January 24, 2024 • 31 mins
Join political journalist Chris Moody on a journey that follows Matt Drudge's meteoric rise from lowly gift shop clerk to political kingmaker, a career fueled by gossip, scoops and an insatiable desire for relevance. But not long after The Drudge Report became a media powerhouse, Drudge retreated into the shadows, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions. This episode lays the groundwork for the show's goal to find and better understand the mysterious media mogul.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Valentine's Day, mid nineteen nineties. A young man is
sitting alone in a one bedroom apartment in Hollywood. Well,
not totally alone. He has a cat with six toes
who keeps him company. He's in his late twenties, but
he has no real career to speak of. He's a
really bright guy, but he never went to college, he
tells himself. He's just a late bloomer. He pays the
(00:23):
bills by selling trinkets to tourists at the CBS Studio's
Gift Shop and Studio City. Before that, he worked at
McDonald's and ran the night shift at a seven eleven.
But today everything is about to change. He sits down
at his computer. His dad bought for him one of
those big gray, old packard bells. He dials up his
modem and logs on to the World Wide Web. The
(00:47):
Internet is pretty new these days, and he's trying to
register a personal website. The person behind the screen is
named Matt Drudge. At this time in his life, he's
kind of a nobody. But in a few short years,
the site he builds using mid nineties coding tools will
revolutionize the media world and change the course of American politics.
(01:13):
The president of the United States will soon know his name.
He'll appear on national television and be celebrated at cocktail
parties in DC's swanky Georgetown neighborhood. He'll be read by millions.
But that's all in the future. Right now, he's just
a guy alone on Valentine's Day, playing with his computer.
(01:35):
With a few clicks of the mouse and keystrokes on
his loud, clunky keyboard, Matt Drudge secures the domain to
a new website. He names it after himself. He calls
it the Drudge Report. You've probably heard of the Drudge Report.
(01:56):
If you were around in the nineties and followed President
Bill Clinton's tawdry relationship with an intern named Monica Lewinsky,
you've definitely heard of it. Drudge was partially responsible for
breaking news of the presidential scandal on his website, one
of the first times that the mainstream print media was
scooped by some random person on the Internet.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
One of the president's alleged affair first leaked out this
week by way of the Internet through an increasingly familiar
route and Internet column written by Matt Drudge.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
As a one man newsroom. The trafficked in Hollywood gossip
in Washington whispers. Drudge broke news, constantly dabbling in everything
from celebrity scandals to national political dramas, and he changed
the course of history while doing it. His ugly little
sight grew to be read by millions every day. He
was an Internet pioneer who became one of the most
(02:45):
polarizing people in America. One of those daily readers is me.
My name is Chris Moody. I'm a political reporter who's
covered presidential campaigns in Congress for years. I've been obsessed
with a Drudge Report for decades. I started reading it
when I was twelve years old in the late nineteen nineties,
logging on to the family desktop computer until my mom
(03:06):
would yell at me to get off and free up
the telephone line. The site hasn't changed much since then.
It still uses the same typewriter font. It started with
just a simple white background with bold faced text, a
few pictures, and the occasional gift of a flashing siren
for whenever really big news breaks. Even those early days
of the Internet, the Drudge Report was as ugly as
(03:27):
it was influential. When I got into political reporting, in Washington.
In the mid two thousands, my Drudge reading habit really
kicked into high gear. My obsession shifted from reading the
Drudge Report to wanting to appear on the Drudge Report.
Drudge's site drives so much Internet traffic to other sites
it links to that journalists practically beg him to feature
(03:48):
them in their stories. Getting a link on the Drudge
Report can drive thousands of new readers to your work.
I've had a few myself, and every time it's a rush.
For millions of Americans, the Drudge Report became their homepage.
Political junkies, including White House staffers, refreshed the site constantly
looking for news, usually about their own boss. During presidential campaigns,
(04:11):
candidates from both parties dispatched operatives to court Drudge himself.
Assignment editors had all the networks use the page to
dictate their coverage that would be seen by millions every night.
Drudge's rise from obscurity to national fame was meteoric. He
had no way of knowing it when he first launched
the site, but soon his name would be everywhere. David
(04:36):
Letterman would invite him as a guest on The Late
Show like he was a Hollywood celebrity.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Here he is multi media reporter.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Matt Drudge, Man, come up.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Fox News would give him a TV show.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Matt Drudge here somewhere Mentowle, Manhattan and hold on to
your hats.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
He'd be on the radio airways too. This is Drudge,
It's Sunday Night. Clinton even had his own nickname for him, Sludge.
He would become a political kingmaker. Presidential candidates would blame
him for losing elections, and others would work hard to
nurture his support, people like Donald Trump, who Drudge arguably
(05:17):
helped propel into the presidency in twenty sixteen, before he
would turn against him in twenty twenty. But at some
point in the late two thousands, when he was at
the height of his powers, Matt Drudge the person disappeared
from the spotlight. He stopped doing interviews. Drudge hasn't appeared
(05:37):
on a broadcast of any kind since twenty seventeen. The
last known photograph of his face was taken more than
a decade ago. The site that bears his name is
still going strong. But what happened to the real Matt Drudge?
How could the most powerful man in media basically just
vanish from public life from jmw Ptater auctions in iHeartMedia.
(06:01):
This is finding Matt Drudge. Over the past few years, Drudge,
the man has pretty much vanished from public view. Where
did he go and why? I want to find out,
(06:23):
And I'm taking you along the ride with me. I'll
be searching far and wide in hopes of finding what
happened to Matt Drudge since he slunk into the shadows.
I'm approaching this with a few core questions. How exactly
did he rise so quickly to such prominence in modern media. Why,
having achieved that rare status, did Matt Drudge decide to
(06:45):
effectively disappear? Where has he been living these past few years?
And what happened to him politically? Why, for instance, did
he turn on Trump? And was he ever on the
side of conservatives? To begin with, Matt Drudge is one
of the most influential media figures in world history. But
why do we know so little about him? I hope
(07:06):
to find him and find out more about the man
who continues to shape the media landscape. This is finding
Matt Drudge. Do you know where Matt Drudge is? If
you have a great Matt Drudge story, they can shed
insight into the mysterious Mogul and help us on our search.
(07:27):
Call us at three zero one two zero zero two
four one four and tell us about it. We may
even air your message in the final episodes of the show.
If you want us to credit you, please say so
and leave your name. To begin my hunt for Drudge,
I turn to someone who might be even more obsessed
(07:50):
with Drudge than I am. Matthew Lee Shak has spent
the last several years researching a biography about Drudge. As
far as I can tell, he's probably the best expert
short of Dudge's personal friends and family on Drudge, the person,
where he came from, and why he matters. In twenty twenty,
Lee Shak published The Drudge Revolution, the untold story of
(08:11):
how talk radio, Fox News, and a gift shop clerk
with an Internet connection took down the mainstream media. And no,
not even he got close to finding Drudge.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
You want talk to me all. He hasn't given any
sort of interview to any member of the media for
I think it's around nine years now, so he's full on,
in full on recluse mode right now. Matt's really a
private guy, and he was not a fan of this
(08:43):
book coming out. He did not want it to come out.
He did what Matt does, which is like completely try
to ignore it. But he did get it advance copy
of the book, and he said to one of his
associates that, well, it wasn't as bad as he thought
it was.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Lee shak lives in Arizona, the same state where Drudge
owns a home. He's drawn to the mystery of Drudge
for many of the same reasons I am. He wanted
to understand a world historical figure better. He wanted to
tell his story for posterity.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
I wanted to get a book out on this guy
because he somehow eluded any major profiles. Like here's perhaps
the most powerful man in media, I would argue, and
no one knew anything about him. Matt deserves credit. He
wasn't just part of a cog of media as it
moved on. He was a pivot point. He challeged everything,
(09:35):
and that is something that we should acknowledge and it
should be on the historical record.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So for years, Lee Shacks scoured public records, conducting interviews
with people who knew Drudge. He even tried to speak
with Dudge's family, but to little avail, so instead he
pieced Drudge's story together himself. Matt Drudge was raised in
Tacomba Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, d C. In
nineteen sixty six. An early gen Xer, he lived a
(10:01):
short drive from Capitol Hill in the White House. His
dad was a state employee and his mom was an attorney.
From an early age, Dredge showed promise of a certain
kind of brilliance.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
What kind of child and young man was Matt Drudge?
And can you talk a little bit about how that
upbringing might have shaped who he grew up to become.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
I find it absolutely fascinating. Matllet is a great story
just in and of himself in a sense it he
didn't just come from a dysfunctional family. I mean, I
think it's fair to say we all come from dysfunctional
families to one degree or another, but Max was an
extreme case. Mallet kind of largely raised himself. He had
(10:43):
a lot to contend with, and his ability to rise
through that I think is like a very American story.
But when Matt was younger, his friends would tell me
that he always had a real certainty about himself. If
he had doubts, he never shared them. So here's a
guy barely graduated from high school. I think he was
(11:04):
in the bottom one percent of his graduating high school class.
Never went to college, but he would show up the
parties and be the smartest guy in every room he
walked into and make sure everybody knew that about him.
But there was one really telling story that thout interesting
that I learned about Matt. He loved music, loved music,
loved dancing, and he would go with friends and stock
(11:28):
music producers. They drive from Silver Springs, Maryland, to New
York City and find out where some famous record producer
would be, and he just wait for him to come out,
and they wouldn't ask for his autograph. Match just wanted
to be in the presence of really great people. It
wasn't the rock stars themselves, it was the people behind
the scenes that he was enamored by, and he wouldn't
(11:51):
ask for their autograph. He had a theory, he told
friends that these people would just identifying him also as
a great person, and he just wanted to be in
their orbit.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Drudge wanted to be around important people, even at a
young age. He was obsessed with news. According to Leishak.
In high school, he started wearing an old fashioned reporter's fedora,
complete with the card that read press on the front.
Maybe journalism could be his ticket to be around big
time people. In nineteen eighty seven, he moved to Los Angeles,
(12:22):
the seat of American cultural power. Immediately he found his
way into show business. Well sort of.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
There I come come on in the most extining hor
by classing private, not having a sectimitted priv right.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Drudge lands a gig at CBS Studios in Hollywood as
a runner on the price's right. Before long he's managing
the studio gift shop. It wasn't necessarily fame and fortune,
that is until he started paying attention to what was
in the garbage. Drudge started finding that CBS Yes staffers
were tossing television rating numbers in the trash before they
(13:04):
were made public. He went out and dug him out.
Here he is telling the story during a speech in
nineteen ninety eight overhearing, listening to careful conversations, intercepting the
occasional memo would volunteer in the mailroom from time to time.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I hit pay dirt when I discovered that the trash
cans and the Xerox room of television study were stuffed
each morning with overnight Nielsen ratings information.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Gold Matt had worked at the CBS gift shop, folding
T shirts and dusting all of glasses and listening to information.
He knew that he had a window when they would
throw away to Nielsen reporting, did Nielsen reports, and he
would take them out and publish them about eighteen hours
(13:52):
before the public got him. And that's how he kind
of on these early Internet chat sites, and that's how
he initially made a name for himself.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Suddenly, this random guy named Matt Drudge was scooping the
mainstream media. The spread of the Internet, a place where
anyone with a modem could publish whatever they pleased, suddenly
meant that the traditional media, the old gatekeepers, were not
nearly as powerful as they once were. It was an
absolute revelation. In nineteen ninety five, he quit his day
(14:22):
job and devoted all his time to breaking news on
his personal website, the Drudge Report. By hanging out in
chat rooms and gossiping on AOL and some messenger from
his little apartment, Matt Drudge started to branch out, racking
up scoops in politics, media and entertainment.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Having found a way to post things on the Internet,
it was a quick learn. Internet newsgroups were very good
to meet.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Early on, I.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
Moved on to scoops.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
From the sound stages, I had heard Jerry Seinfeld asking
for a million dollars in episode to scoop after scoop
of political things I had heard from some friends back here.
I collected a few emails addresses of interest. People had
suggested I start a mailing list, so I collected the
emails and set up a list called the Drudge Report.
(15:09):
One reader turned into five, then turned into one hundred
and faster than you could say, I never had sex
with that woman. It was a thousand, one hundred thousand people.
The ensuing website practically launched itself.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
He broke that Bob Dole was running me. It was
going to be Jack Kemp. Connie Chine found out she
was going to be fired because she read it on
the Dredge Report before her boss has taught her.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
From a little corner in my Hollywood apartment, in the
company of nothing more than my for eighty six computer
and my six toed cat, I have consistently been able
to break big stories. Now with a modem. Anyone can
follow the world and report on the world, no middleman,
no big brother, and I guess everything.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Then on January seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight, Drudge's world completely changed.
He published a story about how Newsweek magazine had killed
a story about an illicit affair between President Bill Clinton
and an intern in the White House. It was a
massive bombshell. It changed politics, It changed the media, and
(16:28):
it would forever change Matt Drudge's life.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
When Matt pushed enter, all of media changed. There aren't
these people who decide what in what we don't get
access to in terms of information anymore. You can't keep
a story. Nobody can keep a story.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Once again, Drudge had beat the gatekeepers who had dominated
American media for decades. Not only that he embarrassed them
by exposing debates in the newsroom, it made him a
celebrity overnight.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
One of the president's alleged affair first leaked out this
week by way of the intern through an increasingly familiar route,
an Internet column written by Matt Drudge.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
His scoop about the President's infidelities also made him a villain,
a villain to Democrats, to the media, to anyone skeptical
of the idea of news breaking outside of the mainstream media.
When he appeared on the Today Show, Matt Lower was
visibly incensed.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
The Drudge Report is a media gossip page known for
below the beltwegh reporting, and it's gaining a reputation as
a growing irritant to the White House. Matt Drudge, good
morning morning. For people who don't know about your report
on the internet. Is it an unbiased report or is
it partisan politics?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It's a man partisan for news and I think I've
proven that to my readers over almost four years now
and thousands of reports that have unearthed deception and lies
and scandal of the highest order.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
All right, but you are you admit a conservative? And
you have increasingly targeted the Clinton White House.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Well, I go where the stink is, and I became
very suspicious of this administration early on, and I haven't
let go.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
What happened next was the stuff of legend. Clinton admitted
the affair. He was impeached by the House, but survived
the Senate trial. Drudge's fame rose to new heights. While
the mainstream press might have hated him at first, they
started to read him. Then they couldn't stop reading him.
As the Internet grew, so did his site. The Drudge
(18:30):
Report became a behemoth.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
You'd walk in and the Drudge Report would be on
at least twenty percent of every screen you'd walk by
because Matt was always first. The Drudge Report was always first,
and if you weren't on the Judge Report, there was
a feeling that you were going to miss out on something.
I had. One editor ascribed to me that when Matt
used to link to a story of theirs, it would
(18:53):
crash your server.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Soon, Drudge expanded beyond the website. Fox News gave him
the television show, He hosted a radio program. He was
profiled in elite publications. After years of obscurity, Drudge was
finally getting recognition, and he ate it up.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Matt loved the initial fame. He craved it. He's a
guy with a chip on his shoulder. I mean, he
knew he didn't come from a great family, and he
knew that he wasn't going to be given a job
at the Washington Post. He was a student of journalism
as a kid. I mean that was his dream, was
to be at one of the big papers working as
a reporter. He knew that he'd have to carve his
(19:32):
own niche. So when he did, I think he relished
poking the IAB establishment.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Drudge was a wash in newfound fame in Washington. People
threw parties for him, making him the guest of honor.
Bill Press, the former host of CNN's Crossfire, was there.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Matt Dredge suddenly emerged right in the Monica Lewinsky days,
and so he was this mysterious character that basically blew
up the media and the media world. He was a star,
and people wanted him on their shows, wanted him at
their parties, wanted him at their events. This young guy,
(20:12):
a little weird, wore hat and nobody really knew who
he was or where he came from. But he had
set the world on fire, and he was a fascinating character.
He was a celebrity.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
In the summer of nineteen ninety eight, once he became
a household name, Drudge was invited to deliver a speech
before the National Press Club in Washington. D C. Reporters
were furious about how he had handled the Clinton scandal,
thinking that he hadn't vetted his scoops carefully enough. They
saw him as an intruder, an outsider, an impostor, and
(20:52):
Drudge knew it.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Applause for Matt Drudge in Washington at the Press Club.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Now there's a scandal.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
We have entered an era vibrating with the din of
small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take
on the powers at be. The difference between the Internet,
television and radio magazine's newspapers is the two way communication.
The Net gives as much voice to a thirteen year
old computer geek like me as to a CEO or
(21:29):
speaker of the house.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
We all become equal.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
I was walking the streets of Washington, streets I grew
up in last night, found myself in front of the
Washington Post Building again, looking up, this time not longingly.
This time I laughed and let the future begin.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Despite the polite reception at the beginning, reporters grilled him.
They asked him if he was coarsening the public discourse,
whether he could cut it as a journalist in a
real newsroom. They wanted to know who funded his site,
and Drudge took every question. A young reporter named Tucker
Carlson was there. He felt pressure at the time to
(22:21):
criticize Drudge, and.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
I remember taking notes and thinking of the speech as
something that I was going to criticize, which I did
because I was so small minded and I was so
vested in the way things were. I'd been in the
news business for seven years. At that point, I was
starting to succeed. I felt like I had a lot
at stake in the system. Looking back, I realized this,
(22:43):
and I thought, you know, I wanted to criticize Drudge,
and I did. But at the same time, the deeper,
I would say, more thoughtful part of me recognized I
was watching something extraordinary and that some of what he
was saying was absolutely right. I did recognize that at
the time, but I don't think I gave.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Full voice to those views.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I should have.
Speaker 7 (23:03):
I was too afraid. Maybe young people don't think for themselves.
They want to fit in their conformists. By nature, it's
they're hurt animals. I mean, that's just the nature of
like the life cycle. And I was too, And I
thought of myself as an independent minded person who thinks
for himself.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
But I wasn't.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Matt Trudge was, and that's what made him different from
me and different from most people in the news business.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
By that time, Drudge was on fire. He was completely independent,
answered to no one but himself. As the millennium turned
into the two thousands and people started turning to the
Internet for news, his profile only grew as he became
more famous through his booming site, Fox News TV show,
a column in Wired magazine, a radio show, and through
(23:47):
appearances on network and cable television. The media started to
grow increasingly interested in his personal life. Reporters started to
ask him questions about his family, his home, his sexual orientation.
He was no longer an anonymous blogger. He was growing
into a rich titan of a media empire. He was,
(24:10):
whether he liked it or not, a public figure. The
exposure of his personal affairs got to him.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Nothing was ever enough. He'd do all these interviews through
the TV show, but he felt like people always wanted more,
and he met with one of his associates after the
New York magazine published an article about that. It was
a very flattering article, but it reed a few personal
details about mad life, like an any article, and Matt
(24:40):
freaked out a bit. He ended his radio show a
week later that he'd been doing for years and years
and years and said to his friend, I think you
know I'd be more powerful behind the scenes without my
image being out there, without being the space just be
in the Dredge Report.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Gone went the TV show and the radio show. He
stopped participating in profiles. In the rare times when he
showed his face in public it made news in a way,
Drudge just sort of disappeared, speaking only through his website.
Over the years, he built a mystery around himself that
only made people more curious.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
God knows where he lived. He lived in Miami at
one point he lived I mean. I later asked him
to run into him, where do you live? And he said,
why don't we live anywhere? I live partly in Auckland,
New Zealand partly in Telivi, Israel. I'm in Stockholm, Sweden
quite a bit, and then I'm back in Miami and
out of Scottsdale. I said, really, He said yeah. I
(25:41):
keep my watch on Eastern Time, so I'm always rooted
in internet time, but I'm not rooted in physical time.
I remember thinking that's truly bizarre, and I think he
was telling me the truth.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Drudge hated when people talked about his personal life, fit
strongly when they did so. He reined in his friendships.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
He was such a reclusive person. People didn't know that
much about him. Where did he come from, did he
have a partner or you know, what was he interested?
Who was he and all that kind of stuff. And
he was a very private person. There always a lot
of questions surrounding him.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
When Drudge hired staff, he ordered them not to talk
about the company and to lose their public profiles. His employees,
like reporters Charlie Hurt and Joe Curl, never really talked
about him while they worked for him.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Joseph grow told me as soon as he got hired
by Now that he was told to delete his social
media profiles, not to stop posting, to delete them, like,
couldn't even have them, and Joseph did it.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Charlie and I were friends and neighbors. And he left
the paper to take this again, a mysterious new job,
and I finally said, what the hell's going on? You
can tell me. And he went to work for Matt
Drudge as running the page and it was again a
big job, but there was no big publicity about it.
(27:04):
He was the day to day managing editor of the
Drudge Page from his house right around the corner from mine.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
When he was working for the Drudge Report. Did he
ever talk about the Drudge Report?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Nope, nope. It was again part of this mysterious operation.
And I sort of feel that went with the territory.
I always had the feeling that went with the territory
that he was not he had agreed not to talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Dredge was also secretive about where he lived. Carlson remembered
what happened when he mentioned to Drudge that he had
heard he was buying a new piece of property in Florida.
Speaker 7 (27:42):
I remember having one conversation with him. We were talking
about I was always been fascinated by you. Who is
he personally? And somebody once said to me that he
had bought it, but maybe Breitbart, I think, told me
that he had bought a bunch of land in Miami Dade,
but kind of on the outskirts far from Miami and
had built it sort of doomsday compound. And for the record,
I'm not against doomsday compounds at all. I don't think
(28:05):
that's a crazy thing to do. In the slenniest I
think it's an admirable thing to do. So I wasn't
mocking him, but I asked about it and he became
so emotional and burst into tears and started yelling at me,
and I was going to betray him and tell people
about his compound. And I suppose he was right, because
now I am a lot of people in the media
business really want to be famous. In fact, it's the
(28:27):
rule rather than the exception. And here was a guy
at the center of the media business, at the top
of it, who didn't want any attention personally. For a while,
you know, you thought, well, maybe it's because he's you know, closeted,
But I don't think that was it. I don't think
it had anything to do with his personal life or
sex life. I think it had to do with who
(28:47):
he was. He just didn't want the attention. And I
always admired that.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
Where do you think Matt Drudge lives today? I think
he's in in Florida right now, but I'm not sure.
I was at his house there and he would have
opened the gate. I was at his house in Phoenix
and the neighbor said that they actually have never even
heard anybody at the house. I know he also has
a place or spend time in Israel, quite a bit
(29:16):
of time there, and he is in Vegas gambling quite
a bit, But right now, if I had to put
money out, I'd say he's in Florida having a nice
drink somewhere by water. I think one of the goals
of this show is to maybe do the impossible, and
I recognize that. Do you have any advice on getting
(29:37):
start on this journey of maybe finding Matt Drudge?
Speaker 5 (29:41):
Go to the hundred dollars slot machine at Ballet's in
Vegas and just plant yourself in that little room and wait,
and there's a good chance that at some point Matt
Dudge will will walk by you. And I I think,
aside from now, I have no advice.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
What are my vaguus odds of getting Matt Drudge to
sit down with me?
Speaker 5 (30:11):
It is possible, not very good, especially after you did
this interview with me.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, my odds might not be great, but I'm going
to give finding Drudge a shot anyway. I'm going to
travel far and wide searching for Matt Drudge. Along the way,
I'll talk to people who have worked with him, dined
with him, and fought with him, taking listeners into private dinners,
private conversations, all in an attempt to get a better
understanding of who Drudge is and what motivates him. I'll
(30:45):
also be chasing down tips from you, the listeners, through
a special hotline. So if you know where Drudge is
right now, or have a great Drudge story that might
help us better understand the mysterious media Mobile, please send
it my way. Hopefully, by the time this show ends,
the man who knows Drudge best, Matt Drudge himself, will
break his silence and sit down with us. Either way,
(31:07):
we'll learn a lot more about him and the controversies
that surround him, like why a sight turned on Trump
in twenty twenty. Along the journey, so strap in this
is Finding Matt Drudge. Remember to call us at three
(31:41):
zero one two zero zero two four one four if
you have a great tip or a great Matt Drudge story.
We'll track down the tips for the final episodes of
the show.
It's Valentine's Day, mid nineteen nineties. A young man is
sitting alone in a one bedroom apartment in Hollywood. Well,
not totally alone. He has a cat with six toes
who keeps him company. He's in his late twenties, but
he has no real career to speak of. He's a
really bright guy, but he never went to college, he
tells himself. He's just a late bloomer. He pays the
(00:23):
bills by selling trinkets to tourists at the CBS Studio's
Gift Shop and Studio City. Before that, he worked at
McDonald's and ran the night shift at a seven eleven.
But today everything is about to change. He sits down
at his computer. His dad bought for him one of
those big gray, old packard bells. He dials up his
modem and logs on to the World Wide Web. The
(00:47):
Internet is pretty new these days, and he's trying to
register a personal website. The person behind the screen is
named Matt Drudge. At this time in his life, he's
kind of a nobody. But in a few short years,
the site he builds using mid nineties coding tools will
revolutionize the media world and change the course of American politics.
(01:13):
The president of the United States will soon know his name.
He'll appear on national television and be celebrated at cocktail
parties in DC's swanky Georgetown neighborhood. He'll be read by millions.
But that's all in the future. Right now, he's just
a guy alone on Valentine's Day, playing with his computer.
(01:35):
With a few clicks of the mouse and keystrokes on
his loud, clunky keyboard, Matt Drudge secures the domain to
a new website. He names it after himself. He calls
it the Drudge Report. You've probably heard of the Drudge Report.
(01:56):
If you were around in the nineties and followed President
Bill Clinton's tawdry relationship with an intern named Monica Lewinsky,
you've definitely heard of it. Drudge was partially responsible for
breaking news of the presidential scandal on his website, one
of the first times that the mainstream print media was
scooped by some random person on the Internet.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
One of the president's alleged affair first leaked out this
week by way of the Internet through an increasingly familiar
route and Internet column written by Matt Drudge.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
As a one man newsroom. The trafficked in Hollywood gossip
in Washington whispers. Drudge broke news, constantly dabbling in everything
from celebrity scandals to national political dramas, and he changed
the course of history while doing it. His ugly little
sight grew to be read by millions every day. He
was an Internet pioneer who became one of the most
(02:45):
polarizing people in America. One of those daily readers is me.
My name is Chris Moody. I'm a political reporter who's
covered presidential campaigns in Congress for years. I've been obsessed
with a Drudge Report for decades. I started reading it
when I was twelve years old in the late nineteen nineties,
logging on to the family desktop computer until my mom
(03:06):
would yell at me to get off and free up
the telephone line. The site hasn't changed much since then.
It still uses the same typewriter font. It started with
just a simple white background with bold faced text, a
few pictures, and the occasional gift of a flashing siren
for whenever really big news breaks. Even those early days
of the Internet, the Drudge Report was as ugly as
(03:27):
it was influential. When I got into political reporting, in Washington.
In the mid two thousands, my Drudge reading habit really
kicked into high gear. My obsession shifted from reading the
Drudge Report to wanting to appear on the Drudge Report.
Drudge's site drives so much Internet traffic to other sites
it links to that journalists practically beg him to feature
(03:48):
them in their stories. Getting a link on the Drudge
Report can drive thousands of new readers to your work.
I've had a few myself, and every time it's a rush.
For millions of Americans, the Drudge Report became their homepage.
Political junkies, including White House staffers, refreshed the site constantly
looking for news, usually about their own boss. During presidential campaigns,
(04:11):
candidates from both parties dispatched operatives to court Drudge himself.
Assignment editors had all the networks use the page to
dictate their coverage that would be seen by millions every night.
Drudge's rise from obscurity to national fame was meteoric. He
had no way of knowing it when he first launched
the site, but soon his name would be everywhere. David
(04:36):
Letterman would invite him as a guest on The Late
Show like he was a Hollywood celebrity.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Here he is multi media reporter.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Matt Drudge, Man, come up.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Fox News would give him a TV show.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Matt Drudge here somewhere Mentowle, Manhattan and hold on to
your hats.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
He'd be on the radio airways too. This is Drudge,
It's Sunday Night. Clinton even had his own nickname for him, Sludge.
He would become a political kingmaker. Presidential candidates would blame
him for losing elections, and others would work hard to
nurture his support, people like Donald Trump, who Drudge arguably
(05:17):
helped propel into the presidency in twenty sixteen, before he
would turn against him in twenty twenty. But at some
point in the late two thousands, when he was at
the height of his powers, Matt Drudge the person disappeared
from the spotlight. He stopped doing interviews. Drudge hasn't appeared
(05:37):
on a broadcast of any kind since twenty seventeen. The
last known photograph of his face was taken more than
a decade ago. The site that bears his name is
still going strong. But what happened to the real Matt Drudge?
How could the most powerful man in media basically just
vanish from public life from jmw Ptater auctions in iHeartMedia.
(06:01):
This is finding Matt Drudge. Over the past few years, Drudge,
the man has pretty much vanished from public view. Where
did he go and why? I want to find out,
(06:23):
And I'm taking you along the ride with me. I'll
be searching far and wide in hopes of finding what
happened to Matt Drudge since he slunk into the shadows.
I'm approaching this with a few core questions. How exactly
did he rise so quickly to such prominence in modern media. Why,
having achieved that rare status, did Matt Drudge decide to
(06:45):
effectively disappear? Where has he been living these past few years?
And what happened to him politically? Why, for instance, did
he turn on Trump? And was he ever on the
side of conservatives? To begin with, Matt Drudge is one
of the most influential media figures in world history. But
why do we know so little about him? I hope
(07:06):
to find him and find out more about the man
who continues to shape the media landscape. This is finding
Matt Drudge. Do you know where Matt Drudge is? If
you have a great Matt Drudge story, they can shed
insight into the mysterious Mogul and help us on our search.
(07:27):
Call us at three zero one two zero zero two
four one four and tell us about it. We may
even air your message in the final episodes of the show.
If you want us to credit you, please say so
and leave your name. To begin my hunt for Drudge,
I turn to someone who might be even more obsessed
(07:50):
with Drudge than I am. Matthew Lee Shak has spent
the last several years researching a biography about Drudge. As
far as I can tell, he's probably the best expert
short of Dudge's personal friends and family on Drudge, the person,
where he came from, and why he matters. In twenty twenty,
Lee Shak published The Drudge Revolution, the untold story of
(08:11):
how talk radio, Fox News, and a gift shop clerk
with an Internet connection took down the mainstream media. And no,
not even he got close to finding Drudge.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
You want talk to me all. He hasn't given any
sort of interview to any member of the media for
I think it's around nine years now, so he's full on,
in full on recluse mode right now. Matt's really a
private guy, and he was not a fan of this
(08:43):
book coming out. He did not want it to come out.
He did what Matt does, which is like completely try
to ignore it. But he did get it advance copy
of the book, and he said to one of his
associates that, well, it wasn't as bad as he thought
it was.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Lee shak lives in Arizona, the same state where Drudge
owns a home. He's drawn to the mystery of Drudge
for many of the same reasons I am. He wanted
to understand a world historical figure better. He wanted to
tell his story for posterity.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
I wanted to get a book out on this guy
because he somehow eluded any major profiles. Like here's perhaps
the most powerful man in media, I would argue, and
no one knew anything about him. Matt deserves credit. He
wasn't just part of a cog of media as it
moved on. He was a pivot point. He challeged everything,
(09:35):
and that is something that we should acknowledge and it
should be on the historical record.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So for years, Lee Shacks scoured public records, conducting interviews
with people who knew Drudge. He even tried to speak
with Dudge's family, but to little avail, so instead he
pieced Drudge's story together himself. Matt Drudge was raised in
Tacomba Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, d C. In
nineteen sixty six. An early gen Xer, he lived a
(10:01):
short drive from Capitol Hill in the White House. His
dad was a state employee and his mom was an attorney.
From an early age, Dredge showed promise of a certain
kind of brilliance.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
What kind of child and young man was Matt Drudge?
And can you talk a little bit about how that
upbringing might have shaped who he grew up to become.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
I find it absolutely fascinating. Matllet is a great story
just in and of himself in a sense it he
didn't just come from a dysfunctional family. I mean, I
think it's fair to say we all come from dysfunctional
families to one degree or another, but Max was an
extreme case. Mallet kind of largely raised himself. He had
(10:43):
a lot to contend with, and his ability to rise
through that I think is like a very American story.
But when Matt was younger, his friends would tell me
that he always had a real certainty about himself. If
he had doubts, he never shared them. So here's a
guy barely graduated from high school. I think he was
(11:04):
in the bottom one percent of his graduating high school class.
Never went to college, but he would show up the
parties and be the smartest guy in every room he
walked into and make sure everybody knew that about him.
But there was one really telling story that thout interesting
that I learned about Matt. He loved music, loved music,
loved dancing, and he would go with friends and stock
(11:28):
music producers. They drive from Silver Springs, Maryland, to New
York City and find out where some famous record producer
would be, and he just wait for him to come out,
and they wouldn't ask for his autograph. Match just wanted
to be in the presence of really great people. It
wasn't the rock stars themselves, it was the people behind
the scenes that he was enamored by, and he wouldn't
(11:51):
ask for their autograph. He had a theory, he told
friends that these people would just identifying him also as
a great person, and he just wanted to be in
their orbit.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Drudge wanted to be around important people, even at a
young age. He was obsessed with news. According to Leishak.
In high school, he started wearing an old fashioned reporter's fedora,
complete with the card that read press on the front.
Maybe journalism could be his ticket to be around big
time people. In nineteen eighty seven, he moved to Los Angeles,
(12:22):
the seat of American cultural power. Immediately he found his
way into show business. Well sort of.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
There I come come on in the most extining hor
by classing private, not having a sectimitted priv right.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Drudge lands a gig at CBS Studios in Hollywood as
a runner on the price's right. Before long he's managing
the studio gift shop. It wasn't necessarily fame and fortune,
that is until he started paying attention to what was
in the garbage. Drudge started finding that CBS Yes staffers
were tossing television rating numbers in the trash before they
(13:04):
were made public. He went out and dug him out.
Here he is telling the story during a speech in
nineteen ninety eight overhearing, listening to careful conversations, intercepting the
occasional memo would volunteer in the mailroom from time to time.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I hit pay dirt when I discovered that the trash
cans and the Xerox room of television study were stuffed
each morning with overnight Nielsen ratings information.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Gold Matt had worked at the CBS gift shop, folding
T shirts and dusting all of glasses and listening to information.
He knew that he had a window when they would
throw away to Nielsen reporting, did Nielsen reports, and he
would take them out and publish them about eighteen hours
(13:52):
before the public got him. And that's how he kind
of on these early Internet chat sites, and that's how
he initially made a name for himself.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Suddenly, this random guy named Matt Drudge was scooping the
mainstream media. The spread of the Internet, a place where
anyone with a modem could publish whatever they pleased, suddenly
meant that the traditional media, the old gatekeepers, were not
nearly as powerful as they once were. It was an
absolute revelation. In nineteen ninety five, he quit his day
(14:22):
job and devoted all his time to breaking news on
his personal website, the Drudge Report. By hanging out in
chat rooms and gossiping on AOL and some messenger from
his little apartment, Matt Drudge started to branch out, racking
up scoops in politics, media and entertainment.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Having found a way to post things on the Internet,
it was a quick learn. Internet newsgroups were very good
to meet.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Early on, I.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
Moved on to scoops.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
From the sound stages, I had heard Jerry Seinfeld asking
for a million dollars in episode to scoop after scoop
of political things I had heard from some friends back here.
I collected a few emails addresses of interest. People had
suggested I start a mailing list, so I collected the
emails and set up a list called the Drudge Report.
(15:09):
One reader turned into five, then turned into one hundred
and faster than you could say, I never had sex
with that woman. It was a thousand, one hundred thousand people.
The ensuing website practically launched itself.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
He broke that Bob Dole was running me. It was
going to be Jack Kemp. Connie Chine found out she
was going to be fired because she read it on
the Dredge Report before her boss has taught her.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
From a little corner in my Hollywood apartment, in the
company of nothing more than my for eighty six computer
and my six toed cat, I have consistently been able
to break big stories. Now with a modem. Anyone can
follow the world and report on the world, no middleman,
no big brother, and I guess everything.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Then on January seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight, Drudge's world completely changed.
He published a story about how Newsweek magazine had killed
a story about an illicit affair between President Bill Clinton
and an intern in the White House. It was a
massive bombshell. It changed politics, It changed the media, and
(16:28):
it would forever change Matt Drudge's life.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
When Matt pushed enter, all of media changed. There aren't
these people who decide what in what we don't get
access to in terms of information anymore. You can't keep
a story. Nobody can keep a story.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Once again, Drudge had beat the gatekeepers who had dominated
American media for decades. Not only that he embarrassed them
by exposing debates in the newsroom, it made him a
celebrity overnight.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
One of the president's alleged affair first leaked out this
week by way of the intern through an increasingly familiar route,
an Internet column written by Matt Drudge.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
His scoop about the President's infidelities also made him a villain,
a villain to Democrats, to the media, to anyone skeptical
of the idea of news breaking outside of the mainstream media.
When he appeared on the Today Show, Matt Lower was
visibly incensed.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
The Drudge Report is a media gossip page known for
below the beltwegh reporting, and it's gaining a reputation as
a growing irritant to the White House. Matt Drudge, good
morning morning. For people who don't know about your report
on the internet. Is it an unbiased report or is
it partisan politics?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It's a man partisan for news and I think I've
proven that to my readers over almost four years now
and thousands of reports that have unearthed deception and lies
and scandal of the highest order.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
All right, but you are you admit a conservative? And
you have increasingly targeted the Clinton White House.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Well, I go where the stink is, and I became
very suspicious of this administration early on, and I haven't
let go.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
What happened next was the stuff of legend. Clinton admitted
the affair. He was impeached by the House, but survived
the Senate trial. Drudge's fame rose to new heights. While
the mainstream press might have hated him at first, they
started to read him. Then they couldn't stop reading him.
As the Internet grew, so did his site. The Drudge
(18:30):
Report became a behemoth.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
You'd walk in and the Drudge Report would be on
at least twenty percent of every screen you'd walk by
because Matt was always first. The Drudge Report was always first,
and if you weren't on the Judge Report, there was
a feeling that you were going to miss out on something.
I had. One editor ascribed to me that when Matt
used to link to a story of theirs, it would
(18:53):
crash your server.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Soon, Drudge expanded beyond the website. Fox News gave him
the television show, He hosted a radio program. He was
profiled in elite publications. After years of obscurity, Drudge was
finally getting recognition, and he ate it up.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Matt loved the initial fame. He craved it. He's a
guy with a chip on his shoulder. I mean, he
knew he didn't come from a great family, and he
knew that he wasn't going to be given a job
at the Washington Post. He was a student of journalism
as a kid. I mean that was his dream, was
to be at one of the big papers working as
a reporter. He knew that he'd have to carve his
(19:32):
own niche. So when he did, I think he relished
poking the IAB establishment.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Drudge was a wash in newfound fame in Washington. People
threw parties for him, making him the guest of honor.
Bill Press, the former host of CNN's Crossfire, was there.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Matt Dredge suddenly emerged right in the Monica Lewinsky days,
and so he was this mysterious character that basically blew
up the media and the media world. He was a star,
and people wanted him on their shows, wanted him at
their parties, wanted him at their events. This young guy,
(20:12):
a little weird, wore hat and nobody really knew who
he was or where he came from. But he had
set the world on fire, and he was a fascinating character.
He was a celebrity.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
In the summer of nineteen ninety eight, once he became
a household name, Drudge was invited to deliver a speech
before the National Press Club in Washington. D C. Reporters
were furious about how he had handled the Clinton scandal,
thinking that he hadn't vetted his scoops carefully enough. They
saw him as an intruder, an outsider, an impostor, and
(20:52):
Drudge knew it.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Applause for Matt Drudge in Washington at the Press Club.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Now there's a scandal.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
We have entered an era vibrating with the din of
small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take
on the powers at be. The difference between the Internet,
television and radio magazine's newspapers is the two way communication.
The Net gives as much voice to a thirteen year
old computer geek like me as to a CEO or
(21:29):
speaker of the house.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
We all become equal.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
I was walking the streets of Washington, streets I grew
up in last night, found myself in front of the
Washington Post Building again, looking up, this time not longingly.
This time I laughed and let the future begin.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Despite the polite reception at the beginning, reporters grilled him.
They asked him if he was coarsening the public discourse,
whether he could cut it as a journalist in a
real newsroom. They wanted to know who funded his site,
and Drudge took every question. A young reporter named Tucker
Carlson was there. He felt pressure at the time to
(22:21):
criticize Drudge, and.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
I remember taking notes and thinking of the speech as
something that I was going to criticize, which I did
because I was so small minded and I was so
vested in the way things were. I'd been in the
news business for seven years. At that point, I was
starting to succeed. I felt like I had a lot
at stake in the system. Looking back, I realized this,
(22:43):
and I thought, you know, I wanted to criticize Drudge,
and I did. But at the same time, the deeper,
I would say, more thoughtful part of me recognized I
was watching something extraordinary and that some of what he
was saying was absolutely right. I did recognize that at
the time, but I don't think I gave.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Full voice to those views.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I should have.
Speaker 7 (23:03):
I was too afraid. Maybe young people don't think for themselves.
They want to fit in their conformists. By nature, it's
they're hurt animals. I mean, that's just the nature of
like the life cycle. And I was too, And I
thought of myself as an independent minded person who thinks
for himself.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
But I wasn't.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Matt Trudge was, and that's what made him different from
me and different from most people in the news business.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
By that time, Drudge was on fire. He was completely independent,
answered to no one but himself. As the millennium turned
into the two thousands and people started turning to the
Internet for news, his profile only grew as he became
more famous through his booming site, Fox News TV show,
a column in Wired magazine, a radio show, and through
(23:47):
appearances on network and cable television. The media started to
grow increasingly interested in his personal life. Reporters started to
ask him questions about his family, his home, his sexual orientation.
He was no longer an anonymous blogger. He was growing
into a rich titan of a media empire. He was,
(24:10):
whether he liked it or not, a public figure. The
exposure of his personal affairs got to him.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Nothing was ever enough. He'd do all these interviews through
the TV show, but he felt like people always wanted more,
and he met with one of his associates after the
New York magazine published an article about that. It was
a very flattering article, but it reed a few personal
details about mad life, like an any article, and Matt
(24:40):
freaked out a bit. He ended his radio show a
week later that he'd been doing for years and years
and years and said to his friend, I think you
know I'd be more powerful behind the scenes without my
image being out there, without being the space just be
in the Dredge Report.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Gone went the TV show and the radio show. He
stopped participating in profiles. In the rare times when he
showed his face in public it made news in a way,
Drudge just sort of disappeared, speaking only through his website.
Over the years, he built a mystery around himself that
only made people more curious.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
God knows where he lived. He lived in Miami at
one point he lived I mean. I later asked him
to run into him, where do you live? And he said,
why don't we live anywhere? I live partly in Auckland,
New Zealand partly in Telivi, Israel. I'm in Stockholm, Sweden
quite a bit, and then I'm back in Miami and
out of Scottsdale. I said, really, He said yeah. I
(25:41):
keep my watch on Eastern Time, so I'm always rooted
in internet time, but I'm not rooted in physical time.
I remember thinking that's truly bizarre, and I think he
was telling me the truth.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Drudge hated when people talked about his personal life, fit
strongly when they did so. He reined in his friendships.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
He was such a reclusive person. People didn't know that
much about him. Where did he come from, did he
have a partner or you know, what was he interested?
Who was he and all that kind of stuff. And
he was a very private person. There always a lot
of questions surrounding him.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
When Drudge hired staff, he ordered them not to talk
about the company and to lose their public profiles. His employees,
like reporters Charlie Hurt and Joe Curl, never really talked
about him while they worked for him.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Joseph grow told me as soon as he got hired
by Now that he was told to delete his social
media profiles, not to stop posting, to delete them, like,
couldn't even have them, and Joseph did it.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Charlie and I were friends and neighbors. And he left
the paper to take this again, a mysterious new job,
and I finally said, what the hell's going on? You
can tell me. And he went to work for Matt
Drudge as running the page and it was again a
big job, but there was no big publicity about it.
(27:04):
He was the day to day managing editor of the
Drudge Page from his house right around the corner from mine.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
When he was working for the Drudge Report. Did he
ever talk about the Drudge Report?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Nope, nope. It was again part of this mysterious operation.
And I sort of feel that went with the territory.
I always had the feeling that went with the territory
that he was not he had agreed not to talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Dredge was also secretive about where he lived. Carlson remembered
what happened when he mentioned to Drudge that he had
heard he was buying a new piece of property in Florida.
Speaker 7 (27:42):
I remember having one conversation with him. We were talking
about I was always been fascinated by you. Who is
he personally? And somebody once said to me that he
had bought it, but maybe Breitbart, I think, told me
that he had bought a bunch of land in Miami Dade,
but kind of on the outskirts far from Miami and
had built it sort of doomsday compound. And for the record,
I'm not against doomsday compounds at all. I don't think
(28:05):
that's a crazy thing to do. In the slenniest I
think it's an admirable thing to do. So I wasn't
mocking him, but I asked about it and he became
so emotional and burst into tears and started yelling at me,
and I was going to betray him and tell people
about his compound. And I suppose he was right, because
now I am a lot of people in the media
business really want to be famous. In fact, it's the
(28:27):
rule rather than the exception. And here was a guy
at the center of the media business, at the top
of it, who didn't want any attention personally. For a while,
you know, you thought, well, maybe it's because he's you know, closeted,
But I don't think that was it. I don't think
it had anything to do with his personal life or
sex life. I think it had to do with who
(28:47):
he was. He just didn't want the attention. And I
always admired that.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
Where do you think Matt Drudge lives today? I think
he's in in Florida right now, but I'm not sure.
I was at his house there and he would have
opened the gate. I was at his house in Phoenix
and the neighbor said that they actually have never even
heard anybody at the house. I know he also has
a place or spend time in Israel, quite a bit
(29:16):
of time there, and he is in Vegas gambling quite
a bit, But right now, if I had to put
money out, I'd say he's in Florida having a nice
drink somewhere by water. I think one of the goals
of this show is to maybe do the impossible, and
I recognize that. Do you have any advice on getting
(29:37):
start on this journey of maybe finding Matt Drudge?
Speaker 5 (29:41):
Go to the hundred dollars slot machine at Ballet's in
Vegas and just plant yourself in that little room and wait,
and there's a good chance that at some point Matt
Dudge will will walk by you. And I I think,
aside from now, I have no advice.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
What are my vaguus odds of getting Matt Drudge to
sit down with me?
Speaker 5 (30:11):
It is possible, not very good, especially after you did
this interview with me.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, my odds might not be great, but I'm going
to give finding Drudge a shot anyway. I'm going to
travel far and wide searching for Matt Drudge. Along the way,
I'll talk to people who have worked with him, dined
with him, and fought with him, taking listeners into private dinners,
private conversations, all in an attempt to get a better
understanding of who Drudge is and what motivates him. I'll
(30:45):
also be chasing down tips from you, the listeners, through
a special hotline. So if you know where Drudge is
right now, or have a great Drudge story that might
help us better understand the mysterious media Mobile, please send
it my way. Hopefully, by the time this show ends,
the man who knows Drudge best, Matt Drudge himself, will
break his silence and sit down with us. Either way,
(31:07):
we'll learn a lot more about him and the controversies
that surround him, like why a sight turned on Trump
in twenty twenty. Along the journey, so strap in this
is Finding Matt Drudge. Remember to call us at three
(31:41):
zero one two zero zero two four one four if
you have a great tip or a great Matt Drudge story.
We'll track down the tips for the final episodes of
the show.
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