checking all the different media outlets, I'm looking at social media, I'm talking to sources, I'm calling them and pestering them all day. And hopefully, with that kind of wide net, I find scoops because what I'm trying to do, I might do a little bit of commentary to be honest, you know, I, I would like to kind of express myself, and substack gives me a platform to do non traditional things, and I want to kind of experiment with it and do some fun stuff. But I think the majority of the content will be in the style of traditional investigative reporting, you know, looking at deep in a subject, you know, exposing hidden documents or, you know, other new nuggets of information, giving them context and, you know, putting it in to the kind of public interest frame of why it matters. That's what I'm going to be doing and and hopefully applying it to subjects that other people are simply not covering or not covering well, in my opinion, so I'm able to do it, because I've gotten used to it. I've lived in San Francisco, far away from the action. So I've had to develop these kind of streams of content for a very long time.
Yeah, so I mean, it sounds like what you're saying, Lee is, you have a particular skill set. And so it was easy to translate into this kind of independent substack format. Whereas other people, I don't know, I mean, who work for 60 Minutes or something, obviously, you're expecting a certain level of support. So a question that I actually have for you is your individual now, and you're not associated with The Intercept or whatever. Does that open or closed doors for you? Is it a net zero? I'm just kind of, I'm wondering what you think. So for example, if you emailed me and said, you were Lee Fang from the New York Times, I would put it on block, not gonna lie. I don't want to deal with. I mean, I still be a little worried if you emailed me. Because like, I know, the stuff you do.
It’s coming, don’t worry. I'm getting ready. I can't come half cocked, you know? So,
You know, but I mean, what do you think it's a negative or a positive or a net zero? I mean, in terms of not having an institution, because you're just, you're Lee now. You’re Lee Fang. You know, and you're not, I don't know,
It's a mix. Because, you know, at The Intercept, you know, I think a lot of people write it off as a lefty rag, perhaps for good reasons, sometimes. But it's just like, if I was at the Wall Street Journal, or New York Times, and I was reaching out to a member of Congress, or a major Fortune 500 Corporation, yeah, I would totally have more access in getting a response. But you know, a lot of the reporters at mainstream outlets, and I'm not talking about any particular person, there's just kind of like a style here, where you're kind of a beat reporter. And if you're a beat reporter, at one of the major outlets, you depend on access. And so you can never, or I can just I don't want to say never, I don't want to speak in deterministic language, but it's very difficult to burn your sources or your, the kind of the trough, from which you feed for content. You know, like, if you're the the White House reporter at The New York Times, you got to maintain those relationships. If you're the Silicon Valley reporter for you know, name a big outlet, you got to maintain those relationships. I have, you know, I have total freedom and, you know, if people want to respond to me, they can, they want to give me access they can. I think I'm a reasonable person, I have high journalistic standards, it's always better to kind of talk to me and make sure that I'm getting my facts straight and the context of my story, correct. But if people want to write me off, you know, that's fine. I'm still gonna do my journalism, and hopefully, it's still gonna have an impact.
That's cool. Okay. So that's, I mean, that's pretty much what I was assuming. So I want to talk about a couple of the things you've written about, I mean, maybe more than a couple but I just so I'm just for the for the listener, if they want to google it while they're listening. I mean, people have been known to do that. One is ‘diversity activist helped first republic bank, push for weaker regulations’ and then the second one ‘Top Asian diversity consultant accused of defrauding Low Income Housing fund’ Now I shouldn't laugh about this. But the second one, which you posted relatively recently. It's I almost was impressed by the hutzpah. If that makes sense.
Lee Fang: Yeah. Oh, there’s hutzpah there
Yeah, I mean, so this is like, this is like top flight scam. It is not. It was obviously premeditated. It was done in a very effective and efficient way. They got like, what, like 14 million or something you said?
Their program netted 12 million, although it's not clear. If every dollar of those that's fraudulent. It looks like the vast majority are, you know?
Yeah, yeah. So Okay, the first piece, you're talking about banking deregulation. And so just set the stage here, because this is I don't know, if American non American listeners will understand this, they probably have their own sorts of things. This is a multi generational thing going on where certain types of you know, we would call them identitarian now, activist organizations cosign for corporations. And so it's kind of like bundling brands. And so you know, it would be so for example, I think Rainbow PUSH, Jesse Jackson's organization would kind of do things like this, where they would kind of CO branded with corporations, and the corporation would give them, you know, grants, you know, and they will say, Oh, well, this corporation is a good corporate citizen, and stuff like that. And sometimes it's really well, I think it's obvious, but, you know, they'll be like, Oh, well, actually, you know, sometimes you have a person who's a libertarian, and they're like, you know, what, check cashing is great. It's great for minorities, mostly, you know, black and brown people or whatever. Use it. So they're libertarian, they don't really care about these issues. But it's a it's an argument you can use, you know, and then they'll get like some sort of NGO, some nonprofit, and it's, you know, People of Color Voices for Financial Freedom, like, Okay, I'm just making this up. But it's the sort of thing that you will see, right, there'll be something like that, like, who's against financial freedom for people of color, you know? But if you're like a left wing person, and not even a left wing person, you'd be like, okay, you know, that there's some serious issues with the high interest rates, and, you know, and then the, the, you know, the, the trade group, or the corporation can say, Well, okay, you know, what, like, our customers are mostly poor people of color, are you saying that poor people of color should shouldn't have access to credit? And then there's this whole thing? And, basically, you know, what I'm trying to explain to you guys out there is, you know, it's really hard for left wing activists in particular, to defend against this sort of move, because then like, they're in a different conversation that they don't want to have. Right?
This, I mean, the way I would kind of look at this is that, you know, we live in a kind of complex and confusing political environment, there are a lot of special interests that want to gain favor and avoid regulation or gain a subsidy or, you know, whatever they want to game the political system and there's a million ways to do it. Now to convince the American people and policymakers and regulators that a special interest is not actually acting in a selfish interest, they tend to use third party validators that have some type of connection to a constituency group or to the public or what have you. And I think, you know, a lot of people on the left, who are liberals, recognize that these - look in the last 30 or 40 years that they're, you know, banks, and, you know, telecom companies and tobacco companies that partnered with these smokers rights groups or, you know, Christian Coalition Focused on the Family, Americans for Prosperity type groups, as a, you know, as kind of an astroturf a fake grassroots effort to win public policy because, you know, these these groups act as a mental or moral shortcut for people to understand an issue. They go, okay. It's a Christian group. It's a veterans group, I support it. The same, the exact same thing goes on with the left with liberals with special interests, they just use what's a more efficient moral shortcut, you know, mental shortcut is to use these appeals to diversity appeals to identitarianism. And so you have these civil rights groups. You know, almost all the mainline civil rights groups flush with corporate cash. And they're either they're paying either not to take an issue side on an issue or to actively lobby on behalf of the corporation but they they are shielding the identity of the company. And you know, the First Republican thing is interesting because, you know, the arguments are a little bit absurd, you know, this, this Asian American activist goes to the FDIC and says, First Republic makes so many important investments in minority communities, they should be exempt to stress tests and risk assessments and all these kinds of financial regulations that are, were designed to prevent a meltdown, like what happened earlier this year to first republic. And it's, it's, you know, we don't have it, it seems pretty clear what happened immediately after she did this. She gets appointed to the First Republic boards, the organization is now sponsored by the First Republic. And so that's the kind of traditional grift or kind of corruption or lobbying whatever you want to call it, that we see across the board. What's funny about this story, and I think what why you laugh is that it's both the kind of Uptown, and the, and the kind of maybe more seedy kind of corruption. She she did this type of thing that, you know, Al Sharpton’s organization. And, you know, even a lot of LGBT organizations have engaged in on a high level on policy, but then to the low level grift, of literally faking, allegedly faking all these applications to a low income housing program, that she argued for, again using this kind of moralistic identity language, and then just scam taxpayers by by submitting fake reimbursements, you know, submitting the names of Filipino American voters, stealing the names of US Marines at a financial literacy event, and just to get reimbursement, so she could kind of pad her own pockets, and have her whole family got in on this or her brother, her daughter, and you know, they were all submitting this, these fake names and getting gigantic cash reimbursements. So it's just it is kind of interesting. It's interesting that it's both the kind of the, the high level scam that we see all across the country. Making kind of covert lobbying arguments cloaked in the language of identitarian ism, but then the kind of just more low level stuff of, hey, we're going to defer our government agency for low income housing.
Yeah. I mean, the word you - I think that I would use is brazen, you know, did she I mean? I mean, maybe I'm not a con person con man. So I'm just like, You really thought you weren't gonna get caught? I mean, so do you think that there's more things like this that we don't know about? I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's just seems so obvious that they were gonna get caught.
It's, I mean, we don't this is a civil complaint. The her own board is suing her for engaging this thing. And they have apparently went on a multi month long investigation, hired investigators, auditors, they seem to have a lot of proof. The family, no one can find them. They seem to have fled to the Philippines. I checked the docket the other day, the LA Superior Court, it's not clear. The files have been served on her. So maybe she's gone missing too, I'm not sure. She hasn't responded to any my requests for comment. But, you know, I don't I don't know, at least the high level, influence peddling stuff. I mean, so many people do this. It's such a cynical strategy. It's not even that different from a lot of these consultants that you see in Silicon Valley that are doing these ESG reports that are going to big corporations and basically woke washing them saying, Oh, you need to improve your ESG score, just hire us. So we're gonna produce this glossy, you know, pamphlet for your company. And, you know, it'll be it'll increase creatures, your index level in the Blackrock, whatever social responsibility fund. You know, it's the same type of thing. But this level, this level of defrauding a low income housing program. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think this this whole area is not well known. There aren't a lot of cops on the beat here. It's quite possible. There's a lot more of this going on.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know too much about government contracting. I have friends that have done it. And it it's let's just say that there's a little I mean, all I'll say is there's a little less supervision than I was expecting, I'll put it that way. So I don't want to get into that I don't want to get people in trouble. And I don't have con men friends just just to be clear out there. But I'm not as shocked that this could happen after some of the things I have heard in terms of like, you know, why aren't you you know, I mean, whatever like,
I mean, just read the SIGAR Report from Afghanistan, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan reconstruction. It is mind blowing read any of those reports any year once they started getting produced in like 2007 or something. All of them are mind blowing. Like these bathrooms cost multi million dollars that have no plumbing. The schools that no Afghans use cost, like $50 million. I mean, it's just mind blowing waste and fraud that, you know, a little bit got prosecuted, but very little, not much given the level of scam and why it hasn't been a bigger scandal and why politicians haven't jumped on this to call for more prosecutions of government contracting scam, I don't really understand. But then this isn't endemic across the government, both state government and federal government, we have a lot of privatization and a lot of scamming going on. Do use that term kind of broadly. And it's, you know, it's why people don't have a lot of faith in the government, perhaps, you know.
So, I want to cut to another story that I find interesting. And it's the kind of thing that I don't know, the ideological valence, like, honestly, you know, I like to joke I'm not a very political person, obviously, I do follow the news, but I don't really think too closely about like, what, so I just for the listeners out there, I'll probably lose some subscribers over this. But you know, I think, you know, if you want to get vaccinated, it's okay, I'm vaccinated. You know, whatever.
Lee Fang: Woah, hot take!
I mean, I know, I'm gonna lose some subscribers, but I don't care. But sometimes I'll tweet out, you know, if you're at risk get vaccinated, and then like, people are like, you know, they'll be like, ‘ you fucking shit lib’. And I'm just like, I don't know, I mean, you know, so it's kind of weird because like, they're all these coalition's these, these beliefs you have to have, that are bundled together now. And I grew up with, I grew up in Oregon, and the people that were against vaccinations when I was a kid are not the people that are against vaccinations now, and the whole thing is, like, super weird to me. And then also, there's the whole, you know, so I, you know, there's the whole idea of vaccines can like, you know, do no wrong, which is also dumb, like I have, you know, one of my, we were best friends and eighth grade, you know, middle school, anyway. So I know a guy he was inducted, I mean, and listeners know, this story, he was inducted into the Marines, or, like, you know, he wants to do like, basic training or whatever, and he had to go get some last vaccinations. So he, you know, got anthrax vaccination was one of them. This was after 911. And what happened is, he had a massive inflammatory response. And he died of a massive hemorrhage within within two hours of getting the shot. And so, you know, he was engaged, and you know, he's all excited 10am And then 12pm, like, his dad gets a call. He’s Gone, you know,
Lee Fang: That’s crazy.
And it just happened. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't get the anthrax vaccine. If you're joining the military. What I'm saying is, there's always trade offs. And this is not an ideological point. And so, like, everything is very polarized right now. And I'm just like, setting the stage here. You have a piece about Pfizer, financing, you know, financing lobbying groups for COVID vaccine mandates now, you know, a lot of listeners, hopefully, I'm they know, about, like public choice theory. You know, like, these sorts of regulations, regulatory agencies, they tend to get captured. And, again, I'm vaccinated, I think, it does great things for like, you know, again, like, I'm not saying a 15 year old should be vaccinated. I, you know, this is, again, there's some leeway for choice. Everything is not as cut and dried as people say, but, but in general, okay, like the science, I get the science, I'm not worried about the RNA it degrades, whatever. I'm a geneticist its a big issue. But it's also not shocking to me that these big pharma companies, pharma companies, are lobbying and pushing it so that they can make an extra buck. Why is this surprising? So I, you know, when I read it, I was like, Oh, yeah. But I was literally like, okay, yeah. But now, it's kind of an ideological thing where I'm sure people so that the previous expos a or whatever that you did, I'm sure like, a lot of my conservative listeners, the Conservatives are like, Yeah, you know, they're crooks, you know. And now you're talking about, like, these vaccines and, and like pharma companies, and I don't know, like 10 years ago would probably be like people that would later become Bernie Bros. would be like, of course, pharma companies are crooked, you know? Yeah. But now it's more right wing people as well. I mean, it's, I guess what I'm trying to say is like it this does fall out ideologically. But that it, that's just where we are right now. And it's not anything necessarily to the right or the left, right. And I feel like there's a certain group of people and you're one of them, who are looking at this issue, less ideologically. And it's just it's a little weird now because I think the standard left view is that vaccines and pharmaceutical companies are, like, awesome. Does that make sense? Like, I mean, I sounds a little weird saying that because no five years ago, but I mean, I'm right, right? Like, I'm not like crazy here.
Totally right. I think my reporting hasn't changed at all, I'm looking for interesting stories that affect the public interest. And the pandemic has been wildly shaped by the power of just a few pharmaceutical companies. What I'm doing hasn’t changed on the very beginning of the pandemic, I wrote about the lack of certain medical supplies, some of our trade policies, you know, why we're shipping, you know, mask overseas, in the beginning of the pandemic, when we needed to produce more looking at some of the Trump trade policies. Then, as the vaccine was being rolled out, I looked, I did like almost a dozen stories, looking at the lobbying efforts by big pharma, Pfizer and others, to crush efforts to share intellectual property and allow the creation of generic COVID vaccines, you know, there was this demand to speed up the creation of generic vaccines and get them to developing countries. And now that, you know, I'm looking at this COVID vaccine mandate, I've done a couple of stories, kind of peeling back, the weirder side of it that, you know, Pfizer was funding, not just lobbying groups, they're funding medical societies, civil rights organizations, even corporate watchdogs, which endorsed the mandate didn't disclose their Pfizer money. You know, there's a lot of funky money going on in 2021, when there was this big public battle over, you know, there's a lot of mandates, right, like there were municipal, state, but then the big Biden mandate came out of OSHA, saying that, you know, if you're an employer with 100, or more employees, you got to have COVID vaccine mandate. Otherwise, you know, weekly testing, or, you know, you got to fire your workers, I mean, pretty extreme policy, especially when, perhaps was not really backed up by the scientific evidence. You know, there was no exemption for prior infection, natural immunity. You know, there were claims from the CDC and Biden that if you took the vaccine, you would not get COVID. You know, there's no, it would end transmission. I mean, there wasn't evidence to make those claims. Now, we really know that those claims were bunk. In any case, you know, the stream of my reporting over the last three years, and I'm just looking at power and public policy, and how interest groups shape that, and how it affects, you know, how we responded to the pandemic. And, you know, I think you're 100%, right, this has become so polarized, so politicized, people are in camps, and like, they're, they're kind of squinting their eyes and looking at every stories and trying to see how they can code them. But it's like what I'm doing is completely consistent. You know, what, I'm pointing out the, the issues with the policy and how a big corporate power center, mobilized public opinion, shifted public policy in a way that benefited them, you know, the Pfizer that their bio and tech vaccine is perhaps the most lucrative pharmaceutical product of all time, you know, how did this happen? How do they prevent a generic vaccine? How do they they mobilize public opinion to endorse this mandate? That was very controversial? I mean, I'm just peeling back the layers here. And it's, it's neither left nor right, really, I think it's just this happened, and why did it happen?
Yeah, yeah. And I want to get back to corporate power. And, you know, the concentrations of power, because I think that this is kind of the through line of your reporting. Actually, you know, I mean, I did a little bit of research on you, like, not that type of research you would do and this is like, that's kind of a through line of what you've been doing. I mean, you know, I think like, you know, 15-20 years ago, you would be a pretty comprehensible individual in terms of like, okay, left wing, anti establishment, anti corporate, you know, muck raking, blah, blah, blah, like, this is a type. That's what you were. And now it's a little weird, because, you know, on the left, or whatever you want to call it, the CIA is great. And corporations are great, kind of, I think, I don't know, it's like, it's hard sometimes to like, follow it all. But I want to talk about a couple of things where you did a little muckraking, or digging on individuals or specific issues that are a little different, like loopback to actually the corporate and the ideological reconfigurations that might be happening at the end. So, Mehdi Hasan… All right. So I mean, this is like, I don't like the guy. I kind of respect his game, in terms of like he's monetized being a really shady, unfair operator so I can kind of like you know, you know, Don't hate the player. There is a part of that I've seen his evolution and how He's changed and evolved over time based on what's effective for him. So for people who don't know, I think Mehdi Hasan is on MSNBC now. But you know, he's also done stuff for Al Jazeera. I think he was at The Intercept. And apparently you guys had a big issue of where, okay, I don't know what's happening in the offices of the intercept. But he claimed that you were Islamophobic. And I don't really know you that well, but I was just like, okay, like, this is some weird lie. And like, how is Lee going to, you know, this is kind of like gossipy. But you know, like this, it's interesting, because he's a big dude now. And sometimes, I have noticed that people become powerful, or they're untouchable somehow. And I don't know, I'm not in media. I don't know how this works. So for example, like Hannah Nicole, was it Nicole Hannah? Is it?
Lee Fang: Nicole Hanna, yeah
Okay, whatever. But, you know, she is like, giving lectures proudly presented by Shell. Okay. So the issue here is like, Look, I'm not anti oil, or fossil fuel. I'm not like an activist about that. But you know, these companies, that when you dance with the devil, you do devilish things. Like, you know, I have friends who are geologists, and they're like, I'm not going to work for Shell, because literally, like, they've been involved in things where people have been executed because they were inconvenient. For like, Gabon, or something, you know. So I don't want to like underestimate. So it's just like, a little weird to me, that, you know, Jones is not, you know, like some people did pointed out like the International Socialists Obscure People, you know, what I'm saying? Like, there's gonna be all some sort of left website that points that out. But you know, there are people that become powerful enough, where they have some sort of like plot armor, and that you don't like point things out about them. And then there's other people. It's like, oh, that you said this, like, 18 years ago, in a bulletin board channel. And it's like, so you're, you can't be accepted. Well, like Mehdi Hasan, you know, famously, when he was a younger man, he said, non Muslims were dogs, you know, I mean, he's recorded saying that. So it's not a big deal, I guess. Or like, you know, he's worked for Al Jazeera, which is, you know, candidly and like, there's also other people who work for A Jazeera who are super woke. But it's like a neofeudal. You know, I mean, like, I've been to Qatar, you know what I'm saying? It's like, you think America has like a race issue? Like Qatar is like, next level, right? We don't need to get into it. But you know, there's kind of like a plot, there's kind of like, okay you don't like talk about that? Because they cut checks for progressive journalists or whatever, right? So there are these things that are happening, where it's like, I'm like, there's gotta be something underneath this that I don't get. Because in other circumstances, you know, oh, like someone gets like a grant from the Koch foundation. Well, now you're like, bad. And I'm like, Qatar is an absolute like, I mean, yes, it's not totalitarian. I wouldn't say it's totalitarian. But like, I mean, I'll tell you, I'll tell you guys, like, you know, I went consulting in Qatar, and like, the rule there is like, you never piss off the royal family, you piss off the royal family, you could get stuck in jail somewhere. And nobody knows where you are. Like, that's literally what they told me. You know, this is the kind of government this is the kind of society it is. So you just gotta like keep a low profile, not piss them off, and you're fine, they'll give you money. But if they come after you, you best run you just get out of the country, like have your passport ready, you know, don't let them take your passport. These are the kinds of things that I was told. So, you know, Mehdi Hasan like you started digging, like he got, he got into it with I mean, this is my perception. You can correct me, he got into with some of your friends, you know what I'm saying? With people, you know, and then like, you brought out your big guns and kinda, you kind of roasted them. Right.
I mean, look, to be frank, Matt Taibbi is a friend. And but I've also like, this is something you know, he started lying. Mehdi Hasan, went on a TV program and on Twitter was lying about reporting that I've done for eight months now, you know, a subject that I've done a lot of reporting on, you know, pre Twitter files before Elon Musk, you know, was doing all this. I was reporting based on leaked documents from a whistleblower from litigation from other disclosures, some reporting on efforts by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to partner with the big social media platforms, to police content. To police, political speech on the internet, and then even more reporting with the Twitter files and others Another kind of digging around the subject. So, you know, it's something that I'm well acquainted with. I'm, you know, I know what I'm what I'm talking about here. And Mehdi, I don't think he actually read any of the reporting or the documents. He goes on Twitter and on MSNBC and just lies and claims that, you know, the Department of Homeland Security was not involved in some of these social media moderation efforts and claimed that Matt Taibbi making these claims was lying. And so it's like, Alright, I'll just factcheck you I'll provide more emails. I've got a number of Twitter files emails that confirm what Matt Taibbi had said, and I just gave more context and explanation. I did a regular kind of story saying, hey, Mehdi, look, you're you're getting it wrong here on the facts of this partnership between the government and social media. And then he just goes on a two day, nonstop tweet rant, calling me a liar. Just ad hominem stuff, calling me in Islamophobe. You know, rather than engaging with any of the documents or reporting that I've engaged in, it's this kind of scurrilous, you know, you're racist, you're a bigot, because you disagree with me. And that's worked really well for for Mehdi. He, if you look at what he did in the UK, when he was a journalist there, every day, he was accusing people of being sexist, or, you know, whatever, racist, xenophobic, whatever, and he's come here and I think there's actually bigger professional incentives to engage in that type of, I don't even know where I f it's journalism, it's something it's like, it's, it's like a left wing version of being Rush Limbaugh, but I think a little bit more grating, you know, you’re a commentator that that mocks and vilifies and tries to deperson people with this vicious accusation of saying anyone you disagree with anyone on the other side of a political debate is a bigot that needs to be expelled from civil, you know, polite society, that that's what Mehdi does. I mean, I mean, look on LexisNexis, or any kind of News Archive, do a transcript search of Mehdi and the word racist, just like every night like, that's what he does. He doesn't do any new reporting doesn't provide any new context. And so he tried to apply that to me said I'm a racist against Muslims. absolutely absurd. You know, I've never engaged in that. He's referring to a tweet that I made years ago, telling him that when he was beating up on Tulsi Gabbard, when she was in Congress, saying that she was basically a stooge of Narendra Modi in India. I'm like, Look, there are many members of Congress who are friendly to Modi. She's really not the only one. But you're gonna beat up on the one Hindu lawmaker? You know, it seems unfair to say that she's like, some kind of foreign agent of Narendra Modi, like, Would you like that wouldn't be fair from people to say that you're a foreign stooge, of, you know, of Qatar, because you're taking the check. You know, he was working for Al Jazeera and the Intercept at the same time, and like, you wouldn't like that, either. You know, I wasn't, that's, that's the extent of my comment. He said, that, that shows my Islamophobia or something, and we just, it's just absolute, absolutely ridiculous accusation. But, you know, that kind of led to one thing or another, it's like, Alright, I'm not gonna let Mehdi unperson me and vilify me and engage in this kind of gutter tactic. I just did a little story, looking at his career over the last 25 years that, you know, he does this over and over again, he kind of angles for whatever, you know, career path that he's going towards. And he has a kind of long history of taking other people's arguments, sometimes even literally plagiarizing, just to get ahead. I mean, if you really want to understand Mehdi, he applied to the Daily Mail, which is the you know, the equivalent of Fox News in the UK. And you got to read this, this , the letter. He says, Look, I'm on the left, but I can be basically your friendly labor Muslim commentator, who can attack the left, by being with the left. And you know, I believe in strong social conservatism, and I can help advance, you know, your editorial line. They rejected him. And then of course, he goes on TV and basically compares them to a Nazi outlet. It's like you wanted to work for this outlet that you basically said was was Neo - that you basically say as Neo fascist, when they didn't accept you? And they didn't give you this, you know, Plum gig that you're angling for that? Can you accuse them of being racist? I mean, this this is, this is kind of part and parcel to who he is. And, you know, everyone, I think, who, who's followed Mehdi on Twitter or, you know, follow these debates has seen that infamous kind of speech he gave when he was in his late 20s, early 30s. You know, comparing gays and atheists to dogs, and to cattle, like you were mentioning, you know, for me, I don't think he's actually changed a lot. He's just swapped out his enemies. He was he, when he was a socially conservative Muslim, he vilified, you know, their chosen enemy. Now that he's a MSNBC Democrat, he has a new set of enemies that he wants to vilify. You know, it's not, you know, it's a rare personality that it's kind of focused on attacking and destroying people with very bad faith arguments, he's just picked a different audience. And so he's picked a different group of characters, he hasn't actually changed. He's not he's not become more nuanced or thoughtful.
Yeah, that sounds right. I, again, like I said, like, I had no idea that you had any opinions on Islam. So I remember seeing that. And I just started laughing because I was like, Okay, there's a backstory here. And I'm just gonna, like, follow it, because like, I would, I checked up on what you were saying in terms of your responses, because I knew that it was kind of going to be juicy. Because he was obviously be saying, just like, kind of, you know, throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what what would stick. Now, a lot of people on the left in particular, if you use that sort of insult, you go into a defensive crouch, and then, you know, once you start doing that, you're, you're lost, and you didn't do that. So I mean, I think whatever, you're fine. So I want to, like, close that, in our conversation. Obviously, like, you know, just listening to I subscribe to your substack. You know, probably just like, I want to support you, but also like, you know, you're producing content pretty regularly. I do think that, you know, as someone who doesn't produce content that regularly, but does like longer form, I will say like, there is an angle where people will wait. But you know, I think in the beginning, it makes sense what you're doing. That's the advice that I'm going to give you. But aside from that, and I know you do it already, you're already doing pretty well. So whatever. It's not like you need the advice. I was just like double check it but I kind of knew some of this stuff. So you were at Think Progress with Ziad Jilani and a bunch of other people that came out of that, and I'm mentioning Ziad because you guys kind of have this weird trajectory where, okay, so your at Think Progress, which is basically a Democrat, democratic Think Tank, that was you know, it was kind of like Obama, you know, brain trust or post Obama - people that left the administration or were gonna go the administration and stuff like that. You were your like, president of the Federation of Maryland College Democrats. You intern for Stephanie Tubbs and Steny Hoyer? You were at Media Matters for America. Okay, like some of the stuff I didn't know, I was like, should I be talking to this guy? Not gonna lie. So I mean, like, You're laughing because I don't like I said, my impression of you is you kind of have stayed the same. But the world around you has kind of shifted. So you did this Twitter files thing that basically means - I mean, Twitter is apparently according to the Atlantic, a far right social network. So you're carrying water for a far right social network. Now, Elon Musk is I mean, I don't want to get into what he is. But you know, like, now you're an ancillary to him. You defended Matt Taibbi, a conservative journalist. Glenn Greenwald, a far right wing person is a friend of yours wfrom what I can gather. Like, I'm just saying, like, what is happening here? With you, you guys, you know, because like, I know a lot of you. And, you know, you had like a little dust up during BLM. We don't necessarily need to talk about that. But there's just stuff that's been happening over the last like three or four years. And, you know, I'm like, I'm ‘the right’ quote, unquote, whatever if I have some politics, so I just been kind of an observer. But it's been really weird, because there's a bunch of you a handful. And you know, you're always like interacting with each other. And you guys were like, writing for Mother Jones or Nation. You know, Taibbi had that Rolling Stone piece about Goldman Sachs. Like after the you know, after 2008, like during the Obama era. You guys were not really Obama Democrats. You were further left. You were like proto Bernie people, you know. And now like, I don't know what you are. I know that you're not I mean, you're not like, I don't know you have like some people have like, done the full transition and become like Trump people. I don't think you have. I don't think any of you have on the other hand. I don't know what you guys are. Maybe that's good. Maybe that's bad. I mean, what do you think about all that? Because like, look, you're you're you, you've been through this? I'm sure sometimes, like you get up in the morning, I don't know. And you're just like, wait, wait, like these people were like, way more conservative than me like what's going on? Like, why am I the reactionary or whatever they call you? You know? Yeah,
I'm just I'm, I don't have all the answers. I'm trying to just do good journalism and I I do have a certain set of values, but I don't want to be too prescriptive about things I care about the public interest, I want people to live, happy, healthy, prosperous lives. I want to live in an open democracy with lots of civil debate. And, you know, I care about this country. You know, I've taken maybe a non traditional path, you know, I grew up in the DC area, and I was really into punk music and hardcore music. And I went to a lot of concerts, and there's like, a political angle to this kind of music scene. So I ended up going to a lot of protests protesting the war in Iraq, you know, went up to New York, for that went to all these protests for issues I didn't really understand as as a young teenager. And, you know, there, there was an element where it kind of aligned with my values, but also made me feel uncomfortable, because I was like, I remember thinking at the time, I, you know, if you're talking about Bush as some kind of theocratic fascist, and the Iraq War as part of this, you know, Imperial project to colonize the Middle East, how is marching around chanting a slogan dressed, you know, in a funny way, going to affect any of this change? You know, I felt a lot of cognitive dissonance as a teenager. And I got really into the online blog world. I wrote, I read David Brock's book, you know, I remember in high school, and I wrote him a letter. And I think that was the very first intern at Media Matters back in 2005. Because they took me they're like, Okay, you want to be an intern here. And, or maybe I was the second I don't know, I was like, among the first interns, me matters. And I was falling this whole new bar, I read Byron York's book, you know, conservative guy, but he wrote about this new democratic infrastructure that was taking shape as a, as a reaction to kind of Bush and the success of the conservative movement. I learned about groups like CAP and some of the, you know, donors and strategists involved, I wrote to them as a teenager, and I tried to get more involved in politics. just by the nature of growing up in the DC area, I started just interning everywhere, that would take me I interned, you know, in high school, you know, going into college, every semester in college, every summer, I just tried everything because I wanted, I desperately wanted to influence politics, to make society better somehow to have my voice heard. But I also always felt this kind of conflict with the nature of working in any political job, that you're kind of a peon. And you're told what to do, and you have no real voice, and most of these political institutions on the center left are also kind of corrupt and evil in their own way. You know, I felt, you know, I was seen as a crazy left winger at CAP, you know, kind of pushing the envelope on what we could report, lots of conflicts they're fighting with, with our, you know, CAP received a lot of corporate money, had a lot of alliances with the administration and with Democrats, and we're constantly getting in conflict. I really enjoyed my time working there. But you know, it wasn't kind of a perfect situation for me personally. And, you know, I drifted out of that, started my own investment investigative website, and co founded with some other folks, we pissed off all our donors that collapsed, I kind of floated through working for different magazines and outlets, eventually landing at The Intercept in 2015. And while you know, the early days of the Intercept provided a lot of intellectual freedom, a lot of journalistic freedom, it kind of devolved into just another Nation, or Mother Jones, where, you know, there's this kind of monolithic culture on the supposedly far left, that is intolerant of any kind of political disagreement. There, there's mass stereotyping of people of color as all, you know, oppressed victims, or whatever. I mean, these narratives on the left, kind of have a life of their own, but it's just not journalistic. You know, your job as a journalist to go out there and ask tough questions. Doesn't matter if you're, if you're, you know, Joe Biden, or AOC, you should be able to be critical of any politician. And, you know, there's a lot of water carrying for various activist groups or, you know, groups on the left with a certain type of sloganeering, I wasn't comfortable with that. And that led to some public some public issue. So, you know, I don't think I've fundamentally changed, I've matured and gain new skills and all these experiences, you know, contribute to who I am today. But seen as the heterodox person at the intercept or the far left person at Think Progress, you know, I don't know it's all it's all about context. You know, I was in Denmark earlier this year, and You know, their center left party, which has dominated recent elections, they've done very well. They have universal health care, you know, higher education is free, the great infrastructure, they're very anti immigrant, you know like to espouse with the center left does and Denmark, you will be called a Nazi here in the US, even though they provided a lot of the economic kind of utopia that leftists dream of here. I mean, if you go to grad school in Denmark, not only is it free, they pay you, they pay you to go to grad school there. And it's high quality education. It's just it's all about the context you're in, right. Like, I don't think what I'm doing is fundamentally, that extreme or, or, or whatever. But but our current political context keeps changing. Now, if free speech is seen as a right wing value, okay. I disagree with that, you know,
It's a code word.
Yeah, it's a code word.
A Dog Whistle.
That's right. And, you know, I just, I want to be honest to who I am, and I don't have all the answers, but I want to represent my values and my journalism.
Yeah, I mean, you know, one thing that I like, maybe you can speak on, because you are a journalist, you know, something's happened over the last like three or four years on certain cultural topics, people just shut down. And so there's all these group chats and, you know, private conversations. And people, you know, and I know, sometimes people evolve, you know, So - Well, yeah, I'll give you an example. I'll give a concrete example. Because it's in the public record, although I knew this, I'm not gonna say how I knew that they want to be I don't like to like personal correspondence is personal correspondence. But so for example, like Ryan Cooper, who's the big guy on the left, is messaging Jesse Singal in 2018. How he's, you know, thinks that some of this trans stuff is a little too far. And he's not going to change his views. Now, he's changed his views. Is he sincere? Or not? I don't know. I mean, you can't know the hearts of men. But this is a common issue. You see this on? You know, you see this in other ways, you know, people go from being Bernie Bros. to alt right. dissident, right, like far right activists within a year, I don't really get that. I mean, I don't get that. You know, what I'm saying like, I've always liked like you, I think probably because I'm not like super political. I've never been an activist, nor have I ever wanted to get involved in DC stuff. It's just like, I got some views. Like, you know, for example, like, you know, I'm, quote, pro choice, I support abortion rights, I'm not going to change that view, just because I guess like, I'm in a coalition with people that want to ban it. That's just, I have friends who are, you know, I have friends that are involved in pro life activism, so whatever. But it is what I it is what it is. But it seems like everyone has to be on the same page and a lot of these movements, and like, okay, that makes sense when you're in a political movement or your Center for American Progress, or Heritage. But how is this happening in journalism? So for example, what happened to you and people can Google it, we don't need to re litigate it. During BLM. Okay. During BLM, there was a lot of fear within journalism, about saying anything, and people were just like, kind of venting privately, from what I can tell. I mean, I saw some of it myself, but I'm not in the hardcore journalism group chats and stuff like that. Is that like, abated? Or is just like just the new normal, and anyone who basically doesn't? So the whole reading the room thing, for example, like, I think it's just BS, I think it's just a dispositional thing. Some people are terrified about being like, the odd person out. And so they always are reading the room, but that like leads to basically irrational herds, in my opinion. I don't think you know, and so, but is that is that just the way journalism is now? I mean, I don't know.
You know, I think it's always been the case. That way, you know, that you read books, what’s tgat, ‘the boys on the bus’ The book on the 68 or 72 presidential election that, you know, there'd be the top reporters that would kind of pick the narrative of the day of, you know, the way to frame the the major presidential candidates and then all the kind of lower level mid level reporters were basically copy them, you know, so there's this, there's always been this kind of herd mentality in journalism, it's just social media has become our like panopticon. We're all kind of afraid, or at least, I should say that most journalists are afraid of stepping outside the lines of what's become the acceptable conventional thinking. And, you know, if you read the room, and after 911, you would have to agree with all the kind of war on terror, Iraq War stuff. If you read the room on COVID policy, you'd have to agree that the lab like theory was racist, you know, like it's conventional. Elite opinion is often wrong, you know, and I think that's that's what you do. Dangerous, It shields it, it blocks critical inquiry, it blocks journalists from doing their basic job. It's a big part of why Americans don't trust the media because they see these gigantic lies, especially on identity and criminal justice, where it's like, you know, these are these are messy issues, they require nuance and treating people as individuals, not as parts of stereotyped groups. We just don't see that on on the left, you know, the, the, the death of traditional newspapers, clustered people, like you mentioned, in the very beginning of this into digital outlets, digital outlets have imploded, you know, but BuzzFeed is now written by bots, which is kind of amazing. And work on the left as these, you know, floating around on social media mimicking each other in fear of getting canceled. And it's not a great climate for interesting journalism, like if you just like, read. Most of the senator left publications on democratic politics, they all say the exact same thing. It's just, it's not even very insightful, because they're constantly getting it wrong too. I don't really understand it. But it kind of, I think cues to just personality types, there are certain personality types that really want to be part of a social group, and they don't want to feel rejection. You know, I disagree a lot with my friends, Ziad Jelani, who you also mentioned, but I enjoy about him is that we can get into it about politics. We can disagree strongly. And we're always kind of we have a kind of transgressive bone in our bodies, that we're always asking questions about politics and about the media. And a lot of other journalists. I mean, don't you know, I just, I don't get it. But that's, that's just again, like, that's part of their character.
Yeah, let me just close out. You know, we’ve talking for a while, you know, and this is kind of like, I tried to keep this podcast evergreen, like, not talk too much about contemporary stuff, but I'm just gonna, because I think it's gonna be a big deal for a while. The whole New York subway Jordan Neely, you know, and Damien Penny, whatever. You know, I don't talk too much about stuff like this, because like, What the fuck do I know? You know? I'm just, you know, but like, I'm seeing people the commentary. And you know, this is right and left, like, I knew that every single right wing person will be like, you know, he was justified crazy guy, blah, blah, blah.
And deify him. You know?
Yeah, yeah. And then like, the left wing is like, well, of course, like, there's crazy people that are going to scream and your three year old toddlers face on the subway, what do you expect? I'm like, okay, you know, it was just like, this is like, within like, hours. So I don't say anything, partly because like, look, there's other stuff going on, you know, I got my own life. I've got my own business. I got my own family. Don't these people too. But anyway, I understand being a pundit. Online is a thing. And like, you know, I should be one to speak. But, you know, I have opinions on things I know about, and I don't know anything. I don't know, beyond what the person on the street knows about these sorts of things. But it's just interesting how. And then there's also like, the flip where it's like, oh, well, you know, people who are scared of certain words, think that you should just kind of accept extremely aggressive, loud, kind of mentally unstable people running around your children. You know, the whole thing is like, okay, like you had this pre written like, I'm not, it's like you only read these commentary for entertainment purposes only, like, you know, that there's no sincere, working it out independently of the hive mind. Right.
Well, you know, that's, I wish I just want to take an optimistic view. I think there's, I mean, I this is really the I don't want to use this term, but for lack of a better term, a silent majority that does not want to go into this kind of tribalistic camp mode of you know, turning everything into a partisan slugfest. I think there's a lot of people that are just like, Alright, look, we don't know all the answers. We really don't like, the extreme kind of views around this. You know, initially, there were a lot of elite media, a lot of click-batey media, a lot of left wing politicians like Tiffany Gabon, and others who are so quick to racialize this and say, Well, this was a, you know, white man who lynched a black man. And then, you know, now now we see kind of the far right, seizing this with some kind of racialized terms. It's like, just like, let's, let's cool down and if you present the facts and what's known, and you kind of call out the extremes, I think there's a there's actually a big The audience for that as well. It's just that social media and much of the mainstream media hypes, you know, really bad behavior in terms of the folks seeking to politicize this. But a lot of folks are working through these issues wondering about it. And they're tired of the loudest voices in the room. I'm kind of, you know, I don’t live in New York, but living in San Francisco, it's almost the identical issue, you know, like, we have, you know, it's actually in some ways worse, because we spend a lot more per capita, per homeless person, per addict on the street, and we're getting maybe even worse results. So this is something that just interests interests me for a very long time, because I've watched the, the far left in my city, the ACLU and others, fight involuntary commitment, you know, greater intervention by the state for severely addicted severely mentally ill people who are a danger to themselves and others, you know, find any kind of institutional, any type of plan to institutionalize these people and get them the treatment they need. You know, Jordan Neely desperately needed involuntary treatment, if he if he, police had questioned him one month before this incident in the subway back in April, they didn't even notice that he had an active warrant for his arrest, social workers had flagged him as a serious risk. You know, that's a I mean, big picture, that's a failing of the state, why did the state do more, if they had taken them off the streets into treatment that he needed? We wouldn't have had this incident. I mean, that's, like, you know, I hear from the far left, you know, we can't look at isolated incidents, we need to look at systemic root causes root causes. It's like, okay, there was a root cause here, why aren't you talking about you're actually doing the very opposite of what you claim to believe in terms of how we should cover public policy and politics. And I wish that was the discussion, but I think there actually isn't a big audience for it.
Well, I'm gonna hope so. Because I think, you know, I like your work. I like what you're doing. I hope you, you know, get more subscribers, people should check leefang.com That's where you can URL, but just type your name. There's a lot of good stuff. I mean, we didn't talk about everything, you've been producing a lot of content recently, like I said, like, you know, it's just like, Okay, I tell Freddie Deboer about, it's like, dude, just chill out on the firehose, like, you don't need to do this, you know, like, we want you to, like, not burn out. So just like, that's the only advice that I'll give you on that. I think, you know, what you're saying is very well taken. There is an audience out there, I think, I mean, look, I mean, people can look at how many paid subscribers you already have, there already is an audience out there. Right. So keep doing that. And, you know, you know, I have like listeners across the ideological spectrum. And what I would say is, it's important to kind of highlight and support and cherish the people who actually still do believe in truth. Like we're all human beings, we all have our viewpoints we all have our biases. But there's there's still a middle ground where you're actually striving for this idea of objective truth out there whether you're right or wrong or any specific cases Lee I do think that you are striving for that and that's the first place that we have to start you know, politics is today a team sport and you know, that's just like not sustainable I think in a democracy for this to go to the max we're all institutions are culturally polarized. You know, the last thing I'll say is like, we'll see but it doesn't look like AI Doomerism has been cultural word yet. But if it does, I swear to god you know, it could be that we will see Mehdi Hasan next year right about that he for one welcomes his AI overlords and I'm only half joking. I mean, I don't know it could be Mehdi, or it could be someone you know at Newsmax. Also do it. You don't know because it's sometimes this stuff is kind of arbitrary. You know what I'm saying? So like you get caught on the wrong side you're like wait a second I'm right wing now I'm left wing now like you don't even know you know, like it's like whiplash
Oh, it's gonna change and then we're going to a presidential election so it's gonna be silly season a lot of all the all the this dynamic is only gonna get worse. You know, Mehdi will constantly goes after Matt Taibbi saying that because of the Twitter followers, he's now captured by Elon Musk and will criticize Twitter. It's like, No, it's not true. He has criticized Twitter. Many times it does not criticize his own parent company donating to lots of Trump Republicans or engaging in union busting right now during the writers strike or engaging in all kinds of corporate influence peddling that he claims to oppose you know, we a lot of this can be turned around, but I don't know. I'm just trying to do what I'm really enjoying the move to substack it's invigorating me you right I don't want to get burned out. But right now, I'm not close to being burned at all. I'm just kind of getting over a little infection but I'm excited to publish a lot more I have a lot more coming. And I appreciate this time Razib. I’m a big fan of yours substack I've forwarded a lot of your pieces along to friends and family. I’ve learned about extremely esoteric genocides committed by the Chinese people against various Mongolian tribes. I had no idea about this history. I feel way more nourished with knowledge
Wait so now your Chinese guilt has kicked in? Wait aren't you like, you're mixed race right you're Eurasian right?
Yeah, my father's from China. Yeah. Yeah, so
You have Chinese guilt and white guilt bro.
Lee Fang: Yeah. They kind of cancel each other out.
All right. Well, you're cancelled so definitely all right. It was great talking to you about I'll see you online.
Alright good to talk to you take care.
Is this podcast for kids? This is my favorite podcast.
