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Episode 115 [PATREON EXCLUSIVE] -- Olivia Nuzzi's American Canto, with Michael Hobbes (Patreon)

Published:
2026-01-02 14:50:41
Imported:
2026-09

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Content

To start the year off right, Moira and Adrian were joined by Michael Hobbes to discuss Olivia Nuzzi's American Canto, the media hubbub about it, and what both artifacts say about our media environment, our elites, and about gender.

Pieces we cite in the episode:

Becca Rothfeld's review of the book in the Washington Post

Alexandra Jacobs' review of the book in The New York Times

Comments

kathleen

o god this book is eat politics love is she friends with elizabeth gilbert whyyyyyyy ok thx better now

Micah Clark Moody

excited to listen! flagging the sound is very very quiet and a little uneven compared to to other episodes ✨

Nina V~

the way i am rubbing my hands together, cackling. (look, my period started yesterday, i am FULLY PETTY rn)

Nina V~

also to interject for a second: mike, you name-dropped peter attia. my health professor assigned some of his videos last semester. i got a weird vibe from him, but i wasn't sure why. do you think you and aubrey could cover him on maintenance phase?

Nina V~

also, the strains of satie underneath every excerpt is SO chef's kiss

Ilona

The quotes from the book sound very much like Carrie Bradshaw ‘As I was … I was wondering’

Geneva Samuelson

yesssss I was thinking the same thing, it’s VERY carrie bradshaw

Kim

As someone who is licensed in mental healthcare, I have so many thoughts about this person. I’m not trying to infantilize or forgive anything she has done, but she probably needs some EMDR therapy, not another position at a national publication.

Roger Fortune

I haven’t read the book, but it sounds like she’s trying to be Hunter S. Thompson. But without his talent or the drugs.

Sophia

When Adrian was talking about Thomas Chatterton Williams I laughed so hard I almost fell off the treadmill (and I mean that as a compliment!).

William Knight

This is amazing and honestly worth bringing in front of the paywall if liability and professional concerns allow. The best description of What Nuzzi Means (TM) that I have heard.

Stephanie Corbitt

Seconded! Would love a maintenance phase episode on him. Conspirituality covered him recently on their pod episode 285 to hold you over

William Knight

Especially I think Moira got at the essential idea that Nuzzi’s vacuity, her nihilism, her refusal to take of ownership of her own actions and the degree to which she is utterly compromised are all just more explicit demonstrations of the larger vices of the political press.

Kiera

Looooove this episode. I listened to a few of Nuzzi’s podcast appearances during her press tour and found further evidence that she is, in fact, Thomas Chatterton Williams

Dhoch

Miranda: I can't believe there are educated women in this day and age who refuse to get vaccinated! Charlotte: Well maybe the anti-vaxxers have a point? At home we never vaccinate the help and they mostly survive. Samantha: Oh, I've always been against vaccines. Why only feel a tiny prick when you could feel a big one instead? Carrie: Big's moving to Mar-a-Lago

Claire Burdick

No discussion of the title??? Is it a prose poem??

Melanie Vils

The line about writing too much prose to outrun the thought you aren't having is fire lol. All of you come up with good zingers, usually in every episode, but that was chef's kiss. Just a perfect distillation of it.

Laura

I was excited seeing Mike was reading this book but to find out it was for in bed with the right so we ALSO get a cogent discussion of the Gender Shit around it…🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

Cheyenne Montgomery

I agree with what mike said about the ethics of publishing this. It never should have been published. She did something egregious AND she’s clearly in the middle of a mental health crisis that, if she were really to try and process, probably threads all the way back to her shitty childhood and “rescue” by Mr. Olderman. If she did that, we would all be better for it

Sam

flag metaphor is very katy perry “do you ever feel like a plastic bag”

Louzie

I can only pile on: I didn't know Nuzzi, and didn't look at my phone when the episode started. So when I heard Adrian read these few sentences in the beginning, I was utterly convinced the episode would be about TCW. 😂

Charley

Elizabeth Gilbert: another self-conscious but totally un-selfaware writer (to paraphrase Moira)

panoptigoth

Honestly, everyone holding onto work because it’s “not good enough” has gotten a real push between Abundance and American Canto.

Maxwell

Not Mike, obviously, but as someone who used to gobble up a decent bit of that “guru with a phd”, and now increasingly Rogan-adjacent health content during the pandemic (Huberman comes to mind as the big name there): Attia strikes me as weird in the way that doctors are typically weird. His stuff seems quite far away from a grift, or if you’re disposed to calling it you have to confess it’s at least a much less morally problematic grift than someone like Huberman. He’s obsessed with longevity, which puts him among such lovely names as Bryan Johnson (and which naturally brings you closer to “bro” status and, beyond that, gym fash) and he’s willing to indulge in some pretty speculative thinking. But he emphatically recommends bread and butter health advice and has resisted, thus far, hawking anything more than a personal jerky business (or something equally banal) from his platform. He makes most of his income as a concierge doctor for the rich, which helps his side stuff read more like a passion project and less like a cynical ploy. To me, he seems like health entertainment that’s mostly resisted the corruption of being in Rogan’s orbit, but I also like the guy (as opposed to the rest of them that cropped up early-Covid), so I’m rather biased.

A Shade In Shades

A little bit of me was secretly hoping Nuzzi put a profound insight at the end of the book, which would have hit you out of left field, like the idea of everyone standing on a pillar of time or something. Alas.

Thomas Davis

Hahaha the piano sting is so perfectly bitchy it made me laugh every time

SM

Moira's articulation of women trading on sex and gender to advance professionally as "scab behavior" is so clear and helpful. I've been thinking about how to describe this dynamic, and this language resonates particularly well in my (building trades unions adjacent) professional setting.

Sarah B

Well at least Adrian had some fun!

Jolanta Benal

Listening to the descriptions of Nuzzi's "narrative style," I get the impression of someone having an extended dissociative episode -- years-long, even.

Ricardo Shankland

I love In Bed with the Right but this episode felt... SWERF-y? Not as in critiquing sex work but falling into the same traps. First I've never seen IBwtR make excuses for the presence of sexism as part of critiques of an individual before. In the past you've always seemed more radical in your approach i.e. "bad female behaviour is not a mark against the humanity of women - but is proof of their full humanity" meaning the sexism in a critique is not an acceptable or valid part. But this condemnation of sexism and the usual systemic approach seems almost completely absent from the gender studies analysis of Nuzzi - why? Second, and probably the SWERF-iest part, is when this episode describes her scab behaviour as being responsible for putting other women in journalism in danger. Maybe there's more context that was assumed or got edited out but as it is this is SWERF logic. In the emphasis in this part the predatory men of journalism (including Lizza) are barely mentioned, but there's a fixation on the woman scab, even though her harm is indirect compared to the men whose actions cause the direct harms via exploitation. I feel really out on a limb here because I'm saying this to/about IBwtR whose academic careers are built on understanding and applying these systemic analyses. Even the mention that Nuzzi was sexually exploited at 19 - and I'd argue has never stopped being exploited by men - doesn't get treated as part of why Nuzzi might have done this, how it informs her co-option by power, and her other scab behaviours. Curious if I've missed the mark or if there's more context.

Nate

Enjoying the use of Erik Satie throughout 😁

Erin

okay, fine, I'm a member now, I can't take it any more 😂 Can someone point me to the RSS feed if there is one? For some reason I'm having trouble running it down

beesher

Why are you doing this to people? Why am I doing this to myself? 😄 (Hi, new Patron. 😊)

Mary

Celebrity Book Club (podcast) does an amazing review of the book in their usual scathing, hilarious way. And then they INTERVIEW her! Worth the time for a good cackle.

Dylan Stephens

With a begrudging sigh, I am joining yet another Patreon. (I’ve enjoyed this podcast for a long time and should have subscribed a while ago.)

Erin

...well HAS anyone seen ON and TCW in the same place at the same time?!?

Elizabeth T.

Hi…I liked your comment because there is so much truth to it. Of all the women in the world to dump on, Ms. Nuzzi is certainly less of a worthwhile target than let’s say Ghislaine Maxwell to give a grizzly example. Upon further reflection, I would like to add “and but” in that Ms. Nuzzi is also a person who DECIDED to align (!) herself with patriarchal mega-power figures & to compromise her own professional integrity in the unabashed pursuit to stay in that alignment.

Pascale Andor

this episode is the reason i joined the patreon

JanaKat

I think that you have missed the mark, and that the "scab behavior" sentiment is accurate and not SWERFy. It's not that I don't have sympathy or understanding for how Nuzzi got into this, or that I don't think she was groomed specifically for this kind of behavior from an early age. (TBH I think that last, and its clearly systemic nature in the media industry, could have gotten more discussion time.) It's that people in an oppressed class have a collective responsibility to each other, and shouldn't throw each other under the bus. And that millions upon millions of women are groomed just as comprehensively, from an even earlier age, and don't do that shit. I've met like... one or two AFAB people in my entire life history who didn't experience some level of sexual exploitation from an early age. Of course this shapes people's desires - take a look at what passes for normal in straight romance novels - but the idea that it removes someone's agency entirely is not just wrong, it's pernicious. It's the same misogynistic logic that denies women free will (insofar as anyone can have it). The same logic that insists a woman WILL fall for a man with enough money, the same logic that invented Stockholm syndrome, the same logic that thinks all women are hybristophiles and all lesbians are secretly bi if not straight. The same logic as the creepy old man claiming "well, power is an aphrodisiac" with raised eyebrows to the women in the room while talking about Eva Braun. Don't fall for it. And sorry if I'm coming off a bit strong here, you could say it's a bit personal. I've had too many men in my life who denied women's free will, and also I'm chronically ill and immunosuppressed, so right in RFK Jr's crosshairs. As much as I sympathize with Nuzzi on her trauma, she helped put a man in power who wants to kill me, and it's hard to let that slide.

Kristen Daily

This episode is so deeply gratifying. My wife and I had the misfortune of watching her as the guest at Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me when they were in Des Moines a few years ago, and I had no clue who she was at the time, but experienced major ick factor. She was so smarmy and just not funny. Anyway, thanks as always!!

Solomon Freilich Photography

The podcast feed links have not been updated. I don't want to listen in the Patreon app. I want to listen in my podcast app, Castbox. Please update. Thank you!

Emily K

I joined just to listen to this episode and it’s not in my budget to stay a patron, but I have no qualms paying you for this outstanding episode. Thank you!

Ellie

Seconding this recommendation!! She came off hopelessly naive and incurious

Becky Robison

I would just like to point out that I recently released a (completely unrelated) nonfiction book but it would be really funny if I could outsell Nuzzi. I promise my book is funny and helpful, if a tad morbid! https://www.deadparentswhatnow.com/book

Rosey

The background piano is the breakout star of this episode

Joanne Scutero

Just listened to Nuzzi on another podcast, and it sounds like she's aiming to emulate Marilyn Monroe, with that breathy voice of hers. I'm guessing that her ambition & her pursuit of men are hopelessly intertwined, as if having one without the other is meaningless (OR, she has so little faith in her ability to succeed on her own talents alone that she's decided sleeping with men who can advance her career is the only chance she has of success as a journalist).

Susan Olson

I am having the same issue, I don't see RSS info anywhere :/

Erin

ah well - I guess it's webpage or app only, c'est la vie. Thanks for telling me it's not just me tho!

Elle

I also found the scab comment (as well as the level of vitriol for 20 year old Nuzzi supposedly sleeping her way into her first journalism position). Nuzzi’s reporting and ethical lapses certainly helped Trump get elected. Criticize her for that. Using the word feels like classic radical feminist “sleeping with the enemy” rhetoric. The part that feels particularly SWERFy is the claim that the sexual choices of some women must be controlled because their actions are making other women less safe.

Adam Harr

Very self-conscious without being self aware is the sickest burn

William Ryan Sheehan

I just went to a KATHY GRIFFIN standup show last night in Royal Oak, Michigan. “My life on the D-List”, Kathy Griffin. The last 15 minutes of her set were on THIS BOOK and how awful it was! She played 4 excerpts from the audio book and urged the audience to go out and buy it because it’s so hilariously bad.

s

Giggling at the inclusion two piano notes behind Michael’s reading of the drone sentence

amanda brtn

every sentence y’all read sounds like something from my high school livejournal from 2004. 🥴 i hope she also finds a good therapist.

James Hultgren

Listening for the third time (in combo with the IBCK episode) and I really appreciate Mike staying on message about the mission of anti-vaxxers being to kill kids. We are surrounded by language that ameliorates and obfuscates their intents and objectives and it’s so refreshing to just have someone say it and keep saying it.