A curated roundup of the most fascinating interviews of the day so far…
Topics today: wrongly convicted, trump interview, energy for ai, fed chair pressure, epstein case, conde nast book, ukraine and russia, ai, ice agents, diddy trial witness speaks, 1983 superman....
July 15
This morning I am not going to start with the regular news interviews, instead I wanted to highlight an interview with Calvin Duncan and Terry Gross for NPR’s Fresh Air. The interview is a revelation and says so much about America’s justice system, it is worth a listen. Duncan spent 28 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He spent his time in prison becoming a “jailhouse lawyer”, he helped free many wrongly convicted people including himself. The interview gives a sharp focus on the injustices of the Louisiana court system, the judges, the police, the lawyers, with a meticulous description of all the problems that lead to his wrongful conviction and the obstacles he overcame to eventually get himself exonerated.
“It's so crude to tell poor people that because you don't have enough money to hire a lawyer, we're not going to give you the same justice that we'll give somebody that could afford a lawyer.” Duncan said. “To me, that is a crude way of really treating poor people because I've seen people that have lawyers prevail. People without lawyers don't prevail.”
Listen here:
Okay now on to the news of the day, President Trump did a phone interview last night with the BBC's chief North America correspondent Gary O'Donoghue. The interview was booked on the premise that he would mark one year one year on since the attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He also discussed his relationship with Russia's President Putin, and what will define his legacy. When asked whether world leaders were at times "obvious in their flattery", Trump replied that he felt they were "just trying to be nice". When he was pressed on whether he trusts Putin, "I trust almost nobody."
Listen here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0lq6pz9
Today President Trump is attending the First annual Energy and Innovation Summit a major gathering of top energy company CEOs. Sen. David McCormick (R-Pa.) joined CNBC to discuss the mission of this CEO gathering. When asked if AI takes up TOO MUCH energy, he said, "I'm someone who embraces all forms of energy, we have a huge nuclear installed base, we need to FRACK and get the natural gas out of the ground,” he said. “Our energy demand will triple in the next few years.”
Watch here:
Big pub day for a buzzy book called “Empire of the Elite” you will undoubtedly see a lot of interviews in the coming days….. The author, Michael M. Grynbaum, a media reporter at The New York Times kicked it all off by joining CNBC it. It dives into all the juicy details of the history of the Condé Nast magazine empire and he was also asked about the future of cultural publications like Vogue and Vanity Fair… ”Email newsletters like PUCK are the future,” he says. When asked if Conde Nast ultimately gets sold. “I don’t see Vogue being sold anytime soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if the smaller magazines gets sold off for parts.”
Watch here:
The drumbeat on Fed Chair Powell continues….
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke to Bloomberg Television and he suggested that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should step down from the central bank’s board when his term as chair is up in May 2026.“Traditionally, the Fed chair also steps down as a governor,” Bessent said . “There’s been a lot of talk of a shadow Fed chair causing confusion in advance of his or her nomination. And I can tell you, I think it’d be very confusing for the market for a former Fed chair to stay on also.”
Watch here:
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte joined Fox Business to discuss his criticisms of Jerome Powell as President Donald Trump continues his calls for the Fed chair to resign. “Im hearing he is considering it,” he said about the possibility of Powell resigning.
WATCH HERE:
House Ways and Means chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) joined CNBC' to discuss Trump's endgame on tariffs, the lack of trade deals and much more. He says that we are “moments away” 'from several trade deal opportunities.
Watch here:
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) joined Bloomberg News to talk about President Trump's announcement to coordinate a weapons deal with NATO allies, and threats to hit additional sanctions on Russia if Putin refuses further negotiations with Ukraine. She said that the patriot missile decision is "welcome news" and secondary sanctions could be a strong step in stopping Russia from attacking Ukraine.
Watch here:
Reid Hoffman, Partner at Greylock and Co-Founder of LinkedIn, discussed the investment opportunities in AI, the talent war in the sector, and the impact on the job market. He speoke with Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow on the sidelines at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference. He says he doesn't know what the secret new product Open AI is building but he says, “If it were me, I’d build a phone.” he says.
Watch here:
The debut episode of The Information’s video podcast had a big booking after landing an interview with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but because of technical difficulties the interview had to be paused because the podcasters couldn’t get the interviewee’s audio to work. That ended up generating more headlines than the actual interview it seems. When asked about the fight to get top AI talent to META, Zuckerberg said it goes beyond just the money. “You have more leverage as a researcher, you have more compute,” he said as an incentive to attract the top talent to get AI over to META.
Watch here:
There were a whole slew of interviews surrounding the Epstein case yesterday, here are a couple from his former attorneys:
Jeffrey Epstein's former attorney Alan Dershowitz joined News Nation to discuss whether the Trump administration deserves criticism for its handling of the Epstein files, and if there is more information they could release to the public.
Watch here:
CNN's Laura Coates spoke with Jeffrey Epstein's former attorney David Schoen about questions over whether Epstein kept a "client list."
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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell interviewed California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna to discuss the push to release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
California Governor Gavin Newsom continues doing podcast interviews, on Monday he appeared on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast. Another very wide ranging discussion on many topics including a specific question sent in from Joe Rogan. Newsom says Rogan refuses to have him on. Addressing critics on his COVID policies, Newsom says, “I know everyone’s a goddamn genius now in hindsight. But at the time, none of us knew what we were up against, including the president of the United States, who I worked very closely with… and I say that with the kind of humility he deserves as well… grace that he deserves in terms of the decisions he made early on.” and on EVs “China has the capacity to clean our clock,” he said. “GM is toast!”
Watch here:
Youman Wilder, Founder of Harlem Baseball Hitting Academy, joined MSNBC to discuss an encounter that happened at a baseball practice he was running in New York City where ICE agents approached his players during their practice to question where they were from and where their parents were from.
Watch here:
After the split verdict in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ criminal trial, several people that were once part of his closely guarded world shared their stories with NBC’s Dateline. In an exclusive interview, Combs’ former assistant, Capricorn Clark, recounted witnessing the music mogul beat his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.
Watch here:
THE INTERVIEW ARCHIVES….
A fun look at brilliant archival interviews
Today I have a fun one from 1983, just ahead of the release of "Superman III" in June 1983, the late Christopher Reeve sat down with CBS News to discuss his experience making the movie and to reflect on how his portrayal of the iconic superhero forever changed his acting career.
Watch here: