On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone details how “information asymmetry” in media is crucial to implementing Project 2025
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From the January 31, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): I want to bring Angelo in because I think the revelation of Angelo's body of understanding about what was put to paper is that nothing was held sacred. There were no agencies that were going to be spared from Project 2025's reimagining.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): That's right. And I think that this is where my time is. I think Dan said something in the first segment about how the unpopularity of it all should give Democrats comfort and courage, and I agree with that.
And I'll close on that, but I want to give a cautionary note too because as you noted, they wrote it all down. And part of this is it was not just an intentional strategy, but Russ Vought, right after the election, even talked about the fact that a lot of the things that they do in the first initial months of Trump's administration are going to be wildly unpopular.
And that they are looking specifically for people that can ignore the noise, ignore the unpopularity to drive forward with their agenda. And the reason why is because their agenda is fundamentally undemocratic.
And so that's the real word of caution and concern here. And the other piece, and you sort of got this in the first segment too, is the information asymmetry.
I mean, if you just look at sort of the monthly listens of podcasts, left-aligned and left-leaning versus right-aligned and right-leaning, you have about 60 million downloads, listens of left-leaning, left-aligned. We have 300 million for right and right-aligned.
And that's a very small universe, but that gives them a head start. And so that gives them the ability to take these unpopular moments and keep driving through, help, you know, block, and we shouldn't lose sight of that. That this is by design. This is intentional. This is a feature, so we can't feed into the infancy. And here's where the note of comfort and courage comes in.
And you sort of got to this too, which is think about that imbalance. Think about how wild that imbalance is. Now that's only one data point, and yet, it was still so close. Yeah. Power of the pop -- and then that's the thing. I'm not a wild eyed optimist here, but my point is is that we should stand firm in the recognition that -- and acknowledge -- that they are going to be driving undemocratic things.
And what we can't do is duck and cover or worse, validate the projection of power, the perception of power that they're executing right now otherwise that will make it a reality.
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WALLACE: I guess, Angelo, I come back to you quickly. It's not making anything seem messy. It is messy. Right? I mean, that is the plan.
CARUSONE: Yes. That is part of it. They are going to break as many things as they possibly can, and that's the trap we have to be careful not to fall into.
Because what we can't fall into is we have to point out all these flaws while simultaneously not seemingly defending a status quo and a -- and some of the norms that everybody hates.
And that's the sort of trap that I think sometimes Democrats wrap themselves into. They say, "Well, I have to eat all of this dog food." It's like, "No, you don't. You can be a change agent too. They're change agents, and most of what they're doing is breaking it with incompetence and malevolence, but you could be a change agent." And I think that's the balancing act.
But I could not agree more. We have to call it out. We have to name it first. Stiffen our spines.