David Remnick sounds off on the 2024 election, MAGA Media, Jeff Bezos, and more

American media — and democracy itself — stands at a critical juncture after Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris this week in an electoral landslide.

Few are better equipped to help the industry navigate these uncertain waters than David Remnick, the longtime editor of The New Yorker.

I caught up with Remnick after Trump's victory for a wide-ranging conversation on the election, MAGA Media's role poisoning the public discourse, the low-morale rippling through the industry, and more.

Below is the Q&A, lightly edited for style.

It wasn't quite 2016 all over again, but much of the press was surprised by Trump's victory. Were you?

I was shocked in 2016, but not this time. There were moments when I thought that Kamala Harris, who had been dealt the vexed hand of trying to establish a winning national campaign in one hundred days, might pull it off. The debate was the high point. But I was never convinced overall. Trump's undeniable appeal, which was intensified by the horrific assassination attempt, combined with the global trend against incumbent parties (whether they were center-left or center-right), made it hard to believe that somehow Harris could magically transcend the lingering unpopularity of the Biden Administration. Obviously, there were many factors animating the Trump campaign: economic discontent; cultural issues; misogyny; racial resentment; Biden's age; Harris's uphill struggle, despite all the funding, to get on an even footing with a figure more famous than Beyoncé or the Pope. Historians will sort out which were the most forbidding. But it was never going to be easy for her. That was plain to see even from the blinkered vantage point of Manhattan.

For the last several years, MAGA Media personalities like Tucker Carlson have glorified strongmen across the globe. Meanwhile, other Trump allies in the media have aggressively spread lies and conspiracy theories, touching on everything from the economy to the 2020 election. How significant a factor do you think the polluted information environment has been in propelling Trump back into power?

The trend has accelerated to an astonishing degree and it's hugely important. I remember interviewing Obama in the waning days of the 2016 campaign. He was positively astonished by the idea that a few hackers in Macedonia were pumping out anti-Hillary material, as if Fox News were the only locus of right-wing media. An entire ecosystem, of you want to call it that, has grown ever since. When I was a kid, I used to listen to right-wing call-in radio, guys like Bob Grant on WMCA, the inheritor of Father Coughlin and Joe Pyne. These figures have been around for a long time in American life, but the skills of their inheritors, the technologies available, make the days of Father Coughlin look quaint. (And he had tens of millions of listeners.) Tucker Carlson might lack the institutional home he once had, but his demagogic skills are much like those of Putin's TV mouthpieces, guys I watch online like Vladimir Solovyov.

What can the fact-based media do to clean up the toxic waste being dumped into the information environment? It seems evident that the current approach is not working.

I wish I had a more confident and sure-handed answer. At The New Yorker, our intention is to continue to report with rigor, fairness, depth, attention to detail and accuracy. We still have a First Amendment. We still have many institutions and outlets and individuals devoted to the idea that press freedoms are a cornerstone of this still-existing liberal democracy. And the First Amendment is not only a right, it is a demand, a set of implied demands on editors, writers, broadcasters, and, yes, owners to do the right thing, day after day. I honestly don't care if that sounds righteous or even sanctimonious. Those are third-order sins. The first-order sin is to give up, to lie, to back off, to accommodate yourself to a bully. I can't predict what Trump will do. All I can do is speak for what we will do and I am proud to know that I can count on a talented group of writers and editors to move forward.

Give us a look inside your crystal ball: What concrete actions do you predict Trump and his allies might take over the next four years to undermine the press? Would you rule out Trump actually imprisoning critics, as he has openly threatened?

Prediction is a low form of journalism, Oliver. (O.K., maybe polling is worse!) But all I would say is that if we have learned anything in the past eight or nine years it's that even Trump's wildest pronouncements are not to be dismissed out of hand. When he promises mass deportations, listen.

What steps are you taking to safeguard The New Yorker for a second Trump administration?

I've worked at two places in my life: The Washington Post and, since 1992, The New Yorker. That's a lucky thing. At both I always felt that one of the fortunate things about them is that the interests of the readers coincides with those of the writers and editors. Meaning, they wanted us at our best and most rigorous and honest. Our readers, our subscribers, demand a great deal from us, and I take that as inspiration.

From a business standpoint, the media industry is at a very weak point. Does it concern you that, when we arguably need a muscular press corps more than ever before, it is at a low point?

Of course, I do. We have to find new ways to make these institutions, the best of them, work. But I don't think that's an excuse for capitulation to power. If Jeff Bezos had said, two years ago, that he thought the editorial page should get rid of endorsements — all of them — you could argue the case one way or another. But to do it just days before an election, when a threatening demagogue was the favorite to win the election and your editors had prepared an endorsement of his opponent and you smothered it — well, that is an act that has a very different fragrance.

I've spoken to some journalists who are very demoralized by Trump's win and are evaluating whether staying in the industry, given the constant threats and business uncertainties, is worth it. What gives you hope for the future?

I totally understand why countless people are demoralized, not just journalists. But I would encourage those journalists to get to their feet and stand up for an activity that, when practiced with energy and integrity, makes a difference. I lived in Moscow during a period when there was no journalism, only propaganda — and then there was. There was a flowering of truth-telling, in newspapers, on television and on the radio, in scholarly work, in the arts. A tremendous period of untold value. And then so much of it was killed by the return of dictatorship. In other words, it can happen here. We can relent and accomodate or we can stand up and do the work. As I say, we have a First Amendment. We have traditions of free speech and a free press. We have many institutions, however flawed and human, that do good work (and they all don't think the same, thank God). We have untold advantages that Russia, whose democratic roots barely existed, did not. So, yes, I understand why some are demoralized. This weekend. Maybe for a while longer. But there comes a time to stand up. Liberal democracy is a rare, precious, and vulnerable inheritance, and one we have yet to fulfill. Journalism has a role to play, a very serious and meaningful one. I have every confidence that my colleagues, the ones I know close to home, and ones across the country, are not going to back off.

Screening Room

Marvel sure is marketing its forthcoming slate in a markedly different manner. Take a look at the trailer for “Captain America: Brave New World,” which the studio dropped over the weekend. The trailer has the distinct vibe of an A24 production, not standard Marvel fare.