Transcript: Andy Mills

An interview with the award-winning reporter and podcast producer

In 2016, the election of Donald Trump took the mainstream media by surprise, with many in the press struggling to understand his rise to power and the factors driving it. Now, in the wake of Donald Trump’s decisive win, here we are again. My guest on this week’s program suspected we might be missing the story, and just days before the election, published a brilliant podcast episode unpacking the comeback of Donald Trump.

Andy Mills is an award-winning American reporter and podcast producer, and co-creator of The Daily at The New York Times and The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling at The Free Press. He’s now the host of the Reflector podcast.

This is an edited transcript for paid subscribers. You can listen to the interview for free here. (This transcript exceeds the email newsletter length; to read the full version, click on the headline, and you will be redirected to the web-based version.)

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TH: I've been following your work for some time, admiring what you do, from The Daily at The New York Times to The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling for The Free Press, and now your new project, the Reflector podcast. About a week before the election, I listened to your episode, “The Comeback of Donald Trump.” It was a masterclass in complicating the dominant narratives, and really working to understand Trump's comeback. Which, as you say on the episode, regardless of how you feel about Trump is remarkable. Listening to it, I realized how much of the picture I had missed, even though I was actively looking for more complexity in the story. And up until that point, I had no idea which way the election would go. After I listened to it, I realized: He's going to win. When you finished working on the episode, what was your reaction? What did you think would happen with the election?

AM: I always thought he had a really good shot of winning. I wish I could say that, “Oh, I knew it.” I was a little bit that way in 2016, after the first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I don’t know if you remember that moment, but it's where Donald Trump started off saying to Clinton, after she said all the things she was going to do, “You've been in Washington your entire life, why didn't you do it?” Remember that moment? It's early in that first debate. I remember turning to my friends and saying, “Okay, he's the president. He will win. I don't care what scandals there are. This is what Americans have been wanting to say to politicians forever.” And even through the “grab them by the you know” scandals that came, I was the one … Well, there was one other friend of mine, he and I were these two people who kept saying, “I know it doesn't look likely, but Donald Trump is going to win this election.”

When he won in 2016, people gave us a lot of [credit], like, “Wow, you guys really saw it coming.” This time I wasn't as confident. It really seemed, especially after January 6th, that there was a passionate group of people who wanted to keep Trump out of office — no matter how frustrated they might be with the Democrats. But part of the reason for that episode was that after the 2016 election, there was a lot of soul searching on behalf of journalists in newsrooms across America. We were saying, “How did we miss this story?” I was at The New York Times at the time. Our editor-in-chief Dean Baquet, he put it really elegantly. He said, “We largely missed one of the greatest stories in American politics in a generation. We can't do this again. We need to make changes so that we can understand the electorate, understand the country that we're reporting on.”

I was having a conversation this summer with an old staffer of mine who is still at The New York Times, and she was saying, “Andy, I think we messed up again. I do not think if you're a big consumer of The New York Times, you understand that number one he is likely to win, and number two, why he might win.” And that was the impetus to say, “Okay, let's try and break that down, in the event that it does happen. Here is what reporting, what attempts at empathy and understanding, what curiosity has driven us to say is the source of this incredible comeback of Donald Trump.”

TH: I want to pull a couple of the threads that you get into in the episode with your guests, Mike Pesca from The Gist and Emily Jashinsky from UnHerd. Some of those topics were: how immigration had been viewed as a culture wars issue instead of an economic issue. You also looked at the vote for Biden in 2020 as being a vote for normalcy after the chaos of 2020, and people being disappointed that order was not restored, with more chaos coming in the form of waves of migrants settling in different communities. You also touched on the [new] Big Lie, the way that Biden's ailing health had been covered up. This seems significant to me. Talk to me about that last one, and the role that you think that may have played in the election.

AM: Yeah, actually, this is my partner in all things, Matt Boll. This is a phrase that he came up with this summer. The idea being that obviously Donald Trump's claims that he won the 2020 election became nicknamed to the Big Lie, both by people who are staunchly opposed to him and by large swaths of the media. And Matt, he was the first person I knew who started to say that that's what many people felt — that essentially the Democrat's Big Lie was this idea that Joe Biden was fine. And not enough attention was being paid in the media to the difficulties that the President was having communicating, and the fears that translated to difficulties he may be having thinking and performing the tasks of president.

I personally know a lot of Trump supporters. But I also know a lot of reluctant Democrat supporters. Who liked Obama, didn't really like Hillary Clinton, but had to vote against Trump. Didn't really like Biden, but had to vote against Trump. And I was surprised by how many of them in my life were going to vote for Trump this time. Not because they had grown to like him more — although I do think that he may have helped make some inroads by being funny. I know that that seems strange, but humans, we are drawn to those who make us laugh. And I think that the fact that Trump is seen as very funny by many voters is a secret power of his. But they just felt that you cannot trust the Democrats. And the final straw for them was that moment that they tuned into the debates and they saw the Joe Biden that they expected, but that they had been told didn't exist. For many of them, it was just not just a step too far, but it embodied this feeling that they get from not just the Democrats, but from the entire elite world, which includes the media. Which is saying, “Do not believe what you see. No, no, no. You're getting caught up in some video you saw. That's wrong. Let us tell you the real information. That is misinformation.” I think that there was a kind of a revolt of the public that played maybe not the decisive role in Trump coming back to power, but I do think that it's an important part of understanding his comeback.

TH: You also highlighted inflation, as well as the housing crisis, and just how much people were struggling day-to-day to pay the bills, to put a roof over their head, to buy groceries. And at the same time as all of that, we've just come out of an era of identity politics, or woke politics, or whatever you want to call it. You pointed out recently online that progressives that advance that view in the United States are 7% of registered voters, but you wouldn't know that looking at social media or mainstream media. And even though the Democrats did pivot away from that in this election, it seems like it came too late. How much of Trump's decisive win do you think can be attributed to that real distaste for the identity politics?

AM: We could probably talk for an hour about this. I think it's one of the most fascinating things happening in our culture. A part of that expresses itself through politics. The part that I'm most clued in on is how it expresses itself through journalism and through the media, which is my vocation. But it's undeniably a part of the stew that's gotten us here. And the dynamics behind it I don't think are always obvious. Because, yes, like you said, Kamala Harris did not run on what her critics would call a woke agenda. She didn't say “make America woke again,” which she could have, right? That's definitely a possibility coming out of 2020. She not only pivoted in many of her views and distanced herself from previous comments one way or another, but she embraced Republicans like Liz Cheney who had been staunch conservatives their whole lives, but who saw Donald Trump as a unique threat and a need to put aside certain policy disputes to make America normal again.

But I do think that there is a lingering resentment to the prudishness, to the censoriousness, to the illiberalism that the “woke” — and I wish there was a less insulting word, because I do think that saying someone is woke feels like an insult, and I'm not trying to make an insult. I find it to be a fascinating movement and not one that we should just say, “Well, not everyone believes that. Let's move on.” I've spent a lot of my past five years trying to understand where it comes from. The more I learn about it, the more I'm interested in it, not the more I find myself disparaging it. Sorry, I went on a tangent there. But there is a sense in which — this is connected to what we said before — that, “You keep trying to tell us what we should believe, instead of listening to us as we tell you what our experience is.”

The thing I see a lot, especially as somebody who reports from the Midwest, is that there's a lot of places that are a shell of their former selves. The farmlands around here in the Midwest where I live, every fall, they used to have these big fall festivals, these harvest festivals. In one town it would be all about the apples, and another town would be all about the corn. And the history behind that is because when the railroads went through here, this part of the country saw itself as feeding America. Because we were sending the food that we grew here to feed America. They got food and we got some income. For generation after generation, for a short time, it felt as if the American Dream was coming true.

That is no longer the case around here. It is a desolate scene in many of these places. I'm talking ghost towns. Not just empty factories, but because of that, there are abandoned homes. There are places where an old couple has been living, and it's falling apart on the outside, and they need church groups to come in to help paint and fix up the house just to keep it livable. People here are feeling like America is no longer serving them. Then of course, as you mentioned, even though the progressive left is only about 6, 7% of the population, they are so overrepresented in a lot of media, especially social media. The people who are struggling here, the face that they see of their political opposition is saying, “You are a racist. You have white privilege. You don't care. If you don't vote for this person, that's because you're sexist.” There is no attempt at nuance, on their end.

And then there is a reaction. It's not like they go, “Well, I see the point. Of course, historically…” No, they have an equal and opposite reaction. It’s reactionary on one side and the other. And there's this sense of — I hope your listeners don't mind me saying this — but there really is a sense of “fuck you.” Donald Trump, it's been said since he showed up, is the candidate of fuck you. And it's not surprising that he has extended his base from just those working-class white Americans who feel as if the country no longer works for them. But we're seeing that he is getting more and more people of different and diverse backgrounds to come on board as well. Because I think there's just a lot more people who are interested in raising up their middle finger and wagging it at the media class, at the elite class, at the lifelong politicians.

It’s not that they support each and every policy that Donald Trump lays out. In fact, a lot of them are too busy living their lives to be informed of each and every daily new drama. “Did you hear about the Puerto Rican joke?” They are not so clued in. They are watching different shows. They are engaged in different day-to-day dramas of their own. I think that they could probably go deeper on fantasy football, and a lot of conspiracy theories around the referees in the NFL going too soft on the Chiefs or something. It's not that they're 100% bought in of all the policies of Trump. It's that there is a general sense of “The people who are in charge, they don't even like me. They are not helping me. Why in the world would I vote for them? At least this guy is going to disrupt things. At least he is a fuck you to them. And you know what? Maybe at the end of the day, who knows, maybe he will accomplish something that helps me out.” That's what I'm seeing in my reporting, and that's what we tried to reflect in the episode.

TH: Speaking about the splintering of the Democratic coalition, Ruy Teixeira, author of Where Have All the Democrats Gone, came on the podcast this week. He was talking about how the Democrats did not do as well as they hoped with the non-white vote, with the youth vote, with the female vote, and of course with the working class — and seem to have really misread the public. I think what you were just talking about really touches on that. All of the glitz and the glamor of the Democratic campaign, the celebrity endorsements, I don't think it lands well with people who are struggling to pay their bills and who have really at times been mocked by the elites. And I think that there's a real message there, in the fact that the Republicans are now embracing the working class. You spoke on the podcast about the rise of the New Right. JD Vance is such an interesting figure. For a while we have known that there is this trend in American politics, where the working class favours being left on economics and socially conservative or moderate. JD Vance seems to embody that. What do you make of him and his rise?

AM: I think JD Vance is the most fascinating politician in America. Him and John Fetterman are the two that I followed the most closely, and also two people who I met before they were politicians. I met them years ago and found them to be interesting people, and have found them to be very interesting politicians. If you don't mind me sharing a personal story, I think a lot about JD Vance and how he understands himself. Hillbilly Elegy, his memoir, has been much derided by his critics. It's derided by all kinds of people. It's a fantastic memoir. Is the politics of it 100% consistent with what he views now? No, but it's a really amazing memoir. If you like books, you will like it. And I think it's very revealing about the complexities of America and American identity.

You had started this off by asking about identities and “why didn't this identity do this”? I think that the Democratic theory of identity politics, for the last few years, has largely been fueled by the overrepresentation of that small slice of progressive lefts online. If you listen to The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, you'll see that a lot of this actually goes back to this website called Tumblr that was really popular with teenagers and ended up having this outsized effect on our politics. I believe it is episode three or four. I highly recommend it. Fascinating stuff there. But I think that that sort of identity politics is the reason that you saw Kamala Harris in 2020 going out on the limb to take positions in public that I think now she's deeply embarrassed of, and that the campaign tried to skirt away. There is a video you can find online of one of the earliest debates in the Democratic primary to see who would be the challenger to go up against Donald Trump in 2020. I was on the politics desk at The New York Times at the time. We were watching the debate as the moderator was saying, “All Democratic candidates hoping to run against Trump, raise your hand if you would provide healthcare for undocumented immigrants.” And most people are raising their hands. “Raise your hands if you would lower the restrictions around immigration,” and they are raising their hands. And not only were they saying this in the debate, the commentary around it was saying, “This is because they want the Latino vote.” There was this idea that, number one, there is a Latino voter — this monolithic idea around identity that I definitely think has been perpetuated by places like Tumblr, and has been a disastrous cultural movement for the Democrats and their hopes of winning. But beyond just the monolithic view of the Latino voter, it wasn't in touch with what Latino voters, as a diverse block of people — it obviously was not in touch with their priorities. And there is a reckoning, I think, happening around that. Where we're having to get more and more complex.

Now, back to JD Vance. I got a chance to meet him in the wake of the success of his book, but before he was in politics. We were in Aspen, Colorado, for this thing called the Aspen Ideas Festival. Have you ever heard of this? Is this something you know about?

TH: Yeah.

AM: What is your impression of the Aspen Ideas Festival?

TH: Whenever I think of the Aspen Ideas Festival, I think about Anand Giridharadas going there and basically telling them all they were the elites and they needed to wake up and they needed to become class traitors. That's the impression I've always had of that festival.

AM: There is another fascinating person who I got to know before he was famous. And yeah, him calling other people elite is always a joy to me. But it is very much …Aspen, Colorado is one of the most beautiful small cities in America. And [the festival] is a weekend full of smart, bright intellectuals and authors and journalists from all over the world coming to debate and do talks about all the biggest ideas. It's, in some ways, a cool and sincere thing. But there are a lot of billionaires present. There just is a lot of money and elitism that is there in the room. JD Vance had gotten invited. I had gotten invited. We were about to go to a party off the campus of the Ideas Festival. I think it was maybe an anniversary party for some of the funders at a mansion just outside of town. We had been invited and we were going to go there. I got to talk with him, and I found him to be smart and funny and personable. We have a lot of similarities in our background and how we grew up that we bonded on. I thought, “This is amazing. I liked his book and now I'm going to be friends with this guy. It's going to be so great.” But then something happened at this party. And I have always wondered if it played a role in the evolution of JD Vance as a politician.

When we get to this big mansion out in the mountains, which we had to take a chartered bus to, we come in and there are all these different people. Jared Diamond is there, who wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel. Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic is there — all these interesting people. There were politicians who were there. I think I ended up sitting and having dinner with Katie Couric, and other of famous journalists.

JD Vance and me and another friend, we got into a line in the kitchen to get our free glass of champagne. A toast was coming up. And JD and me and my friend, we were talking, and then this woman came out of nowhere. She said, “I know who you are. I didn't invite you here and I want you to get the hell out.” He said, “Whoa. I'm sorry, I know you didn't invite me, but you invited Amy Chua. I'm her guest. She invited me to be her date. Her husband couldn't make it.” She said, “I don't care. I didn't invite you. You are not supposed to be here. I want you to leave.” This was in front of all of these fancy people, and it was absolutely shocking. I didn't know what to do. There was a part of me that wanted to throw my champagne in her face and say, “This isn't how you talk to people.” But he, clearly upset, said, “I'm sorry, there must have been a mistake. I thought as a guest of Amy's that I would be welcome here. I will leave.” And she said, “Yes, you will, and you'll leave right now.” And all these people [were watching]. Silence in the party. It was a movie. It was a movie scene. The mansion goes quiet and all these eyes were on JD Vance as he puts down his flute of champagne and he walks back out. And I'll tell you this, it is one of the regrets of my political coverage as a reporter that I did not walk out and go wherever he went and just say, “What is happening in your head right now?” I'm not saying there is a direct line to be drawn, but it was not long after that party, after that scene, that a very different JD Vance, who was a lot more angry and a lot more reactionary, a lot more in line with Trump and his middle finger persona, emerged on the public scene. In some ways, I just wanted to tell that story, because I've never told it in public. But I hope that that sheds some light on the question.

TH: Wow. I find him a fascinating politician as well. I want to talk about your background a little bit later, and I relate to it as well. But I think for some of us who find themselves in these milieus that are so different than we grew up in, there is such an adjustment period. There is a part of me that is just so excited to see someone of JD Vance’s background in the White House. That is a huge thing. That doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen.

AM: Oh, absolutely. I am talking to you from my home in Illinois and our state's motto is “the land of Lincoln.” I, like many of my fellow statesmen, love Abraham Lincoln. I have read three of his biographies. I have consumed everything there is to consume about him. I have four portraits of him here in my home. There's one just hanging right there. I have a bust of him. It's not that I think he's a perfect man, and it's not that I agree with every political decision or policy that he advocated for. It truly is that Abraham Lincoln became the embodiment of what would be called the American Dream. That he went from such a rough background to not just having power, but to being a true leader and leading with a certain set of characteristics that have stood the test of time. No matter what kind of leader you want to be, and in what field, reading Abraham Lincoln, reading The Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, it's just one of the most inspiring things that you could do. He is such an inspiring human.

I do think that there is a sense right now around JD Vance, and a little bit around Trump, that I don't think is obvious to people who really dislike their political stances, of the ways in which they are aspirational figures. I think that there's a sense that, “Well, no, Kamala Harris is the aspirational figure, because of her Indian roots, her Jamaican roots.” And I'm not saying that she isn't. I also think that that's a part of the American Dream, that no matter what your background is, you can rise to the most powerful position in the country. And I do think that our country obviously has not always lived up to that. That there have been many qualified people in our country for not just high office, but the highest office in the land, who did not get that opportunity because of their skin colour, because of their background. So, I'm not trying to rob any of the Kamala Harris inspirational qualities.

But I do think that what people fail to see is that those same qualities are there with JD Vance. That there is a sense that, “A guy like that can still become rich. A guy like that can become a successful author. A guy like that can become vice president and maybe president one day.” And with Donald Trump, it's a little bit different. It's not the American Dream. Oh, a guy who parents were very wealthy and involved in New York real estate became rich? But it is a sense that he's rich and he likes us. He's rich and he says he's for us. And I do think that there is, especially in the parts of America that are really struggling economically, there is a deep sense of there not being a great aspirational figure, or an aspirational story that they're being told right now.

Some of it comes down to the low attendance we're seeing in churches, and how people are being less religious, spending less time in scriptures and in church meeting houses discussing those things. And they are spending a lot more time online, talking about politics. They are getting a bit more tribal in their politics and less devoted to their faiths. We can go on and on, about that, for a long time. But I do think that for better for worse, Donald Trump, JD Vance, these figures, their politics of disruption, they are essentially figures of an aspiration that America provides. It does inspire people, and it inspires people even when they don't exactly agree with their politics. As Americans are seeing right now in these exit polls, it inspires people who have different skin colour, who come from different parts of the world. This idea that your identity is destiny, and that the demographic changes of our country would be a net good for the Democrats going forward, I just think that that was never in line with the evidence. In light of this election, we're seeing that the Democrats are finally reckoning with that.

TH: I also wanted to talk about masculinity, because that was another big issue in the election cycle. We are just about to start, at Lean Out, a podcast series talking about the crisis in men. The decline in educational achievement and employment, the increases in suicides and in opioid deaths, but also this feeling of real alienation that I think we saw play out during the campaign, and I think the media stoked. This idea that masculinity is toxic, to put it in a very cliche way. And then Donald Trump's pushback against that with that ad of all these men going to work and saying, “You don't get a prize for going to work every day.” Just sort of reaffirming, as Zaid Jilani put it in his piece, that he sees men's pain during this moment. What do you make of all of that?