92NY on MS NOW: 'The mega-agent of our time': Rachel Maddow talks with Ari Emanuel

(upbeat music) Welcome to the 92nd Street Y on MS Now. I'm Nicole Wallace and we believe that some of the most important conversations happen when you bring smart, curious people together and give them the space to really talk. And now we're partnering with 9-2-NY to bring you some of the very best of those conversations. Tonight we bring you my friend and colleague, Rachel Maddo and the great Hollywood agent and dealmaker, Ari Emanuel. They talk about his new book, about his life and career, about his bizarre health routine that includes eating live worms, and of course, about his relationship with Donald Trump. Here's the 92nd Street Y on MS Now. (audience cheering) - Hey, how are you guys? (audience cheering) - Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for coming. This is going to be fun. (audience laughing) And it's probably going to be a little prickly and a little uncomfortable and it's going to be funny and there's going to be swear words, it's going to be amazing. (audience laughing) All right, by clapping your hands, I want to know who here is a friend or family member or colleague of Ari Emanuel, if you have worked with him in some way. How many of you here at the 92nd Street Y tonight actually know Ari Emanuel. (audience applauding) And same thing by clapping your hands, who here is at least slightly scared of Ari Emanuel? (audience applauding) All the same people. Who here is wondering how on earth we're going to put an event like this on television given that you are not allowed to say the F word on television? (audience applauding) So Ari Emanuel is, of course, the mega agent of our time, the larger than life, uncontested King of the Hill as a talent agent and dealmaker in sports and culture and entertainment. He also eats a cup of live worms every day. (audience laughing) And he thinks you should too. Ari's new book is called "Roll the Calls". We will explain what that means. It comes out today. It is an unexpected memoir. It's very good. It is pretty much impossible to put down. I read it much faster than I had intended to. It's very, very funny when he rips people, which he does frequently in the book. He does it using their full names, which is really refreshing. When he himself behaves atrociously to people in the book, he tells you how atrocious he was in unvarnished terms, which is a disarming thing. It is an unexpected book. I don't think famously ferocious people are expected to write about their feelings and their failings. It is unsettling. It's like being in the cage with a lion in the lion invites you to take a long, careful look at its back teeth. (audience laughing) Get closer, stick your head in there a little further. When Ari Emmanuel's company went private, which was finalized last year, it was valued at $13 billion, with 10,000 employees on six continents. He and his company have owned or represented everyone and everything from UFC to Oprah, from Donald Trump to me. (audience laughing) That said, I read every single word of this book and I have many, many questions about it. So we will see if by the end of tonight, he still is my agent. (audience laughing) Thank you all so, so much for being here tonight. Please welcome the author of "Roll the Calls," Ari Emmanuel. (audience cheering) - Thank you for doing this. - Well, thank you for doing it. Well, I'll see at the end if I thank you. - Yeah, if you are, can you just fire me? Does it work that way? - It usually goes the other way. - But with, back in the day, I have let go of clients. Certain clients have complained and said things like I'm finding my voice multiple times. And then all of a sudden, the last time I got the call, this is nine calls and the team was working very hard. And maybe they weren't doing a good job. I don't know, and I thought I was doing a good job. And I said, I think you should take your voice someplace else. So I have let clients go. But usually it's the reverse. All right, tell everybody what "Roll the Calls" means. - So when I walk into the office, and my office is down the hall, and there's other people and assistance bays there, before I even get to the bay, I'm screaming "Roll the Calls," 'cause there's calls that I wanna make, and there's calls that come in about all the different things I'm doing. So that was a phrase that I just used, 'cause that is how I operate my life. And it's, I mean, I do jigsaw puzzles. My ex-mother-in-law taught me that in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. And when I get in the car, and I'm driving and I call into my office, and I just start with my assistant, they say, "Roll the Calls." - And so your assistant calls people and says, "I have RM annual for you." - Right. - Click. - I have RM annual for you. - Click. - And then they'll put it through when they get somebody. - They get a person, then, okay, all right, the person you're talking to is this person. And so how many calls are on the roll? Is it like 100 calls? - There's a lot of calls, because calls lead to calls. But here's the great thing about how I conduct my business. So I'm rolling calls, and it is a jigsaw puzzle for me, and I'll give you a perfect example. I read an article about Mark Andreessen, and this is just one example. Early on, he had just started his firm, Andreessen Horowitz, a big VC firm. I ripped out the article, gave it to my office. I said, "I want to talk to that guy. I get him on the phone." He gets on, we start talking. I said, "I want to meet you." Well, that little call led to my relationship with Egon Durbin. He sells Skype to Microsoft, Egon Durbin invested in Skype, and then sold it. He then, we had been talking a lot about the business, Teddy Forsman passes away, who owned IMG. I have been trying to raise money for IMG. I'm not sure if it's money to buy IMG. - Yeah, I wanted to buy IMG. He comes down and says, "Can I have lunch with you "and after we've had this great relationship?" He says, "I want to buy into you, "and I want to go after IMG." I said, "That's never gonna happen. "You're a private equity firm. "You'll never get an agency. "I've been through this game." Long story short, he invests in us. We get IMG. We're off to the races and everything else happened because this man got into my life through my role to cause. - Because she read an article about it. - Because I read an article about Mark Andrews and that led me to this jigsaw puzzle. And I can go through multiple examples in my life where that is the case. And it's same thing with the UFC in my relationship with Abu Dhabi. And that's why I roll the calls. I roll the calls because that's how I have figured out my life, my map, my curiosity, my energy. And it's a great process by which I live my life and enjoy my life. - So here's the thing that I feel like makes me the most crazy about the way that you have built your empire. - Oh God. - Because one of the things you write about in the book, beautifully actually, is when you've taken a public stand. - Yeah. - Right, Mel Gibson. We should black ball 'em as an industry because of what he's done with his anti-Semitism, Kanye West. There's very strong words to Prime Minister Netanyahu about what was going on in Gaza for which people booed and walked out of the room. And I think you've taken these public stands. And that matters when you take a public stand because you are rich and famous and powerful and very connected. But the thing that made you rich and famous and powerful is your relationships with the most powerful people in the world, right? You can get anybody on the phone. You can get anybody to take a meeting with you. They will fly to you to take the meeting. You get powerful people to meet each other or to get them to give you what you want. And so I thought this book would be about you pressuring those people privately to do better. - Right. - And it's not. And so is there anything-- - Is there things that happen privately that you don't know? - Yeah. - Well, that's what I want to ask you. I mean, is there anything about-- I mean, Andreessen is one of them. And Bezos and Trump and Musk and Ellison, all of these guys. Is there anything about your relationship with these guys that has ever had any positive or mitigating effect on the harm they are doing to our country? - Well, here's what I would say to you. (audience applauds) She sent me a text of UK with tough questions. And I said, yeah. - I asked. - She said it was okay. - She said her table at the annual house. So here's what I would say to you. I'm not in favor of people in college not having people speak at their college if they disagree with their points of view. - Sure. - I don't want to live in an echo chamber. I don't want to live in a cult. I want to live in a society. And I was leaning towards a lot of my life different from what my mom taught us. You don't make peace with friends. You make peace with enemies. And that means you have a conversation. And the conversations I've had and when I've disagreed with the president. with Elon Musk, with a lot of the people you've mentioned, has, in my opinion, swayed them. And some of their arguments have helped me think about it differently, also. Not swayed me, but taken a different perspective on it. And at least learn their side. I have not won every one of those arguments, but I am in the fight, and I'm in a society. And I think that's better than us as a society and as a country going to our ends. Now that might not satisfy you, but that's the only way I think we can get to a place where we're a better society. Now that might not satisfy you, I'm sorry, but I don't think it's right to just sit at opposite ends. There's some time. You're just the only person I know who can call all those things. And so I know what your political beliefs are. Yes. And I know what your convictions are, and I've seen you be very brave in public and risk stuff. But here's what it is, on Mel Gibson. I went off and I said everybody, we should stop working with him. And then Mel Gibson, because of that, and it might have been financial, whatever, or he just wanted to better himself. And I'm hoping that he just wanted to better himself. He made, he did a lot of work on, on, on the very bad things he said. And he and then I had then had a conversation. Mark Walberg then said, can I work with him? I said, this guy's done a lot of work. You should work with him. I have not seen that work being done by Kanye West. I've not seen the doctor's report that he's bipolar. I haven't seen any, any work. So for me, that's, I don't think that's cool, and that's a bridge too far from me. But with the other gem, I think there's great things that Elon has done. And there's some things I completely and utterly disagree with. And he and I have gotten into text messages and calls about it. And guess what? He'll have his point of view, I'll have my point, and I hope that I get to move him. And that's all I can hope for. I can't change people. And I don't think it's productive to say, I'm never talking to you. Because I'm hoping that I do change him. And I think I have a little bit. Have you talked to him about his, his most recent, basically just gutter racism? I am not, I've been on the road. So I haven't seen if there's something today, or do you want me to give you some stuff? No, I do not. No, I do not. Let me ask you about the constructive nature of that. As you said in the book, after the last election, from months I've been having spirited debates with the right-leaning people in my friend's circle, yelling at them, pleading with them, wake up Dana, meaning Dana White from UFC, Elon, a few others. They let me yell, they've listened with patience before stating their cases. Now the votes are cast, and I'm not doing that anymore. I tell Larry David on election night, I can't fight anymore. He laughs, since when, as a famous fighter, I tell him I'm serious, I can't have beef with half my friends, I can't hate half the country. It, obviously that makes me want to explode. But it also makes me really curious, when you talk to Elon or Dana or your other friends and their reasons for supporting Trump, do you think it's particularly people like Elon who changed? Isn't just transactional? My relationship with them? No, do they support Trump because they just say, "Oh, okay, I guess we'll have a dictator but we have to be a little guard." No, they have a point of view at how they think the country has moved. I disagree with that point of view. I don't think we've let immigrants in to capture votes, I mean, I don't agree with Elon on that part. We have gotten into, you know, very hard discussions about that. On the other side of it, I am happy for what that man did in Ukraine blocking the Russians from using the satellites. I'm happy what he's doing with Neuralink, I'm happy what he's doing in space. So there's a give and take and I'm in the conversation with him. That's all I can ask for. I cannot sit in just one corner. I won't do it anymore. And I was getting into that corner. And I was in that corner a lot and it's just not a healthy place because I do want, I do want to live in a better society and I don't think there's any other way as my mother taught me than having conversations. And that's my point of view now. Did UFC pay to repair the grounds of the White House after that ridiculous cage match wrecked the grass in front of the White House? So I don't think it was ridiculous, but here's what I would say. Three years ago this November, the president at Madison Square Garden went up to Dana and said, I would like you to do this, to fit. And of course, David Dana said, yes, and if Obama asked, we would have said, yes, if Biden asked, we would have said, yes, if Roosevelt asked, which had boxing matches on occasion, yes happened. And for us, I think again, sports is a thing that kind of bridges, you can root for somebody and I, and I'm on the same level, look, I'm a Democrat, I'm on the other side of that. You don't have to say that. You can just root for somebody. And you can have a great conversation. And I hope you watched a little bit, I can send it to you. There were incredible videos about American history. And for us, it was one of the greatest marketing plays of all time. We lost $30 million, which was in our plan. And yes, we paid for everything we had to pay for. It struck me while all that was happening, how much Trump wanted that cage match? Like Trump really wanted that more than he wanted anything else in the 250th. I think if you asked him right now, he would not remember that there was a car race. All he remembers is that cage. I will say, he is, and this is what I, this is what I love about Dana. This one, I love a lot about him, but he's a rider die guy. And when UFC started 33 years ago, the only person that would have them at his place in Atlantic City was Donald Trump. And he sat through every match. And he is a major fan, watches every fight, calls, talks about the fights, who he loves, who he doesn't love. And because of that moment, Dana is loyal to him. And Dana is a, he's right in the middle. He's a centrist. Yeah. I know that might be shocking, but he's a guy right in the middle. And so. For me, though, I feel like in my world, the most important thing that's going on right now is that we're in the process of having our constitutional republic overthrown by a guy who wants to rule for life and get rid of the constitution. I don't think that's true. And it's working. No. Well, let me. Okay. And so the reason. The only reason that I care about the UFC thing is because it seems to me that in that moment you, personally, had a thing that he wanted more than breath. Right. More than anything in life, which gave you an incredible moment of leverage over the most dangerous president of the United States in history. You don't think people said that Nixon at the time was the most dangerous president in the United States history? Stop. Nixon? What the f*ck up? What the f*ck up? It was Watergate. People were going crazy. Stop. Nixon, George W. Bush, it's been a lot of bad presidents. A lot. You know, we could put a lot of the Andrews in there, too. Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson, lots of bad presidents. Nobody has ever made sure, tried to make sure there was not a transfer of power. And I believe. Well, I agree with that. Yes. I completely, and utterly agree with that, and I was very vocal about that. Yes. I agree with you. I'm trying to cap. It's all I'm saying. Here's what I would say to you. I have. (applause) I have. I spoke to him three weeks ago. He called me about the tax credit. A film. A film in television tax credit. And I. He said, send me a memo. I sent a memo. Adam Schiff is on board with it. He complimented Adam Schiff. And in that conversation, and I got him the memo, and I talked about what I thought was good, and it's one of my. He asked me, what do you think about JD, and this one, and Democrat, and we had this conversation, and he thought that JD and Marco Rubio were going to be a formal group of candidates. They're going to be running mates. That's what he thought. Yeah. And I would just say to you, that's not a man trying to be in that White House forever. As much as you might believe it. Made me feel good. Okay. I don't think he's staying around forever. I do not believe that. If something goes wrong in terms of. You call me. In terms of. Yeah. In terms of the 2026 elections coming up, if we don't. If we get the FBI seizing ballots, if we get. You can't certify those. That's where we're not going to swear in these Democrats. Let's just go. I call you. Yes, you can call me. I think there's a lot of things that we have to change. Well, if you're asking me, do I think he's going to run in 2028 and I don't? And do I. I don't think he's going to run. I just think he's not going to leave. I disagree with that. We'll see. If your brother runs for president, are you going to fund his run? First of all, I don't know if my brother's running. Seems like he's running. Well, here's what I would say about my brother. My brother worked for Bill Clinton. He then became an incredible congressman. One back the House for the Democrats when he ran that program. He then went into the Obama administration as a chief of staff and one of the worst economic crisis, 0809 got us through that crisis with the president. got Obamacare passed, which is so crucial for us. And then he became the mayor. And kids in Chicago had the least amount of time in school. And he did the right thing. He took on the teachers union. They demonstrated in protest and struck for nine days. And he held his ground. And why? Because he cared about those kids' education and post high school graduation. He then went into the Biden administration, became the ambassador of Japan, and worked with our allies to combat the aggressiveness of China and understands how to work with allies. And most recently, better speech than I gave, gave a speech condemning the Netanyahu administration and what's happening in the West Bank. So if you're asking me the following question, is there anybody more qualified than my brother? No [BLEEP] chance was there. [APPLAUSE] If there's only-- that's only been two [BLEEP] than one [BLEEP] [MUSIC PLAYING] One of the things that I learned in the book is this. And this is a PSA for everybody in the room. If someone who is an agent, or who might be an agent, or is an anyway agent adjacent, ever asks you the question, are you happy? The only correct answer is yes. Because if you say anything other than yes, yes, I'm happy. You have succumbed to a trap. Is that true or false? Here's what I would say. Is it a great question to lead with? Because everybody's kind of happy, satisfied, and it just leads to-- it opens the door. It's the way you pry the lid off of people. And you do it to people, even when they know you're going to do it to people, and it still works. How does it work? Well, you say, are you happy? They then have to pause and think. And there's always something that might not be happy. And they're creative life. You'll say you'll solve it. And then I go into why that should have been solved and the conversation be. And then you learn a lot, and the conversations begin. Sometimes signings are, you realize they have left their agent. And so you're immediately widened that work, and you get into that conversation. Or sometimes it's a long process. Michael Ovitz at CAA discovers your plot to break off from CAA, to break out. Ovitz tells you you're finished, and that he's going to annihilate you. Yeah. You respond by getting out of the chair that you're in. You say you jumped out of the chair that you're in. You grabbed the chair, you picked it up, and hoisted it over your head, and screamed at him, threatened to destroy his mother-epping office. Why did you do that? And how did that work for you? [LAUGHTER] Pretty, pretty, pretty good. It was a chair that had an opening here. So I just went in there, and I picked it right about here. And it was my only move. I was scared out of my wits. First of all, the man is on Mount Rushmore of agents. He was, at that time, the most powerful agent in the world. He had created something incredible, watching him and studying him from afar. I mean, he was incredible. But I didn't have any other-- and I was scared. And the only way, at the time, I thought, to combat this is-- and I don't like anybody threatening me anyway. I'm not good with that. Really not good with that. And so, yeah, I didn't like getting threatened. And so, but I'm OK with fight. I'm OK to-- what's rumble? And I didn't care if it was physical. I didn't care if it was-- and I'm OK to defend myself. I don't, hopefully, in the book you get, my mother taught us to have agency, to believe in yourself, to believe in your ideas. And just because powerful people tell you not to do it, that doesn't mean you don't do it. And it's hard. And hopefully, this book gives you a roadmap to say, if it's hard, it's OK to go. You just have to work hard. And you got to go for it. As much as it's going to be difficult. And so, at that point in time, I'm not going to be bullied by anybody. And throughout my life, I'm good with taking on bullies. Well, that's really the origin story that you tell for yourself in the book. You write at the very beginning about being in school and just beating the snot out of a kid in the lunchroom, because that guy was bullying another kid. So your origin story is intolerance of bullies. Well, I was-- I'm shocking news. ADHD and dyslexic. And back then, dyslexia, I was in special ed. And we were in the lunchroom. Football team in the lunchroom early. One of these football players making fun of one of the kids in special ed with me. I was a wrestler, pretty good wrestler. And I just said to me, and don't do that, that's not cool. How old are you? 14, 15. And he kept on doing it. Hit the third rail, tray in hand, tray on his face. It was game on. And I didn't care, because I didn't think it was right to pick on that kid. And in a weird way, picking on that kid, calling him stupid, was like calling me stupid, because I was in special ed too. And I wasn't dumb, and I didn't think it was fair. And that little story and that little event, I've been doing that for myself and for other people and standing up for things I believe in. Do you want me to ask you a question about the worms? Or no? You can ask me, Rachel, this has been a wonderful conversation. You can ask me any conversation. First of all, I have questions from the audience. OK, let's start with the worms. OK, how big are the worms? They're like microscopic, you can't see them. So this is all about my crazy list of health things that I do. Yes. You lose yourself in a ice bath, then you light yourself up. And then you say the following. Let me answer some questions that you haven't asked me. Just let me answer them, because this is not my first rodeo about this issue. OK, I don't want to live forever. I just, what I do makes me feel really good. My workouts, the light, bed I do in the morning. My ice baths, my sonas, my workouts, my fasting, worms, what I eat, how I live my life. And it's a long-- we could do the whole hour on this. Whenever I come across something that I think is interesting, I call it my brother's seek. And I said, OK, can it kill me? He does his work. He gets back on the phone with me. When it came to the worms, I got the doctor from Duke on the phone that I read the article about. We're having this conversation. And one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in my life, the doctor says, well, they don't colonize. I lose it on the flacking up. And I go to Zika, I said, OK, can it kill me? No, I guess I'm trying them. I've been doing helmets, they're called helmets. Helmets, microscopic worms. Microscopic worms are Thailand and the UK every day for 15 years. How many worms? I don't know how many helmets are in the bottle. I drink a bottle every day. OK. And they're alive. They're alive. And here's what I would say to you. Wh-- shh. People think it goes from the brain down the vagus nerve to the gut. No, it goes from the gut to the brain. And most of the information in our lives that causes a lot of disease comes from the gut. And our guts change at around 30 to 35 and around 60 to 65. And the younger we can keep our guts, the healthier we can be mentally, physically, et cetera. I'm also doing some other stuff with this company craft that creates your own microbiome that you take. You guys can look it up later. And I just think that that causes less inflammation, inflammation, causes disease. And I want to be healthy, because I'm having a great time. Here is-- I am all for it. And I don't-- I'll send you some if you want. No, I'm good. So early in the book, when you are plotting to break off from CIA, I think it's just-- you pretty mercilessly rip a guy named Bill Block because he eats raw garlic cloves. And you mock him in the book by saying he's doing that because it makes his balls tingle. Yeah. Well, that's what he told me. So you're just reading call my brother. You're ripping him for that. But by part two of the book, once you are like-- you are our Emanuel. You are rich and powerful and famous. You are eating the live worms and insisting. It's not weird. And if you think it's weird, you're the weird one. And there's the light thing and all the stuff that you just described. My contention-- and I want you to tell me I'm wrong-- Yeah. in our generation. 53 or 65, you're a vegan other than the worms, so we're basically we're the same age. Okay. In our generation, it is my contention that if a man makes a lot of money, like GDP of a small country, a lot of money, he basically instantly becomes a huge weirdo. Do you think I'm weirdo? I really like you. I have a lot of affection for you, not just professionally, I like working with you, but I really like you. I enjoy you and I think you're a good person. I'm not a weirdo yet. But I think that compared to seven or eight years ago, you right now live a really weird life. Like a life that's really hard for normal people to have any head or heads around. Are all billionaires weird and is it all for the same reason? Wow, I never knew Rachel Mano generalizing, but I'm okay with that. Well, here's what I would say to you. Tell me what I'm saying. I have the ability now, and remember, I was making 15 cents a month. I have the ability now to God bless, think, you know, I'm blessed to do what I want to do. And this is one of the things that makes me happy. Yeah. And it doesn't do anybody any harm. It doesn't do anybody, and it's my right. And yeah, I can do that. Do I think I'm a weirdo as it relates to I know billionaires that are really weird? The longevity stuff gets real weird real fast. But I'm not one of those guys that is taking my blood, getting young blood. I'm not doing any of that crap. Okay. I'm satisfied a lot. I'm happy a lot, and I'm enjoying what I'm doing. And my mom told us the following and brought us up this way. You know, would you rather have a meaningful life or life of pleasure? I would rather have a meaningful life, because that meaningful life will lead to a life of pleasure. And I'm trying to make a change in the world. I'm not always doing the right thing by people, I guess, now, and I'll try and work harder. But I'm having a meaningful life, and this just, I have the ability, and this brings me pleasure, and I enjoy it. And you writing about what Dr. Callm, your therapist calls the ego project. Right. And you writing about your experience in therapy. I'm not a therapy person, but I was very moved by that in terms of you just being humble and talking about what's wrong with you and hearing him reflect back to you. I did it all the f*ck up f*ck up. Yeah, but you're also willing to work on it. And that's awful. Now, I do have to ask you about one piece of it. Okay. You're a big risk taker. You say the most confrontational bluntest, craziest things to anyone. You will scream the f words at your bosses. Yeah. You do this whole thing. And yet, when you decided, briefly, to break up with your girlfriend, who is now your wife. She's in the audience somewhere in this little big outfit. You was out and had to-- Oh, my God, I know. Break up with her for you. It's so horrible. And I can't believe she hung in there. Yeah. And then she came back. Yeah. She's weird. Why did she just stop you thinking? She said, yeah, go ahead. I am never a wimp. I mean, I love awkward. I was in the room when he was on the phone. And she was like, what the fuck is going on? And I can't believe I did it. And I'm so happy. I'm in love with this woman. She has changed me profoundly. I'm lucky she took me back. I'm lucky I saw her of blue bottle that one day. I missed her terribly. It was a weird time. I was turning 60. COVID was happening. We didn't go public. And I just couldn't figure it out. And I was disappointing myself and I didn't want to disappoint her. There's no excuse for my actions. Well, worked out okay. Sorry, honey. I love you. At the very opening of the book, it's a love letter to rage. And how rage is your secret superpower. And that everybody tries to tell you that rage is always negative. You acknowledge in the books when it is a negative for you. I've done good negative. Bringing that home when you shouldn't and all of those things. But you write about rage with lust. And it does kind of lights on. As soon as that happens with people, as opposed to like, certain people come in rooms and they fake it. I'm not a faker. Well, some people will, well, first of all, it's a bit of a defense of the madman theory of politics. But the madman theory of politics is about faking it. And you were not faking it. We're actually a madman. But the other part of it is that some people, because this is a business book, some people will read this as a "You too can be as successful as R.A. manual if you just let your rage fly." And I don't agree with that. There are very few people in the world who can be as visibly and performatively angry as you are in the business world without getting the cops called on them. You know, there's a point in time when you talk about it, like, when it comes to my wife, where I call incessantly. And if you call incessantly and you don't have humor, self-deprecation, and a lot of different attributes, you're a stalker. Yeah. It's the cops or it's at least HR. And if you have all those things, you can get to a place where you need to be. In every situation, rage is used differently. And how you use it. Sometimes it's real, real. But you can't shape it. It's just somebody hits the third rail, somebody does something. And sometimes, yes, it's a process. It's part of the negotiation. And so, I've done well by mastering my version of that. Everybody, this is a guide for what I did. You have to take certain lessons, which is endurance, consistency, vision, reading a lot. Those are the things. How I then just talked about my situation, how I then incorporated things in my life to kind of get to my success. Other people do it other ways. Before the 2016 election, Trump bought out NBC's stake in the Miss Universe pageant, and then sold it to you. So around the 2016 election, when everybody thought, "Oh, there's these creepy tapes about Trump off camera." There was reporting and a lot of expectations that there were Miss Universe outtake tapes that had bad stuff about Trump. Not true. How do you know? The work. You actually went through them? Yeah. How come you kept the mystery alive about that by not going public about it? I actually don't remember it. But the team went through it. Had there been anything? Would you have released it? Yeah. Really? Yeah. [laughter] You've been a champion for the Paramount merger. Yeah. The Ellicins, I don't know anything about them personally, but the way they have behaved towards the Trump administration since Trump has been back in office, has been terrifying. Trump is an Orban style leader who wants to take over the media and wants to be able to decide what's on television. And wants to be able to ban news outlets that he doesn't like, and wants to build a decide what's in movies and all these things. And the Ellicins have shown themselves to be very happy to go along with that. I disagree. Firing Stephen Colbert. Okay, so let's go through that. You can go through your list. I'll go through my list. Okay. Did you see John Stewart yesterday? Yes. Incredible. What do you say about Trump? Did you see Matt and Tray in their animated show? In the middle of his merger. Did you see that? Trump wanted them to get rid of Stephen Colbert and they did. Okay, but did you see what David Ellison did when it related to the guys that do. South Park. South Park. John Stewart. I didn't think 60 minutes was bad. I actually liked the first two episodes. There's things that I would have changed, but I thought they were good. I don't know. I think that he is actually. If you look at late night now and we represent Stephen, I think he's an incredible comedian. I don't think how that went down was appropriate. I thought it was inappropriate. Late night's economics has completely changed. The economics of late night. So I know that he did. I did not think the Trump administration handled that appropriately. Right? And however, the economics of late night have changed. On the other hand, David Ellison has permitted Matt and Tray to do their animated show and everything that they have said in the last year and a half. John Stewart and that show has done what they have done. And that is appropriate. And I don't think David Ellison has done anything wrong there. He has let them speak what they need to speak. I feel like this is a cop pulling over somebody for hitting somebody in a crosswalk and the guys saying, "But look at all the other people in the crosswalk, I didn't hit." You can say whatever you want. I appreciate that metaphor. I disagree with it. Stephen Colbert is the most successful leading best-rated late night host. Late night ratings. And I don't want to get in trouble with Stephen Colbert because he's a client. Late night ratings, it's a very tough economic environment right now. But this conversation was not about that. This conversation was, did David Ellison take Larry Ellison out of it? Has he permitted opposite voices as a relates to the Trump administration? And I can point to two. You have no comment about that. You just want to point to this one. I'm sorry. He hasn't done some of the terrible things he's going to do next. Who? Ellison. I mean, you have to judge him on what he's done. He takes over CBS. I do. I just told you. Let's talk about CBS. I know you love Barry Weiss. But he takes over CBS, guts the news organization, puts a right-wing blogger in charge who immediately books her sister on the morning show. Tanks the morning show, tanks the nightly news, and is now deep-frying 60 minutes to make sure that Pete Hegseth is on as often as possible. I mean, the 60 minutes situation in the CBS news situation under Alison is an embarrassment. It's an international embarrassment in terms of the American free press. And I know that you're a supporter of the merger, and I know that there's business reasons for that. I know they paid $8 billion to get UFC rights. I understand all these things. Seven point four. Seven point seven. I wish you. But if, I mean, let's say it's Roman manual Democratic presidential nominee or Joe Blow, Democratic presidential nominee. Do you really think under David Ellison, given what he's done already, in the way that he and his father have sucked up to Trump, putting a partisan ombudsman in at CBS news, doing a private dinner with journalists in honor of the president as the president is banning news organizations? I just repulsive. After he does all of that, do you think that the Democratic nominee, your brother or somebody else, is going to get a fair shake on Ellison, CBS, and Ellison, CNN after they get the call from Trump? Here's what I'd say. Take all the movie and television issues, as it relates to the Attorney General's and what they've said, and whether it hits the standard of being a monopoly, which it doesn't. Take $30 billion dollars you can spend on content, which I think is important. The 30 movies he's going to do, theatrical release, and the 170 series he's going to do. I have stated the following as a Democrat, to David Ellison, to Rob Bonta, to all the attorney jellies I could get on the phone. I think it's important that you put an editorial board in place, so that thing remains neutral, and that has been part of the conversations with the Attorney General's, and I think that is going to be in place, and that's a conversation I can have so that I think it sustains its integrity, and David's on board with that, actually it came from David. Do you have any worries about compliant billionaires taking over a consolidated media landscape under a president who wants to control the media? I know this is shocking. You're getting most of your news, not from MS, not from CNN, not from Fox, from your phone, and from social. And I know then you're going to hit me right back with Elon Musk and everything else. I would say to you the following. I think that there should be a fair news organization. That's why I said, I think you need to put in place, coming from David, and editorial board, and I think that's what will happen. With all of your influence and all of those folks who, you know, and all your business interests, will you fight for a free press in this country? Yeah. Last question for you Ari. Are you happy? You know, my son once said to me, we're a trial and malice son Noah, we're on the plane. He was in high school and he said, can't we just be normal? And I turned to him and I said, first of all, who the fuck wants to be normal? And second of all, what the fuck is normal? So as this question, I would say to you is, I'm satisfied a lot. I'm happy a lot. And I'm grateful. I'm really grateful for my beautiful kids, that my ex-wife and I made. I'm grateful for my new marriage. I'm grateful that I've had this, at times, painful, difficult, wonderful life in this opportunity. And all in all, more happy than not. I'm grateful for you doing this. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching the 92nd Street Y on MSNow, to learn more about upcoming events at 9-2-NY, scan the QR code on your screen or visit their website. We'll bring you more from 9-2-NY each month, right here on MSNow.