Im pleased to have them back at the table. Whats going on . [laughter] whats happening in america . Mark i have been traveling a little bit lately outside of washington and its clear that the velocity and pure insanity of events taking place in washington are captivating elites around the country. Theres no doubt weve never seen anything like it. Charlie underline elites. Mark elites, because as ive traveled around the country, whether Trump Supporters or trump points, theyre not paying nearly as much attention to this stuff as we are so its clear this is an extraordinary period in American History and that the president is doing things weve not seen in our lifetime or maybe the history of the planet and theres the trump reality show and then theres reality and reality in america, is still going on. Economy is still going along. Kids are still going to school. Stuffs still happening but the trump reality show now is dominating the thinking of elites, popular culture, everything else. Charlie john . John i think because its dominating the popular culture, people are paying some attention to whats going on and it is the events we see on an almost daily basis are extraordinary and unprecedented. Weve done this not as long as you have covered events of america but we have been doing president ial politics and politics in general for 25 years or so and almost every day something happens that ive never seen anything like it. Literally, in a given 24hour cycle, there are four or five events in a given day that would normally have occupied five months if they occurred in another administration and i think if you get down to it, there are two things that are happening. One thing thats happening is the trump governing agenda. And then theres the investigations, picking up speed at an extraordinary rate and the president is clearly reacting to them and behaving in ways that suggests he feels threatened by whats happening. Hes behaving like a man who is bothered by that thing that is consuming now. Charlie what does it mean to you . John i dont know what he thinks the possible worst case is. He knows the facts what have he has done and what his people have done in a way that none of us do but on the prima fascia basis, the things hes doing, talking about Jeff Sessions, hes behaving like a man who is panicking. Charlie that there is something that will be discovered by bob mueller that will be more than embarrassing. John lets say at a minimum that the investigation could consume his presidency at the minimum, consume it and allow him not to get anything done and at the negative extreme could be at threat to end it. Mark he may fear much more than this but without knowing any more of the truth than either of you, he fears that the independent counsel will investigate things beyond russia. He fears charlie meaning the building of his financial empire . Mark right. He fears his children will be dragged into this in a way that will be bad for their lives and he fears that people will start cooperating with the independent counsel, creating all sorts of potential problems. Charlie to save their own skin. Mark to save their own skin and obviously he fears that this will block anything he could do to be considered a great president. Charlie and ruin reelection . Mark oh, sure. He may fear substantially more than that but at least at a minimum, those things. John don jr. Is now dragged into the middle of this, Jared Kushner is dragged into the middle of this, dragging at least by marriage his daughter into this so theyre already in the middle of this now. And its also the case that depending on how you define things outside the scope of russia and again theres some question about the things that trump says, well, if he starts looking at my finances, thats outside of i think he defines the russia thing is what happened in 2016, calendar year 2016. Its clear right now. Charlie between my Election Campaign and russias. John when he says is nothing but the independent counsel, the special counsel, bob mueller, obviously thinks trump has a long history of intertwinement with russia and he thinks that is relevant as to the issue of collusion. Charlie that someone rescued him and gave him funds. Mark no one in america wants a special counsel appointed to investigate this. Bill clinton felt similarly but this special counsel has things about him that are distinctive. Number one, hes extremely competent. Number two, he is beyond reproach in the view of republicans and democrats alike, and number three, he has hired quickly and is moving fast. Sometimes moving fast is a good thing for someone because they dont want a long investigation but this guy moving fast i dont think is in the president s interests because hes in the beginning of his presidency and the whole thing, right now, to some extent has overtaken anything else and could quickly bring it down. John and before he is a man behaving as of now and everyone who knows him says he does not fear donald trump at all. He has nothing left to prove in his career and he has no fear of threats or intimidation of muller will not waver or quaver at donald trump making noises about the potential of firing him and trump has not meant many people who are fearless in confronting him. Charlie i watch you guys and others on television and some are characterizing him as insane, as mentally imbalanced. Do you buy that kind of thing . Or is this someone fearful of where an investigation is and where it might lead . Mark hes been so many things done so many things delight airs to his own interests in the last couple of months, at a minimum, you have to say hes irrational. Charlie youre saying hes irrational . Mark im not saying hes irrational every minute of the day but hes clearly done things that are irrational. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It is the case that the president has always had this side, well before he was in politics, hes always had a side of vindictive, emotional acting sometimes in a way that if you thought about it, you wouldnt do. There are those who think its gotten worse. There are those who say this is what its like but the stakes and the scrutiny are different. Charlie witness exhibit a, Jeff Sessions. Defies why you would want to do that. John and its the purest and most recent clear distillation of someone doing something not in his interests and in some sense, as some people around sessions have been trying to tell the white house if not the president directly, if what you wanted is to fire bob mueller, which would be a bad idea, provoking a constitutional crisis which would cause republicans to split from him entirely. Charlie back to bob mueller who has respect across the lines. John but if you want to, the person to get rid of is not Jeff Sessions but Rob Rosenstein who brought mueller on but instead hes tormenting sessions i think largely because, again, and hes expressing this im not reading his mind hes angry at sessions because he regards sessions as the person who brought this horror upon him by recusing himself. His analysis of the recusal, which is, if he told me he was going to recuse himself, i wouldnt have appointed him, doesnt make any sense in the chronology of events because sessions didnt know he would have to recuse himself until after he was already in the Senate Confirmations hearings and he had gotten in trouble on that front on top of which he actually did make statements in his confirmation hearings that essentially if trump had been paying attention, he would have said he might be heading for recusal on the basis of what happens in the confirmation hearing. He could have withdrawn sessions then so the combination of misreading his history and republicans rising up as one and saying you cant get rid of that man. Theres bipartisan from the far conservative end to liberals standing up for Jeff Sessions. He gets nothing good out of this on any possible mark except that he wants to fire mueller. If he replaces sessions and gets someone else in the attorney general spot, he could fire mueller. Charlie suppose he gets somebody else in. Suppose its during the the break, the recess appointment and then that person fires ron rosenstein. Mark they wouldnt need to. The attorney general would take over the investigation. But again, its like firing comey but worse. If the goal of firing comey was to make the investigation go away, it had the opposite effect and only escalated it not just because of the appointment of mueller as special counsel but because the scrutiny is so high. We also have two congressional investigations. The First Time Since the mid 90s where both parties are strategizing about getting the truth. Those loom out there, too. I dont think he will limit the investigation. I dont believe mueller can be fired. I believe, as a matter of regulation he can be fired but i dont believe politically the body politics would tolerate that. I think there would be serious talk of impeaching the president if he moves to fire mueller and it would be difficult to find anyone who would pull the trigger on that. John the senate has made it clear that if he were to fire sessions, theres no one whom they would confirm to take that post because they would regard it as a challenge to the constitutional order. So there would be that. They also also almost certainly if mueller was somehow fired, if he got to his ultimate goal and gets rid of mueller, they would just pass theyre saying this openly, they would pass an independent counsel law through congress and reappoint mueller in that job. So he would alienate everyone along the way, republicans would break with him in a formal way. He would still have mueller and you would have a genuine watergate style special committee has mueller running it as the new independent counsel so all of this. Mark the point is the f. B. I. Agents will continue to investigate. Very smart lawyers. So the president is in a corner. He is backed into a corner and hes been backed into a corner in real estate career, political career. Bob mueller is person as a person and institutionally. And both parties, if the blue team is for one thing, the red teams for another. Thats not the case. Everyone in washington with the exception of the president and a few people around him believe this investigation not just should continue but must continue and the truth must be known. Hes trying to get out of the corner by doing things that are only making it worse. Charlie do most people believe, even though theyve not seen hard evidence, that there was collusion with the russians . Mark lots of responsible people in both parties believe that there is and youve seen in the last two weeks or so a real turn as i spent time on capitol hill last week talking to republicans. Some have specific theories but most will say i can reach no other conclusion but that theres something here because of the way the president s behaving. Charlie thats not evidence. But he acts like something happened. John its not just that. The key turning point on this front i think in terms of getting more democrats and some republicans to start being either open to the notion that there was collusion or just to believe it is was the donald jr. Meeting in trump tower in june and the fact that they lied about it for so long and the storys changed. Its not just the president s behavior. Its that the people around him lied for months about having met any russians, that their stories about the meeting that took place last june 2016 changed over days, changing every day as more facts were known. There was one person, there were two people, now theres eight people in the room and every day changing their stories has made people think you dont lie about these things for months and then in sequence over a series of days in the middle of a crisis when the focus is on you, you dont lie about things if you have nothing to hide so thats provoked a lot of people to say instinctively, we dont have all the evidence here but theres something here thats beyond just hearsay and smoke. Theres fire here in a lot of peoples minds, thats when it changed. Mark and some republicans said, by don jr. s account of what happened, the only reason there wasnt quote unquote collusion is because the russians didnt deliver the goods and they can say all they want, anyone would have taken the meeting, as the president said. Most people in politics would not have taken that meeting. Some say they would. Even Anthony Scaramucci, when asked over the weekend, would you have taken that meeting said, i dont know, not yes. Charlie and i would talk to counsel. John the meeting was set up to be, on paper, ludicrously incriminating as a piece of bait to say we would like to bring you information thats connected to russias campaign to support your father and defeat hillary clinton, wed like to bring you this information, the you like to take that meeting. Theres no subterfuge around it, it was set up in a way mark because the russian government wants your father to win. John it was a test case to the openness of collusion at a ludicrous rate. Not just the email but to say yes and the paper trail charlie he owned it if for no other reason Vladimir Putin hated hillary clinton. Mark and the elites didnt want another administration that would keep it expanding. John thats the assessment of the intelligence committee. Charlie in terms of what he says and how he behaves, has he changed the presidency . Or will it revert back to the values and standards it had once he leaves . Mark 85 chance it not only reverts back but reverts back even further in response to some of the things weve seen with social media and the partisanship and the kind of like everythings got to be a battle. John i agree with that on some level. Theres another level, i just dont know. Part of the level of unprecedentedness is that we dont have precedent. So its sort of like, if you put a president in who has no respect for the norms that every other president has respected and particularly a president who says as many untrue things, what longterm effect does that have on the political culture and what the political culture will tolerate and what voters think of the presidency . I think its too early to know whether especially if trust is in office for a full fouryear term or, who knows, eight years, if he continued along this path in a documented way as the New York Times does, laying out the places where he speaks untruths, in a promiscuous way no president has done before, what does that do to the credibility of the office and how voters think about the presidency and to the way the presidency interplays with the media. I dont know what the answer is to that whether theres lasting damage. I just dont know. Charlie two intriguing questions for me are if things continue as they are and get worse with more disclosures, when do you see his base deserting him, in part, and two, when do you see people that are considered strong in the administration saying, i can no longer tolerate this . Mark i dont think the base will desert him on these types of things. I think it will desert him on his failure to deliver on promises. I think the question about, talked about before he took office what will the quote unquote adults in the cabinet do. Its impossible to know but my sense is that by january, if things are not different, you will see it could be sooner but i think by january, by the state of the union. John interestingly, the place where youre starting to see the movement is in the Foreign Policy place where people who have broadly wanted solace in trumps presidency have looked at those particular grownups, mattis and tillerson and masterson and have said, the worst things we have to fear with trump are his temperament in crisis and all three right now, tillerson said im going to take time off, i got to get away from this a little bit. Hes been in office six months. All three of those have high flight risk at this point. Im not predicting any of them will go but youre hearing emanations from people around them that their frustration level is mounting. They came in as patriots to try in ways to constrain the guy theyre working for and as they see hes unconstrainable, you sense in varying degrees at varying times that all three are starting to do soul searching about how long to stay and if one goes, that will be an earthquake. If more than one goes, it will be a San Francisco earthquake. Charlie if its mattis, for example, people will have to ask themselves, if hes leaving, how can i stay . Mark the only caveat is if the president could find an excellent person to quickly replace him. Thats the only caveat. The white house just made the first major personnel change theyve made and if what was ailing the white house was too much infighting, too much drama over the peoples agenda, Anthony Scaramucci was not the answer. He has produced again today, chaos, drama. Charlie what did he do today . Mark last night he did an interview which was published today. Charlie in the new yorker. Mark yes, in which he, on the record, there are questions emerging about whether he meant to be on the record but it has now been printed as a profanity laced attack he called up a reporter to say i want to know who your source was on a tweet you did yesterday about the president doing a private dinner with some People Associated with fox news and in the course of the relatively short conversation, profanity laced manner, he attacked both the white house chief of staff and the white house chief strategist, Reince Priebus and steve bannon, and the reverberations of this will be powerful. Charlie impacting in crude ways. Mark again, the people who wanted him brought in saw there needed to be more order, less chaos, more productive communication out of the white house and people look at whats happened since anthony took this job and its exacerbating most of the things that ailed the white house. John at the heart of the story is not the profanity, although its incredible. Its notable. At the heart of the story, though, is the thing that he tweeted last night and that in this interview that he stated as plainly as you can state it which is that he believes that Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, is the chief leaker and that he wanted last night he said this in a tweet which he deleted he wanted the f. B. I. To investigate the white house chief of staff and he says it in the interview. Step away from that for a second. The new Incoming White HouseCommunications Director whos not even officially in the job yet, is publicly calling for an f. B. I. Investigation of the white house chief of staff on twitter. Now, that is a very trumpy kind of thing to do but to marks point, its the kind of thing that in any other administration would have been not just inconceivable but kind of some fantastical concept. Think about the disruption it brings. Mark people talk about how the Reagan White House had a lot of infighting. Can you imagine the Communications Director accusing the chief of staff of committing a crime . John and saying i want the f. B. I. To investigate. Charlie what good can you say about the president after the First Six Months . Theres an article in the wall street journal today, to gauge impact, go beyond the laws hes signed through the vast authority he wields, to those who apply the wall. Hes portrayed as a donothing president. It may be true if the benchmark is legislation but that is an incomplete benchmark. To gauge a president s impact, you have to go beyond the law he signs to the vast authority he wields. Mark thats true, particularly in the area of regulatory reform, the president s achieved more than hes given credit for, but in the areas of legislation, particularly in the areas he wants to legislate in, taxes and healthcare, two big areas that affect every american so i agree hes achieved some things but it is going sort of to counter conventional wisdom to suggest hes accomplished a whole lot, number one. And number two, part of the challenge of the presidency is not just getting things done but explaining to the country why theyre a good idea and on most of the regulatory reforms, ive heard the president talk vaguely about less regulation is good but i dont believe hes convinced the country that a, hes done very much, b, it will affect their lives or c, its the right thing for the country. John if you wanted to say has the president had a positive impact. If you were a very, very, very conservative person on policy matters and you looked at the e. P. A. And the justice department, for the reasons this wall street journal article suggests, theres stuff happening in those areas in particular where if youre an environmental conservative, climate denier, if you want to return to a lawandorder, preobama, bush, clinton, reagan, back to a nixonstyle lawandorder approach, you would say things are happening in those areas so some constituency say the balls moving forward. Charlie mark, youve said two things. Youve said in this conversation that this election was a huge event in terms of the flow of American History looking at things like the Second World War and other things that have had huge significance to most americans. Youve also said at this table that donald trump is probably as good a politician as you have seen in american politics with the exception of bill clinton. Do you still believe both of those things . Mark in the context of being a candidate, he won the white house having never run for anything before and making lots and lots of mistakes and somehow still won. He won for other things, including weakness from his opponent but i think he was an impressive president ial candidate, based on the result. This is one of the most consequential things that have happened to be talked about by americans for as long as there is history of america. I meet people all the time and this was true before he took office but after he was elected who say this is the worst thing thats ever happened to me. Not to the country, but to me. The trauma this has caused amongst tens of millions of americans is profound. 9 11 was a dramatic event for the country and people dying is a bigger deal than anything else but this is a profound event for the people on the left, as a mobilization thing and also psychologically. There are people who wake up and cannot believe this is happening and on the other side there are people who rejoice that weve elected a president who is not a politician and is changing washington fundamentally and i believe the next president will most certainly restore most of what donald trump has changed in terms of policy and style. I dont think were too close to it to say there are very few events in American History that are as big a deal as this. John heres something thats also true and its one of the most unusual things about trumps presidency and was not true of obama, was not true of bush, was not true of clinton, was not true of reagan. Trump arrived in office and there are particularly for groups that are on the margins in american society, they are afraid. They are afraid. Hispanic americans are afraid of people being deported. This tweet storm he sent out yesterday proclaiming in a way that had nothing to do with settled policy or real plan. You referred to it, charlie, the transgender thing. There are thousands of transgendered soldiers willing to die for the country who are out serving with honor who just had the president come up yesterday and say they should be kicked out of the military. Those people are living in fear to some extent and i think there are lots of arguments about ideology and policy and people get angry but theres more among especially disenfranchised groups in america, theres more fear of what might happen to them if donald trump stays president that ive ever seen from my time covering politics and thats a nontrivial thing thats very real. Charlie within the white house, theres a lot of faction. Whats the consequence of that . Mark one thing Anthony Scaramucci says in the new yorker piece online is that Reince Priebus will soon be gone, he will be asked for his resignation. Charlie he also said that he and Reince Priebus were like cain and abel. Mark i get the sense of some combination of Reince Priebus and People Associated with him will be gone relatively soon, if i had to say, this evening. Charlie this is a man who was the head of the republican committee. Mark my guess is that the president will like what Anthony Scaramucci is doing. Its very much like what the president would do. I still believe steve bannon is entrenched at this point. John in periods of great crisis, people turn to those they trust. Sean spicer was never a trump person. He looks around the white house and the group now consolidating power are those favored by the small group and a dwindling group that he really trusts which is his family so right now he still trusts Jared Kushner and his daughter, ivanka. If you are favored by them and theyre not washington functionaries, theyre not the r. N. C. Crowd, like Anthony Scaramucci, outsiders, new york people, many of them people of means, something trump really respects. One of the reasons bannon is secure is because trump looks at him as a guy who made tens of millions of dollars. Mark Corey Lewandowski and dave bossy from outside, they were traveling with the president this week and theyre still very much part of it and there again, as john suggested, people who helped him win and a lot of president s are like that when they face a crisis, they go back to people that helped him win. Charlie can he turn it around . Mark sure. There are a lot of second acts in american politics. The president s numbers have gotten substantially worse on the question of does donald trump care about people like you. One of the great numbers in American Polling and it actually will track with his approval number. Hes not convincing people, because hes tweeting and attacking sessions and doing things that dont affect the real lives of people directly. I think to have a comeback, hell have to convince people he cares about them. John outside of an intervening event which could happen, you know, some kind of natural disaster, things on the foreign stage. Outside of them. On the domestic stage, theres not an event you could see plausibly down the road that could turn this around. There may be one but at the moment, the trajectory, its very unlikely it seems to me that there would be repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care act. Its very unlikely, it seems to me now, we could have a debt ceiling crisis. People arent paying attention to it. As other things fall away and as the investigations and the scandal grows and i think that will take up more and more bandwidth, not less, the ability to get things done, get smaller and smaller, without getting anything done, its hard to turn around Approval Ratings as people watch the clock turn and calendar turn and hes accomplishing nothing to make their lives better especially on the economic front. It just doesnt again, im open to the notion that its possible but its hard to foresee and sketch the scenario by which he suddenly is at 46 or 47 or 50 let alone 50, by the end of the year. Charlie or do what you have to do in politics, get a second look. Mark hes in a bad place. Charlie thank you. Back in a moment. Stay with us. These days families want to be connected 24 7. Thats why at comcast were continuing to make our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. Charlie the singersongwriter has been called the new bob dylan. He is best known as the front man for the indie group, bright eyes. His latest album acts as a companion piece to last years ruminations. Npr describes it as a collection of brave, dark songs containing some of his best lyrics and imagery. Here he is performing until saint kicks us out. He did it in our studio. Rise and shine, get out of bed get ready for the day get a coffee from the deli and walk the riverbank be careful with your headphones on when you cross the fdr dont want to be a casualty before you make it to the bar and hide your shakes, and worried face just sit down in the back your friends got there ahead of you and night is falling fast oh, you know you shouldnt say it so youre thinking it out loud some things we lost are never to be found but if youre gonna talk like that at least buy another round and we can keep drinking till st. Dymphna kicks us out this world is made of blinking lights theyre changing all the time but depending who youre talking to its likely to be fine i watched you go from bad to worse the blues is here to stay but sometimes its the simple things that make it all okay oh, you dont have to lie, say youre all right were just happy that youre here but if you yell and tell me to go to hell well at least youd sound sincere oh, you know its all a spectacle when you go to take a bow you always did get nervous in a crowd but if you need some company ill gladly stick around and we can keep drinking till st. Dymphna kicks us out lets get enabled great minds, they think alike i never was a good judge of when to call it a night oh, you dont have to say it so youre thinking it out loud some things go south and they never turn around but if you want a confidant id never let you down oh, we can keep drinking till st. Dymphna kicks us out yes, we can keep drinking till st. Dymphna kicks us out charlie im pleased to have conor oberst at this table. Welcome. Conor thank you so much for having me. Charlie you have been singing for a long time. Conor i guess i started since i was 12, 13 years old. Charlie is it folk or is it Something Else . Does it matter what you call it . Conor i do call it folk, i think thats a good term because to me folk music is easy music to play. I never went to school for it. Everything i learned is very self taught so i feel like folk music at its core is just that, people playing with whatever instruments they have. And of course back in the day, back on the front porch or whatever. Growing up, my friends and stuff were like into punk rock bands and blah, blah, blah but at the heart of it ive always felt like it was about the simple chord progression and the melody, the core of the song, and you can dress it up in different ways with production and bells and whistles but i always hope my songs, when they come down to their simplest form, are still worthwhile. Charlie what do you start with . Conor usually sometimes it will be one line or something. A lot of people have thought that it comes, the lyrics come first but always i get the vocal melody down first so ill sing into my whatever, little back in the day it was a little dictaphone, now its the phone. Just sing gibberish until i get a melody thats crystalized and then i like to write the words to the melody because i feel like the phrasing and the way you lay the words within the scope of the melody is just as important as the poetry, you know what i mean, so they have to be married in the right way but i always start with the vocal melody. Charlie what do you think theyre trying to express . Is it your voice . Is it the songwriting, when they say the new bob dylan . Conor obviously, theres so many new dylans so stand in line but charlie but theyre trying to say something. They hear something. Conor i thought that, music journalists, is shorthand for like, you have a lot of words in your songs and sort of the poetry aspect of it is as important as the musical aspect. And i dont know. I feel like, to me, the more i can i dont know, find something universal. Obviously youre expressing yourself but finding something that, i dont know, just like human experience, i guess, can they relate to it as being a fellow human being on this planet. Charlie are you saying what they feel . Conor i dont know, im saying what i feel but the hope of it is all of art is communication. Youre putting it on a balloon and throwing it in the air and you dont know anybodys going to receive it on the other side but thats the hope. Its out of my control once i put it out there. Charlie whats the difference in this album, ruminations, and this one, in terms of what youre trying to accomplish . Conor kind of the way it happened, the ruminations is just me, just me on guitar, piano, harmonica singing all by myself in our studio i have with my friend in omaha so its bleak. Charlie dark . Conor i suppose so. Theyre the same songs so the second record was the one that i intended to make. I did it with jim kellner, famous, great drummer, plays with everybody. He coproduced with me. Charlie including neil young. Conor neil young, yeah, john lennon, bobby d, everybody. Hes an amazing person and was a big part of that record so that was the record i set out to make, the salutations but the label im on kind of fell in love with the demos i had made in omaha and so they convinced me to put out this demo versions first so that came out last october and then the new record came out in spring. Charlie what are you backed up with here . Conor on the record its jim kellner on the drums and this great band from upstate new york called the fleece brothers who are an amazing band who play all the other instruments so its accordion, violin, piano, guitar, bass, drums. Yeah, its a good group. Charlie theres a time you went back to omaha. For what purpose . Conor you know, i always had one foot in, one foot out. I had, like, with my friend, mike mogles, who played in bright eyes, my old band with me, we built a studio and our houses were conjoined so we had a studio thing going on. I never fully left. But i live in new york for 13 years and a couple of years ago i finally had to they finally priced me out of the village. They dont want folk singers down there anymore, so charlie did that do something for you to go back to where your roots are . Conor my relationship as im sure with a lot of peoples home towns is complicated. Definitely it shaped me and theres a lot of people i love there and a lot of great things that i think are worthwhile but at its heart, its a very, you know, politically, its like abysmal. For my taste, they have their priorities like all backwards and some aspects of it are hard to live with but i try to focus on the good things. I like the house and my friends and my dogs. Charlie you mentioned politics. Youre also well known because of the fact that you dont hide your politics . Conor sure, im the classic flaming bleeding hearted liberal that everyone hates, you know. But no, i dont care. I never felt like i dont think as an artist you should feel obligated to put your politics into your music but if youre compelled to, i just think people get a lot of grief, like, oh, its the hollywood elite telling us what to do or whos this musician telling us, what does his opinion matter . But i always felt like if youre an artist, that doesnt mean you surrender your rights as a citizen and if you have a platform to express yourself, do it, if youre compelled to. You dont have to but for me theres been times i was compelled to. Charlie some say these are the same people showing up at town meetings and expressing their own opinions very sharply. Conor yeah, we need we need everyones opinions but more than anything right now the scariest thing to me is the lack of agreement on reality. Like theres no agreement. Charlie and on facts. Conor yes, like empirical evidence is no longer important. It blows my mind, how can you just disregard for science and yeah, just facts. And now anything goes so were swirling in this mist of like i dont know, misunderstandings. Charlie what represents that best in this album . Conor songwise, i dont know. I think its layered through there. A lot of my songs, theyll kind of be like simultaneously personal but also have some, i dont know political or social commentary aspect to them kind of interwoven. Ive written a few songs that are overtly political, more like this is a commercial for the way i feel. But my favorite kind of writing incorporates both of those like the personal and the world view together because i think thats more accurate to the experience of being a person. Like youre going through your inner world but youre also living youre living in the wider world which is just multitudes of different ideas that youre getting bombarded with all the time. Charlie you are on your way to europe . Conor going to europe next week. Finishing up this leg of the u. S. Tour and ill be over there. Charlie are the audiences different . Do they respond differently . Or are these songs that come from deep inside of you and people can feel it because the reason theyre there is that they identify with something in your song . Conor yes, there are differences with audiences as far as how much they listen versus party. I guess the biggest striking example would be like the kind of stadium festival, like u. K. Guys are all clapping the whole time and if you go to japan, theyre like golf claps and really listen. Ive always been amazed with my music that people, because of their education systems, they learn english as children but im always amazed when well be far away in some other country and people want to come because my music is so word centric, its not like you can really dance to it that often. So im amazed when people connect, in a second language, connect with the lyrics. I think thats cool. Charlie this was recorded at shangrila studios in los angeles. Conor rick rubens owns it. Charlie you seem like youre connected to the outside world but at the same time you have a takeitasitcomes attitude. Conor ive always felt sort of lucky with my career which is like i never really charlie set out to do something . Conor i never really got that famous or got into a position where there was like and of course there are some pressures but basically ive always kind of we started off in omaha with our own record label and we did that for years and kind of always done stuff like every little milestone was celebrated like this is great. It was the opposite of like an overnight success. So i felt like im lucky that i feel like because its been so slow and even if it plateaus into just, i can keep to me, longevity is more important than at this point for sure than like record sales or anything else youre going to do. I hope to be still writing songs and making records and playing for people. Im 37. So i hope, i look up to guys like charlie rolling stones. Conor bruce or neil or any of those guys. If you can still be doing this stuff. Charlie in their 70s . Conor that would be the ultimate goal. Knock on your famous wooden table. Charlie thank you for coming. Conor so great to talk to you. I really appreciate it so much. Charlie conor oberst, thank you for joining us. See you next time. Just because you got it you dont have to flaunt it with an endless stream of famous men pretty as a portrait look like Mamah Borthwick on that shining brow of taliesin someone might try and burn it down so youll have to put the fire out a fortune spent but thats irrelevant to build something thats sacred till the end it costs twenty dollars to visit fallingwater its a perfect house where no one lives maybe someone once did but they got evicted by a busload full of greedy tourists and it would take a time machine to fulfill all of my fantasies a hidden dream can be embarrassing and the only thing thats sacred till the end every time i tempt fate theres a major earthquake heard the people scream as the ceiling fell every building damaged only one left standing it was Frank Lloyd WrightsImperial Hotel a rumination in my mind winding like the ramp at the guggenheim im not content but im feeling hesitant to build something thats sacred till the end jonathan from new york city to our viewers worldwide, im jonathan ferro, with 30 minutes dedicated to fixed income. This is bloomberg real yield. Coming up, the u. S. Economy rebounds, but Inflation Forces fade, raises questions about the feds next move. At t gets away with the biggest debt market deal of the year. 22. 5 billion worth of bonds sold the market wanted even more. Billionaire investor howard marks of Oaktree Capital issues a warning about current valuations. We begin with a big issue fading Inflation Forces raising questions for the fed. Yes, inflation has come down