- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by Holy Name.

This place is different.

Seton Hall University.

Showing the world what great minds can do since 1856.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Adler Aphasia Center.

MD Advantage Insurance Company.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Johnson & Johnson.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Here when you need us most.

And by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Working for a more a healthier, more equitable New Jersey.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by The magazine of the Garden State available at newsstands.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato here.

We kick off the program with Chris Kelly, Vice President of Content at New Jersey Advanced Media, NJ Advanced Media, and you'll see NJ.com, one of our media partners that'll come up to find out more.

Hey, Chris, how are we doing?

- I'm doing great.

How are you, Steve?

- I'm doing great.

Listen, we'll talk about journalism, the role of the media, social media, et cetera, et cetera, but I just wanna acknowledge that "Father Wants Us Dead," which is an extraordinary podcast, which I just told you off the air.

- Yeah.

- That my wife and I, on a long trip there and back was 10 Hours.

It's an extraordinary podcast.

It was just voted as one of the top 20 new podcasts of 2022, Apple Podcast.

First of all, congratulations, Chris.

- Oh, thanks, yeah, we were super excited about that.

- Put that podcast in context, so people know what it is and why it's so compelling.

- Yeah, this was our first venture into narrative true crime podcasting.

It was a world we were always very intrigued by, but didn't know if it was a sandbox we belonged in and we decided to take a shot at it, and we re-investigated the John List murders, which is one of the most notorious murders in New Jersey history, a man who murdered his wife, mother, and three children, and then, skipped town and created an entirely new identity, and was finally captured.

I'm not spoiling anything, it's a pretty famous story, but we sent our reporters out and really wanted to try to look at the case in a really meaningful way and bring what local reporting can bring to these things, which is a real knowledge and intimacy of the community, and I'm a little biased here, because I produced it, but I think they did a beautiful job and we've just been thrilled, thrilled, thrilled with the reaction.

It's coming up on 5 million downloads and for an independently produced podcast, as this was, not with any of the big companies, it's been a real triumph for us, so, we're thrilled about it.

- And I should have made it clear that Chris was the producer of that podcast, and also, it's a story out of Westfield, New Jersey, but anywhere you live, entertaining doesn't begin, and it's a sad, tragic story.

It's compelling, it's interesting.

It'll keep you on board.

Hey, listen, shift gears dramatically please.

For us at our production company, the Caucus Educational Corporation, we are obsessed and I say that in all candor, we're obsessed with the role of the media, the role that we have to play, whether it's through public broadcasting or social media outlets that carry our content, that we have an exceptionally important responsibility in these very difficult divided polarized disinformation, misinformation driven times.

I'm off my soapbox.

How do you see it, Chris, your role?

- I see it as really hard for precisely the reasons you just articulated, Steve.

I mean, there is such a flood of information and no one knows what to trust and who to trust, and being at the middle of all that and trying to do what we've always done.

which is to report thoughtfully and fairly on what's going on, to expose wrongdoing, to shine a light where lights aren't being shown.

It gets harder and harder with each passing year with each sort of more noisy tweet, and so, I think what it takes is just a steady hand and a firm belief in what you're doing and not wavering in your mission.

Not easy though.

- And as you check out NJ.com, compelling content every day, it's one of the first go-to sites that I go to along with countless others who care about what's going on, and this is an interesting question that I've been thinking about a lot.

I often say on the other quote, "We have no horse in the race," meaning if you look at a whole range of websites and social media sites combined with so-called news organizations, you know where they stand, they lean, our leaning is toward trying to the best we can to provide perspective on complex issues and policy matters that impact people's lives.

NJ.com Advanced Media has no horse in the race, and if it's not a candidate, if it's not a party, what is that in fact, horse, and is it not truth?

Loaded question, I know.

- The truth, yeah, you sort of teed me up for that, but, yeah, what we see as the truth, obviously, there's subjectivity involved in all of these things.

We sit down and we say we think this is really important, but that comes from our guts, that comes from being residents of the state.

It comes from being parents.

It comes from being from being people who are taking care of elderly parents.

It comes from people who have friends who are police officers or family members who work in the medical field.

We're not coming from any ideological perspective with our agenda, with our stories.

We're coming from the perspective of we think this is really, really important and you need to know about it.

You can make up your own mind.

You may not ultimately agree with the way we see the story, but, hopefully, you can't disagree with us that this is important and it matters, and people need to know it, and at the core of that is what we believe to be the truth, and that a core truth isn't unshakable.

You don't just get to choose what your truth is.

You get to choose what the story is and what you're gonna shine the light on, but the truth is the truth.

- And the other piece of that, Chris, you've talked to our producers about this, you've said it publicly, that having a more diverse staff of editors and reporters is part of the process of hearing different perspectives.

Please, 30 seconds before we have to go.

- Of course, you've gotta check your blind spots.

I know what I know, because I grew up as I did and have the concerns that I have, but I don't know what everybody else knows, and so, really building out a staff that really reflects every perspective.

That doesn't privilege one perspective over another.

It just says that every perspective's gonna get a shot at being heard and being thought about before we make those decisions.

That's the real, real important essence of a diverse staff.

- Okay, they just gave me another minute, so, I'm gonna take advantage of this.

You talked about growing up, where'd you grow up?

- I grew up in Staten Island across the bridge, so not very far, but spent a long time in Texas in my journalism career and it was a whole new world for me, and taught me a lot about different perspectives coming from the more traditionally liberal east coast to a deep red state, so, really, it was an experience that really informed a lot of how I view things now.

- And media and journalism matters greatly to you personally as well as professionally, because?

- Because it is enormous, it is an enormous privilege to get to lead the conversation about a place and an enormous responsibility, and so, on a very selfish level, it's fun.

It's fun to be a part of that conversation.

It's fun to help guide that conversation, but on a bigger and more civic responsibility level, it's essential that we have people looking at these issues, looking at what's going on, what's being done wrong, who's breaking the rules, who's bending the rules, and calling attention to that.

- Well said, Chris.

There are a whole range of us.

I wanna believe that there are a whole range of us who are in this business.

Even though we come at it from different perspectives and different platforms, that would've said something very similar to what you just said.

It is a privilege and a responsibility, and we don't take it lightly,.

and so, Chris, Kelly, to the team at Advanced Media New Jersey, NJ Advanced Media, NJ.com, one of our media partners, we thank you for joining us and keep doing important work.

Thank you.

- Thanks, Steve, an absolute pleasure.

- You guys stay with us, we'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Once again, we're joined by Batya Ungar-Sargon who is an author and Deputy Opinions Editor at Newsweek.

Batya, good to see you again.

- Thanks so much for having me back.

- Your perspectives are interesting, compelling, and we also make sure we put up on the screen a way for people to connect with you and read more about your work.

Question, you have said that the 2022 elections, there are many messages in it, but the one of the areas that I wanna follow up on is this, you said, "When it comes to race and voting patterns, 20% of Black people are now voting Republican because more and more African-Americans, you argue, are rejecting the Democratic party as, quote, the party of the poor."

Explain that.

- Yeah.

It's very interesting.

When you talk to Black men and Hispanic men who don't have a college degree increasingly you're hearing this message where what they're craving is a message about autonomy, good jobs, respect, and those are not things that they feel that the Democratic party is on offer.

There was a great piece in the New York Times that was speaking to a lot of Hispanic men, and the overarching message that they were getting there was the Democratic party is the party of the poor and we don't wanna be poor.

And I think that that is a real trend that you're starting to see emerge today.

The Democratic party now gets 65% of the votes of people who make over $500,000 a year.

So they get that sort of overeducated elite on the left but they also get a lot of poor voters.

But what they're missing is the people that used to be their base, which is the working class, people who don't have a college degree, but who work hard, often at multiple jobs because they're trying to make it in an economy that is not built for working Americans.

And I think the more that we understand that that the real divide in this country is not about race, it's about class, it's about whether you have that college degree and thus have that economy that works for you, the knowledge industry, or do not have that college degree, you're in the working class and then you're downwardly mobile.

That is the real divide here.

- Batya, here's what I wanna follow up on.

You're implying that the Republican party as it currently stands, particularly in Washington, represents something that those who happen to be minorities and at the lower income level can relate to.

But the former president, the titular head of the Republican party, Donald Trump is meeting with white supremacists and saying I don't know who that is.

These are people who have espoused incredibly racist views.

It's not isolated.

Point being, what exactly do the folks you're talking about who happen to be in the minority community relate to in that regard?

Because Donald Trump is still the titular head of that party.

- You know, unfortunately in this country, caring about a candidate's character is a privilege and a luxury that if you're living in a community that is being decimated by fentanyl, you just don't have that luxury.

That's what I found in my reporting.

To care about character is a luxury and a privilege that if you are working three jobs and struggling to feed your kids, you don't have.

And I think that that is something I really wish people on the left would understand.

Yeah, Trump sat down with anti-Semites and white nationalists.

It's disgusting and deplorable.

- And January 6th happened and?

- January 6th, deplorable.

Yes.

- Okay.

- He proved all of his haters.

- But you're saying that's a luxury to care about that?

- I'm saying he proved his haters right on character again and again and again.

- Okay.

- But his economic policy, if you look at the impact it had on the working class, you can't take that away.

His economic agenda was the kind of things Bernie Sanders was pushing for as recently as 2015, because he understood that this is what helps working Americans.

I'm talking about getting rid of NAFTA.

I'm talking about starting a trade war with China.

I'm talking about tariffs on steel and aluminum which protect working class jobs that pay $90,000 a year.

He was the first president to do that in 40 years.

Right?

- And Democrats espouse what?

I mean when the Democrats, Joe Biden together with the Democrats in Congress together with some Republicans pass an historic piece of legislation that provides federal aid to working families for childcare, for infrastructure.

That means what?

That does not appeal to folks you're talking about?

- The folks I'm talking about don't want handouts from the government.

They want good jobs.

They want to earn a dignified living on their own.

And neither party is really offering that.

But that's what Trump was really speaking to despite all of his manifold character flaws that's what he was offering.

Not the trickle down of Mitch McConnell and the free marketeers on the right, and not the welfare state of the left, but the opportunity to have a good job that pays a decent living wage.

- Batya you have argued that the American dream, the phrase was coined back in the 1930s, that it's redefined to mean something very different today.

Talk about that.

- I really do think that the Democrats have given up on the American dream.

So instead of, you know, building housing and being the side that represents building housing so that a working class family can buy their own home and be part of the middle class, they talk about building housing for homeless people.

They talk about public housing.

They talk about, you know, the fact that people should be, you know, more comfortable renting.

That's the message that you get.

They've given up on the American dream.

They want universal basic income.

They want the government to be supporting people instead of having people be self-sufficient.

- You're talking about socialism, about to....

Excuse me for interrupting.

You're talking about a socialist agenda and while there is social security and there are a whole range of social safety net policies and programs, isn't that a wing of the Democratic party versus the mainstream Democratic party?

- I think if you look at, okay.

Where would you put universal free pre-K?

Is that in the socialist wing or is that mainstream?

I think that's pretty mainstream.

When you talk to working class Americans they don't want that.

What they want is for a husband to be able to make a living wage so that his wife can stay home when the kids are young.

- Well, what about a single mom?

- Nobody's offering that.

- What does she want?

Doesn't she want childcare?

- There are definitely people who need welfare who need that support from the government.

But what the Democrats want is to expand the number of people who need that help.

And increasingly what Black and Hispanic Americans are rejecting is that because they don't want to be in that category that needs help.

They wanna be in the category that can help themselves.

And again, neither party's offering that.

You don't get that with trickle down economics that's on the side of corporations.

And you don't get that with welfare.

You get that with a strong working class and an economic agenda that's catered to making sure that they can make a living wage.

- 30 seconds left.

How do you believe the issues you're talking about play out in 2024?

- I think the Democrats need to really regain their focus on the working class especially Black and Hispanic working class Americans.

Black Americans have unique challenges that no party is addressing, and I think whoever cares the most about that community and shows up for them is gonna do very well in 2024.

I really hope that it's a fight between both parties rather than what we've seen which is both parties giving up on the Black community.

- And if Donald Trump is the nominated Republican party?

- He won't be the nominee.

He won't be the nominee.

- You're convinced of that?

- Yes.

- Batya Ungar-Sargon, author and Deputy Opinions Editor at Newsweek.

Batya, thank you so much.

Thought provoking, challenging and have us all thinking.

And again, people can log onto your website to find out more about you.

Thank you, Batya.

Appreciate it.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- You gotta stay with us.

We'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Mike Rothschild, who is the author of "The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, a Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything."

Mike, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Hey, Mike, I thought I knew what this QAnon thing was and is, and reading the book, I'm like, whoa.

It's deeper than I thought.

First of all, QAnon is what?

And then why is it so dangerous, please.

- Sure, so the what is QAnon question actually has a couple of answers as most of these things do.

The pre-Joe Biden answer is that QAnon is a cult-like conspiracy movement based around the image board 8chan which claims that Donald Trump is working with a military intelligence team to enact a purge of the deep state and the Democratic Party and the Hollywood and banking elite.

And that at the exact moment President Trump will take to Twitter, announce that the storm is upon us, there'll be hundreds of thousands of indictments unsealed.

There will be mass arrests.

All of the perpetrators will be found guilty.

They will all be executed, and then we will live in a utopia of peace and freedom and harmony.

- Now, that didn't happen, at least that I know of so- - No, at least that I know of either, but... - (laughs) So the- - But January 6th happened.

- Right, January 6th happened.

- And what's the connection between QAnon and January 6th and the violence?

- Sure.

- Of January 6th.

- So the QAnon movement was amping up a drumbeat over all of 2020 that the election was going to be stolen, that there would be mass fraud with mail-in ballots and all these other terrorist attacks and all of these things that would steal the election for Joe Biden.

And it was almost inconceivable that Trump wouldn't win.

So then when Trump didn't win, they came up with all of these justifications, all these things that had to happen for him to be propelled back into office, and none of that happened.

So January 6th was really seen as the last desperate attempt to right the wrong of 2020 and reinstate Trump back into office, and it would have to be done through violence.

It would have to be done through the military taking control or civil unrest, something that would propel Trump back to office, and that's really what these people thought they were doing.

They thought they were getting Trump back to his rightful place.

- You know, there's some people watching right now say, Steve, why are you talking about fringe elements of, it's not even a party, it's whatever it is.

But unless I have this wrong, and if I do, as an expert, you will tell us, Mike, but Marjorie Taylor Greene is a member of Congress, correct?

- Yes.

- She is a significant member of Congress as we speak at the end of 2022, fair?

- Yes.

- I believe she has quoted and tweeted on social media and other places about QAnon consistently or QAnon conspiracy theories, and recently said as we're taping this program, "If I had been involved in January 6th with Steve Bannon, we would have won and we would have been armed."

No connection, correct?

- Well, yeah- - Or total connection.

- Right, of course, it's- - There are members of Congress who are connected to what you described.

- Right, it's hugely connected.

And it's not so much about QAnon itself, the branding and the hashtags.

It's about the philosophy, this idea that there's a vast deep state that controls politics, that only through organizing together online can we unite and beat back this Babylonian cult.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a very public expression of this, but there are many, many people who believe in aspects of QAnon, particularly becoming radicalized through the pandemic.

- You include Trump in that, former President Donald Trump?

- You know, I never try to guess what Trump believes and what's just put in front of him, but he has absolutely no issue pandering to these people and has been doing it quite a bit on Truth Social.

He's been sharing hundreds of QAnon memes and posts and hashtags, some of them put by some of the biggest influencers in the Q movement.

He knows who these people are.

The people around him, his social media team, they know exactly who these people are and that these are his biggest fans.

- Again, not across the board, but as Mike Rothschild writes about this, it's not who says they're a member, or...

I don't even know how you're a member of QAnon, but ascribes to some of these theories or this thinking including that COVID was a hoax, that it was never really real until those who espoused some of those views got COVID and many of them died.

Do I have that wrong, Mike?

- No, you're exactly right.

They believed that COVID, and this is going to sort of contradict itself.

They believe that COVID was basically just a bad cold but it was also a bio-weapon engineered by the Chinese with the funding of George Soros and done in Ukrainian bio labs as a way to influence the 2020 election.

So it's simultaneously harmless and also the most harmful thing that could possibly be done.

- The rest of us who want to read and learn and try to understand the complex world we live in, what is our role, A, as citizens as it relates to QAnon and QAnon-related theories, but also as members of the media, what's our role?

First as citizens, what should most citizens who want to try to understand the complex world we're living in know about QAnon?

- Sure, and that's a great question.

I think as citizens, it's important not to try to consult some of the primary sources here.

Don't read the Q drops.

Don't read some of the really anti-Semitic and racist works that they push.

- And they are anti-Semitic.

- They want you to read it.

- And they are anti-Semitic.

- Absolutely.

- And racist consistently.

Go ahead, Mike.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

This is what they want you to do.

They want you to read this stuff.

They want you to, you know, watch these videos that they create and read these Twitter threads.

But what we can do is understand why this matters and how people get pulled into it, and that we can't just pretend it's not there, think, oh, if we don't feed the trolls, it'll go away.

Just don't give it oxygen.

We know that that doesn't work.

We have to confront these things head on.

We have to understand what they are, and we have to understand what appeals to people about these things.

It's very easy to look at Q believers or conspiracy believers as just, oh, they're just crazy.

They need help.

You know, they need medication.

Some of them might.

- But excuse me interrupting.

In my case, they're relatives, they're close friends, and they're people who I have a hard time even talking to anymore because I don't really know what they're talking about or can't understand it.

So they are in our lives.

- Right, right, they speak a language that is designed to be impenetrable, but what they will do is they will broadcast to the world on their social media that they've discovered these things.

They'll share these articles and these videos, and as people, we can look at them and say, hey, this is somebody who's fallen into something that is not good.

This could hurt them.

This could hurt other people.

And you privately reach out and say, hey, I noticed you posted this thing.

Did you know that that's not true?

Let's talk about this.

It's not about, you know, debunking or belittling.

It's about a conversation with someone who you may wanna just walk away from.

But, you know, I urge people to sort of bypass that and think, what is appealing about this to this person?

- And those of us in the media, we are not, in our production company, gonna put someone on the air who says dangerous, outrageous things that are unfounded because it's dangerous.

But you're saying not giving it oxygen is not the answer either so help me on this.

- Right.

- Should we have someone who believes these things and put them on the air and challenge them, what?

- No, that's not going to do anybody any good.

It's a question of how to focus your attention on these things in a productive way.

And I think by paying attention to it is by reading about it and understanding sort of the historical conspiracy theories that have gone into it.

It's not about platforming these people.

I strongly urge people not to platform Q believers or the works that they cite but to understand the psychological reasons behind this that are pulling in people who don't go on TV shows, who don't, you know, make videos, the sort of vast majority of people who are just looking for answers and have found them in the wrong place.

- Mike Rothschild is the author of the book, "The Storm Is Upon Us."

It's all about QAnon.

It's an important book, compelling book.

Hey, Mike, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

We thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Holy Name.

Seton Hall University.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Adler Aphasia Center.

MD Advantage Insurance Company.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Johnson & Johnson.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

And by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by - Hello, I'’m Dr. Luke Eyerman, a family medicine specialist at Holy Name.

When was your last visit to your primary care doctor?

Throughout the pandemic, many patients have put off their annual physicals and screenings, but preventative healthcare is critical for early detection of illnesses and to avoid future health problems.

Your doctor can also help you develop a wellness plan to achieve your personal health goals.

Your health can'’t wait.

Be proactive and talk to your primary care doctor today about scheduling your annual physical.